A little lowbie looked for group. RFC! Ugh. Or wait, what's this? Since when are there dogs? Thus did I realize that patches actually change things.
The Nostalgia Effect
Or lack thereof. RFC was never the sort of place that I looked back on with fond memories and misty eyes. It wasn't a particularly great instance in the first place and the Cataclysm tweaking didn't do much for it. This was an instance with nothing to lose.
Meh + Eh = Meheh?
I don't think it magically turned into a wonderful instance. It's still not particularly great, I'd say that's inevitable for very low level instances, but Deadmines somehow managed and still does. Still, I do think it is better.
In part it may be the graphics. The NPCs stand out a bit more (or maybe that's just novelty), so it seems like there are actually enemies in there. This isn't to suggest that the old troggs were sneaky ambushing enemies; they were only invisible by means of being utterly dull. At first I thought the lava was just a graphical bug, and then I caught the tail end of it and got slightly warm. I suppose that's... interesting. At the least it doesn't have much potential to become annoying (unlike other 'interesting' instance mechanics such as speeches and scripted NPC-NPC fights).
A small feature that stood out for me was the presence of the three cages at the end. In them were three orc scouts, ready to be released. In other words, it is far less likely that groups will need to do the usual, "I missed a scout, can we get that group over there? Or you could all drop group. Thanks." I'd only needed two of them, which suggests to me that three is redundant and therefore very few people will have trouble doing this in a single run (and next to guaranteed after two).
Story?
I let myself get rushed and didn't quite get the story. At least not the written part. But it appeared that evil shamans were doing evil things and a bunch of Horde soldiers got trapped. One was experimented on and got all big and mean.
It felt like a Cataclysm-themed instance. That's not to say that it was bad, but it seemed out of place for the current expansion, though fitting well with the Cataclysm leveling (reminded me of Blackrock Caverns). Being out of place is hardly the worst problem for an instance, and the quests do at least give some indication of being post-Cataclysm (though then we're in the time travel problem, but that's for another day).
Good
That's my assessment: RFC is now a good instance. Not great, not terrible, but a good instance and much better than what it was.
The Nostalgia Effect
Or lack thereof. RFC was never the sort of place that I looked back on with fond memories and misty eyes. It wasn't a particularly great instance in the first place and the Cataclysm tweaking didn't do much for it. This was an instance with nothing to lose.
Meh + Eh = Meheh?
I don't think it magically turned into a wonderful instance. It's still not particularly great, I'd say that's inevitable for very low level instances, but Deadmines somehow managed and still does. Still, I do think it is better.
In part it may be the graphics. The NPCs stand out a bit more (or maybe that's just novelty), so it seems like there are actually enemies in there. This isn't to suggest that the old troggs were sneaky ambushing enemies; they were only invisible by means of being utterly dull. At first I thought the lava was just a graphical bug, and then I caught the tail end of it and got slightly warm. I suppose that's... interesting. At the least it doesn't have much potential to become annoying (unlike other 'interesting' instance mechanics such as speeches and scripted NPC-NPC fights).
A small feature that stood out for me was the presence of the three cages at the end. In them were three orc scouts, ready to be released. In other words, it is far less likely that groups will need to do the usual, "I missed a scout, can we get that group over there? Or you could all drop group. Thanks." I'd only needed two of them, which suggests to me that three is redundant and therefore very few people will have trouble doing this in a single run (and next to guaranteed after two).
Story?
I let myself get rushed and didn't quite get the story. At least not the written part. But it appeared that evil shamans were doing evil things and a bunch of Horde soldiers got trapped. One was experimented on and got all big and mean.
It felt like a Cataclysm-themed instance. That's not to say that it was bad, but it seemed out of place for the current expansion, though fitting well with the Cataclysm leveling (reminded me of Blackrock Caverns). Being out of place is hardly the worst problem for an instance, and the quests do at least give some indication of being post-Cataclysm (though then we're in the time travel problem, but that's for another day).
Good
That's my assessment: RFC is now a good instance. Not great, not terrible, but a good instance and much better than what it was.
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