by JR Cook - 10 years ago     show comments

The Karazhan raid has always been one of the most popular raids from a story line and aesthetic point of view.   It had some very unique fights, like the love-it-or-hate-it Chess fight, and the Opera Event.  The layout was phenomenal.

Nowadays, players generally only venture into Karazhan to kill the first boss for an attempt at the mount, to grind up some Violet Eye rep, or to pick up old tier for transmog.    But it has been long requested as one of the raids that could use a refresh to make it playable for at-level content.  And with word that Molten Core was getting an at-level refresh for this year’s World of Warcraft tenth anniversary, the desire to see Karashan updated has picked up again.

At Gamescom, Blizzard revealed that they have considered updating Karazhan, but one of the problems is that it was created as a ten man raiding environment.  Fitting 30 players into the space would be problematic – imagine trying to fit 30 players onto the stage during the Opera Event.  Or 30 players all trying to play musical chairs to be one of the first players engaging with a chest piece while everyone else has to sit around being bored.

That said, we have definitely seen evidence that things are changing in Karazhan that makes people believe something is going to happen.  Eagle eyed players noticed that the devs had been cleaning up Karazhan when they noticed suddenly cobwebs were missing from areas they had been since launch.

Back in 5.4.2 PTR, dataminers noticed “Karazhan Restoration” and when entering Karazhan, players noticed cobwebs were missing in the areas by Attumen, Moroes and the Maiden of Virtue.  In the guest chambers, the “Romeo and Juliet” couple was missing.  And overturned chairs in the dining room had been removed.  Wowhead documented a the changes with an entire series of “Live versus PTR” photos.  But a week later, the changes on the PTR were reverted back (perhaps Blizzard thought no one would notice the changes?) and the cleaned up version never saw Live.

It took a while, but it was finally revealed as a possible event quest change that didn’t end up happening, and Blizzard believed no one would care or notice.

@Celestalon @TweetsHolinka @2Stoned2Drive Experiment w/ modding WMO doodad sets based on phase; didn't work w/ current tech. Took an hour.

— Dave Maldonado (@Dave_Maldo) December 29, 2013

@Shadesogrey I knew we had to wait a build to check results but didn't think anyone'd really notice or care, no. Data mining, hee!

— Dave Maldonado (@Dave_Maldo) December 29, 2013

@2Stoned2Drive @Sivation @Shadesogrey I adore Kara, too. Thought a quick visit as part of an event quest chain could be fun, but alas. T_T

— Dave Maldonado (@Dave_Maldo) December 29, 2013

Wowpedia also has a few updates from it as well.

The Karazhan Restoration is an unknown phase used for Karazhan. This also results for the Karazhan map to have an update, which caused the cobwebs, skeletons, and chairs to be removed. The name was later changed to Medivh’s Big Birthday Bash, and the cobwebs, skeletons, and chairs were also added back in, but the instance remains slightly modified. The phase was renamed again to Karazhan 2: Eclectic Boogaloo. The phase was renamed for the last time to Medivh Presents Chessmaster: Illustrious Edition.

There is also an unused part of Karazhan that has never actually been used in-game at any time – the Karazhan Crypts.  It is inaccessible in game, but regularly pops up on “creepy places in WoW” thanks to some upside down sinners that are often talked about at rumored to have been omitted due to in-game ratings.  Bashiok responded to those rumors earlier this year.

Oh yeah, I remember that! Haven’t seen a screenshot in quite a while. Not sure I know the story on it but knowing our development processes back then there tended to be a lot more stuff made that we just didn’t use. I can’t imagine the game rating rumor is accurate, because if it was content we wanted to use we’d just take out the upside-down sinners or whatever the issue was and use it for whatever it was we wanted to do with that space. It’s not like they’re permanent fixtures. Fun rumor though! 🙂 More likely we just changed our minds.

Whether we see a refresh of Karazhan or not, it is definitely one that Blizzard is considering and maybe we will see an event in Karazhan sometime in the future.