Are smaller instances that much more popular?

Instances have been around since the beginning of World of Warcraft, and have ranged from very long (5+ bosses) to short 1-2 boss encounters. From 5-mans to raid zones, instances are a very important part of the game and are here to stay, with Wrath of the Lich King having over 12 announced instances in the works. In this editorial, we will explore the different kinds of instances and the editor's personal observations on each kind of instance available.

5-man Instances

First, let's start with the normal 5-man instances available to us at the moment. If a character is level 70, you may visit places such as Tempest Keep, Auchindoun, Hellfire Citadel, Coilfang Reservoir, and the Caverns of Time. All of these vary in size and difficulty, and if it weren't for the daily quest givers, many would not be ran at all by any parties outside of the first time for curiosity's sake.

What makes some instances more desirable from others? Simple, time invested into each of them. Mechanar will always be more popular than Botanica or Arcatraz simply because of the time investment required for either of them. More time equals more possibilities of messing something up and spending a good 2-3 hours inside the dungeon.

Let's compare a few instances, from most popular to least popular, and see the differences.

• Mechanar vs Botanica - Mechanar lasts a good 45 minutes to an hour and has 3 bosses plus 2 minibosses, it's a quick instance that still requires some basic crowd-control and cooperation, with good loot and 4 badges of justice within. Botanica lasts a good hour and a half if not 2 hours, has a lot of trash, a few tricky pulls with the demons, and will only yield 5 badges of justice if ran on heroic, loot is comparable.
• Steamvault vs Underbog - Steamvault takes, again, 45 minutes, is the toughest of the 3 instances, yet has the better loot and reputation gains over the Underbog. Even if ran on heroic, Steamvault will yield better heroic badges per time spent ratio than the Underbog, which has a lot of trash inbetween bosses.

As we can see, many people will always be queuing for what's easy, and more importantly, what's fast, especially if having to endure people from out-of-guild or out-of-friendslist and possibly their mess-ups. This gives me the idea that, like me, many players opt to spend 1 hour tops inside an instance if possible.

What to do about all the other instances that aren't visited as often? The answer is simple, you have to add something to them that you can't obtain in the others, meaning rare loot or reputation not available elsewhere. Something to keep people going even if they're going to be taking long or taking a bigger challenge, like Magisters' Terrace in Heroic Mode, having a lot of upgrades for players visiting in Heroic even if it takes longer, people keep running it.

The problem then goes to balancing, as Blizzard needs to ensure the instances are still challenging to people yet don't exclude X or Y class entirely from it. Magisters' Terrace is a good example, as it made the demand for Mages increase highly, and the demand for classes like Hunter or Shaman, or even Rogue dwindle some. Instance design by Blizzard can only improve, and they have mentioned they've taken their latest experiences in consideration, so let's hope this kind of issue doesn't remain in the future

Raid Zones

In the Raid area, while big areas are often nice to see and intimidating to look at and be in, as a former raider I would prefer a head-on approach to the boss encounters such as Onyxia, High King Maulgar/Gruul, and Mag'theridon. While I realize people have grown used to the trash as well and there's some alright drops to be had from it, I'd rather have it reduced considerably as fielding 25 people together is a big feat for many guilds.

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Magtheridon's Lair, a 25-man short encounter

Areas like Karazhan are still welcome, however, since the adventure aspect can be retained for 10-mans and having lots of bosses and monsters to kill is still welcome, however, I believe Blizzard is going in the right direction with their raid setup thanks to the advent of Zul'Aman and how much less trash it has, while still providing an enjoyable raid zone.

All in all, in order to have a good, enjoyable instance, we can conclude that many players prefer the shorter ones and the ones who, while having a greater challenge, are less time-consuming than the bigger ones. Instances like Mechanar and Steamvault will always have more people visiting than Shattered Halls or Shadow Labyrinth.

Conclusions

Unless it is yielding good loot and even then not that long (1 hour with a competent group) like Magisters' Terrace, longer instances will be not as popular as the other ones. Even now, given player preference to those who can run both, players prefer Zul'Aman over Karazhan, so it could be applied to a raid instances as well.

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Disclaimer: The opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints of the Ten Ton Hammer network or staff.

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