What dungeon has enough lore to give it the Black Rock Depths treatment?

This has been something floating around in my head for a long time, but do any of the dungeons have enough lore behind them to be fleshed out to the same degree as Black Rock Depths was in World of Warcraft? BRD was the only successful attempt I can recall of a dungeon being able to fully encompass a civilization and its people. The dungeon was a flow of consciousness commenting on the various aspects of dark iron civilization, and even showcased their fun side in the form of the non-hostile and commercially viable bar.

So far, possible candidates on my list would be...
1) Satasha Seagrot
2) Halatali
3) Any imperial outpost
4) Lost City of Amdapor (maybe?)

Personally, I think it would be great if the Imperials got the dark iron dwarf treatment. I'd love to see what they do to pass the time. How do imperials unwind after the day? Do they have drunken karaoke nights? Because if that's the case, fighting a magitek karaoke machine boss should be a thing.

I'm guessing Sastasha could at one point get the Halatali treatment. Monsters and baddies cleared out, and maybe it can be turned into a non-combat zone for you to visit. Maybe a fishing cove.

Imperial outposts just wouldnt work. They're our enemies, there's no sympatisants (mainly since those get shot). And Amdapor has been deserted for so long it's nothing but ruins and rubble. Lest not forget the toxic fog which we seem strangely immune to.

Still even -our- cities have no clear signs of entertainment, other than perhaps a closed off casino in Ul'dah and the ever present um... ladies offering entertainment there.

I wouldnt mind if part of Brayflox opened ("Brayflox Junkyard" ?) and it being a sort of Goblin Town.

Lost city of amdapor but they wasted that potential, hugely. If this were XI - Ru`Aun Gardens and Al`Taieu. Sadly though, unlike other RPGs and MMOs, dungeons in XIV are a means to an end for progression, they're not there to flesh out the world.

Brayflox is a definite one seeing as it is a Goblin city, though some thought would have to be put in. Lost City would make sense, though the place is falling apart/screwed up by magics. They could also expand the beastmen strongholds (if you look, most areas have unaccessable entrances), though I myself prefer if this was an open world dungeon.

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Originally Posted by Tupsi

Lost city of amdapor but they wasted that potential, hugely. If this were XI - Ru`Aun Gardens and Al`Taieu. Sadly though, unlike other RPGs and MMOs, dungeons in XIV are a means to an end for progression, they're not there to flesh out the world.

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For some reason, the new place the Ixali want to go, the rumors of a sky world in the expansion, and the plans for FCs to make airships gives me a hidden hope of a "Sky" zone. Buuuut, at the same time it's not the direction SE wants to put the game.

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Originally Posted by Surian

I'm guessing Sastasha could at one point get the Halatali treatment. Monsters and baddies cleared out, and maybe it can be turned into a non-combat zone for you to visit. Maybe a fishing cove.

Imperial outposts just wouldnt work. They're our enemies, there's no sympatisants (mainly since those get shot). And Amdapor has been deserted for so long it's nothing but ruins and rubble. Lest not forget the toxic fog which we seem strangely immune to.

Still even -our- cities have no clear signs of entertainment, other than perhaps a closed off casino in Ul'dah and the ever present um... ladies offering entertainment there.

I wouldnt mind if part of Brayflox opened ("Brayflox Junkyard" ?) and it being a sort of Goblin Town.

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Ah, I probably should have explained what Black Rock Depths was. Simply put, Black Rock Depths was a fully fleshed out enemy city based on the available lore of the dark iron dwarves. Every aspect of their culture was touched upon by the various areas within. It was both open and yet had enough direction to direct parties from start to finish, and people could either use a shortcut to start at the bar (for the higher level back end) or work their way up from the front end of the city. The bar was the only area with non-hostile dark iron dwarves, primarily because they were too drunk to care about us pesky adventurers :)

I was thinking about how awesome it would be if there was a dungeon that is something like that, where an option to advance might be to dress up as imperial soldiers, infiltrate the bar, and potentially fighting a magitek karaoke machine that doubles as an enforcer. Because why wouldn't imperials have magitek karaoke machines that double as guards? :p

And somehow the more I talk about this, the more I associate imperials with magitek karaoke machines I can't be sure even exist.

Ah Black Rock Depths. I remember one day I spent six hours in that dungeon with a pug group, all level appropriate. Good times. Gooood times.

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Originally Posted by TheUltimate3

Ah Black Rock Depths. I remember one day I spent six hours in that dungeon with a pug group, all level appropriate. Good times. Gooood times.

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To be fair, though, the dungeon was never designed to be completely cleared in one sitting. It was supposed to be a city. I mean, people were free to try as a personal challenge, but it was pretty obvious what it was intended to do. Also, there really weren't that many complaints about the place besides the need for a shortcut to the bar for higher level players, which they eventually added.

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Originally Posted by Fendred

To be fair, though, the dungeon was never designed to be completely cleared in one sitting. It was supposed to be a city. I mean, people were free to try as a personal challenge, but it was pretty obvious what it was intended to do. Also, there really weren't that many complaints about the place besides the need for a shortcut to the bar for higher level players, which they eventually added.

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I wasn't being sarcastic. My pug group just up and decided "Lets see how far we an go" and six hours later, we killed the Black Iron Emperor and felt like friggin gods.

Ah the good old BRD. That place brings back good memories. From the Marshal Windsor escort quest to the drunken brawls at the Grim Guzzler, the trash in that place was sometimes harder than the bosses themselves. Surprised you didn't bring up Karazhan though, that has got to be my favorite dungeon/raid in all of Wow. The Medivh storyline was just chilling and surreal.I don't think we'll ever see that here, for reasons already mentioned, but one can only hope.

It would be an epic thing for sure if they added something like this.

The only thing standing in their way, is that, while Blizzard puts tons and tons of thought into everything they add to WoW, giving it depth, history and meaning, SE seems to work in a much simpler mindset.

Blizzard would say..."Ok, this dungeon represents <insert tons of pages of historical references here> "

SE says.... "Ok, this is a hole in the ground with monsters"

SE doesnt seem to think much past tying their shoes, nevermind where they're going most days. ;)

Though I will admit, the WP Scholar storyline was impressive to me, and the most interesting of all the class quest lines.

I don't even know where most dungeons are in the world. Don't really know why I'm there or who the bad guy at the end of the dungeon is. Tam Tara had a good storyline attached to it and that's it.

This is the one thing I never got - So many want to copy WoW but they never copy stuff like this..lol.

A dungeon like that wouldn't really operate well on their dungeon timer system. Don't get me wrong, I'd want a dungeon like BRD, and honestly I think the dungeon timer has served its purpose (I assume it was just there to help cull the initial rush since there was a lack of instances, and that isn't really the case anymore), but SE seem very reluctant on getting rid of that. Heck, even their big raid coil has to be split into an instance per boss just because of that timer, so it seems unlikely that they'd do it when they go that far to keep it.

In addition, the reason dungeons like this aren't made very often, even in games that allow it easier, or heck, WoW itself, is because it actually seems to be rather unpopular when its there, then looked fondly back on by the few that liked it and just kind of glossed over by the ones that didn't. I remember a lot of people talking about not liking BRD at all back in vanilla, and hardly anyone actually ever did the side paths.

As far as I recall people would make either streamlined runs for Molten Core unlock, bar farming runs, or streamlined runs as short as possible from bar to emperor, ignoring all the side paths. When the dungeon just gets treated as two streamlined dungeons, with about half of it ignored by the vast majority of players, I can definitely see why from a developer standpoint it would be more feasible for them to just make two streamlined dungeons, rather than "waste" development time on a bunch of side passages that will hardly ever see the light of day.

Again, I would love a dungeon like Blackrock Depths, just playing a bit of devil's advocate on why we will likely never see it, and why most MMOs don't try to make dungeons like that in the first place.

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Originally Posted by Malusion

A dungeon like that wouldn't really operate well on their dungeon timer system. .

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That's why I said Lost City was wasted potential - It was a 'gated off area', but ended up as an instance instead of overworld. All they need to do is make more overworld dungeons and simply instance important sections when need be, e.g boss areas.

@Magis

If we're talking direction, don't forget SE had 2 choices for Tue next expansion, Flying and Swimming. Yoshida chose Flying. Since we know the xpac will center Ishgard's thousand year war, it could be possible that we may go to a Sky-esque dungeon for the new Binding Coil to fight the dragons that keep Ishgardians on high alert

Surprised no one has mentioned wanderers palace. Doing the scholar quest chain and realising it's an actual civilisation that called it home would make perfect sense,
Considering we have only touched one floor of the palace and you can see by all the lifts their are many many more, it could easily be expanded.

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Originally Posted by Gerolan

Surprised no one has mentioned wanderers palace. Doing the scholar quest chain and realising it's an actual civilisation that called it home would make perfect sense,
Considering we have only touched one floor of the palace and you can see by all the lifts their are many many more, it could easily be expanded.

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Tam-Tara too technically. If you look over the edges, there are more paths and rooms.

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Originally Posted by Magis

Buuuut, at the same time it's not the direction SE wants to put the game.

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Yoshi announced long before those references were even put in the game that for the expansion pack his choices were Sky or Sea an he chose Sky, so I'd say that is the direction they want to go with the game.

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Originally Posted by Surian

Still even -our- cities have no clear signs of entertainment, other than perhaps a closed off casino in Ul'dah and the ever present um... ladies offering entertainment there.

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There is a theatre in Gridania

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Originally Posted by DoubleT

Yoshi announced long before those references were even put in the game that for the expansion pack his choices were Sky or Sea an he chose Sky, so I'd say that is the direction they want to go with the game.

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This. Not to mention that building personal (or maybe just FC) airships is also something we will be seeing in the future. That pretty much means we'll have some kind of need/use for our own airships and I can't see Yoshi adding airship crafting into the game only for us to only use them as just transportation to some new area.

I am considering the new Ixali story as kind of a beginning lore stage to whatever the "sky realm" will be (I forgot what the Ixali called it).

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Originally Posted by DoubleT

Yoshi announced long before those references were even put in the game that for the expansion pack his choices were Sky or Sea an he chose Sky, so I'd say that is the direction they want to go with the game.

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Sky and Sea as in Tu'Lia and Al'Taieu respectively. High level zones that were dangerous to navigate but had difficult NMs (boss monsters really) that would drop good loot.

http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/wiki/Sky_%28FFXI%29

http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/wiki/Sea_%28FFXI%29

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Originally Posted by Magis

Tam-Tara too technically. If you look over the edges, there are more paths and rooms.

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As much as I agree (and I really do) the OP was talking about a city size similar to BRD in WoW, wanderers palace had a civilisation and we have only just scratched the surface, I do hope SE do not ruin it with a HM that just ignores it's hundreds of levels since it sorta hits the sky

They could of course easily make it a 100 floor dungeon that you can progress after each floor is cleared similar to X-2s

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Originally Posted by Gerolan

As much as I agree (and I really do) the OP was talking about a city size similar to BRD in WoW, wanderers palace had a civilisation and we have only just scratched the surface, I do hope SE do not ruin it with a HM that just ignores it's hundreds of levels since it sorta hits the sky

They could of course easily make it a 100 floor dungeon that you can progress after each floor is cleared similar to X-2s

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Could still have Stratholme style dungeon too with multiple options and paths.

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Originally Posted by Magis

Could still have Stratholme style dungeon too with multiple options and paths.

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Total agree, I don't think we have seen the last of tam Tara.

I'm not very familiar with WoW or the dungeon you mentioned, but if I understood your idea correctly, I think the Lost City of Amdapor would be a perfect fit. It has the right atmosphere and background history. I was disappointed at how it was treated in game as I was super excited about it and wanted to know much more.

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Originally Posted by Tupsi

That's why I said Lost City was wasted potential - It was a 'gated off area', but ended up as an instance instead of overworld. All they need to do is make more overworld dungeons and simply instance important sections when need be, e.g boss areas.

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You're looking at this from the wrong angle. The correct line of thought would be to say "dungeon timers are a mistake and should be removed from the game to allow something like Black Rock Depths to be implemented into FFXIV".

As said earlier, the dungeon was designed to be a city so you did have a military quarter, a jails area, a commons area, a commercial district and so on. SE would have to implement the equivalent of an enemy city with numerous bosses and paths to follow with mandatory backtracking. Problem is, that also doesn't work with the way duties are structured.

On top of this, the dungeon itself was designed to last you a couple of levels, as there is a level gap between the bosses in the jail area and bosses leading to Emperor Thaurissan. I'm guessing Blizzard's idea was basically "the lower level players will just kill the bosses on the side of the city that they can do, and as they level up start taking on the bosses leading to the emperor".

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Originally Posted by Ecks007

This. Not to mention that building personal (or maybe just FC) airships is also something we will be seeing in the future. That pretty much means we'll have some kind of need/use for our own airships and I can't see Yoshi adding airship crafting into the game only for us to only use them as just transportation to some new area.

I am considering the new Ixali story as kind of a beginning lore stage to whatever the "sky realm" will be (I forgot what the Ixali called it).

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There was mnetioned of both Personal and FC Airships before 1st expansion information was released back during the revealing of housing information for Personal and FC Housing.

Personal Airships was mentioend as the small Airships while FC Airships are much larger than Personal Airships and will be put for unknown FC use.

Depending on how they handle Airship content may result in...

1) Personal Airship required to progress in 3.0 Main Storyline (and other basic PvE casual and Hardcore contents) which would result in our character obtaining a Default Personal Airship, most likely from Garlond Ironworks, while any other unique Personal Airships must be made through crafting (and of course they may be cutscenes showing our character pilot our Personal Airship in certain 3.0 Story cutscenes). FC Airships are made for FC endgame contents or to aid players who don't have their own Airship or FC Airship to access certain 3.0 Endgame stuff.

or

2) Airships required accessing certain endgame contents for 3.X era making use of Airships for both Personal and FC as a endgame crafting project as a endgame crafting class goal and to access more endgame avaliable during 3.X era.

or

3) Others......

Whatever the outcome I'm interested in Airship system for FF14 (as long it is a tolerable goal)

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Originally Posted by Gerolan

They could of course easily make it a 100 floor dungeon that you can progress after each floor is cleared similar to X-2s

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As much as I like this option, they had the perfect ability to do this with the Crystal Tower. They really could have stretched CT out a loooooooot more than they decided to. CT is one of the biggest structures in the game, likely 5x or more the size of Wanderer's Palace, and yet we spent the first part of CT entirely at ground level (and not even in the actual tower) and the second part (Sycrus Tower) essentially we go up 7 "floors" (8 if you count the ground level where we enter). The top of Sycrus Tower is open sky, but not the top of the Crystal Tower itself, just one of it's side spires/platforms (you can basically see them if you look at CT's structure there are a few but one that sticks out more than the others as where Xande's throne is).

With 8 rooms apparently we have scaled roughly two thirds of the entire Crystal Tower structure. They could possible do another 8 rooms in the next portion of CT but if it's going to make any sense they would need to be smaller in size than the ST rooms by quite a bit.

Here's a little diagram I put together using one of my screenshots. Right click, View Image, to enlarge.
https://scontent-b-iad.xx.fbcdn.net/...98547185_o.jpg

There are many portions of the lower crystal tower that we just don't even go to or explore as adventurers.

With all that room and space, we get a total of 3 dungeons/sections of Crystal Tower. Very disappointing considering they could have easily made this 100 floors and could have kept adding new Crystal Tower content for the next several years.

So.. yeah.. don't see that happening with Wanderer's Palace. We are likely just going to get the same dungeon reworked in some manner where we run through it differently than the first time. Like all of the reworked "Hard Mode" dungeons.

In addition to being just an awesome idea...

I think that they can still keep their gauntlet style dungeons, but I would also like it if their fully fleshed out counterparts were only available on party finder. There needs to be an activity that can be used to get to know the personalities and abilities of other players on the same server that doesn't involve a boss that face rolls entire groups of new players. It's just easier to figure out who might be a good match for yourself in a smaller team faced with more moderate challenges (plus the brief discussions of where to head next) than pushing that all on Coil.

Edit: I guess at a subconscious level, this thread also doubles as a "please make some group content that isn't another corridor to rush" thread.