Karazhan was one of the most popular raids in WoW's eight-year history. In any poll I've ever seen, it's always fighting with Ulduar for the top spot among the greatest raids in the history of the game. It's interesting that the two would share that spot, because they are in some ways very similar and in some ways very different.
Both raids are pretty large. Karazhan has eleven bosses (counting the Chess Event, but not the Servant Quarter mini-bosses) and Ulduar had thirteen (fourteen if you count Algalon.) Both were dripping with atmosphere. In Karazhan you got a wonderful haunted house vibe that transitioned into a "magic gone wrong" feel the higher you climbed. Ulduar was the most well-maintained Titan facility we had ever seen, with a great feel of the Titan's magitech along with a descent into the Lovecraftian alienness of Yogg-Saron.
In terms of difficulty, however, the two were really going in opposite directions. Karazhan was the starter raid for Burning Crusade, and not only that, it was the first designed for ten players, giving a lot of smaller guild an opportunity to finally get in on the raiding scene (remember that before this, the major raids were all 40-man.) Ulduar, on the other hand, was a big jump in difficulty from tier 7's Naxxramas, which some complained was too easy (I think it was just about right, especially for a starting raid.) Karazhan suffered a little from overexposure, as many guilds could not really make the jump from 10-man to 25-man raids. Despite all of tier 5 coming with the launch of the expansion, a lot of guilds just hung out in Karazhan for most of BC. Ulduar had the opposite problem. It did not come out until 3.1 (which also introduced dual-specs. What an awesome patch!) However, due to the difficulty, most people were still definitely working on the place by the time 3.2 arrived, giving us the far inferior Trial of the Crusader. Because TotC had better loot, people were incentivized to go there instead of Ulduar, which was a shame because Ulduar was such a cool instance. (While not as popular as Ulduar, I am of the opinion that Icecrown Citadel was far closer in quality to Ulduar, which allowed Wrath to end on a high note. In fact, I'd put ICC in the top 5 raids of all time definitely.)
Anyway, I think it's interesting to look at these raids and think about what made them so good. I certainly imagine that the designers do the same, to try to create new raids that will be remembered as fondly (the 5.2 raid, whatever it is going to be, is certainly getting hyped up in a way that suggests they're shooting for this. I certainly hope they accomplish this goal.)
One of the obvious similarities between a lot of the most popular raids is that they tend to be big. Sure, you occasionally get a Sunwell Plateau, but Karazhan, Ulduar, ICC, Black Temple, Blackwing Lair - all of these are big raids (admittedly BT is more of a medium-sized raid with nine bosses.) Later bosses in a large raid have an inherent difficulty to them in that you must first make your way through the earlier ones. I also think that a large instance allows you to make a clear distinction in difficulty within the raid. Gatekeeper bosses like Attumen the Huntsman, Lord Marrowgar, and XT are all pretty simple fights to warm you up for the rest of the raid. This is a great thing for less skilled guilds, as it means you can at least be downing one or two bosses and getting a bit of gear progression to help you with the next few. In a four-boss raid, there's not enough room for that variation, so you basically have to tune all the bosses at a high difficulty.
These raids also tend to have a decent amount of variation in environment. Admittedly this is also a benefit of having a larger raid, but one of the big sources of fun in an open-world RPG is the possibility of discovery. I remember feeling very disappointed when we first got down both Magmaw and the Omnitron Council down in BWD, because the rest of the raid was still just ruins and lava. (Ok, in fairness, I actually kind of liked the feel of BWD, I just wish there had been a better layout.)
Another thing that needs to be carefully considered is the placement of the raid in the appropriate tier. Obviously, the final raid of an expansion is going to have the big bad (The Big Bad of Mists is the Alliance/Horde war, but Garrosh kind of embodies that war, so he works,) but the earlier raids have a bit more flexibility in what they can do. Karazhan is kind of fun because you don't really know what you're going to find in there. Mogu'shan Vaults is actually a bit like that as well. These "mystery raids" work best early in an expansion. There is a kind of flow to each expansion. Usually we have some idea of who the bad guy is, but we're also finding ourselves in a new environment. In BC the notion of the Twisting Nether and other worlds came to the forefront of our minds, so it made sense for us to check out a location in Azeroth where that kind of thing was a real presence. Essentially, things can start out as archaeology and end as a military campaign.
I still have not run any of the Mists raids on normal mode, but I have done MSV and just over half of Heart of Fear (got in on Shek'zeer in my queue.) Tier 14 is, as I said in my previous article, an interesting attempt to have the advantages of a large raid, but also the advantages of small raids. For all the issues surrounding the Daily/VP grind, I'm very glad that they're pushing bigger tiers again. While none of the raids in Cataclysm really stands out as something I'll remember all that fondly, I have high hopes that we'll be looking back at some of Mists raids as an example of raiding done right.
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