The new Hearthstone... expansion?... is out - it's a single-player campaign that has you play Hearthstone games against the various bosses of Naxxramas. Why did they choose Naxxramas? What is it about that raid that clicks, and not, say, Karazhan, or Molten Core, or Ulduar?
I should mention that while I started playing in (late) Vanilla WoW, I had only been on two half-runs of Karazhan before Wrath of the Lich King - that had been my entire raiding experience. I spent most of BC either leveling up my various toons (I didn't really have a "main" for a long while) and running normal-mode, level-cap dungeons (heroics were pretty intimidating back then.)
Naxxramas was the pinnacle of raiding in Vanilla, but because of the way raiding worked back then (a small fraction of players would see and beat Molten Core, and a fraction of them would do so with Blackwing Lair, and a small portion of those would do Ahn Qiraj, and only the elite of the elite would even get into Naxxramas,) Blizzard decided that Naxxramas was still new to most veterans, not to mention all the new players (back then, the number of subscriptions was still rising fast, and would continue to do so until about halfway through Cataclysm.) So Naxx became the first raid tier of Wrath of the Lich King, where it was decried as way too easy by the hardcore raiders of the Vanilla/BC era, and beloved by everyone else.
Thinking back, it makes perfect sense that Naxxramas would be the first "raid" in Hearthstone. Certainly, my experience of learning to actually raid there is not everyone's, but Wrath famously made raiding more accessible, so I imagine that experience holds for a lot of players.
But beyond personal experience, what makes Naxxramas so iconic? Here are a few ideas:
It's Got the Scourge, but No Lich King:
The Scourge is one of the most iconic "evil forces" of Warcraft. While they were actually introduced only in Warcraft III, they quickly became a really core part of the Warcraft universe's world. Now, I adored Wrath of the Lich King as an expansion (and while there were the usual complainers at the time that it "ruined WoW," I think that in retrospect, many if not most players see it as a high water mark for the game.) But in a way, it's kind of a shame that it happened so early. The Scourge is not entirely gone, and certainly with the Undead Race and the Death Knight class, it has left a permanent mark on the game that will continue on as long as the game goes. But it's a little sad to know that it's really unlikely that the massive army of the dead is ever going to be center-stage again.
In Vanilla, we didn't really face any of the top-tier villains (well, except C'thun.) But in a way, that let us set aside the lore implications and just have fun fighting some seriously evil dudes. Despite how awesome the fight was, defeating the Lich King was always going to be somewhat disappointing. But Kel'thuzad? Well, it's not like the Scourge is gone. And hell, in the original Naxx, they even strongly hint that Kel'thuzad isn't entirely dead, thanks to the sketchy traitor, Inigo Montoy. Yes, it can be a bit of a cheat to always have the bad guy come back, but clearly we like that, what with how I am totally on board with rescuing Peach from Bowser over and over and over again.
Naxx lets you beat the Scourge without feeling like there are any missed opportunities, because there's a chance for more later on.
It's the Best Implementation of a Winged Instance:
I'm eager to see how Blackrock Foundry turns out, because it sounds like they're building it in the Naxxramas style.
Naxx is great, because you have options without chaos. In some instances, like Firelands or Karazhan, you get to a point where it's not really clear which is the next boss to go to. Firelands in particular makes the first four bosses kind of arbitrary.
In Naxxramas, you essentially have four mini-raids that you need to complete to get to the final mini-raid. It's the largest raid in the game (in terms of numbers of bosses) but it breaks it down into bite-sized chunks. It was great for working on it as a guild, because unless you wanted to make sure you made it to Kel'thuzad that week, you could decide which wings to do. Say you had had Spider and Plague on farm for a while, then you could choose to ignore those and work on Military and Construct. Once you had the four wings cleared, and could do it in a reasonable about of time, you could happily head on up to mix it up with Sapphiron and Kel'thuzad.
It Was a Great Introduction to Raid Mechanics:
Naxx (at level 80) was a great place to learn how to raid. The fights there are complex enough that you realized you had to know how to use multiple tanks and crowd control and such, but not so complex that you'd have to spend half an hour explaining the fight before every boss.
It was also a raid that, as a tank, I liked a lot, because there were clearly defined Off-Tank and Main Tank roles. Nowadays, most raid fights have the tanks basically do the same job and trade off. That's fine occasionally, but I always found it far more stimulating to have each tank doing a clear job the entire time. It can be as simple as having one tank pick up an add, but it makes the tanks feel more focused and like they're actually contributing during the whole fight.
It Wasn't the Best Raid:
Now, this is somewhat counter-intuitive, but I think that the fact that Naxxramas wasn't the best raid actually serves it well in the memory of the players. One thing you'll notice in Naxx is that the whole place looks the same, aesthetically. It's basically the same walls and tile sets as Undercity, and it looks like that throughout the whole instance.
There aren't really any mind-blowing bosses in there either (though I bet that when it first came out at level 60, things like the Four Horsemen were totally unprecedented.) What it is is a really solid raid. It's not Ulduar, with all the crazy hard-modes and awesome Titan aesthetic. It's not Karazhan, with its haunting atmosphere and air of mystery. But it's a really solid example of what a raid is, at its most basic form - which is a far grander, far more imposing version of a dungeon.
Well, I'm feeling a bit nostalgic. I might go beat up Patchwerk.
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