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How awesome would it be if Blizzard revisited old raid and dungeon content and tuned it for level 80 players? They’ve already deployed this model to great success wtih Onyxia and Naxxramas, why not keep the ball rolling and continue to re-tune retro content? Imagine taking a group of level 80s into Blackwing Lair or Molten Core, and instead of face rolling through the instances, you find yourself faced with a real challenge.

First off, this would be a no-brainer for Blizzard to implement. All of the assets, engineering and loot tables have already been developed. The only real work required is to re-tune the hit points of the mobs, re-allocate stats for the loot tables, and take a fresh look at the encounter to make sure that the game play experience doesn’t suffer when it’s tuned to a higher level (are there any mechanics or spells that will be over powered when they re-tune the encounter, is the encounter simply too long, etc). Re-tuning old instances would ensure that “new” content is being released on a consistent basis and the low development costs would ensure that Blizzard could still be working on new content.

Secondly, there is a novelty attached to retro content that players really seem to enjoy. It still cracks me to hear players calling out for “Moar Dotz”, and to see level 80 toons walking around in their retro Tier Pieces. Further, a majority of the WoW player base never experienced Naxxramas or Onyxia when it was still a challenging encounter. There are similar raids and dungeons that players haven’t had a chance to experience. Ahn’Qiraj, the Old World Dragons, Razor Fen Crawl and Shadow Fang Keep are all great encounters that have become irrelevant due to low level loot tables and the rapid leveling experience that Blizzard has implemented.

Further, Onxyia and Naxxaramas seems to be proof that although players love to have a constant flow of new content, players will settle for simply having a lot of content. Blizzard will have to balance the average population of players to the available level 80 instances so they don’t spread the player base too thin but revisiting old instances is an easy way to introduce “new” content with low development costs. What instances top your list to be re-tuned for level 80?