The Castle is ominous. I have two equally compelling visions for its architecture, and either one works for me.
The original idea for its layout had it sprouting out of the ground in the middle of nowhere. While Karazhan is nestled in the hills surrounding it, I had a larger vision of something akin to (Saruman's) Orthanc, that juts out of the earth unexpectedly. But while Orthanc is a single monolith, I envisioned multiple towers that rose together, perhaps linked by tiny walkways. Rooms jut from the towers at impossible angles, supported by structurally unsound beams, and the whole place gives a feeling of being ready to collapse on the raid at any given instant. This feeling is heightened by the overall desolation of the surrounding area, sound bytes of fierce winds blowing about, and the creaking and groaning of the structures themselves.In this layout, there is an inner ring that players enter upon zoning in, and they're confronted with their first boss (The Gatekeepers) right off the bat. After defeating this encounter, players are given a key that will unlock one of two wings, allowing non linear clearing of the zone itself. The final boss of each of these two wings will drop 'the other key' so players are forced to finish a full wing (of their choosing) before moving on to the other lower wing. This prevents people from farming 'the first boss of each wing', and gives players a sense of accomplishment after having cleared one, and been granted access to the second.
Clearing both of these lower wings will grant access to the final wing, where the showdown with the final boss can take place (among other 'last wing' encounters). Further details on this mechanic can be found in the description of the Entrance.
Alternative Setting:The other layout design has the castle built into a sheer cliff face. Players on mounts splash along a coastline, riding towards it in the distance. From a technical 'implementation' standpoint, this is the easier dungeon to model. The rooms can branch around inside the cliff, and don't need to necessarily form a cohesive 'castle shape' when viewed from the outside. From time to time, the raid would come out on the cliff side again, to mount a staircase leading them to another wing, to find themselves ten or twelve stories high, overlooking a sheer drop to the jagged rocks below. For a sense of scale, I picture standing at the bottom one of the cliff faces from the Howling Fjord and looking upwards.
Regardless of the final shape, the Baron's Observatory is visible from the very entrance, looming over the entire raid from the moment they set foot in the instance. This favors the previous layout, as you would constantly be seeing other towers out of windows, or as you passed along walkways, but the cliff face idea could be done in such a way that you're constantly popping back to somewhere higher along the face of the cliff, giving you a chance to get you bearings and see your progression 'up the cliff'.
Final Note:
For the sake of keeping everything on this site consistent, I'll be assuming that we're going with the initial standalone castle layout. My descriptions of the wings will depict them in terms of 'moving up towers' and whatnot, but that doesn't mean the entire layout is set in stone. For the most part I basically envision two generally equal lower wings, and then a final wing, but the forms those wings take on is pretty loose. Lofty and solitary towers with winds howling between them, or long underground hallways with the distant sounds of ancient machinery chugging away in the background are both equally compelling, and work. Rather than flip flop back and forth during descriptions, though, I'll stick to the castle theme, and use it where appropriate.
(link to original post on my blog)
