The Library is located on the upper floor of the western wing. It's another gauntlet event. This event would make excellent use of a dynamic spawn mechanic, but I'm not sure how feasible that is using WoW's existing technology. Maybe it's totally doable? I really just don't know. I touch further on this below.Setting:
A large library, bookshelves as far as the eye can see. They line the walls, and go up the walls to the ceilings. There’s large chandeliers overhead, and cobwebs stretching off them to the ceiling and walls. The chandeliers don’t function at full capacity, and many flicker on and off sporadically. It’s overly dark, in fact. There are 'reading sections' set up from time to time featuring long, heavy tables scattered with open books, paper notes, and quills. These serve to offer 'fight rooms'; to break up the otherwise claustrophobic surroundings and cramped corridors.
Notes on the Setting: It would be interesting to enter the room at ‘mezzanine height’, and to be able to see out along the expanse of the room, but would ultimately defeat one of the key points of the encounter of not knowing which way to go. The encounter itself is a maze of sorts, and if you could just stop before it begins and plot out your path, it would defeat the point. Optimally, an element of randomness to the structure itself of the room would be awesome... if the maze through the bookshelves could be dynamically generated, or at the very least, have a static structure intact, with mob packs having dynamic spawn points. More on this later.
The Encounter:
You walk into room, and are confronted by an ethereal boss hovering out of range (I envision her blindfolded, with the crisscross leather wraps some undead have). I have a mental image in my head of the Anguished Highborn from Winterspring (there's my mockup to the right). She begins by telling the party:
“Those who seek knowledge from my library must be willing to make a sacrifice. You must choose one of your own to serve as your guide. The chosen will lead you through the darkness, and see what others cannot. Put your faith in this one, and choose carefully. They will serve as your eyes, and guide you to a final confrontation in my inner chambers. I leave you now..."
The 'chosen' person steps onto a platform, and the raid channels an altar to encase them in some sort of binding device (chains, they can be trapped in a crystal, or just killed outright…). The chosen raid member releases a spirit version of themselves that the rest of the party can't see (through phasing), and has the 'Frodo while invisible' effect applied to their screen. This ghost has the ability to fly high above the room and look down on the rest of the party as they work their way through a maze of bookshelves. There are constant swarms of mobs charging thru the corridors at any given time (mob descriptions found here), as well as dead ends with switch levers which slide bookshelves out of the way. Behind the dead ends are either more packs of mobs, or 'the correct way' to pass thru the maze (some are both... the correct way, but also mobs to fight thru). Having these packs given dynamic spawn points would add to the variation each time the encounter is done. It wouldn’t always be “straight, right, right, left, straight, whatever”. The raid would need to actually have the ghost scout ahead.
The person in ghost form guides the group through vent or chat, telling them "the door to your right" or "straight ahead, the blue shelf", etc. The ghost could have a few unique abilities, too, so they don't feel completely useless during the encounter. Perhaps some relatively overpowered abilities with longish cooldowns. The ability to drop void zones, one shot single mobs, or daze mob packs? There's also a timer involved; the ghost is losing X% of their health every Z seconds, so the raid has to hurry or the group will lose their 'eyes'. Another thing should be that for every raid member that dies, the ghost loses 1/25 (or 1/10) of their health as well, so that you never end up with a situation where the group wipes, and they're all waiting for the ghost to trickle out with no way to kill him or herself.
Once finally through the gauntlet portion of the library, they reach a channeling stone that will 'summon' the ghost player from their cage back at the beginning of the encounter. Should the team take too long, or suffer deaths, this will be the way for them to recover players from the beginning of the encounter that have to run back (or perhaps after the maze event is finished, a teleporter can become activated, similar to the ones in Tanaris, but short range).
The Boss:
The gauntlet itself is just the warm up to the main event, in which the spirit comes forth again to actually do battle in her inner sanctum. The end room is a large (separate) library, and the boss has the ability to rip out and throw bookshelves down on the raid, or summon tornadoes of books and loose pages. Anyone caught in a tornado takes massive damage, and gets stuck in a cyclone type CC for a few seconds (similar to cyclone, they can't be healed, or pot, or whatever). A cool effect would be to have a few loose pages just begin swirling in mid air where a cyclone is about to form, a visual indication that you should move before it goes off. She also has a small loose ‘cloud’ of books hovering behind her, which she pulls from to throw individual books at casters to interrupt their casts and stun them momentarily. Other more basic attacks include a kind of spirit bolt, and perhaps a mana burn or drain. Other than that, it’s a basic tank and spank, though, while avoiding the cyclones, falling bookshelves, and having healers deal with the single book stuns.
Overall Notes:
Variations on the 'ghost scout' theme could have the person in the phase be the only one able to activate the bookshelf switches.
For all intents and purposes, the person chosen could become completely isolated from the group (can’t chat, although vent would be an issue). They would move silently thru the maze with the group, but able to pass thru the walls to peek ahead, and the switches are only available in the ghost phase… the group just sees bookshelves opening, and a pathway being formed, but they don’t do the lever flipping themselves. I could see this being an issue for someone who doesn’t want to be stuck being the ghost every week, so that’s why I mentioned the special ghost abilities available to them. Plus I think the ability to drop a void zone would be more impressive from 'up above looking down' than just chucking one over to the side at normal player level.
Alternatively, the group could seriously be totally blinded... give everyone in the group a phasing effect similar to the coastline in Borean Tundra, but limit its range to be much more drastic. Visibility extends only one foot in front of each person, and the ghost truly becomes the eyes of the group, telling them to move north, or east, or whatever. In this situation, you could even have hazards (spike pits, whatever) right out in the open that they wouldn't see unless they edged through the maze at a snail's pace (which isn't realistic with mobs swarming and the ghost's health constantly ticking down).
Another option (sorry, there are many : /), would be to have hazards like void zones that only the ghost can see. Everyone else can see just fine (no Borean mist effect), but certain void zones are just invisible to anyone but the ghost. People would see when they began to take void zone damage, but wouldn't know where was safe to run to unless directed by the ghost.
Also, in what appears to be a common theme I'm forming here with my werewolf tanks from the Baron fight, it would give a chance for undergeared players to remove themselves from the encounter, while still providing a valuable role in the gauntlet. If that's lame, you could make the ticking health a flat value (instead of a percentage), and have an offtank fill that role, with their increased health pool.
(link to original post on my blog)
