I find the whole concept of AQ pretty terrifying. Tucked away in the corner of your own planet is a kingdom of horrors that no man has stepped foot in. Then you forcibly open the gate to said kingdom and barge in to find a strain of life and culture you didn't know could exist in this world.
Ironically 'At the Mountains of Madness' is one of Lovecraft's longer stories. He is an amazing writer though, I have his whole writing collection and it's one of my favourite books.
Yessir! This is the first (and only in my opinion) raid, where you genuinely felt as though you were treading where mortal men should not. An entire civilization buried beneath the sands, a culture so alien, so foreign as to be utterly incomprehensible. You get a touch of what it was like in Wrath (a storyline that died), and again in MoP. So so so so much more could and should have been done with the First Ones of ancient Azeroth. C'Thun in my opinion is the only Old God that is just utterly terrifying with how he is portrayed. They kinda sorta tried with N'Zoth, but utterly failed. Now huntards can tame Qiraji as pets.....
@@keithsimons8254 I feel only one kind of silithid should be tamable. I agree the fact that all of them can be tamed now and im not a fan of that. Wasp was ok, i wish the centipede was the other one though it just seems like those two would make better hunter pets with the centipede being the exotic
The wild part is the actual instance (not the monsters, trash, gear, etc.) was the first raid instance/level created in the game. That's why it's so big; they didn't realize how large it was, and later added the bug mounts in the raid to make it go quicker. Of course, mounts do little to make the post-Twin Emp trash any more manageable
4:35 + is so amazingly haunting. It creeps the everliving shit out of me, in a very subtle way. This raid was very atmospheric that way. It made me feel uncomfortable, creeped out, occasionally claustrophobic and paranoid (ESPECIALLY the crazy noises at 5:45). I loved every minute of it, and I'm always looking for reasons to return here. I wish I had raided it when it was new content.
Old Gods then: mysterious, bizarre, intriguing and otherworldly. Giving off a feeling of supernatural superiority and dread. I loved these guys so much. Old Gods now: little void god pets, lame riddle-spewing plot points (blizz forces these riddles true 1 year later so no mystique anymore) that get one-shot by a single player in the lore. So as it turns out, they never had any agency to begin with. Yikes.
I said it before and I will say it again., No instance or dungeon in any game will be on par with the atmosphere that AQ created. When you entered AQ for the first time you knew you were in for hell. Not because of if there were undead or there was no visibility but because of how empty it was at first glance. Only then do you discover that the temple is not empty but alive and wanting to kill you. Didn't matter if your guild was the top in server it would put it to the test.
+King Fedorah There are other instances that are quite impressive too, but I have to agree although I didn't play AQ at the time. So no nostalgia feelings for me, I really do think it has a terrifying atmosphere!
+King Fedorah Agreed. Remember when you stepped into MC for the first time and you saw those two huge molten giants? A little nerve wracking. Remember stepping into AQ and seeing those two fucking skyscrapers? Terrifying.
"...how empty it was at first glance. Only then do you discover that the temple is not empty but alive and wanting to kill you." YES great job at putting it into words
The Prophet Skeram yells: Let your death serve as an example! The Prophet Skeram yells: Let your death serve as an example! The Prophet Skeram yells: Let your death serve as an example! The Prophet Skeram yells: Let your death serve as an example! The Prophet Skeram yells: Let your death serve as an example! The Prophet Skeram yells: Let your death serve as an example! The Prophet Skeram yells: Let your death serve as an example! The Prophet Skeram yells: Let your death serve as an example!
I can't describe my feelings about this place. It was vicious, yet beautiful. It was dangerous, deadly, but I still wanted to venture deeper and deeper... and that chilly voice... well, it's still something I remember.
so yeah, once i dreamt that i was in a ship, a huge tentacle destroyed it and i sunk with it. Deep below on the ocean ground i entered a crater. i would not die and could see, faintly. I saw a terrific lovecraftian stone city full of horrendous creatures, octopi faces that were part of the walls, disgusting fish men swiming in groups and a large rotating head with 4 faces. When i sunk deep enough, the head glazed his atrocious look directly into my soul. I heard a loud white noise getting steadily louder and woke up, sweating and desperate. This is the song that perfectly fits that dream i had.
Maybe Cthulhu gave you a vision. Nah jk, if I had a dream like that I'd piss myself. The closest I've gotten to having a "lovecraftian" dream was when I was out, sailing a large ship. A wave hit us, and I sank with it. I saw this huge abomination of a thing in the waters, staring at me. I woke up and felt pretty weird for the rest of the day, thank god it ended so quickly.
Fameus Oh dude I had another Lovecraftian dream after that one! I didn’t remember much. But what I do remember was seeing people enveloped in tentacles. They were choked and dragged into a mass of darkness. I then remember being dragged down to some odd place. Abominations of half-men and fish/deep sea creatures swam among me as I was being dragged into an endless darkness. A loud rumbling echoed through the darkness, and I saw these weird, chaotic pillars and buildings with markings that were pretty alien to me. The rumbling grew louder, and turned into a deep voice that pierced through every fibre of my being. And before me, at the bottom of the darkness, a large humanoid creature with tentacles enveloping its face gazed at me, its voice booming and echoing around me. Then I woke up. That has been the weirdest dream AND experience I’ve had. If Cthulhu exists, I’m pretty sure he spoke to me.
The lore is so amazing. Ra'den received a fraction of the essence of one of the titans, speaking doom of the pantheon and fall of the Titans. Ra'den felt hopelessness instead of determination, abandoning his watch of Ahn Qiraj and fleeing to the land that became Pandaria. In his long absence, his constructs and armies withered under Cthuuns abyssal corruption. The kingdom rotting away, corruption and madness seeping into the surrounding lands.
I went to there not long ago for some nostalgia run and the place is still overwhelmingly terrifying. I find it very disturbing the fact that i was alone in there facing with the bugs and the other eldritch creations(not to mention the whipsers). Even if i could kill everything in one shot i felt very uncomfortable and finished it very fast D:
Part of what made Vanilla so good was the authentic an unique ambiance to every portion of the map, and this track demonstrates that perfectly. It also demonstrates farming this raid over and over again for your gear.
I went back and soloed this later on since it was well before my time. My God, the ambiance was just incredible. It truly felt like something epic. Something raids lost a long time ago. And I'm a casual who was happy to finally get to raid in WotLK and later. Even someone like me can understand this is where it was at in the early days. Now WoW has become a game I'll never play again. Sad.
This also has been bothering me for some time. The "epic experience" or quality in a raid / instance has been lacking for quite some time now. I mean things you mention such as the unique fights (chess, siege of Ulduar) ambiance, music, dialogue, atmosphere, characters (voice overs! Al'akir blizz seriously wtf?) and "moments"- little things like Kael in Tempest Keep shattering his surroundings when he absorbs more power, raising the bridge to fight Lady Vashj.... I could go on. It is quite clear that the people who developed Vanilla WoW and TBC have either left Blizzard or been moved to other projects for example Jason Hayes who worked on Vanilla and TBC Music, SC1 and WC3 has been moved to HotS, Samwise to SC2 not to mention other developers. I feel as if Blizzard have made a huge mistake by doing this. I did Blackrock Foundry the other day, after no introduction, no dialogue no events and 2mins into the instance after zero ambiance I heard Ashran music, 10 bosses and 0 epic experiences had. Mogu'shan Vaults and Bastion of Twilight, Eye of Eternity and Ulduar are the only examples of what I'am talking about exists after TBC.
+Asad muhcytr I have been raiding since Vanilla, cleared everything until 4HM. Stopped at MOP returned for WOD. BRF which you seem to think sucks is actually one of the better raids I've done.
+Vath121 The game really lost its soul during Cata the unique and epic experiences that could be completed during Vanilla, TBC and Wrath were truly amazing. Sadly it wouldn't seem we're ever going to get that high quality of an experience again all the WoD raids have been complete trash no memorable moments, fucked up storylines and no unique music. Hell when you look back at a masterpiece at Ulduar and see that every boss had its own music piece to go with the fight and then look back at WoD and see trashran music throughout the entirety of the raid speaks enough for itself and the overall loss of quality in the game.
wow decided that it was a bad idea to add the horrifying, depressing feeling for too long, after bc made everyone home sick. the feeling of despair should be present the whole way through, as it makes the atmosphere more compelling. all emotions should be used to their fullest potential, and the music should help convey that feeling as well. but, you know, you could always just have a land with walking ignorant bears that get drunk and play games for a living. i'm sure that is what the fan base wanted.
This music reminded me of the good old raid guild I was in, man it saddened me just to think of the good old WoW times. WoW before Burning Crusade was the best.
I think what made AQ so special was because it WAS epic. Going through Silithus and all that with the opening was hard, but it showed you a glimpse of an ancient powerful empire. Seeing C'thun after everything really made you feel small as a god looked down on you.
When I first started wow in legion and got my flying mount when I got to lv 60 I was leveling in southern kalimdor, wich was also pretty uncomfortable. Southern kalimdor in todays wow is abandoned as hell. Very few players and the zones are mysterious as hell. I noticed that there was a zone south of silithus wich had no name but simply was there. I flew from uldum directly in the direction and the atmosphere was getting really creepy. And the I discovered Ahn'Quiraj. At that point I didn't anything about wow lore or the raids of classic wow besides molten core. For me this first playthrough was a bit like being lost in a completely new world. And then I flew through ahn quiraj the fallen kingdom. I sat on a giant rock that towered over the zone and looked at it. I did not found the entrance so i literally thought wow this is an empty dead zone. No mobs, no life all ruins and then this mysterious and chill sending music. It was terrifying but also really cool
Hmm, I wonder what people would think if they made a halloween maze of the Temple of Ahn'Qiraj and played this music over the speakers all throughout the place I could just see the looks on people's faces when they go through it.
Never before have i been so intrigued and interested in a "instance" or a "Zone" The wonderful collaboration of concept art and music,the ahn'qiraj Culture is so fascinating to me and unique, i got this same feeling in Zull Aman and zull gurub this is blizzard best piece of design in my opinion.
I was soloing Ahn'Qiraj a few months ago. This music is very good, and very.... unsettling. As if you should never have come to this cursed place, and the horrible creatures that await in the kingdom of C'Thun are eager to devour you.
I like it too.Very creepy with the voice of the first boss in AQ40 "The screams of the dying will fill the air! A symphony of terror is about to begin!" So great :-)
The Old One is watching... A shame I never reached this raid back in vanilla, although I doubt my guild would have been able to reach C`thun, but still just to experience the ambience and the music would have been worth it.
The ambiance of AQ40 sends shivers down my spine. Blizzard really needs to bring some of these old raids back. This was the best out of them all. During the encounters of the Twin Emperors and C'Thun you actually feel like you're in the presence of a god. That's what I love most about this instance. I also love the bugs and stuff :P
I feel so sorry for all the guys who didn't face C'Thun in Classic WoW, the raid was outstanding, the music is still my favorite and the atmosphere was just too epic. Remember looking around the corner into the final battle room with the eye which was killing the ENTIRE raid in one second unless you don't know how to face the boss? Nostalgia...
This place was vast and scary. The fact that a special mount dropped in the zone to help you navigate it is a good testament to how epic AQ really was. Sadly, they don’t make raids like this anymore :/ .
I will never forget the AQ opening event. It was just a sea of blue names, couldn't see a whole lot else happening on the ground. Laggy as hell. But to this day, it stands as one of the most memorable gaming experiences I've ever had.
AQ40, even in a 40 player raid full of banter and chatting with friends, even despite its low res graphics, always had this unnerving vibe to it, like you weren't meant to be there, in those moments of silence between people talking would come that sense that something was watching you, eyes always behind you no matter where you turn, as though the way back may be blocked and all you can hope to do now is go deeper into the hive. Fundamentally unwelcome in a way no other raid has quite made me feel before or since.
This music makes me shiver, can you just imagine in real being there in Ahn'Qiraj with an entire battle group of 40 eeople, walking throught a great and powerfull empire. I was just so scaried XD
what i noticed is that they took that adventure feeling out of it, when you got geared enough so you could venture through these awesome raids and ones like AQ usually not getting that far because it was so hard, i liked the fact that it was to hard for most people to get through
Nobody, except the adventurers, DARES to enter C'thun's sacred ground. But chill, it's only a game. C'thun exists in WoW as a raid boss, calm your panties down. A well made raid, which will go down in my history as a WoW player. I will give you something, because I'm generous, C'thun is just ONE name for this horror. It exists, but I don't know where on our planet. In real life, nobody except me, has th3 balls to enter this...sacred...ground. If someday I enter these grounds, you will meet something else entirely...
This was the raider's hell back in 60. Still, I can't keep away from good ol' AQ. I just bloody LOVE it, thanks for 9.21mins epicness! Really kick $ss music! 6/5
Any1 else notice what sounds like drowned-out Dalaran music just after 8:45 in the music? Creepiest part imo. Seriously, listen to the first 15 seconds of the Dalaran General Music and then listen to the part I mentioned in this vid.
Cata was fascinating to me, as the whole concept to me, was one fo dark tidings. I have become conflicted with who I think is more frightening Sargeras or the Old Gods, I can only imagine the horrors of th Old Gods at their full power... With this, it pushed the realm of exploration to one where we began to question "Do we even want to know...?" This was one of my favorite story moments, C'thun is truly one of the scariest WoW villians (as far as I am concerned).
My guild was actuallly really creeped out by the atmosphere of this whole, damnable place. The music was so soul-draining and haunting, and the entire place seemed just a bit too empty for our taste at first, but as we went on and on, things became alive all around us. And before we knew it, the Qiraji Swarms and Anubisath Guardians were upon us... Then we knew true terror after months of trash and boss fights. We beheld..C'Thun trash...oh god the Nightmares that will never end. IT WILL NEVER END!
my all time fav, you cant beat this purely because i have lovely memories doing this raid for the first time, no other raid can compare, at least not for me and the fact that when i first played whenever i saw a skull over someone meaning they too high, i kinda got scared of them, nervous. So when i heard there was an old god with like a million health or whatever he got in silithus i kinda felt like i was in danger when i went to quest there for the first time, an old god is close
I wish Blizzard would go back to making ambient tracks for raids like this. This place still gives me the creeps even when I do solo runs these days in 5.2.
Incredible piece of music! Really adds to the atmosphere of the whole raid. Some people say they hear a bit of Dalaran music around 8:40. Either it’s a sample reused for Dalaran, similar instrument, or a coincidence. It would be interesting if someone did a mashup of Dalaran’s theme and the part of AQ that’s supposed to sound like it.
My only reason to stay on WoW is to solo and duo the AQ raids once a week. I don't need anything more: the lore, music, skins and everything in AQ is just better than anywhere else, in my opinion. And this music is just the perfect proof of Ahn'Qiraj's epicness...
So question, if anyone could help me out to find this particular track, specifically around 4:31 to 5:38. Which WoW Album is it on and which specific music track is it called?
I would say C'Thun still commands a healthy respect. Went in with 30 67-80s, some junkhead ran into the door... boom wipe. When he finally went down, half of us were dead.
I find the whole concept of AQ pretty terrifying. Tucked away in the corner of your own planet is a kingdom of horrors that no man has stepped foot in. Then you forcibly open the gate to said kingdom and barge in to find a strain of life and culture you didn't know could exist in this world.
congratulations. your comment gave me chills. lmao
Read "At the Mountainf of Madness".
Ironically 'At the Mountains of Madness' is one of Lovecraft's longer stories. He is an amazing writer though, I have his whole writing collection and it's one of my favourite books.
Icestorm
as do I, my favorite being the dreamquest of unknown kadesh
It's called Australia.
This music terrifies the shit out of me.
My dreaming ends...your nightmare...begins...
...sleep...
Flee... sssScreaming...
You... Are Already Dead...
can someone help me out of here?
Your heart.... will... explode....
This is how you set tone. This music just tells the listener "You are not welcome here."
Well put my duder
Yessir! This is the first (and only in my opinion) raid, where you genuinely felt as though you were treading where mortal men should not.
An entire civilization buried beneath the sands, a culture so alien, so foreign as to be utterly incomprehensible. You get a touch of what it was like in Wrath (a storyline that died), and again in MoP.
So so so so much more could and should have been done with the First Ones of ancient Azeroth. C'Thun in my opinion is the only Old God that is just utterly terrifying with how he is portrayed.
They kinda sorta tried with N'Zoth, but utterly failed.
Now huntards can tame Qiraji as pets.....
C'thun whispers: "Your heart.... will... explode...."
@@keithsimons8254 I feel only one kind of silithid should be tamable. I agree the fact that all of them can be tamed now and im not a fan of that. Wasp was ok, i wish the centipede was the other one though it just seems like those two would make better hunter pets with the centipede being the exotic
B please, I came for the loot
Your heart will... explode...
Your friends will abandon...you...
Gave me chills back in the day... C'Thun was an amazing character.
+JohnBobergMusic true dat, I may have a twisted side thanks to him... >u> ohhhhhhhhh dear...
You are.... already dead.
Would've been even better if it was:
"You have no friends"
"Even your family doesn't like you"
"You're a parseboy and that's all you'll ever be"
"You'd betray...your friends."
Hail to Old Gods, hail to C'Thun...
Best raid and atmosphere in the WOW.
this raid is still mystical after 14 years of wow
The wild part is the actual instance (not the monsters, trash, gear, etc.) was the first raid instance/level created in the game. That's why it's so big; they didn't realize how large it was, and later added the bug mounts in the raid to make it go quicker.
Of course, mounts do little to make the post-Twin Emp trash any more manageable
4:35 + is so amazingly haunting. It creeps the everliving shit out of me, in a very subtle way. This raid was very atmospheric that way. It made me feel uncomfortable, creeped out, occasionally claustrophobic and paranoid (ESPECIALLY the crazy noises at 5:45). I loved every minute of it, and I'm always looking for reasons to return here. I wish I had raided it when it was new content.
Hey, did you come back for Classic? :D
@@veritasabsoluta4285 i hope he did, cause if he didnt its gone again :D welp, i guess theres always season of mastery 2 coming someday..
@@Frosmad Hell yeah bro, I loved Season of Mastery, it was super fun. Can't wait for Season of Mastery 2
i feel it to. When the Sound starts iam totally scared perplext & lucky at the same time. Incredible
This track is a masterpiece, and it fits so well with instance. The song vividly communicates the ominous presence of the Old God, CThun.
it's very powerful and menacing
I think the Old Gods are the coolest villains in all of WoW. They're just so surreal and bizarre.
They absolutely were and then Blizzard just ruined them.
@@zipzzo this is absolutely a devastating blow to the old gold fans, finally had the chance to see an old god at 100% power only to get meme beamed
Old Gods then: mysterious, bizarre, intriguing and otherworldly. Giving off a feeling of supernatural superiority and dread. I loved these guys so much.
Old Gods now: little void god pets, lame riddle-spewing plot points (blizz forces these riddles true 1 year later so no mystique anymore) that get one-shot by a single player in the lore. So as it turns out, they never had any agency to begin with. Yikes.
blizzare
Lovecraftian.
I said it before and I will say it again., No instance or dungeon in any game will be on par with the atmosphere that AQ created. When you entered AQ for the first time you knew you were in for hell. Not because of if there were undead or there was no visibility but because of how empty it was at first glance. Only then do you discover that the temple is not empty but alive and wanting to kill you. Didn't matter if your guild was the top in server it would put it to the test.
Ulduar was great too
+King Fedorah There are other instances that are quite impressive too, but I have to agree although I didn't play AQ at the time. So no nostalgia feelings for me, I really do think it has a terrifying atmosphere!
+King Fedorah
Agreed.
Remember when you stepped into MC for the first time and you saw those two huge molten giants?
A little nerve wracking.
Remember stepping into AQ and seeing those two fucking skyscrapers?
Terrifying.
RuckaInc
Exactly.
"...how empty it was at first glance. Only then do you discover that the temple is not empty but alive and wanting to kill you."
YES
great job at putting it into words
The screams of the dying will fill the air! A symphony of terror is about to begin!
Ege Baysal kanka wtiide görmüştüm seni burda da görmek nasip oldu =D warcraft tutkunu adam kendini belli ediyor
Oh yeah yeah
The Prophet Skeram yells: Let your death serve as an example!
The Prophet Skeram yells: Let your death serve as an example!
The Prophet Skeram yells: Let your death serve as an example!
The Prophet Skeram yells: Let your death serve as an example!
The Prophet Skeram yells: Let your death serve as an example!
The Prophet Skeram yells: Let your death serve as an example!
The Prophet Skeram yells: Let your death serve as an example!
The Prophet Skeram yells: Let your death serve as an example!
This is by far one of the most creepiest if not THE creepiest song in WoW.. Gives me Chills
I can't describe my feelings about this place. It was vicious, yet beautiful. It was dangerous, deadly, but I still wanted to venture deeper and deeper... and that chilly voice... well, it's still something I remember.
-The feast of souls begins now...-...Come, little ones!
This whole feeling of Silitus on lvl 60 with open pvp, those creepy insects and the whole zone itself ... priceless
so yeah, once i dreamt that i was in a ship, a huge tentacle destroyed it and i sunk with it. Deep below on the ocean ground i entered a crater. i would not die and could see, faintly. I saw a terrific lovecraftian stone city full of horrendous creatures, octopi faces that were part of the walls, disgusting fish men swiming in groups and a large rotating head with 4 faces. When i sunk deep enough, the head glazed his atrocious look directly into my soul. I heard a loud white noise getting steadily louder and woke up, sweating and desperate. This is the song that perfectly fits that dream i had.
wish i could have a dream as vivid as that, or perhaps i don't. either way, that sounds awesome. good for you.
wampXs I'll have whatever you're having
Maybe Cthulhu gave you a vision.
Nah jk, if I had a dream like that I'd piss myself. The closest I've gotten to having a "lovecraftian" dream was when I was out, sailing a large ship. A wave hit us, and I sank with it. I saw this huge abomination of a thing in the waters, staring at me. I woke up and felt pretty weird for the rest of the day, thank god it ended so quickly.
@@isthecarpetcomfortable9410 holy shit, deep oceans and impossible entities like that scare my existence to the core.
Fameus Oh dude I had another Lovecraftian dream after that one!
I didn’t remember much. But what I do remember was seeing people enveloped in tentacles. They were choked and dragged into a mass of darkness. I then remember being dragged down to some odd place. Abominations of half-men and fish/deep sea creatures swam among me as I was being dragged into an endless darkness. A loud rumbling echoed through the darkness, and I saw these weird, chaotic pillars and buildings with markings that were pretty alien to me. The rumbling grew louder, and turned into a deep voice that pierced through every fibre of my being. And before me, at the bottom of the darkness, a large humanoid creature with tentacles enveloping its face gazed at me, its voice booming and echoing around me.
Then I woke up. That has been the weirdest dream AND experience I’ve had. If Cthulhu exists, I’m pretty sure he spoke to me.
The lore is so amazing. Ra'den received a fraction of the essence of one of the titans, speaking doom of the pantheon and fall of the Titans. Ra'den felt hopelessness instead of determination, abandoning his watch of Ahn Qiraj and fleeing to the land that became Pandaria. In his long absence, his constructs and armies withered under Cthuuns abyssal corruption. The kingdom rotting away, corruption and madness seeping into the surrounding lands.
This music is magical i gotta say. I like how ambient and alien it is.
4:30 favorite part of any wow track
starting from 0:55 it's a real nightmare fuel..
Mysterious and sinister at the same time.
best part omg
Love it but creepy as fuck. It fit the raid so well
I went to there not long ago for some nostalgia run and the place is still overwhelmingly terrifying. I find it very disturbing the fact that i was alone in there facing with the bugs and the other eldritch creations(not to mention the whipsers). Even if i could kill everything in one shot i felt very uncomfortable and finished it very fast D:
Fear not the dark, my friend, and let the feast begin.
Dark souls quote
Ahn'Qiraj's music fits it so well, its creepy and unsettling.
This is great for reading Necronomicon.
I actually did. On repeat. To the point where AQ music is the theme for Lovecraftian stories.
Part of what made Vanilla so good was the authentic an unique ambiance to every portion of the map, and this track demonstrates that perfectly.
It also demonstrates farming this raid over and over again for your gear.
Best Raid Ever
"There will be pain..."
"Oh, so much pain!"
"The feast of souls begins now!" "Come, little worms!"
Pretty sure he said ones.
little one*
Little ones*
little ones*
I love the part that begins around 4:30. I have some great (and also painful) memories of running this when it first came out. Those were the days.
9:05 My dreaming ends... your nightmare... begins..
I went back and soloed this later on since it was well before my time. My God, the ambiance was just incredible. It truly felt like something epic. Something raids lost a long time ago. And I'm a casual who was happy to finally get to raid in WotLK and later. Even someone like me can understand this is where it was at in the early days. Now WoW has become a game I'll never play again. Sad.
This also has been bothering me for some time. The "epic experience" or quality in a raid / instance has been lacking for quite some time now. I mean things you mention such as the unique fights (chess, siege of Ulduar) ambiance, music, dialogue, atmosphere, characters (voice overs! Al'akir blizz seriously wtf?) and "moments"- little things like Kael in Tempest Keep shattering his surroundings when he absorbs more power, raising the bridge to fight Lady Vashj.... I could go on.
It is quite clear that the people who developed Vanilla WoW and TBC have either left Blizzard or been moved to other projects for example Jason Hayes who worked on Vanilla and TBC Music, SC1 and WC3 has been moved to HotS, Samwise to SC2 not to mention other developers. I feel as if Blizzard have made a huge mistake by doing this.
I did Blackrock Foundry the other day, after no introduction, no dialogue no events and 2mins into the instance after zero ambiance I heard Ashran music, 10 bosses and 0 epic experiences had. Mogu'shan Vaults and Bastion of Twilight, Eye of Eternity and Ulduar are the only examples of what I'am talking about exists after TBC.
+Asad muhcytr
I have been raiding since Vanilla, cleared everything until 4HM. Stopped at MOP returned for WOD. BRF which you seem to think sucks is actually one of the better raids I've done.
+Vath121 The game really lost its soul during Cata the unique and epic experiences that could be completed during Vanilla, TBC and Wrath were truly amazing. Sadly it wouldn't seem we're ever going to get that high quality of an experience again all the WoD raids have been complete trash no memorable moments, fucked up storylines and no unique music. Hell when you look back at a masterpiece at Ulduar and see that every boss had its own music piece to go with the fight and then look back at WoD and see trashran music throughout the entirety of the raid speaks enough for itself and the overall loss of quality in the game.
wow decided that it was a bad idea to add the horrifying, depressing feeling for too long, after bc made everyone home sick. the feeling of despair should be present the whole way through, as it makes the atmosphere more compelling. all emotions should be used to their fullest potential, and the music should help convey that feeling as well. but, you know, you could always just have a land with walking ignorant bears that get drunk and play games for a living. i'm sure that is what the fan base wanted.
Well, you are in luck with the recent announcement of classic servers!!
This music reminded me of the good old raid guild I was in, man it saddened me just to think of the good old WoW times. WoW before Burning Crusade was the best.
I don't think Blizzard will make another raid dungeon so vast and terrifying ever again.
Activision Blizzard wants your money and since there's more kids than adults in this world, WoW is a game for kids.
That. . . doesn't make any sense.
Activision has no effect on Blizzard's development, try again.
@@xshobux This comment didn't age well.
this ambiance really is fitting of a stirring god beneath the sands...
I think what made AQ so special was because it WAS epic. Going through Silithus and all that with the opening was hard, but it showed you a glimpse of an ancient powerful empire. Seeing C'thun after everything really made you feel small as a god looked down on you.
This is the best atmosphere in the entire game.
This place was a soul crushing pit of despair at 60(still is at 80 if you pug it),but you still gotta love the music.
как же это было давно! приятно вспомнить былые времена.
Ahn'qiraj is probably one of the darkest places in WoW...even icecrown citadel doesnt give you the same feeling of dread as Ahn'qiraj did.
Zerg meet Warcraft :) Love it :)
Even after quiting this game i still come back to videos of this 40 man. Old memories? No. The game was better at the start. Always has been.
0:00
0:55 Iconic
2:14
3:23 Iconic
4:31
5:39
6:53
7:16 Very Interesting
This is gonna be so fun to do again in SoD. Hyped for it.
C'Thun! C'Thun! C'Thuuuuunn!
When I first started wow in legion and got my flying mount when I got to lv 60 I was leveling in southern kalimdor, wich was also pretty uncomfortable. Southern kalimdor in todays wow is abandoned as hell. Very few players and the zones are mysterious as hell. I noticed that there was a zone south of silithus wich had no name but simply was there. I flew from uldum directly in the direction and the atmosphere was getting really creepy.
And the I discovered Ahn'Quiraj. At that point I didn't anything about wow lore or the raids of classic wow besides molten core. For me this first playthrough was a bit like being lost in a completely new world. And then I flew through ahn quiraj the fallen kingdom.
I sat on a giant rock that towered over the zone and looked at it. I did not found the entrance so i literally thought wow this is an empty dead zone. No mobs, no life all ruins and then this mysterious and chill sending music. It was terrifying but also really cool
Rarely did music in WoW scare us shitless, like this...
Hmm, I wonder what people would think if they made a halloween maze of the Temple of Ahn'Qiraj and played this music over the speakers all throughout the place I could just see the looks on people's faces when they go through it.
Never before have i been so intrigued and interested in a "instance" or a "Zone" The wonderful collaboration of concept art and music,the ahn'qiraj Culture is so fascinating to me and unique, i got this same feeling in Zull Aman and zull gurub this is blizzard best piece of design in my opinion.
to reach more users...raids with adult design,music, story and difficulty like this, will never be designed again
4:35 SMBZ episode 9
a man of cultur
I was soloing Ahn'Qiraj a few months ago. This music is very good, and very.... unsettling. As if you should never have come to this cursed place, and the horrible creatures that await in the kingdom of C'Thun are eager to devour you.
The sequence that starts around 4:30 is so nice, even to this day.
I like it too.Very creepy with the voice of the first boss in AQ40 "The screams of the dying will fill the air! A symphony of terror is about to begin!" So great :-)
The whole area creeps the fuck out of me. The nasty insects. The swarming pillars. Damn...
The Old One is watching...
A shame I never reached this raid back in vanilla, although I doubt my guild would have been able to reach C`thun, but still just to experience the ambience and the music would have been worth it.
+DocHazard AQ is releasing soon on PrimalWoW (progressive server) :)
I still wait the loading bar to go full, so I can enter the most awesome place Blizzard ever created... I can wait for eternity. All hail C'Tun!
The ambiance of AQ40 sends shivers down my spine. Blizzard really needs to bring some of these old raids back. This was the best out of them all. During the encounters of the Twin Emperors and C'Thun you actually feel like you're in the presence of a god. That's what I love most about this instance. I also love the bugs and stuff :P
I agree with you, my best experience with world of warcraft was in AQ20 at level 60. The atmosphere had such a powerful egyptian vibe to it...
I really hope we will see this again in a old god expansion
+Daniel Dias hearthstone !
+Daniel Dias you called it, it's used for C'Thun
N'Zoth's prison might become a raid in the Battle for Azeroth xpac. Compare it to the sleeping city of R'yleh
@@superdaveozy7863 Your correct, the sleeping city wakes today!
So much this. An updated version of AQ would be amazing. And also terrifying haha.
I feel so sorry for all the guys who didn't face C'Thun in Classic WoW, the raid was outstanding, the music is still my favorite and the atmosphere was just too epic.
Remember looking around the corner into the final battle room with the eye which was killing the ENTIRE raid in one second unless you don't know how to face the boss?
Nostalgia...
4:30 We will never ever forget...
This place was vast and scary. The fact that a special mount dropped in the zone to help you navigate it is a good testament to how epic AQ really was. Sadly, they don’t make raids like this anymore :/ .
My favorite music from World of Warcraft
i love this. its so damn atmospheric and chilling...combine this music with C'thunn whispering you that your heart will explode and its even creepier
This is the very first comment in this wonderful channel
I have great nostalgia for this dungeon
9:03
"My dreaming ends... your nightmare... begins."
The music score for AQ40 is amongst the best I've ever heard in a game before.
This whole raid was so epic. The bosses, the atmosphere, C'thun's maddening whispers, everything.
VERY SPOOOOOKY music. one of the top 3 pieces on the entire wow series...
brings back a lot of nostalgia.
ah that Brood of Nozdormu rep farming...the chills starting right now
I will never forget the AQ opening event.
It was just a sea of blue names, couldn't see a whole lot else happening on the ground. Laggy as hell.
But to this day, it stands as one of the most memorable gaming experiences I've ever had.
The event to me was the teamspeak guild voicechat blowing up with rage, cause I rang the gong first to get the special mount :3
AQ40, even in a 40 player raid full of banter and chatting with friends, even despite its low res graphics, always had this unnerving vibe to it, like you weren't meant to be there, in those moments of silence between people talking would come that sense that something was watching you, eyes always behind you no matter where you turn, as though the way back may be blocked and all you can hope to do now is go deeper into the hive.
Fundamentally unwelcome in a way no other raid has quite made me feel before or since.
This music makes me shiver, can you just imagine in real being there in Ahn'Qiraj with an entire battle group of 40 eeople, walking throught a great and powerfull empire. I was just so scaried XD
what i noticed is that they took that adventure feeling out of it, when you got geared enough so you could venture through these awesome raids and ones like AQ usually not getting that far because it was so hard, i liked the fact that it was to hard for most people to get through
Nobody, except the adventurers, DARES to enter C'thun's sacred ground. But chill, it's only a game. C'thun exists in WoW as a raid boss, calm your panties down. A well made raid, which will go down in my history as a WoW player.
I will give you something, because I'm generous, C'thun is just ONE name for this horror. It exists, but I don't know where on our planet.
In real life, nobody except me, has th3
balls to enter this...sacred...ground.
If someday I enter these grounds, you will meet something else entirely...
This was the raider's hell back in 60. Still, I can't keep away from good ol' AQ. I just bloody LOVE it, thanks for 9.21mins epicness! Really kick $ss music! 6/5
Any1 else notice what sounds like drowned-out Dalaran music just after 8:45 in the music? Creepiest part imo. Seriously, listen to the first 15 seconds of the Dalaran General Music and then listen to the part I mentioned in this vid.
Yep. I hear it.
AQ is so scary that even music 3 years into the future was corrupted.
OMG you are right, literally the same notes as dalaran music
Beautiful song for a beautiful raid.
At 4.30 it becomes absolutely epic and awesome.
Too bad I wasnt there when Ahn'Qiraj was The Raid.
Cata was fascinating to me, as the whole concept to me, was one fo dark tidings. I have become conflicted with who I think is more frightening Sargeras or the Old Gods, I can only imagine the horrors of th Old Gods at their full power... With this, it pushed the realm of exploration to one where we began to question "Do we even want to know...?" This was one of my favorite story moments, C'thun is truly one of the scariest WoW villians (as far as I am concerned).
My guild was actuallly really creeped out by the atmosphere of this whole, damnable place. The music was so soul-draining and haunting, and the entire place seemed just a bit too empty for our taste at first, but as we went on and on, things became alive all around us. And before we knew it, the Qiraji Swarms and Anubisath Guardians were upon us...
Then we knew true terror after months of trash and boss fights. We beheld..C'Thun trash...oh god the Nightmares that will never end. IT WILL NEVER END!
You. Will. Die.
I remember we had a game back in the day. Tried to make the noobs think they were imagining the voices.
I love the zurna part, could easily be Azathoth's theme.
literally just said to my friend id chop off a toe to have this in a dream both AQ and the music, its the best thing
ever
The accursed twin emperors.... **shudder** couldn't even get to C'Thun...
Brethren Toons same :(
my all time fav, you cant beat this purely because i have lovely memories doing this raid for the first time, no other raid can compare, at least not for me and the fact that when i first played whenever i saw a skull over someone meaning they too high, i kinda got scared of them, nervous. So when i heard there was an old god with like a million health or whatever he got in silithus i kinda felt like i was in danger when i went to quest there for the first time, an old god is close
listening to this, then hearin "your heart will explode" just so epic
WE NEED FRESH VANILLA TO ENJOY THIS MASTERPIECE AGAIN (i missed classic and SoM and didn't have time to play them)
I wish Blizzard would go back to making ambient tracks for raids like this. This place still gives me the creeps even when I do solo runs these days in 5.2.
Amazing and creepy music. Love it.
Incredible piece of music! Really adds to the atmosphere of the whole raid.
Some people say they hear a bit of Dalaran music around 8:40. Either it’s a sample reused for Dalaran, similar instrument, or a coincidence. It would be interesting if someone did a mashup of Dalaran’s theme and the part of AQ that’s supposed to sound like it.
8:40 Dalaran is that you?
+TheDestroyer584 you have really good hearing
I am speechless.
8:40 Am I hearing dalaran music ?
+Uthax Yea i am too lol
omg yes! :o
Yes lol
So same
omg it´s a prelude
the most epic instance in the whole game... trash/bosses everything! was a secret word, and the whole gathering so you could enter it, was epic.
This music could as well be a dark ambient one.Really awesome.
My only reason to stay on WoW is to solo and duo the AQ raids once a week. I don't need anything more: the lore, music, skins and everything in AQ is just better than anywhere else, in my opinion. And this music is just the perfect proof of Ahn'Qiraj's epicness...
Feel like a bit of nostalgia and here I am.... again.
So question, if anyone could help me out to find this particular track, specifically around 4:31 to 5:38. Which WoW Album is it on and which specific music track is it called?
ahnqirajinteriorintromain
Spookiest and most atmospheric music I have heard, along with the ex-ZF theme
I would say C'Thun still commands a healthy respect. Went in with 30 67-80s, some junkhead ran into the door... boom wipe. When he finally went down, half of us were dead.
I keep going back to Aq40 to this day, hoping the Shard of the Fallen Star will drop..
+Kalimdor's Revenge
@@LLawliet182 this one's a pretty standard drop 😊
Easily the best instances ever put together, now and forever.
Feels very Egyptian
4:30