This is not meant to be an anti-AOC thread. I've had a lot of fun with this game through my early 30s - doing Tortage and destiny quests and joining up in small groups for quests. Also love the idea of guild cities as I'm a big GW fan.

But I did Black Castle last night and was incredibly disappointed. We had about 6 guys all in our early 30s and yet the pace of killing creatures and advancing in the Castle seemed to take forever. The traps were cool but the mobs took way too long to take down. I recognize that this isn't an epic raid from EQ 1, but it felt like I was putting in a lot more time and effort to finish an instance that should be the equivalent of Scarlet Monastery.

So my question for the other AOC vets is - does it get better? Are some of the other instances a lot more fun to go through? Or should I expect long grinds in all the instances? Since end-game is all about doing dungeons, I'd like to know if I should continue on for cooler content or just accept that I need to move on to another MMO if I didn't like Black Castle.

Did you happen to have a 41 Necromancer?

all the instances that have epic mobs are like this. It will be a slow tank and spank through most of the instances.

Black Castle also my first instance run in AOC. It just happened to be bugged when I playing it a few days ago then after the group wiped the boss went back to normal status, otherwise the adds keeps respawning and respawning there was no chance to kill boss. And most of us were lv35+. There was 1 guy left the group after first wipe then we got another join us, then all blue drops were his cloth armors.

I don't expect the other instances would be better but one thing I don't like was the drop. Because how many times will you go farming the stuffs in Black Castle? But then the drop is varied. I think the best is everyone get at least one item similar to the drop after completed the quest, even the item could be more or less the same.

Although the monthly fee are similar to other games but you can't compare AOC with other games such as WOW or LOTRO. In my opinion, AOC is 3rd line mmorpg, LOTRO 2nd line, WOW is 1st line. It's same as seeing a action movie cast by Nicolas Cage and no name movie.

You get another big instance, sanctum of the burning souls at late lvl 30s in wild lands. It may be worth sticking around to check that out and see how it goes before you deside to leave as it's not so far away - but good luck whatever you choose!

Yeah it boggles the mind how anyone can make their first real group dungeon that players experience suck so hard like Funcom did with Black Castle.  I agree 100% it takes waaaaaaay too long to clear and the rewards aren't worth the effort.

Like a previous poster said, try the Sanctum of the Burning Souls late 30s-early 40s in Wildlands before you give up.  You can bypass much of the elite trash (lol) and takes only a fraction of the time.  I don't think I've ever wiped in Sanctum but have wiped at least once every time in BC unless everyone was apprenticed to 50 or had a level 80 taking people through.  Many people do Sanctum multiple times for the loot.

I haven't done any dungeons higher than that yet because I'm an altoholic and am experimenting with a bunch of different classes, so hopefully some people with level 80s can comment on some other dungeons.

Disappointment is used quite often with not only this dungeon but alot of the rest of the game.

Jihad works both ways

I didn't care much for Black Caster of Cradle of Decay. Number 3 would have to go to Prison Colony. The dungeons don't take so long if you have a good share of DPS. Yes the loot rewards in those dungeons needs to be better.

I liked Sanctum better than BC myself as well. Black Castle is a very long for a starting / leveling instance. Sanctum should go much faster for you. While leveling to Sanctum, you will also get to try out Pyramid of the Ancients (solo quest instance) which I really enjoyed.

I also disliked the group instance system of this game, the elite mobs seem to take forever to go down, and the fact that the characters block the way to each other sometime made difficult to actually get near the boss with  my barbarian.... it was so confuse sometimes. It was the biggest letdown for me

black castle runs are intresting with right group an crapy with a poor one.even with a 80 in group their can be problems.it should be tweeked a bit but its ment to be hard .sanctum is better .think of black castle as what in eq long raid s would be like wiht just 6 people.

their are better dungeons wish their were fet like black castle but toned down for single player .bc group needs least to be 35ish or better imho other wise its slower even an sevrial hours to complete. an theirs side quests in it to. designs not bad jsut mobs to tuff for what people think the zone level is.

 Black castle is one fo the largest group dungeons in the game and can take 3 hours to complete, but I have always enjoyed it...as long as I have a good group. There are some cool moments to be had in there and some nice puzzles too, I think BC is more suited to more experienced players as its not easy mode.

 Sanctum of the burning souls at level 37 is a very fun and fairly short dungeon (30 -40 mins), some great item sets and very well designed.

 I would reccomend you continue playing, but if you decide not to based on one dungeon well its your choice.

 I enjoy Sanctum much more.  I enjoy AoC and play as much as my time allows (work, kids, college) but Black Castle is the one instance that I am not fond of.