Project Lore

As Amatera detailed for us live during BlizzCon, and Heartbourne has expanded upon a bit, too, it looks like we'll be getting a ton of new dungeon and raiding content in the third expansion. Continuing along the same topic, I recorded a bit of the panel at the convention so you all can hear exactly what developers had to say about the new content. And best of all, right here is where you can see a ton of artwork on the new content and several quick sneak peek videos that Blizzard unveiled live Saturday. Cut into three YouTube-sized video portions. Take a look: The video pretty much speaks for itself if you want to watch all the way through the three parts. But here are some of my thoughts on what we saw at this panel:

• Abyssal Maw - Beautiful updated water graphics, lots of pretty underwater colors for this dungeon on the sea floor. I wish the teaser would have shown a bit more! Dueling Naga should be fun. And, it's "something we've never done before."
• Halls of Origination - Looking forward to another 5-player dungeon, and one built by the Titans at that. I'm digging the Egyptian-like concept art and glowing blue-green ceilings. And what about that "secret weapon...?" Sounds interesting.
• Blackrock Caverns - It "reinvents" the fan favorite of Blackrock Spire, which I'm sure a lot of players will really dig. The graphics look promising, with lots of glowing reds and flowing lava.
• IceCrown Citadel and Dungeons - Sounds huge and epic, and I was happy to hear in the Q and A session after the panel that Blizzard is planning to do something special when Arthas goes down... they didn't elaborate, but hinted that we'll see some cinematics. Also, the whole rocket ship scenario with Alliance and Horde battling it out sounds like a lot of fun, and something we haven't seen a lot of in the past. And, of course, I'm looking forward to seeing what Sindragosa brings and how Blizz wraps up all the loose story ends.
• The Firelands - Fighting Ragnaros at his "full strength" (So, what, he'll be the size of a skyscraper?)? Could be intense. Beautiful concept art and the keep has some neat architecture.
• Onyxia - That new Onyxia-inspired mount looks amazing, and the whelpling almost (but not quite) as cute as a baby murloc :). I like the updated loot tables that are based on the original drops. Nostalgic. Watch out for the "little bit" more Deep Breath randomization.

And last but not least, the cross-server LFG sounds like it will be incredibly handy for PUGing. Plus, I'm really looking forward to the prospect of playing with some of my friends on other realms! And we don't even have to wait for Cataclysm; it's hopefully set to come out in patch 3.3. So what does everyone think of all this new content? Sounds like we'll have a lot to keep us busy. This is the last of my video posts covering BlizzCon - I hope you've enjoyed them! There's still a ton of information to comb through, so look for more in the coming weeks.

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12:50: Hello, and welcome to Project Lore's live coverage of the World of Warcraft Dungeons and Raids Panel. I, Amatera, will be hosting today. Currently, we are 10 minutes out from the start of the show. I wonder if they'll concentrate on Cataclysm or if we'll also get some details on what's going on with Icecrown Citadel. 12:57: Let's recall what we know so far. Raids include: Grim Batol, The Firelands (with Ragnaros!), and an unnamed one in Skywall, the realm of the Air Elementals. There are level-up dungeons in Uldum (City of Tol'Vir, Halls of Originations), two instance in the Abyssal Maw (in Vashj'ir), and at least one accompanying both Grim Batol and Skywall. Let's not forget about Blackrock Caverns, or the heroic versions of Shadowfang Keep and Deadmines! 1:00: The panel is now starting. Seems like it will largely be a Q&A session. 1:00: They're going to talk about how they actuall create raids first. Then there will be previews. 1:01: Every dungeon starts with any idea and a story is created around it. They also consider whether or not it would be fun. Then they create the dungeon in 2d to lay out the dungeon map. "Where are people going to go? Where are bosses going to be? What is the flow?" Grim Batol 2D Concept 1:03: They show the 2d version of the Grim Batol dungeon (presumably the 5-man). Also, Icecrown Citadel! There will be at least four floors according to this map. They will cover ICC in this panel. 1:05: Now they're showing the Halls of Origination in Uldum. It will not be a linear dungeon, you will have choices as to how you want to proceed. It will be a huge dungeon, with 7 bosses (emblems ahoy!). 1:05: After the 2d phase, they "block it out" in 3d. This is when they consider scale and whether or not they can fit creatures, bosses, and all of the other neat things that can go in a dungeon within the space. 1:06: After that, it goes to the artists to begin on a template. They're showing a "block out" of the Uldum Dungeon, as well as Icecrown. There is very little detail in the environment at this point. 1:07: Then they move on to Dungeon Interaction, things like doors and elevators, destructible objects, widgets to interact with during boss encounters, etc. They have to work closely with the art team to make everything look cool. 1:08: The art team helps with developing concepts and set pieces. The blacksmith room in Utgarde Keep is the result of this process, for instance. Concept art for ICC, Abyssal Maw are shown. Abyssal Maw 2D Concept 1:09: There will be an elevator in Abyssal Maw that will fill with water and push players up to the next level. 1:11: Encounter design, like most things, starts with brainstorming. "Can we do vehicles on vehicles?" It turns out they could, so they knew they had to do Voltron, which resulted in the awesome Mimiron encounter. 1:13: They try to figure out how they can provide you with a variety of experiences in the same zone, and what makes encounters cool. They use an internal tool called "Wowedit" to handle creature placement, spell creation, etc. They are using Drak'Tharon Keep as an example. 1:14: They're showing how Wowedit can be used to set creature paths. There's a series of dialog boxes used to tune to the new Onyxia encounter. "Looks like the Deep Breath is set to random!" they joke. Hardy-har-har. 1:15: Once all that is done, they playtest internally. The encounter team playtests a lot before anybody else even sees it. Then they send it off to Quality Assurance, and finally the PTR. They assure the audience that they DO listen to all of the feedback from the PTR, even if they can't reply to it. Now to Cataclysm content! 1:17: They want FOUR full raids for launch, including one called Blackwing Descent. Abyssal Maw is first. Blackwing Descent 2D Concept 1:18: There will be a vortex in the center of Vashjir which will actually pull players down into the Abyssal Maw. There, they will find two 5-man dungeons. There will be windows in the dungeon through which you can look out into the ocean. Creatures will swim by, there will be new water effects. 1:20: Abyssal Maw is non-linear. You go to the right or left side. This is a 78-82 dungeon, it will be one of the ones you visit first in the expansion. They show some art of one of the boss rooms. "Imagine where water elementals would live, that's with this looks like." Lots of windows make the dungeon feel open. Next will be a video of Abyssal Maw. 1:21: It was just a teaser. Go watch The Little Mermaid, and you'll have a good idea of the decor. Now Halls of Origination. It is the first of two 5-player dungeons in Uldum. You're inside an ancient temple. WoW's take on Egyptian style (so it's not exact, but inspired by). Also non-linear (I sense a pattern here). Halls of Origination 2D Concept 1:23: "Brann's got to be there, right? What will he find this time?" It looks huge, like Ulduar mixed with the great pyramids. Green, runed energy cables run along the roof. The super weapon is around here somewhere. Now another short teaser. 1:25: On to Blackrock Caverns, old zone, new instance! Blackrock Spire is inspiration, but it is not a copy of it. The story is that this is a second base for Deathwing. There's a giant, underground hole created by Deathwing that links Grim Batol to Blackrock Mountain. Completely new art, loot, and creatures. 1:26: They're showing a 2d layout. This one is actually linear, expected since it's more story-based. They want it to look like things are going on forever in the background, bridges, tall structures, lava floes. Video preview incoming. 1:27: Now we get to look at raids! And maybe a few surprises... first Icecrown Citadel. 10-25 player raid, they joke about the 31 bosses again. There will be TWELVE bosses, this is confirmed. 1:30: You'll get to fight Sindragosa and the Lich King, of course. The dungeon will have waypoints like Ulduar. The Frozen Throne itself sits on a spire that you'll be able to see even from the entrance to the raid. On the second floor, you will get on your faction's AIRSHIP and race the other faction to the top. This encounter will have you bombarding the other faction's ship, defeating their invaders, and then taking rocket packs over to their ship to kill their bombardiers. Icecrown Citadel 2D Raid Concept 1:32: There will be THREE 5-man dungeons associated with this raid, a la the Coliseum. ICC video prview. Looks great. Surprisingly not ALL icy blue. There are green, glowing tubes and a red room with rib-shaped sconces. Sindragosa is shown idling in a room (looks like Sapphiron). There will be 8 bosses throughout the 5-man dungeons, and you will have to do the dungeons in order the first time around for story reasons (some faction heroes will show up, like Jaina). 1:34: Now Cataclysm raids. They show a shot of Nefarian's room Vanilla WoW. But there's a new portal now! Which leads to Blackwing's Descent. Since you can fly to this room now, it's easy to get to. Neferian, and perhaps a few other old "friends," will appear in this dungeon, but like Blackrock Caverns, art, loot, etc. will be new. The Firelands 2D Concept 1:36: The Firelands, you take the fight to Ragnaros. It is an outside 10/25-man raid instance, and you will get to fight Rag at his full power. A huge globe of magma and some erupting volcanos are shown in concept art. Onto the Onyxia 5th anniversary raid. Unfortunately, we may have to wait until November, even if it's on the PTR now (guess some of us were wrong about that!). 1:38: There are a few new mechanics to the fight, but it will still "feel" like the old Onyxia fight. Maybe a couple of new skills. "You'll need more DoTs, for sure!" New and updated loot. Tier 2 helms and what not. We've already covered most of this with the dungeon's pre-BlizzCon announcement. 1:39: The Brood of Onyxia mount will be very rare. It's an epic flying mount, of course. They're showing shots of the stats on old loot, and what they look like now. The stats are, as expected, greatly increased. They also have slots. Some of the old loot is splintered into different drops to support new or changes specs since the original encounter was released. A couple weapon drops from Molten Core are also added to the loot table. 1:41: They're showing the Onyxia Whelpling pet. Anyone who logs into the game during the 2-3 week anniversary event will find this in their mailbox. The Whelpling looks cute, she tries to use Deep Breath every once in awhile but fails. Onyxia Whelpling 1:42: A big surprise! Cross-server LFG! Basically the way Battlegrounds work right now, except you will be able to PuG with people on other servers within your Battlegroup. They may do it for raids in the future, but for now it's just 5-man instance. You can flag yourself as a Leader in the new LFG system, and if you do this, you will actually get a reward for completing the dungeon. This will encourage experienced players to help newbies through these dungeons. This feature is tentatively set for 3.3.0. 1:45: The presentation is over with, now Q&A. First question, of course, the "Additional Servers Cannot Be Launched" issue. They are working on it, it's being deployed right now on the rest of them (not right now, but they are doing it server by server... all should be perfect in a month or two). Also, the new LFG system might be able to pull other party members right into the dungeon, without having to summon. 1:46: Will we see any other remade raids? The answer is that Onyxia is a special case, probably won't happen very often. 1:47: Are they going to bring reputation back into raids? There are plans for it, but no real details. It is something they want to do. Next Q: Everything feels like an AoE fest, or are we going to see some chances for single-target DPS to shine in non-boss encounters? 1:48: They do try to add variety in boss fights, but they may still be changing some of the trash. Next Q: Are there any plans to bring back C'Thun or Ahn'Qiraj? A: No current plans for this. They reinforce that although old baddies are brought back, they are entirely new fights. 1:51: Q: Are the nerfs and tune-downs what they wanted Hard modes to be? (I don't totally understand this question.) A: They don't make content to be un-beaten. They're always looking at feedback, they play the game themselves, too. 1:52: Q: Will attunement quest lines come back? The answer is: maybe. It just comes down to what feels right at the time (I imagine this means whether or not the story is important enough to accessing related content). They want everybody to be able to see anything. 1:53: Q: Will we get an Arthas death cinematic? A: Definitely. 100%. He will have a fitting end. Sindragosa in Icecrown Citadel 1:54: Q: How extensive is internal testing? Did anyone internally beat Yogg + 0? How will Coliseum Hard modes compare? A: It's hard for the dev team to do 25-man raids, but they do 10-man. QA usually handles 25-man raids, and they were NOT able to complete Yogg + 0. This is why harder stuff is sometimes rolled out on the PTR to see if high-level raiding guilds can complete the content. 1:56: They're going to try not to be as hard as Yogg + 0, but future content will still be tough. Q: Are there any plans to extend to Nazjatar and see Azshara. A: There may be some related story content, but apparently, Azshara will NOT be a part of this expansion! 1:57: Q: Will we go back to Wyrmrest Temple (for raids like Obsidian Sanctum)? A: Possibly. We'll see. Next Q: Something about bringing back other old raids again (seems to be a repeated question)? They give the same response as before. The Q&A is over, and with it, the Dungeons and Raids panel. Thanks for sticking around with our live feed! Stay tuned to Project Lore for more updates throughout the day!

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