Acacia sent a tip that Swedish magazine Level has released their annual WoW issue, and there are some juicy tidbits in there about patch 2.4, which as you probably know will feature the last expected instance before the next expansion, the Sunwell. Jeff Kaplan did the deed in an interview, and let us know that:- Sunwell Isle will be off the north coast of Silvermoon.
- Magister's Terrace will be the 5-man instance, and the Sunwell Plateau will be the 25-man raid, designed to close off the Burning Crusade storyline (although Kaplan admits there are a few more stories in progress in case they need to delay Wrath at all)
- There will be quests outside the dungeons, too, and they will tell the story of Tempest Keep
- And with those quests, there will be a new faction, called the "Shattered Sun Offensive."
- Finally, the limit of daily quests will raise in 2.4, from 10 to a whopping 25 (which is all the quests in your log. Money money money!)
Serious Spoiler Alert! Do not read on if you don't want to know what's in the instances.
- The town outside the instance will start as a camp, and as more quests are done, it will grow into a full town, with some buildings being "retaken." Kaplan says it'll work just like the opening of the AQ gates, but on a smaller scale.
- Some bosses in the dungeons will be inaccessible without reputation, and will be "unlocked" as the rep comes along.
- One of the bosses in the 5-man will be none other than... Kael'thas. He's back. And apparently Kaplan says he'll have a large green crystal attached to his chest. Keeping him alive, maybe?
- Kil'jaeden will feature in the 25-man instance, and Kaplan says it'll be a fight on par with Illidan. Other bosses in the 25 man: A pit lord named Brutalicus, the blue dragon aspect Kalecgos himself (who is enslaved under Kil'jaeden), a Fel Dragon (!), female Eredar twins, and a Dark Naaru (!!)
- The Sunwell dungeon will be on par with the Black Temple, and all the drops will be above Tier 6.
Update: There's more:
- "Balancing" for PvP coming.
- Blizzard is extremely happy with daily quests, so expect to see more of those to encourage players to visit places they might not have.
- Big plans for Arenas, especially in terms of "e-sport acceptance." Your guess is as good as ours as to what their plans are.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 5)
12-20-2007 @ 1:06PM
Charlie Taylor said...
Wow, 25 dailies? I have a hard time completing 10 in one day with time left to do other things, I can't imagine what it would take to finish 25...
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12-20-2007 @ 1:13PM
JPN said...
I had no idea there were even 10 dailies to be done....I do cooking, BG and skettis and that's it, i guess there's heroic and non-heroic dungeon too.
Too awesome about that camp/town.
Not a fan of the "Shattered Sun Offensive". Should just be "Shattered Sun".
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12-20-2007 @ 1:18PM
SweetPoison said...
There are the Ogrila and Netherwing dailies as well.
12-20-2007 @ 6:21PM
Dryssa said...
As well as Sha'tari Skyguard.
12-20-2007 @ 1:15PM
widowmakrtwo said...
LOL...like they needed to hide raid bosses behind a rep requirement to keep people from fighting them.
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12-20-2007 @ 1:21PM
theRaptor said...
Who said raid? The article says dungeon.
And as to the daily changes: WTF? Wasn't the point of dailies to prevent people with no life farming repeatable quests, ie buff casual gold earning without buffing the hardcore? Im doing ten dailies over two characters and they take a significant chunk of time every day, I don't see how a casual could possibly do 25 dailies.
12-20-2007 @ 4:33PM
Chad said...
'I don't see how a casual could possibly do 25 dailies.'
I think the point of 25 dailies is to give people more choices on which dailies to do.
12-20-2007 @ 1:19PM
Vort said...
This sounds like Naxx. More content the majority of us will never see.
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12-20-2007 @ 1:23PM
theRaptor said...
Most people never finished anything beyond MC. Raiding end game is for at least semi-serious raiders. Even if they never released an expansion I doubt most people would kill Illidan before they burned out on the game.
12-20-2007 @ 1:55PM
Ryan said...
Only thing I saw that fits that bill is the 25-man, everything else is very casual-friendly from the sounds of it. Or are 5-mans and daily quests too 'hardcore' for you?
12-25-2007 @ 11:05AM
Deeznutz said...
Waaaaaaah. Waaaaaah.
Raids now are easier than they ever, EVER, were before BC, and raiding guilds are easier to come by and even form. If you're good enough at PvE, you'd get into one and see all the stuff you're crying about not being able to.
If you suck too much, why SHOULD you get to see it?
12-20-2007 @ 1:21PM
Rich said...
Sounds cool... Most people won't see it...
and big plans for the arena for e-sport acceptances? Its not like the Arenas are destroying the game as it is...
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12-20-2007 @ 1:22PM
dsimon said...
How hard is Magister's Terrace going to be? On par with the other 70+ on regular difficulty? Attunement?
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12-20-2007 @ 1:23PM
rudy said...
Kael'Thas a boss in the 5 man? Interesting to see how they will scale the fight from a 25-man raid boss to a 5-man instance boss...
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12-20-2007 @ 1:39PM
fentar said...
Hmm...how would one scale a 25-man fight with 5 phases; 15 adds (4 advisors , 7 weapons, 4 advisors again) with crazy abilities, super specific kill orders, crazy pathing, all under a major time trigger; legendary weapons that must be looted super fast, passed around between party members, equipted, used, unequipted all at specific points in certain phases...down to a 5-man endgame instance?
where would the developers begin? ;-P
12-20-2007 @ 1:30PM
makabak said...
I find it disappointing that they're recycling raid bosses.
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12-20-2007 @ 2:11PM
Emoroan said...
Making Kael'thas a 5 man boss is recycling?, sure it will have the same graphic (but then when haven't they recycled those), and maybe some of the same mechanics but really taking him from 25 man to 5 man is gonna require him to be almost completely different.
I'd view it as more giving people who can't raid a chance to fight a big name.
12-20-2007 @ 1:53PM
JPN said...
Not me - I think it's an awesome idea for those of us who'll never enter TK to fight Kael'Thas in some form, even if it is some weird crystal parasite thing.
12-30-2007 @ 1:35AM
A Man In Black said...
It'd be like saying Murmur was recycling Ragnaros.
12-21-2007 @ 4:56AM
Suzaku said...
Considering that the main questline indicates he survived the first encounter, it makes absolute sense for him to reappear and be killed off here.