◊ Zerchi

There have been smurf text references to 2.4.2/2.4.3 already.
Source: WoW Forums -> [Bug] OS X Version Not Following Symlinks

They could potentially milk point releases like that for a very long time. Although I don't know that anything short of WotLK release will be "good enough" in the eyes of the players at this point.

As for the rune pic above... that was taken from the presentation slides and not from an actual gameplay screenshot. According to WoWWiki, the rune system wasn't ready for Blizzcon and DK's were using mana as a placeholder.

 

Venoid

I personally would be very surprised if Naxx is changed in any way other than the fact its level 80. Going out on a limb I would suspect that they will keep the whole thing pretty much intact, pretending that it had not already been assaulted, afterall there is no sense of time in the actual game.

Naxx is being revamped for 2 reasons. The press reason is that "its their best created zone, and they want more players to see it". Undoubtedly this is a strong motivation for it, and it is true, Naxx is still one of the best designed zones ingame, and still holds the crown for being the largest single dungeon created. Only Hyjal and BT combined have the same number of bosses Naxx does, and even then they fall 1 short.

However there is another reason why they are revamping Naxx. They want easy fast raid content that will keep people busy. When TBC came out, the only thing they really had working was Karazhan. The rest of the raid content was riddled with problems, resulting in a massive revamp of how the systems worked. With Naxx, they save huge amounts of design time, as the zone is already built, the bosses and trash is already in there and the fights are already designed, they just need to be slightly reworked/tuned.

Regardless of which reason as to why Naxx is being revamped you believe is the bigger motivation, neither supports completely revamping the zone into a new place. If they pretend that the past DID already happen, and Kel Thuzad is defeated, they basically have to redesign a completely new set of bosses, as even leaving the non specific bosses like Heigan in there, people will think well, hang on a minute, hes already killed!, and people would soon think its mega lame if they are fighting the same bosses just under different names.

I dont think the dungeon will even move from its current location.

 

• _Retribute_

I believe blizzard stated that there would be a different Lich in the new Necropolis, and its also being moved to Dragonblight, It was shown in the preview video.

 

flyingtoastr

Was the Necropolis in the Dragonblight preview actually confirmed to be Naxx? I had just assumed it was a regular old Necropolis, kind of like the ones that hovered outside the capitals during the invasion.

Divine Favor still costs mana.

 

Nezralix

I guess I could be arguing semantics here, but it's pretty crazy to say "WotLK isn't very far into development". They've shown a pretty significant amount of content in videos and screenshots, as well as a (as far as I know) fairly complete starting zone at Blizzcon 2007. They may not have opened up the information spigot, but it looks like they've had quite a bit done for some time now. It's certainly possible that they feel TBC has enough life in it to give them some breathing room on WotLK, but I see no reason to believe they won't get WotLK out the door as a holiday release at the very latest. If they're basing expansion release dates on the schedule for 2.4 and Season 4, then a September/October release seems fairly plausible (assuming they consider Sunwell a 4-6 month content item, and assuming they release Season 4 a month or two after 2.4, with 2-3 months of collection time).

 

Emeraude

Borrack that Blizzard GM, whatever his name is. :P

He wouldn't share details whether or not the Necropolis in Dragonblight was Naxxramas or not, he also directly answered me with the same vague Blizzard mumbo jumbo when I asked about if the new Naxx that we'll be raiding is the same Naxx or redesigned.

Typical Blizzard vagueness, we'll have to wait and see. -_-

Although I will find it amusing when they release the Tier 7 Armor models, and it's just Tier 3 again. :P

 

Axanor

I would be shocked if they kept most of the fights the same, given that I thought the new Naxx is going to be designed as an entry-level "MC"-style learning instance.

 

Addled

Most of the problems would be solved if they toned down the damage output, plus reduced the amount of trash and adds. Make the bosses unable to crush/remove the haste-on-parry effect, and make the Patchwerk DK Understudies unable to resist attacks, i.e. priests would not need to wear +spell hit gear to help guarantee MCs.

 

MegaKenny

With shadow priests being able to raid effectivly now I dont think this would be a problem. The fight would just require you to have 1 or 2 shadow priests. Removing crushings and that part of the parry mechanic would make things TOO easy wouldn't you think? Dont bosses in Karazhan have those mechanics and are still well-tuned for an entry level encounter?

 

Mideci

Believe that if you will. But it's very far into development. There are an order of magnitude more developers working on it than are working on things like 2.4. Yes, this is well sourced information. No, I can't tell you the name of the source. If they don't ship well before Christmas, I'd be very surprised.

I do tend to agree by the way, that re-using Naxx is fairly expedient with regard to development efficiency. It's also clear that things like having progression go from 40 mans --> 10 man --> 25 man Onyxia style encounter won't be hamstringing guilds as badly going forward.

If Blizzard is clever this time around, they will keep forced pacing (things like 4-Vashj vials per kill) to allow them time to get the raid content done and rolled out periodically rather than having Black Temple made available so early, and farmed out so completely with nonthing left to do... But that's been discussed somewhat ad infinitum elsewhere.

I expect a Lich King beta pretty soon.

 

Phlis

This is exactly what we had with TBC, and exactly what caused a lot of problems with many guilds. Having a 10 man rather then a 25 man as the "introductory raid" made the transition from running 10 mans to 25 mans a large hassle for some people. WotLK should come out with a single 25 man(Naxx 3.0) and then have 10 mans come out to fill in the gaps as you release new content(see ZA, ZG, and AQ20) as you release new 25 mans. Thats how progression should work.

 

Anedris

I would much prefer them to simply wait on releasing content than to have a "four vials per Vashj kill" mechanic. The latter penalizes guilds who down Vashj two months after the elite just as much as it penalizes the elite that you're actually trying to slow down, and that hardly seems in line with their attempts to allow as many people as possible to see a reasonable amount of their raid content.

 

crimsonsentinel

Blizzard is very good with keeping leaks to a relative minimum (not quite at the level of apple, but much better than most developers). I'd imagine they will start releasing info for WoTLK once 2.4 has been up a month or two.

 

Axanor

Hopefully Sunwell's open-door policy is an indication of things to come. Pacing the release of raid content is definitely something the expansion needs to do better.

 

glowacks

I'm guessing most Naxx fights won't really require much in the way of changes except for scaling as long as there are easy to make (cauldrons) Shadow Protection potions for Loatheb, You will need 2 hit-capped priests (and not everyone can always bring 2 shadow priests) for Razuvious though, although they could make the understudies level 77. They probably will need to lessen spawns on the various bosses with them, but just not ramping their power up as much still could be reasonable.

However, they'll definitely need to do something with 4 horsemen. You really can't make anything tankable at range unless a ranged tank class gets a true taunt. Expecting 5 melee tanks seems a bit much; does any recent encounter require that many? There are some encounters that might get easier with 5, but I can't think of anything that requires that many. You may have to rely on your tanks running towards each other along opposite walls to switch mobs, then next switch go the opposite way. Whatever is done, they'll have to make the marks far less punishing on the tanks even if they expect a 5-man rotation: it'll take a long time for the free tank to make a full circuit. Perhaps each boss will dispel their mark with their auto-attack so that tanks don't need to be switched, but DPS/healers still will.

I'm personally rather interested in see just what they're going to do; perhaps they'll have all new bosses in the same setting. Is there any confirmation of exactly what will be coming back in Naxx 2.0?

 

Illundai

It took me about 20 seconds to think of something that could make Zeliek ranged tankable; make Zeliek have a spellstealable buff that reduces damage taken and makes you have aggro as soon as you steal it. This would need some more specifying (resist mechanics, how often would he rebuff it, and so on) but honestly, Blizzard could come up with something.
I'm one of the few in my guild that finished Naxxramas and I'd be a bit disappointed if they change too much around, I want my guildies to experience how great Naxx was.

 

mek

Blizzard has also already stated they have backup content ready if WotLK is significantly delayed (I'd imagine they're aiming for Christmas again), which I will now wildly speculate could be the Emerald Dream, as that zone has been floating around in patch files for a looooong time.

And they can go right ahead and totally overhaul Loatheb for Naxx 2.0 please. The basic premise was cool but the final fight was not. What will be in Naxx is up for anyone's speculation, they have said that they intend to recycle the bosses but update them to better fit with contemporary 25-man raiding. I'd imagine stuff like Heigan will go the way of the dodo, while a fight like Gothik may only change in numbers.

 

Jebraltar

Heigan could be done as an introductory 25-man as long as it was forgiving of mistakes on the dance phase. It would end up being quite a bit different from the original regardless, but at least it would...mostly...be the same.

 

• Falk

Every time the discussion regarding how well Blizzard keeps secrets comes up, I'm compelled to cite Starcraft 2 as an example. Before it was officially announced, there was absolutely -zilch- in terms of leakage.

 

Addled

I doubt it'll be the Emerald Dream, they'll want to save that stuff for the xpacs after WotLK. Perhaps they have 1-2 more 5mans ready to roll. Present day Hyjal might be a good candidate too; the map is already in game. Possibly Gilneas, that would provide a quest hub that is relatively close to the ruins of Dalaran. Make it a neutral city, drop some lowbie quests for both Horde and Alliance, put some dailies in to attract the 70 crowd, and you're done.

 

aleyro

(Wild speculation ahead):

Naxx is huge. In many ways, Naxx dwarfs just about everything else: its physically large, the number of encounters is high, the complexity is high, etc. I really can't see them taking the current version of naxx and just "dumbing it down" for entry level 25m- I just don't think it will work. However....

Naxx, as a single instance, is similar in size (physical size, bosses, etc) to the "instance hubs" in TBC (eg. hellfire citadel, coilfang, auchindon, etc), and of course, Naxx already has a winged design. What if they were to release Naxx as an instance hub?

• spider and plague wings are retooled as lvl 78 and 80 5m instances.
• abomination wing is the first lvl 80 10m. Maybe add a boss here, or split up the thaddius fight a bit. potentially add a timed "chest" type event.
• deathnight wing is the introductory 25m raid, possibly adding one more (yet unseen) boss into the mix, with a completely retooled four horsemen as last boss.
• saph and KZ are an onxyia/gruul style 25m wing.

there would be the obligatory, overly comlex reputation/quest/instance/heroic/trial/item based attunement chains to gain access to each step.

I also wouldn't be shocked if arthas made some sort of guest appearance somewhere in the zone, ala nef in UBRS, or magtheridon in BF.

 

Pamandria

Technically he already does. He sics some adds on you in the middle of the Kel'thuzad fight.

 

Metrosexuelf

I don't even think that was a serious mechanic -- just something they used to keep people out of Hyjal (which clearly wasn't ready) prior to 2.1.

 

• _Retribute_

So waiting on WotLK is really blue balling me, I wonder when blizzard will open another flood gate of information. Im assuming its going to be at the Worldwide invitational, its still a long way off but that is really the next large event where they could really release alot of information and get alot of attention towards it.

 

Tanoh

As said before in the thread, I really think and hope (pray) that the lack of WotLK info is not because they are twiddling their thumbs waiting for the coffee to brew over at Blizzard HQ. It's rather that they are intentionally keeping the lid on any WotLK info at this point. The main focus for the last months has been 2.4, now it is out the door and I hope we'll see much more WotLK info in the comming weeks, hopefully along with a beta.

As for when it's released, it's very hard to speculate given the relative lack of information. It should clear up once we get more info.