Nezralix

Well, it's possible that loot will align in such a way that it makes sense to run the Sun Well at 80. After all, the only real reason why Naxx loot isn't so great was the stamina change, and I doubt we'll see any drastic shifts like that this time around.

 

Malan

That combination doesn't seem likely since at Blizzcon they seemed to indicate an understanding of how the timing of Naxx created a lot of problems for guilds before the xpack and resentment from people who weren't able to finish the instance because of that.

Shitting up every single thread on EJ since '06

 

Sagerix

With the summoning stones, I was unaware that this was a problem any longer. It's not hard to park 2 characters at the stone in advance of a raid and take 5 minutes before the raid starts to summon everybody over, really. I suppose they could make it even easier but the stones have been a godsend.

 

• Playered

Given its history of being corrupted by the Arthas campaign in War3, its bound to be some mix of undead and demons.

The text from Adal states about KJ being in Azeroth, and Kael serving him..

So given its location and the fact about Kael, theres the chance of there being Elves there too.

Theres a fair chance of being a Burning Legion presence.


If its not directly related to KJ but more in the lines of Arthas, then its a link that heads towards WoTLK.

 

Vandermonde

The one big pitfall i see in making a tightly tuned 5-man is that if some aspect of a fight strongly rewards a given class (especially a given class of healer/tank), you don't have a lot of room to bring the less ideal choice for that role.

More specifically I'm worried that you could very easily wind up with a hard fight that encourages you to 'stack' a shaman or pally, making it very hard to get a group/be successful as a holy priest/resto druid.

 

berg

I personally look forward to fighting dragons in raids again. There is just something about fighting large bosses that really appeals to me. I really enjoy BT but council and shahraz and gorefiend are no larger or more intimidating than the trash that protects them.


I just hope 2.3 hurries up and arrives, the new 10 man sounds like it will be a lot of fun and a good chacne for people to just have fun on vent or play with goofy specs/alts etc.

 

pooclops

A) This if from GC so a new thread would be more apropriate than alocating this into the wrong thread, as this is neither blizzcon nor WotLK 'stuff'.

B) I can't wait for this, We have been on relativly the same story line in all of BC, from the original dark portal opening, to the destrution of outlands all the way to Ilidan, and now sunwell has a bit of a different story line, a different chapter of WoW lore. Also, after the feedback from BT by the point of 2.4 hopefully some interesting and challenging fights await, and hopefully they are NEW.

C) THANKS TEZA.

 

OzzymandiasKJ

Which isn't a bad thing. I mean, maybe it is for your guild. But I think that Blizzard doesn't want to repeat the Naxx effect of having only 5% of the world's guilds actually experiencing anything beyond the first boss of the instance. This long break is a great opportunity for other guilds to catch up and at least have a realistic shot at entering the Sunwell Plateau before WoLK renders it useless.

 

Executie

I assume your server is a PvE server, this is still an issue on pvp servers. One faction typically dominates the summoning stone with a raid group or two for up to an hour before their raid start time. You either luck out and control the stone, or every member of the raid has to make the hike.

 

Volrath50

Not just that, but general buff stacking can make a huge difference. Having a Warrior/Paladin/Warlock/Priest/Druid party, for instance, drastically increases the HP of the tank, compared to, say, a Warrior/Shaman/Mage/Rogue/Hunter party. Likewise, for DPS, a Paladin/FuryWarrior/FeralDruid/EnhShaman/Paladin party will be putting out an incredibly higher amount of DPS compared to a non-stacked party. Both of these would make it near impossible to tune around a specific HP or DPS level, when stacking a party can change the stats of the group far more than tiers of gear.

While I'd love tiered 5 mans, I just can't really see how they can make well-tuned encounters with party stacking making such a huge difference.

 

berg

I think it will be KJ. KJ seems like a fairly disposable character as far as lore goes. Aside from being in a great cinematic all he really did was occasionally appear in a cutscene and call everyone incompetent and various other bad guy stuff.

 

• Playered

Its going to be interesting how... its accessed...
Attunement? a sure way around it... however this will cause issues no matter where the requirements are
Gear check? well sadly this isn't going to make a difference really with the exception of having several pairs of Warglaives in your raid.

How will they retain its difficulty, while making it accessable, without making it impossible for the non-elite.

 

Trouble

Glad to be on a PvE server I am.

 

◊ Praetorian

I've often thought the same way. I'm likely right. But I'd still love to see them actually try, even if they make mistakes. They'd learn from those mistakes. What better occasion for such an experiment than this upcoming 5-man? It's the first time they've ever made a 5-man that was something other than a leveling zone or an "I just hit cap" zone.

 

Maligne

Not really. Rogues and Druids can sometimes get off ninja summons with some quick clicks after a rez. Also you can always use a warlock and summon the old fashioned way behind some cover.

Inform your dealers and whores of my credit, and pour me a goddamned drink!

 

• Chicken

While he's fairly small on appearances within games (And probably books, I never read those), I think he's in practice a lot less disposable than the more recognizable characters in Warcraft's lore. He's largely a background figure, but that isn't the same as him not being important to the storyline.

Kil'Jaeden corrupted the Orcs, created the Lich King, and was the one basically ordering Illidan throughout the Frozen Throne's happenings. We don't see him much, but in his way he's a far larger villain than most of the figures we recognize as villains.

 

KrinKer

I think they will probably release sunwell plateau at the beginning of decembre because they will want to give people something to do for the holidays. That way people who have "beaten" the game will have something to do and not try and turn to a new game.

 

Groat

Well, I still find this hilarious getting the official announcement on it now - I totally did get 'em to pretty much announce it at Blizzcon. Hooray Sunwell - the 5-man should likely also be very interesting and I'm glad that they have indeed decided that they will have time for it (they were up in the air on it).

 

◊ Praetorian

What I heard from someone at Blizzcon is that it's pretty much the standard games industry stuff -- a magazine has a promised exclusive on the Sunwell for their Sept. issue and so they couldn't release details about it at Blizzcon.

 

Volrath50

Out of curiosity, where did this idea come from, and what is it based on? While it could work, I don't really see how it could fit with the probable future timeline, unless they don't release a Sunwell-level season.

I'm imagining something along the lines of this.

Late Aug: 2.2, with voice chat
Mid Oct: 2.3, ZA, Season 3, Tier 6 Quality
Mid Dec: 2.4, Sunwell
Early Mar: 2.5, Season 4, Sunwell Quality
Mid May: WotLK, Season 5, Entry Level 80 Quality

That would give Sunwell a decent amount of pre-Expansion time (about the same as Naxx, actually, although I can't see how they could release it earlier), while also keeping arena seasons about equally spaced out. It's quite possible, however, they could skip a Sunwell-quality arena season altogether.

 

◊ Praetorian

At this point I bet even people inside Blizzard couldn't accurately tell you when things like patch 2.4 and WotLK are going to be released. Let's try to avoid speculating to that extent, it's kind of silly.

 

Groat

Well, the thing that I think will be interesting is to see how they tie the Alliance / Horde storyline into this. Are we likely to be seeing a shared neutral town or two bases? I could certainly see them having both Draenei and Blood Elf bases for it (or even a mutual force of them at the location) along with Kael'thas 2.0 recovering his powers from the Sunwell / calling out to Kil'jaeden to help him out. This should be a very interesting setting.

The most interesting way they could do it is to give the Kael part to the 5-man instance to let people who don't get to raid get to see him / fight him, but have him part of the event for the Kil'jaeden fight in the 25-man. They've got a lot of interesting things for this - I'm eager to see how they do it.

 

Natural

One of the theories proposed by a guildie (berg) is that they will completely rehash spirit and give it class-specific bonuses. If they do, more players from all classes would value the stat and they could add it to more expansion gear.

 

Daenrya

Honestly, I think it needs to be Kil'jaeden just so they can wrap up the Burning Legion aspect of things, at least until they decide to put Sargeras in as a raid boss (yeah, yeah, I know. He's dead. He's been dead before. Didn't stop him.)

 

Vernichter

With regards to the Nexus, I agree that there is a certain appeal about encountering a gigantic dragon like Malygos; however, I have reservations about how the fight will be treated. For reference, I'd compare the fights with Vashj, Kael'thas, and Illidan to the Archimonde fight. To me, the fight design for the first three is suitably epic. Although I think Vashj should have much more of a presence through SSC, the encounter fittingly highlights her position as the "Matron". As a combatant she is strong, but she is truly formidable because of her command. The Kael'thas fight takes the same concept but extends it. Kael'thas as formidable allies, but also has immense personal magic. The staging of the first four phases is great, but phase five really brings his capabilities home. By contrast to these first two, Illidan *is* a highly competant combatant in a physical sense, as well as a magical sense. While the fight mechanics might not deliver quite like Kael'thas, the inclusion of Akama and Maeiv help justify the players' ability to combat Illidan directly.

All three of those encounters are a fitting match for the respective character's abilities as established in WCIII, TFT, and other sources of Blizzard lore. However, the same consistency of treatment does not extend to Archimonde. The final mission of WCIII is a massive delay tactic against the inevitably crushing strength of the Scourge and Archimonde, personally. From the War of the Ancients to that mission, Archimonde is established as being on a singularly higher plane of power than these other characters. Archimonde leveled Dalaran by himself. Yes, Mannoroth and Tichondrius were killed by WCIII heroes, but Archimonde comes across as being all by unstoppable. The only defense against him is a desperate trap staged by Malfurion; whereby, thousands upon thousands of wisps bind themselves to him and detonate, destroying the World Tree in the process.

Given this buildup, I expected the Archimonde encounter at Hyjal to be wholly different than it was. I envisioned Archimonde stepping forward from the Scourge army to take on the defenders by himself, and the players would be tasked with impeding his progress for a set amount of time before the trap could be readied. As a DPS race, players would try to reduce his hitpoints in increments, and once enough damage was done he would stop and attack for a second phase before beginning to move toward the tree again. A timer would count down, and the players would have needed to slow him at least X number of times in order to buy Malfurion the time he needed. When Archimonde reached the tree he would lock all the players down and commence to drain it. If the players were successful the wisps would attack and the whole area would detonate and be devastated, but Archimonde would die. If unsuccessful, he would destroy the tree.

Instead, the Archimonde fight is essentially a single phase fight where the players almost kill Archimonde themselves. A handful of wisps nuke him in a paltry animation at the end, but the tree doesn't exactly get torched in the process. Considering the buildup, it seems highly anticlimactic, even if some of the fight mechanics are interesting.

The reason for this extended comparison between the various TBC end-game encounters is that in the near future we undoubtedly face both Kiljaeden and Malygos. For better or worse a precedent has been set for the Kiljaeden fight through the Archimonde fight, but Malygos is another matter. As the Aspect of Magic, I imagine that Malygos is on par with or exceeds Arthas in power. He might have been weakened long ago by Neltharion, but I can't justify a player army fighting him unless the encounter includes heavy NPC involvment from other dragonflights. I can imagine a fight of truly epic proportions with Kirin'tor NPCs and even Alexstrasza herself (and hopefully Korialstrasz), I can also imagine a encounter like Archimonde where the players slay a foe that should be way beyond their capability.

Ed. By all accounts, Kil'jaeden should be on par with Arthas if not exceed him. If Sargeras is truly dead (in some form or other), then that makes Kil'jaeden the head of the Burning Legion. I do not recall destroying the endless armies of Sargeras at any point in Outland. I do recall Kil'jaeden completely dominating Illidan in TFT. I really, really hope that the encounters we have with him in the Sunwell are worthy of his stature in the Warcraft Universe. He should be as imposing as Archimonde was in WCIII, unlike the Archimonde of the caverns of time. Sadly, I do not have a great deal of hope that the fight with Kil'jaeden will be as epic/cataclysmic as the lore would require.