IIRC, there was a 5 or 6 month gap between Naxx and TBC's release, which really wasn't enough time. Admittedly the Sunwell Plateau isn't likely to be an 18-boss instance, but ...

They had a slide of it up with Six Bosses at Blizzcon - they might change the number, but if not, that's not a horrible number to get through.

Yeah. Naxx came out June 20th, 2006, and the Expansion was realeased almost exactly 7 months later. People viewed this as too little time to clear it, but you're right it did have 18 bosses.

It is known from Blizzcon that Sunwell will be 6 or 7 bosses so if you scale that down I think that 5-6 months after Sunwell comes out would be just about right for the expansion!

It doesn't necessarily take the same time to prepare one patch as it did another patch nor one expansion as another expansion. The multitude of "I think ____ will be released in _____ because of _____" replies don't really go anywhere. Lets get back to complaining about flight paths.

I sincerely hope they make the small area around these raids zones in Horde territory contested, or add a crap load of overpowered guards to keep the peace.

There's a difference between being fair and "lawl, you rolled a PvP server, shut up." When there's no true PvP solution to attackers who can flag and gank and safely unflag 5 minutes later and mock you while summoning the rest of their friends over.

The point was at Blizzcon they explicitly said "We were not happy with how long players had to go through Naxxramas. The fact that players did not have enough time means that nobody got to see a lot of really cool content"

So it really isn't a stretch to assume that they will give ample time for people to experienc sunwell before the next expansion goes live.

They have already shown us that it's a 6-boss instance--not the sprawling mass that Nax was. Unless they add some serious boss roadblocks, it should not take more than a couple months for guilds to clear it. Three or Four months will be considered ample time in my mind.

I doubt Blizzard would be so foolish as to force level alliance 70s into an uncontested zone. I think they get enough complaints about Scarlet Monastery. Sunwell Plateau is on an island. Perhaps a boat will be involved? The night elves have a significant presence in the Ghostlands, wouldn't be strange for them to have a base of operations on the plateau.

As I recall, about 16 of the 18 bosses in Naxx were blown through by the progression guilds - but the remaining bosses (4 Horsemen and Kel'Thuzad) took literally months to defeat. Just because there's only 6 bosses doesn't mean it'll take 1/3 the time that Naxx did. If there's even one boss that takes as long to master as the Horsemen, 5-6 months may not be enough for non-cutting-edge guilds to master the instance.

Ample time for who? The people who already defeated Illidan and are sitting around bored? Sure that would be plenty of time. We are not talking about us though, we are talking about the average joe who simply needs more progression time.

The pre-order of my local gamestop said October 2008 for WoTLK. Usual time for pre-release are usually wrong, but rarely later than official release date. So assuming Sunwell come out on March, with six bosses, there will be 7 months to clear it. Certainly not a lot of people will see this before xpac comes out, but at least a significantly more numbr of people should "beat the game" before expansion does hit

They probably will add a new zone which isn't entirely unprecedented. Consider how Silithus was almost completely redesigned when AQ 20 and 40 came out.

I also believe they said they wouldn't be introducing a new Tier of raid gear so there will be less... err... 'worry' I guess from people not in BT/Hyjal now who want a chance to collect the highest level Tier prior to the expansion.

Sapphiron / KT both died very quickly after 4HM. 4HM and to a lesser extent Loatheb were the only real roadblocks in Naxx.

Pretty sure there's only 15 bosses in Naxx, 3 for 3 wings, 4 for DK wing, 2 in Frostwyrm

Regardless, 4hm was really the fight that took the most strategy (and raid stacking) for Naxx. Sapphiron was kind of like Sharaz in the forms of Frozen runes, except less luck based.

After strategy though, i'd have to say Gothik is the most demanding fight in Naxx

First of all, I can't believe people are actually complaining about the pre TBC flights to get to dungeons, I did up to AQ 40 on horde, and everything on alliance (and naxx on horde woulda been easy) and nothing was actually a flight path or travel worth complaining about. The only problems were when the other faction was overpopulated so your MC raid got camped by 3 MC raids, or buffing up in stranglethorn for Loatheb then going to EPL. The only real way a dungeon could be unfairly placed given the availablility of Shattrath portals now is if it's actually in a controlled zone, which I think it's probably a good bet they aren't that stupid.

I also would say you shouldn't need as much time to complete sunwell as Naxx if only because there won't be something as long to learn as 4h, I don't think they can put something like that in again, we just understand the game and stacking requirements too well now.

Personally I'm looking forward to it, and I could see them giving a while before the next raid comes out, and if it's early next year for Sunwell I wouldn't be surprised or bothered. I expect that on Mal'ganis by the end of this year we'll at least have 5 Illidan killing guilds, and that's without knowing anything about horde guilds and guilds below the top 3 on alliance. They can't wait until everyone who's going after Illidan gets there, and there are going to be guilds who don't have enough time to finish Illidan or Sunwell before the expansion, but that's just gonna happen.


Personally I am psyched for another dragon too, I don't follow lore much, but I know Aspects are badass, and dragons are always cool, so Malygos is keeping my interest pretty well.

It is 15 bosses, the extra 3 are the horsemen in the 4HM encounter.


I doubt ZA will have the impact DM had on raiding, the only thing ZA will most likely give us is haste and armor penetration, neither of which are a huge huge massive enhancement like what DM did, especially on the nerf for physical attacks.

It took something like 20 minutes to get to AQ as alliance. It was basically on the opposite end of the world from any conventional travelling point. I guess you could say it's not excessive inasmuch as it's pretty easy to get around in WoW, but forcing Alliance to go all of the way around the world to raid was annoying at best. Yes, many of us set our hearths to Silithus, but it was also annoying being forced to set your hearth to the ass-end of nowhere.

I disagree, I don't think the impact will be as obvious but int terms of progression I think there should be a fairly large surge. I think that for guilds that are learning SSC and TK, ZA will have a major impact on them. The access to better (or equivalent? either way at least some upgrades in) loot for a guild that is majority Karazhan level gear should allow for much more progression in the 25mans. No need to farm Gruul/Mag for weeks on end in order to get the gear to do Vashj for example.

The point is that DM allowed people who were struggling to get the gear to compete in the MC level instances have easy access to excellently itemized gear. ZA will provide access to gear with better (hopefully) itemized gear as well as new heroic badge rewards that should make getting into and succeeding in the 25mans possible for more people. The sunwell 5 might also be a way to do this as well.

If Blizzard's goal is to get as many people to see their content as possible, then they have to continually lower the entry bar so that more and more can access content that was previously inacessable. Removing the SSC/TK attunements was part of this, and I hope it continues.

yeah, you're right I got my orders mixed up =P

For now, lets ignore the fact that some items with high item level can be poorly spent

On the subject of ZA. It is similar to AQ20. Ossirian dropped ilvl 72 items, which are superior to most MC items (Domo 70, Rag 76). And for Blackwing, just under Razorgore ilvl items. It seems that ZA will drop items that are on par with Tier 5 items, if not a little better. That fits pretty decently into the progression line. For AQ20 to drop tier 1/2 equivalent items when Tier 2.5 was the best accessible, and eventually t3. And now for ZA to have Tier 5/5.5 items, when T6 is the best accessible, with possible T7 approaching

IIRC, the Feralas-Sillithus FP wasn't there when AQ first opened, so Horde still had a pretty long travel time. (Not 20, but still like 12-15)

Org ---> Gadgetzan was exactly 9 minutes, and Gadget ---> Silithus was about 3.

Make it a sanctuary, similar to Shattrath. Where the summoning stone is, put one of the Naaru there and make it a sanctuary. Doing this would eliminate the whole "It's dominated by the horde" argument altogether.

Now to the instance itself and based on lore... Trolls and Elves never liked each other because one encroached on another's lands (meaning trolls and elves lived in the same area (so the ZA instance should be here); and the Sunwell was on a secluded island north of Silvermoon City itself. Defiled by Arthas when he resurrected Kel'thuzad, the wells energies burst forth and was manifested through the powers of Korialstrasz into Anveena (the avatar of the sunwell). I'm not sure if you'll have to fight KJ, but you will most likely be defending Anveena from the likes of KJ... IMO. Demons are a likely enemy, and considering what the sunwell itself is (a part of the well of eternity) KJ would want it to either resurrect his master or to tear the world asunder (like war of the ancients).