I can see it now, Super Saiyan Tirion Fordring + Ashbringer.

This would be WoW's first real non-hostile raid I think. Like, no bad guys, just an event with Crusaders.

I wonder if they'll rez us after they horribly kill us per attempt. Also wonder about the scale of said raid. I mean it's not like you can stick 11 bosses in a tournament raid...can you? Or trash for that matter.

Well, the bosses probably walk to us Hyjal-style, though I too wonder how trash is going to work with that concept (assuming there is any).

I'm still holding out for the hope that in the building process of the coliseum, a Nerubian tunnel is breached. Thus poureth out a myriad of Angry Beatle Monsters, requiring adventurers to ride their trusty steeds with lance equipped into the maw of darkness and beat back the manxome foes.

There should be tunnels all over the place. Hell, a Nerubian tunnel could be the "backdoor" into Icecrown Citadel. Don't lose faith in more Azjol Nerub action. Let's just hope it isn't trolls.

I think it is time to give up on a AN raid since I think any hope of that disappeared the moment they dropped AN as a zone.

But for Cho'gall I'd imagine we will be fighting him eventually although I'd bet that will be in the next expansion and not this one.

The Argent Coliseum is a disappointment and I'd bet you that it is a result of them wanting to find anything to fit into 3.2 after they decided to drop AN and change the entire Northrend storyline. Least we can hope it is a fun raid and will advance the story at least. Maybe it could play out that the Scourge have overun it and we end up fighting Bolvar/Saurfang in the end. At least I am hoping it is a full blown raid since I doubt we will see Icecrown before May next year and they better not pull what they did with the wait between BT and Sunwell again.

Edit:

Seems it will be like Ring of Blood and Amphitheater.

World of Warcraft - English (NA) Forums -> Blizzard Shop Talk - Under Development

God, i feel so disappointed right now.

Ofcourse we'd still have to wait and see how things turn out but i for one am not excited at all about the whole Coliseum deal. I honestly was hoping for an exciting raid (Ulduar has been really great so far) but for some reason this plan feels like a PvP fest all the way.

And i do hope there will be some noteworthy characters making an appearance of some sort in the Coliseum because the way i view it right now is something like this: "We need to be sure you're ready and good enough to assist in the siege of Icecrown. Here's some big monsters you need to fight, come back once you killed them"

I wonder if we'll perhaps see conflict between Tirion and Darion at the Coliseum. The Ebon Blade has an as-yet-unused presence at the tournament, and that might give the Coliseum the lore boost it needs to be a "legitimate" raid.

I don't know, I dont think the Coliseum willl be the raid. I think they are just building on the huge popularity of the Ring of Blood that started in BC (or maybe the Arena in BRD) but all of those encounters were short and to the point. Difficult fights and very nice rewards but not a huge time commitment. When they say 5, 10 and 25 man challenges seem to me to be like 1-off fights (or series of fights) and not full raids. A raid to me is an Ulduar type thing where it isn't just straight mechanics, loots and character models but entire zones full of art. Really when it comes down to it raiders are looking for the payoff of overcoming boss mechanics when it's boiled down but it just feels cheap without all the other fanfare (attunement, dungeon art, voice overs, lore and quests). Maybe I'm just thinking wishfully?

Compare it to Violet Hold for a second.

In Violet Hold, you had a pretty short instance which featured several bosses that were random every time you ran a new one on a daily basis with the final boss always being the same.

Now think about turning that into a raid encounter. You could potentially have a lot of bosses, but due to randomness you will be limited to a certain few every reset.

The biggest question remains, how will they weave lore in it? Preparation for a siege on Icecrown is hardly what you can call lore, and i doubt there will be any big surprises in a freshly built coliseum.

Unless Tirion comes and tells you that he found Sargeras and locked him inside the coliseum but that he's growing out of control and wants you to kick his butt. Not that it would be any good lore, but it sure would be a surprise.

I don't think we can expect a new tier of gear in 3.2. It will most likely be the ZA or AQ type deal. There are 3 tiers of gear per expansion so far, including vanilla and I'm pretty sure T9 will be in Icecrown.

Yeah, but we also had Ahn'Qiraj and Sunwell. So.

I seem to remember on the beta forums that there was a blue poster who thought having a coliseum with old raid bosses tuned to level 80 was a good idea. So maybe the fights in the coliseum will be Conjured Ragnaros or Onyxia or something like that.

Just found it...it was Tigole who liked it:

MMO-Champion BlueTracker - PvE Arenas!