We could move in time rather than actually travelling. The Scourge invaded the Coliseum through Nerubian tunnels, we go in, kill a few bosses around the Coliseum. When the Scourge leader falls the Siege ends and the Tourney begins. We do the Ring of Blood thing, maybe with Scourge attacks between bosses as trash. Then the Scourge launches another assault from frost wyrms. We fight our way to the top, kill a few more bosses as we go, get to the top just in time to see Arthas/Shade of Saurfang/DK Fordragon kill Darion/Tirion.

Well, can't say we did see this coming. What's frustrating, though, is that Blizzard never actually confirmed that A-N had been dropped, thus leading to endless speculation. Perhaps they really were weighing it until recently, but I think that the second that Yogg-Saron was put in Ulduar the idea was pretty much dead.

The Coliseum is a cool idea, though, and I think the idea of fighting friendly heroes can be used in an awesome manner. I'd guess that it'll turn out to be a Tier 8.5ish instance with an indeterminate number of bosses that'll at least be on the PTRs by the end of summer.

The loot will most likely be sidegrades from Ulduar for another reason than having 3 tiers per expansion. Blizzard wants more people to see all content. If they require Tournament gear for Icecrown and Ulduar gear for Tournament they'll pretty much guarantee not many people will be able to do Icecrown. So instead they can require Naxx/heroic/rep/PvP gear for (10-man) Tournament and make it the loot pinata the great majority of players need to do well in Icecrown.

Obviously, the hard modes will require Ulduar (hard) gear and there also might be a yet bigger gap between 10 and 25 man modes.

If it is a Violet Hold type thing with random bosses you will probably be able to hand in a large amount of Champion's Seals (or gold or whatever) to get the specific boss you want.

I didn't even think about the champion seals. I could see them just having the bosses drop seals instead of adding a new emblem tier.

I wouldn't be surprised if they let champion's seals be buyable with whatever badge drops in the coliseum, though.

Who says there will be a new emblem tier in 3.2? They could easily just not add a new emblem tier in 3.2 and just wait till 3.3 and Icecrown for that since even if there are sets in the Coliseum then they probably will just be a non tier type set similar to AQ.

it sounds quite strange that the armors and weapons we will use to kill Arthas are not coming from an ancient and/or powerful being/place/dimension/... but from the weaponsmiths and armorsmiths of the Crusade.

How the crusade could produce such a large number of powerful items?

I like the idea that the Colisseum is the starting place of the raid instance, the first couple of bosses being arena fights and after those fights, Scourge forces attack and we have to defend ourselves or even to pursue them.

Look at it another way. Heroes like Tirion Fordring have gathered items of great strength through their deeds and efforts over the years. Now they're looking to see who deserves the item. If you beat them in combat, you are clearly more capable of using it to a greater potential than them (though it's not a 1v1 situation) and as such, they reward you with an item, with which you can achieve more for the greater good.

I think my biggest disappointment with this announcement is that I see two ways this can go, and my pessimistic view is further limited by the way Blizzard often falls short on AMAZING ideas with tons of potential.

1.) The Coliseum advances the story line greatly and provides a varying array of environments, encounters, and tactics. The story is greatly furthered by some serious lore and events taking place (like a timeline that we progress through) and the actually Arena fighting is limited to a few fights, preceded and proceeded by some kind of travel in and around the Coliseum. (Anything could work really. I mean, Hell, even Jaina could show up and intervene, teleporting the raid out to fight something or someone else). What they need to do is make this a massively large event, that spans a greater time than the 3 hours you actually raid. So you feel like there's some actual progression happening here. You could even do a phasing type deal. A progression where some fights take place during day, others nights, and then in a Final Fantasy-esque type progression, your raid "goes to sleep". You wake up to some kind of monstrous attack, fight your way out of the inn into the greater halls of the Coliseum to see it's under siege. Make your escape, escort the weakened and the innocent, and then before you leave, you're warned of some epic confrontation in another part of the Coliseum. Head there to finish up that, and then you pursue the agents of the Lich King, WHILE instanced. You get teleported to the instanced Shadow Vault, from which you fight to the gates of Icecrown. Fight the last boss there with Tirion threatning Arthas. Patch 3.3 takes place with an Isle type event, where you build a base at the gates of the Citadel and lay siege to his armaments.

2.) It's just a rehashed Violet Citadel / Hyjal, with repetitive, boring trash, followed by bosses with rehashed mechanics and reused textures. The coliseum environment never changes, the entire thing feels rushed, the gear and the storyline barely progress, and the hard modes are few and far between. At best, the instance houses like 7 bosses and is over before it starts.

I'm really holding out for #1, especially since they gutted out what could have been amazing lore pathways (Azjol-Nerub, Sanctums, A different part of Icecrown Citadel, Tie in to the next expansion, Gundrak, etc.)

They're not?

We've spent the past few weeks haring around northrend collecting mighty weapons of yore with which to arm the champions of the crusade as part of the daily quest grind. Its not too much of a leap to suggest we'd be then given these weapons once we've proved ourselves in the tournament, although hopefully with a few polished edges here and there.

I think
rules out anything big unfortunately. They didn't have to reassure players of that for Sunwell or AQ. It only makes sense to tell us that if the raid and instance are otherwise similar.



Mostly sidegrades. No doubt it will contain the new DST/Illustration to give people in YS and Uld-Hardmode gear a reason to farm it week after week.

Something I found cute... Bornakk on Tyr on the WoW forums:

I think that's Blizzardese for "we forgot." Maybe they should just make him into a world boss, or better yet turn Jotun into Tyr to resolve two unresolved issues at once. Could also give him the Scythe of Elune too, hah. And the keys to a dance studio.