12:04 PM: WoW Dungeons & Raids Panel starting. Corey Stockton (Lead Level Designer), Scott Mercer (Lead Encounter Designer), and Travis Day (Itemization), and Lee Sparks (Producer) are introduced.
12:05: Five-man dungeons. The Halls of Lightning! A level 80 Dungeon in Storm Peaks. It fits in with the Titan Lore. They wanted to tie all dungeons closely to lore and lore questlines. HoL is a Titan-themed Dungeon. Titans crafted Azeroth. There is a lot of new history here. The Dungeon is to be epic, huge in scale, like nothing you have ever seen before. All the creatures have unique abilities. You can't fight Titans right away, of course, so they came up with new creatures that fit in well.
12:07: Instead of showing maps, they will run you through Dungeons during the panel!
12:08: There is a lot more story to deal with in this expansion, so they could make each boss unique and meaningful. Instances are shorter, which players like, but with an epic feel.
12:09: Hall of Lightning in-game play shown. As you level in Storm Peaks, you learn the purpose of the dungeons. They wanted to make the space feel huge, but not have an actually huge gameplay space. The first boss roams a bit on his platform, so you can choose where to fight him. The second boss can be seen from below him, earlier in the dungeon. It gives you a sense of suspense and space. A large room of statues made of constellations is shown. Iconic Titan imagery helps identify areas of each Dungeon. The third boss is an air elemental with a custom model. Tons of brand new models were made for the expansion. Boos models look so cool that devs often want to reuse them, even though they cannot. Each boss being unique lends the player a sense of accomplishment on kills. In this bosses room, you can look out the windows onto the world. It helps ground the player in the world, makes it look less like an instance. The final boss, Loken, has a ton of story involved with him. He is a messenger to the Titans and his fight includes two cinematic sequences, before and after the fight.
12:14: Ahn'Kahet, the Old Kingdom. This is an Azjol-Nerub dungeon. They had to make a decision about how much of Azjol-Nerub to use, since technically Azjol-Nerub goes throughout all of Northrend under the ground. As you go deeper into the Dungeon, more influence of the Old Gods is seen. The creatures get stranger and more unique. The Faceless Ones make an appearance here. The instance is entirely underground. New technology allows them to make instances in a huge interior cave, mixing indoor and outdoor elements. This Dungeon has some very unique, customized fights. The Bosses have been influenced by the Old Gods in unique ways.
12:17: Ahn'Kahet, the Old Kingdom in-game play shown. The starting area is huge, with a lot of things in the distance even though you do not get to travel through all of it. The art style of the Dungeon was based from Naxxramas, since that dungeon was part of Azjol-Nerub before Arthas pulled it out of the ground. Some new Nerubian models are shown. The first boss is a fight in which adds are hatched with both offensive and defensive capabilities. Not just a typical AoE fight. The second boss is a vampiric Blood Prince who stuns a player and feeds on them until the other players beat him back. The third boss is part of the Twilight Hammer, a cult of Old God worshipers from old Azerothian lore that have been brought back. The third boss sacrifices her minions and worshipers to gain buffs. The final boss is a Faceless One with a very interesting fight using a lot of new technology, including Phasing. It involves a mechanic where the Boss phases each party member out into their own little phase in which a player is attacked by their own party mates! As party members break out of these phases, you can assist your fellows and then get back to the Boss fight. There are a lot of scripted elements.
12:23: New Raid zones. All Raids will have 10 and 25-man versions, a huge new change meant to make raiding accessible for all sizes of guilds/social groups.
12:24: The Chamber of Aspects/Obsidian Sanctum. Designed as an introductory Raid. In TBC, Mag and Gruul were both so hard for new players that they wanted to have a real intro-level Raid.
12:25: Obsidian Sanctum gameplay shown. This boss is based on the Black Dragonflight, with its leader, Sartharion, as the final boss. It is unique in that you can choose your level of difficulty. The three easier mini-bosses come first. These fights involve a lot of cool mechanics, including Phasing and portals. If you want to run the Raid on easy mode, you kill att three Drak bosses and then Sartharion. If you want more of a challenge, you can fight them all at the same time, the Drake minibosses adding into the fight as it progresses until they are all involved. Devs expect people not to be able to fight all bosses at once until at least a patch after release. The loot dropped from Sartharion is dynamic. You get more depending on how many Drakes you leave up before attacking him.
12:28: The Eye of Eternity. They wanted to do something very special and go all out here because Malygos is such a huge lore character. Unique model, unique spells, lots of time spent on it. Uses destructible building and vehicle technology. The raid dungeon looks very very small when you enter it: it's just one big platform. You get the key to start the encounter from Sapphiron in Naxxramas. They did not want you to be able to beat Malygos all by yourself, since he is so strong, so the Red Dragonflight lends you a hand partway through.
12:32: PvE itemization. One of the things they wanted to address the expansion was the way world dungeon itemization was done in TBC. Normal and Hard versions had the same loot. Now all Heroics will be up a tier in ilevel from Normal dungeons. They always wanted to address Badges of Justice. They liked the system, but people still farmed the same dungeons for months and months. Now the harder dungeons in Wrath drop a different type of badges with which you can buy better loot. Basically, players at high levels should not be farming "beginner" Heroics and 10-mans for their uber loot. 10-Man and 25-Man sets work together to make set bonuses.
12:35: The Q&A sessions starts:
Q: People tend to fall asleep late at night at the keyboard. You have to wait for them to disconnect. Can you add in a way to kick people who are AFK for too long from instances? A: Devs really like this suggestion. It's a matter of time, but they would like to do it. They want people to be able to keep raids going.
Q: Legendaries in 10/25-mans. Will they be random or quest-based? Will they have tiers like the gear? A: Devs are still thinking about it. They do think they need new caster and healer legendaries. Devs are not so big on random legendaries now. They'd rather have Atiesh-like quests.
Q: Are you designing raid encounters with the new dual spec system in mind? Where people will be wanted to switch within a fight? A: (All together.) No. (laughter.) They would rather design encounters around roles and not people switching specs.
Q: What about unopened Azeroth instances like Uldum? A: They are always on the table. They have to choose what dungeon or raid fits in best with the new content. When the time is right it will happen.
Q: Balance druid itemization was helped a lot with spell power changes. Will there be some loot balancing since so many people will want to roll on spell power items? A: Assuming numbers don't hate you, caster weapons should still drop in the same ratio to melee that they always have.
Q: In Kara for instance, tier pieces would drop without the classes that can use them being there. Can there be a check system for this? A: They have heard and thought of that complaint. One thing they have done in Wrath is that 10/25-Man emblems can be used to purchase class set pieces. So if people are having issues getting set pieces to drop, that could help.
Q: Keying quests are pretty epic and cool, though they were taken away later on. Will there be level 80 attunements? A: In Wrath the only real current key at all is having to kill Sapphiron to fight Malygos.
Q: Hunters now have tanking pets. Can they tank 5-mans or off-tank content? A: The base intention for pet talent trees and defensive pets is to have them able to off-tank.
Q: Is Tenacity PvP balance mechanic being used in PvE as well? A: Not really no. There will be no mechanics, really, where if you go in with a smaller group they will buff you to help out.
Q: In TBC, Gruul and Mag were nerfed a bit and the step up to other dungeons was steep. Will there be a similar ramping up to Sunwell level in Wrath? A: Devs do not know if they will make encounters so insane as in Sunwell. 500 attempts on Mu'ru is a bit much. People can up with insane solutions for Sunwell, but it hurt more guilds than it challenged. They want things to be challenging but fun.
Q: Looking back to Blackrock Spire, it was very pugable in an hour or two. It helped new players step up into raiding. Kara was a huge step up into raiding in TBC and the lockout was too long. A: Lockouts have to be there because of the level of the gear you get. They might revisit it in the future, but right now the lockouts / reset timers will be pretty much the same as in TBC dungeons. In Wrath we definitely tried to make the step from Heroic Dungeons to Raids a lot less of a leap. Some TBC Heroics were way too hard and some were way too easy. They want a smoother progression, even for pugs.
Q: Kil'Jaeden was a great encounter. One of the cool parts was the dragons. It let players do different things than just DPS flat out. Will there be more creative skill usage in Wrath? A: Short answer is yes. They love that sort of thing. In the Oculus you use the abilities of Drake vehicles instead of your own abilities to keep thing interesting.
Q: Dungeon design. TBC was way different than classic. Much shorter. More winged Dungeons, but there was no internal connection between the wings; no passages between wings like in Dire Maul. Any plans for that in Wrath? A: Devs love this idea and thing about it. They try to make wings cohesive with each toehr. They have been talking about "the epic 5-man" where the dungeons chain together. You finish one and you can keep going or stop. They are looking to do this in the future.
Q: Are you still using the tier gear tokens? And can you make it so that one each drops, perhaps, to avoid people missing out on gear pieces when the tokens do not drop? A: One thing we are doing is dropping more loot in general. Four or might items per boss in 25-mans. We don't want to do one of each token, really, but certain set pieces will be available to be bought with Badge tokens. This should help you complete some sets if you are unlucky with drops.
Q: With the number of dungeon difficulties you have now,m how long will it take a top-end guild to "beat" the expansion? A: (Audience member shouts: "Two weeks!" Laughter) People devour content at an insane pace. Arthas will not be seen for a few patches down the line, but devs are anticipating seeing people move through content very fast.
Q: Is the content being designed around the average guild or hardocre players? Will there be ultra-hardocre Sunwell raids? A: We absolutely want to have dungeons that "normal" guilds can complete but top end players will blow through. Devs do not want the high end raids to be as painfully inaccessible as Sunwell was.
Q: Will Ashbringer drops still be available in Wrath? Will there be more story for Ashbringer? A: A lot of the previous items like Atiesh from Naxx will be gone IN A DAY OR SO (3.0.2 will likely be out on October 14th) so get them while you can! Yes, the Ashbringer storyline will continue.
Q: Can we have a better way to mix and match set bonuses, since so many of them are very awesome? A: Devs do not want this, really, because it lends itself to people finding one set bonus and keeping it forever. That's a mistake on the Devs' part of that happens.
Q: The LFG tool. Not many people use it. Does the LFG tool look at your spec to put a group togetehr with auto-join? A: They are pretty sure it does. Devs want to make a lot of improvements to the LFG tool.
See the WCRadio.com Schedule Page for upcoming broadcast information! Check the Blizzcon page for a link to the WoW Dungeons & Raids Panel audio broadcast as soon as it is available.