BlizzCon 08: WoW WotLK Dungeons and Raids Panel Highlights with Video

by Donne Ingalls on October 11, 2008 at 8:24 pm

Blizzard has some big plans in store for Warcraft lore lovers. The company has announced their intent to tie Wrath of the Lich King dungeons in with the World of Warcraft lore.

New dungeons will be connected to quests lines in an effort to further embellish the backstory behind Northrend, Arthas, the Titans, and others.

Below are some bulleted highlights from the Dungeons and Raids Panel, followed by detailed boss encounter information, and several clips from the panel itself.

Dungeon and Raid Panel Highlights:

Huge scale environment and epic creatures with unique abilities.
The developers emphasized that players do not fight the Titans right away but they do become more and more present as players progress through Northrend.
Focusing on a shorter Dungeon model.
Big scope but able to walk through without difficulty.
Boss encounters with choices as to where and how a group fights them.
CUSTOM CREATURE MODELS! Less recycling of creature models.
10 and 25 man dungeons for ALL of the raids instances.
A push for players to experience raids no matter how large of social groups they are in.
More rewards for 25 man instances.
Certain boss fights they want to go all out with boss experiences.
Destructible buildings during boss fights.
Higher quality loot from heroics. A Tier better than normal dungeons.
Players can earn badges: Emblem of Heroism(heroics) and Emblem of Valor(25 mans).
Players can complete tier sets with badges.

Cool Boss Encounters:
The second boss in Ahn’kahet is a vampire. At different times during the encounter, the boss attacks a random member of the group, attempting to suck their blood. Players have to beat back the boss to prevent him from killing their party-mate. Surprisingly, the boss has an eerie resemblance to Tom Cruise.

The other highlighted boss encounter was the final boss in Chamber of Aspects. The developers spoke about two different ways to fight the boss. An easy way, and a more difficult way.

The boss is surrounded by three Twilight drakes. The easy route for taking the boss down is killing the Twilight drakes first, and then moving on to the boss resulting in a normal loot table. The more difficult method is to not kill the drakes beforehand, but to kill them during the boss fight. Doing this will drop a Twilight Drake mount that you can show off to your friends, better yet — your enemy’s.

Last but not least is news that will surely make Hunters happy. Due to the changes involving Hunter pets, specifically granting them access to a “tanking” talent tree, a Hunter’s pet will now be viable off-tanks in instances. Sorry to all the off-tanks out there … you’re going to be replaced by an overgrown turtle.

Featured Dungeons, Itemization, and Q&A Video:

The Halls of Lightening

Ahn’kahet:The Old Kingdom

Chamber of Aspects (raid)

Eyes of Eternity

Itemization

Q&A Session