E3 07: World of Warcraft Content Upate Impressions - The Dungeon of Zul'Aman

[Riddlerr]

I always thought that place was going to be a dungeon....   

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SANTA MONICA--All the sunshine and sandy beaches in the world couldn't keep us from visiting with Blizzard Entertainment at the E3 2007 media summit in Southern California. The developer was on hand to show off new content updates for its insanely popular massively multiplayer game, World of Warcraft, including some new gameplay features and a brand-new dungeon area.

The big news is the new Zul'Aman area, an outdoor dungeon in the mid-leve Ghostlands area near the blood elves' homeland. The dungeon is inhabited by the forest trolls who first made their debut in Blizzard's real-time strategy game Warcraft II. ("Trolls love the outdoors," explains vice president of game design Rob Pardo.) The vast outdoor zone consists of ruined stone temples that reflect the trolls' shamanic beliefs growing through thick forests of trees. According to the story that Blizzard has penned for the area, Zul'Aman is the home of the troll warriors led by Zul'jin (a character from Warcraft II) and has become a stronghold from which the trolls have begun attacking the blod elves, thanks to a newfound power that a troll witch doctor has discovered. Apparently, this powerful troll spiritualist has somehow managed to steal away the essences of four troll animal gods and confer them to four mighty troll warriors. These avatars act as the early "boss" encounters for the dungeon.

Zul'Aman is a smaller raid dungeon that's better suited for 10-character parties than the full-on 25-character raids that some of the game's larger dungeons demand. Because the dungeon will not require any keys or attunements to enter, the dungeon seems intended to be more accessible to players on tight schedules. Much of the layout will call for methodical clearing of troll enemies who may call for help by beating on nearby war drums, which summon additional trol warriors to fight. Each of the four avatars, which have respectively been infused with the spirits of a bear god, a dragonhawk god, a lynx god, and finally, a god of evil, may also summon help as well as assume different forms over the course of battle. Once players have defeated each avatar, they'll eventually take on the witch doctor who started the whole mess, and finally do battle with Zul'Jin himself. The final troll boss will not only be a powerful foe; he'll also be able to draw upon the ghostly spirits of each of the four liberated animal gods and change his own shape to assume their powers.

In addition to offering challenging encounters against these mighty foes, Zul'Aman is also apparently intended to encourage players to tackle it repeatedly to master its content. There will be several characters hanging around just outside the dungeon to give out quests that take place within the dungeon, including hunting for treasure and liberating four different hostages who have been taken captive by the armies of each of the four avatars. The rescue missions will apparently be timed and will yield better rewards if completed early.

Blizzard also plans to release additional, smaller patch updates before then that will add two new features: integrated voice chat and guild banks. Voice chat will be added to the game free of charge, will mute the game slightly whenever someone talks (so that you won't need to talk over any onscreen battles), and will use onscreen icons to indicate who's saying what, so that you'll be able to quickly determine which team member in your party is asking for help. The guild banks, on the other hand, will let guild officers create vaults to store the guild's entire possessions, as well as set permissions to limit access to certain items if they care to.

World of Warcraft is still running strong with millions of subscribers worldwide. Unfortunately, there's no set release date planned for the Zul'Aman update, beyond "when it's ready," though we're told that the voice chat and guild bank updates should be coming sooner to the game

[Vengeance]

That sucks...sounds alot like ZG but its still supposedly 10 man content, which means if we plan on it if it will be released, it'll be stuck full like Karazhan...but seeing as how were trying to solve that problem, it means that by the time this is released, we should be able to make it a good, fair run for everyone...if not, well... 

[Buzan]

I vividly remember the orc campaign in Warcraft 2 where the player had control of Zul'Jin. He was my favorite orc boss in that game and now we will be able to fight him!!! Looking forward to it, other than that yeah it sounds allot like ZG L2b more creative Blizz

[Amberyle]

voice chat?

[Vengeance]

ZG was actually fun, lol
(i wasnt the one to do it so much, so im still not sick of it  )

[Tolwen]

thanks for the news Riddlerr, sounds really cool but eh to bad its only a 10man>.<

[Arcdelad]

yeah moon....blizz has been working on a way to incorporate a ventrilo like system into wow (LOTRO has it already)...

[Shadowwolf]

full writeup is here =)

http://uk.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/worldofwarcraftexp1/news.html?sid=6174183&tag=newlyadded;title;1

[Shadowwolf]

[blizzard author=Tigole link=http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=174505332&sid=1]


I've been following a lot of the reactions on the WoW forums as well as the fansite forums to our announcement of Zul'Aman. I've noticed that there's a little bit of confusion as to some comments that were made in various articles that said that (I am paraphrasing here) "Zul'Aman will be more casual than Karazhan."'

Of course, what most of us in the WoW community have come to realize over the past few years is that the term "casual" means different things to different people. In fact, I am at the point where I try to avoid using the term at all. I've come to discover that most players consider themselves "Casual" when it supports their argument and likewise, they think of themselves as "hardcore" when convenient. We have the largest Casual Hardcore (or Hardcore Casual) community of any MMO out there!

All joking aside, the clarification is this:

--Zul'Aman will be a 10-person raid zone
--Zul'Aman will be on a quicker reset than 7 days (some might call this "casual")
--Zul'Aman will be MORE difficult than Karazhan and drop better loot (some might call this hardcore)
--Zul'Aman will feature 6 bosses and it's our goal that you can kill them all in one night -- perhaps 2-3 hour clear times (some might call this casual)
--Zul'Aman will not have a key requirement. Nor will it have an attunement quest\ (some might call this casual)
--Zul'Aman will have a VERY challenging timed quest for those who choose to participate in it. This *will be* hardcore and will be very rewarding. Players do not have to engage in the timed run (very similar to the Baron run in Stratholme)
--We're tuning the first boss in Zul'Aman to require less raid coordination than some other raid bosses. He will still hit very hard so you'll need to be geared properly but it won't take 15 minutes to explain the fight. It will be a simple yet challenging fight. The other boss fights get more complex and challenging from there. If players want a basis of comparison, imagine the tuning of ZA started around Nightbane/Prince difficulty and ramped up from there.

ZA is a very cool looking zone. It will feature brand new troll models -- Forest Trolls. They are very impressive looking. There will also be a large amount of brand new item art in the zone. We'll get screenshots of this out soon.

I know this question is going to come up so I'll answer it now -- Yes, you can totally skip Karazhan if you're an amazingly elite guild who doesn't have time to key up for KZ yet can face the challenges of ZA without gearing up in KZ. Have fun storming the castle.
[/blizzard]

[Vengeance]

nice thread,lol, 'specially as it says 2-3 hours to clear, mabye a bit more for less geared/ZA experienced players 

[Luise]

Looking forward to it- pity it wasnt a 20 toon raid though.

[Shadowwolf]

Actually its not bad. It helps offset the demand for Kara so conceivably, we could hold 1 ZA and 1 Kara a week to keep people from being left out. This will also change things up a bit so things dont become too repetitive. I would suggest that people hit up the Heroic's like crazy though to have a better chance at ZA. Gear doesnt make everything, skill plays a large role too, but gear helps a lot =)

[un4]

I love the smaller reset and clear times... means I might could make room in my day for it

[Muridin]

the voice chat better be voip like bf2 has

[Odjia]

Hopefully thier definition of good gear lives up to our standards. lol can't wait to find out!