acaciaizm.com has information on Sunwell and 2.4 thanks to the Swedish magazine "Level" which published a special World of Warcraft magazine. The latest issue contains an interview with Jeff "Tigole" Kaplan and talks about 2.4 and the Sunwell instances, as well as Sunwell Isle -- the outdoor area content being added. Thanks to the FoH readers for finding the link!
Key points from the interview:
Sunwell Isle
- Sunwell Isle is located off the coast of Eastern Kingdoms, to the north of Silvermoon City.
- Sunwell Isle is planned to be a major quest hub, and includes both 5-person Normal and Heroic instances called Magister's Terrace, as well as the 25-person raid instance Sunwell Plateau. The primary goal of this content is to close out the storyline of The Burning Crusade.
- Upon release of the patch, Sunwell Isle will start off with a small expedition camp. The first things players will do is perform daily quests, which will slowly strengthen the camp, turning it into a small town over time. As more and more daily quests are completed, content will be opened up -- this will be similar to the AQ opening event. These quests are also planned to end the Tempest Keep storyline.
- The reputation you'll need to grind out to gain access to the Heroic version of Magister's Terrace is called "The Shattered Sun Offensive."
- Both versions of the instances (5-person and 25-person) will be available on patch day, but some bosses may require unlocking through either daily quests or reputation gain. The goal with Sunwell Plateau is to have the first three bosses available immediately, with the final three unlocked through the daily quests everyone on the server contributes to.
- Although this "technically" closes out the storyline for The Burning Crusade, there are a few options Blizzard can run with for future patches, in case Wrath of the Lich King needs to be delayed.
Magister's Terrace & Sunwell Plateau
- Kael'thas has been demoted; well... sort of. He's going to be a boss in the 5-person instance here.
- Sunwell Plateau will contain 6 bosses, including Kil'jaeden -- the final boss -- Kalecgos, a blue dragon who has been enslaved by Kil'jaeden, Brutalicus, a fel dragon, female Eredar twins, and a "Dark Naaru."
- Sunwell Plateau is tuned for Tier 6-geared players, putting it slightly above Black Temple in difficulty. Drops will of course be above Tier 6 quality due to the difficulty of the instance.
- There is not going to be a Tier 7 set; there will still be set items dropping, but they aren't following the "tier" theme, and some may not be class-specific.
Miscellaneous Info
- 2.4 will be raising the cap on Daily Quests that can be completed each day from 10 to 25.
- PvP balancing attempts will once again be implemented for certain classes. No concrete details have been given in regards to what is coming, though.
You can check out more in Part One and Part Two of the interview.
Comments
That would be a 2.5 x increase in daily quests (10 to 25), not a 1.5 x
till its a blue buh bye outta here. Could have should have cursed.
yeah o agree if like to see a 5 phase fight in a 5man.
Lothaer
I can only hope the Kael'Thas 5-man fight will look a bit like the 25 man (ofcourse way easier), because it's so much fun. I am feeling up for a big event, brings out the social aspect of WoW :)
rule of thumb: if its not posted on the US or EU forums by a blue poster then its more than like a crock of shit.
Lothaer
You know it sucks when something is pushed back. But after playing HGL, which was not pushed back and released so bug filled I have stopped playing it, I would much rather wait a while longer and enjoy what I play instead of enjoying reloading the game cause yet another bug was found in faulty coding
ive had 3 70s for awhile now, i still wont do the blades edge dailys more than once a week on 1 character... they are just too damn annoying :(
"You can check out more in Party One and Part Two of the interview."
party one.. but no 2nd party???? :)
anyway.. sounds interresting
Litvan
SSDD
The best part was: Although this "technically" closes out the storyline for The Burning Crusade, there are a few options Blizzard can run with for future patches, in case Wrath of the Lich King needs to be delayed.
Expect those options to be used we all know how punctual bliz is..
At least we get decent gold rewards for daily quests. :D
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damnit.
.....
the people who do unlock the content ARE the uber guilds, not the minor guilds that dont even raid, and YOU are not gearing THEM, you are getting YOURSELF money for the quest, and perhaps loot for YOURSELF, when you complete a quest they will not mail the reward to another person, thats not the way wow works.
You did see that they are ADDING a bunch of dailies with the sunwell that you can do, right? And seeing that x1.5 increase in the cap, I'd say there's going to be quite a few to do.
O JOY UPON JOY!!! We the masses yet again have to help the uber guilds unlock content that is specifically geared for them!!! WOOT!!! come on blizzard!
Man, sounds like 2.4 will rival if not surpass the awesome that 2.3 was.
Awesome. Another raid I won't have time to get to before WotLK comes out...
Either way, the 5 man sounds awesome and I do like the 25 daily quest cap. I also like how they are implementing a new event similar to the AQ War Effort, I just hope that it doesn't come down to relying on 1 person to "open the gates" as that has shown to be unreliable. (On my server that 1 person received the task to open the gates, then transfered off the server.)