Raven Fire God Mount, Tier 12 Paladin Preview, Nozdormu NPC Model, Blue Posts

Friday, May 20
EU 10:30 AM PDT – Shannox (10 Player)
US 4:30 PM PDT – Beth’tilac (25 Player)

Shannox Testing Note:
The creatures spawned in the middle of the volcanic plains will be active for the test. To spawn Shannox, you must defeat a few of them. The number of creatures needed to spawn Shannox has been modified for PTR.

As always, the schedule can change at a moment’s notice due to issues with the build, server, encounter, or the mercurial nature of designers. The encounters are all a work in progress; there will be bugs and tuning is not final.

Does the Dungeon Journal kills the discovery and inventiveness of raiding?
We have not in fact made the statement that "Discovery and inventiveness in raiding is bad” with the introduction of the Dungeon Journal. We have simply said, "Here are the tools to be successful. Go forth and conquer." We have in no way said "how" to do it nor is that our intention for this feature. The ability to play your character within a team of other people is all up to you and your skills. We're just trying to make it more possible to be successful within the game with information that lends itself to aiding success.

We want the discovery and challenge to come into play as a result of actually facing the mechanics versus simply being beaten by the mechanics of the game to begin with to even start working on a strategy to defeat the encounter (which is what many top raiding guilds end up doing.) It's very difficult for anyone to claim that discovery is a large portion of the game when we live in a world of datamining, PTR videos, boss kill addons, and extensive documentation of everything by a very savvy and experienced gaming community.

We want to provide a common language to communicate with as well. What exists now is something that has evolved over time in an organic way, but not everyone is speaking the same "language". This way, you can call the "big blue thing" by its name rather than resorting to trying to describe it or make up a new name for it.

We know that players already go out to outside sources to look for information. On some occasions, this information may even have misinterpretations of the boss abilities and cause some frustration for those who are attempting to kill the mob based on that information. We're simply making what you're facing a bit clearer where it needs to be made clear. This isn’t the fault of those documenting these things. From our end, not all abilities that bosses use are as clear as we could have made them or should make them be.

It's expected that the top-end guilds that like to go for the first kill/s will still be able to accomplish this with or without the Dungeon Journal existing. We have no fear that they will suddenly be overrun and lose their place simply because everyone is starting with the same information.

That said, we have been listening to feedback as well and have trimmed back a little of the information. We also may consider (for the future) not documenting specific abilities for very difficult bosses like Sinestra, or heroic modes on final bosses like Ragnaros, or even what exactly causes Onyxia to deep breathe. Getting solid constructive feedback that we can consider to set into motion for change is always welcome and useful to us.

If all else, if you still want to take on encounters without the use of the Dungeon Journal, you can. Just don't open it. What you don’t know, will probably kill/wipe you. ;) (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)