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A Visit to Zul'Aman

by Shayalyn

When Jeff "Ethec" Woleslagle and I ventured to Blizzard's camp at E3 2007 I wasn't sure what Blizzard would have to show us. We gathered information on upcoming voice chat for World of Warcraft (coming soon in a patch), which will be fully integrated into the game with many robust features. We also found out that guild banks are in the works. But the highlight of our visit was a full preview of WoW's newest dungeon, Zul'Aman, a 10-person raid instance scheduled to be patched into the live game later this year. And it looks as though Zul'Aman will offer something to please everyone, from the casual raider to the hardcore.

Rob Foote, Associate Producer of World of Warcraft, started our tour by sharing a little background lore. Zul'Aman is home to a band of forest trolls under the command of Zul'Jin (a character players may recognize from Warcraft II). A troll witchdoctor has found a way to infuse trolls with animal spirits: the bear, the lynx, the eagle, and the dragonhawk. These animal-infused trolls make up the themes for the boss battles players will encounter as they adventure through Zul'Aman. For purposes of the demo, Foote trekked solo through the zone with dev tools that made him invincible. We're assured adventurers won't have it nearly so easy.

Our first fight of the instance was a troll boss infused with a bear spirit. Interestingly, instead of having to work our way through trash mobs to reach the boss, we engaged him right away. "He's the first guy you'll see as you enter the instance," said Foote. "So, let's turn this corner...and there he is!"

As soon as we encountered the bear boss, he yelled a threat and sent his men down to attack us. "So, instead of having to fight your way to the boss," said Foote, "you engage him and he's going to send waves of mobs at you that you fight through. Once you take care of these guys, he runs up to the next staging point." And that was where Foote took him out.

"The cool thing is that this is an outdoor instance," Foote said. "A lot of our [isntances] put you in a dungeon the whole time; it's totally enclosed. This really gives you a feel like you're in your own zone with 9 of your friends."

As we made our way to the various bosses Foote explained some of the dynamics Blizzard has come up with to make Zul'Aman more fun. Players will need to remain on their toes and figure out certain triggers that allow the mobs to change up their game. Those include a drum-banging scout who calls waves of warriors to fight as long as he's banging his drum, and another mob who plays a little game of Hot Potato by hurling a skull that knocks a player back, but also winds up in the player's backpack (and whoever's got the skull has the aggro).  One of the boss mobs has a bomb throwing AoE that will challenge players. "It's completely random," Foote said. "It's not as if you can read online where you're supposed to stand. So it should still be hectic even for people who've done it several times."

"As we're making new dungeons it's very challenging to keep coming up with new dynamics to keep players excited," said Foote. "But we're definitely trying to push further with scripting and making things more interesting to players who've run dungeons like this before."

I asked about the loot tables for the boss mobs. Were they deep? Would they make Zul'Aman worth a raid's time?

"Definitely!" said Foote. "It's going to start off better than Kharazan, and then get better and better as you're able to go through the dungeon faster and faster." In fact, there's a dynamic in place that rewards players for their skill at playing through the dungeon. The faster players are able to complete the instance, the better their rewards will be.

"So, replayability is a priority?" asked Jeff Woleslagle.

"That's sort of the idea behind the sliding loot," Foote answered, "because basically you're going to give players [incentive] to play over and over again and reward them for doing so, [as well as] reward them for becoming better at the instance."

So Zul'Aman appears to offer a little something for everyone. More casual raiders are sure to like the fact that they should be able to play through the instance in 2-3 hours. More hardcore players will enjoy the challenge of becoming better and faster at the raid in order to up the loot ante. We're assured that Zul'Aman is more difficult than Kharazan, and with better loot. Yet it's not so vast that a raiding party couldn't get through it in an evening.

As we made our way through the instance to the final scripted battle with Zul'Jin himself I was impressed with how fun Zul'Aman appears to be. And it doesn't much matter whether you're hardcore or casual or anywhere in between--when you get right down to it, fun is universal.

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Be sure to check out the following resources:

• WoW Community Site
• WoW News
• Additional E3 Coverage