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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsMajor Ulduar testing news: PTR soon, not all bosses available
by Adam Holisky 
Feb 17th 2009 at 3:40PM
Secondly, Ulduar will not be tested like a normal instance. The testing will be in phases and only happen according to the schedule Blizzard lays out. They'll announce times when certain bosses will be available for testing, and that means that only during those times will those bosses be open for play. This also means that Ulduar will initially be closed on the PTR.
But think for a moment about what this does – it means that we won't be seeing strategies and other guides immediately available upon release of the patch (or in most cases before the patch). It means that world firsts will actually mean something again, and it won't just be a rush to see who can log onto the server first.
That is quite big and exciting news. Daelo also lets us know a few other things.
Need more news about Ulduar? We've got updates, previews, speculation, and everything else you need to know about the next big raid coming in patch 3.1. If the Titans are hiding it up there, we'll tell you about it here.The first set of boss encounters that will be tested include:
- Freya
- Thorim
- Hodir
- The Iron Council
Even more exciting: bosses will be tested on the European and North American PTRs. Some bosses will be tested on both PTRs, and some will be tested on only one. That means that the EU PTR experience can, and most likely will be, markedly different than the US PTR experience.
We'll have more on this story as it develops, and will bring you the latest PTR news at it happens.
Filed under: News items, Raiding
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 4)
khalkaroth Feb 17th 2009 4:00PM
The first set of boss encounters that will be tested include:
Freya
Thorim
Hodir
The iron council
The first set of boss encounters? So there's more than 4 bosses?
Gogo Yogg-saron!
knecht Feb 17th 2009 4:05PM
I believe there are going to be 14 bosses in Ulduar.
Doffencrag Feb 17th 2009 4:08PM
If you read the article linked to earlier today (WoW EU previews Ulduar - http://www.wowinsider.com/2009/02/17/wow-eu-previews-ulduar/)
"Out of 14 bosses, 11 will have a Hard Mode that offers additional challenges and rewards. "
Helluva lotta more than four. Prepare for some really long raid nights ahead. :)
Drager Feb 17th 2009 3:58PM
The testing changes are exciting in theory. It's bothered me that while PTRs are up all the best players disappear off my server only to return when a content patch goes live in order to breeze through it.
I hope there are some significant things held back and tested internally so there are some surprises come release time.
Back in the day it was exciting to even just experience the thrill of progression vicariously as the top guilds battled it out. Once content started getting cleared on PTRs, that went away.
Now that I raid myself (albeit not at an elite level) it would be great to have a chance (however miniscule) to be among the first to beat a raid encounter.
I rambled a bit, I know, but at the end of the day I hope this brings back some of the excitement I used to feel for progression.
xenothaulus Feb 17th 2009 4:01PM
Bah, I was afraid Thorim would be included. That whole quest line was one of my favorites in the game so far, and I actually did a Vader-no at the end. I want to go save him, not fight him!
Kvothe Feb 17th 2009 4:36PM
There's still the possibility that we will only fight to liberate him, rather than kill him, though I find it a bit unlikely. I agree with some of the earlier comments that good guys turning evil is a bit cliche, but they've gotta invent a lot of bosses and it is so much easier to just recycle...
Tazerface Feb 17th 2009 4:03PM
Bring it on naxx is kind of stagnating in /yawns and /boreds for my guild.
as far as vehicles go, does anyone know of a good unit frame mod that will let me easily target players vehicles? i play a priest and the maly fight sucks trying to heal drakes i have to manually click on.
Hansbo Feb 17th 2009 4:26PM
In phase 3 on malygos you shouldn't heal any other drake than yourself, save from the AoE heal. Switching targets make you lose your combo points.
havitech Feb 17th 2009 4:29PM
I recommend Pitbull. It lets you set up nice, organized frames for the raid's pets, which actually double for a player's vehicle frame. When I'm doing phase 3 on Malygos, I see a row of all the vehicle's health bars. That sounds like what you're trying to accomplish.
Tazerface Feb 18th 2009 4:39AM
thanks for the tips!
h8rain Feb 17th 2009 4:03PM
The PTR changes sounds pretty cool. The feat of strength is kinda irrelevant if someone can "plan" their attack. But of course there is some Feats that pure RNG. How is that "strength"?
What would be cool if some of the raid is all internally tested.
Malkavos Feb 17th 2009 4:07PM
I don't see how this is really going to prevent strategies from getting out before the patch. Yes, fewer people will be doing the content, and nobody will be doing it as a whole. But if you allow players to test a boss fight, strategies for that boss will show up. Unless PTR testers are forced to sign NDA's I don't see how this will really change the availability of data on the new zone.
boney Feb 17th 2009 4:14PM
Dude, you realise that this means they are only going to test a certain percent of some bosses, and the end bosses wont be tested at all. So yeh, no strats will be made....
jaxson_bateman Feb 17th 2009 4:27PM
Come again? They are going to test every boss (has Blizz ever not tested a boss fight on the PTR?), and even if they don't do it all at once (I can't see why they wouldn't do it all at once), ever phase of a boss. They need to test them, or they're going to miss a lot of bugs that normal players pick up on.
As the poster you replied to commented, this won't prevent strategies being formed, and world firsts won't be more significant by having it broken up by this. I know that myself and a few of my fellow guildies will be heading into the PTR at each phase to work out the boss strats before hand.
Just because the lesser guilds won't have strats available to them at the start of 3.1, it doesn't mean that the better guilds won't have formulated their own already.
CSJenova Feb 17th 2009 5:20PM
@jaxson_bateman
Kil'Jaeden was never tested on the PTR and M'uru was never downed...most of Naxxramas60 was never tested on the PTR...if any. All of Naxxramas10/25 was available and cleared on the PTR...but that was actually a first...not the norm.
In one of the recent blue posts, they said that not ALL of the encounters are going to be on the PTR. There will still be strats published for certain boss fights, but published strats is still different from rehearsed fights.
One of the blues mentioned that there will be atleast a handful of bosses, 3 or 4 something like that, that will not be seen on the PTR. Good luck on your world/server firsts, but I personally would not be surprised if the fights we do on the PTR will test mechanic y of a fight with mechanics x, y, and z.
d503 Feb 17th 2009 4:15PM
I doubt we'll see complete lack of strategies on the web...frankly, even if they only make these encounters available for a short time, people are still gonna get it on paper...
Paxtus Feb 17th 2009 4:34PM
Hodir. imo
Johan Strauß Feb 17th 2009 4:23PM
I gots me a feeling that's Hodir himself.
Hardy Feb 17th 2009 4:32PM
This "Good turned bad because of influence" is getting a bit tired.
Illidan, Arthas, Kael'Thas....pretty much every bad guy in the game is bad because they were corrupted.
Seriously, Thorim was so cool, you start to feel for his backstory then is taken prisoner and turned bad....seriously...
These are creations of the Titans and they're all too emotional for their own good.... The lore in this game is getting really bad... :(
Candina@WH Feb 17th 2009 5:28PM
I'm with you.
I want to fight evil. Not 'corrupted'. I want to *smash* true evil.
All of this 'seduced by the dark side' meme gets to me.
What about personal responsibility? You choose the dark side, you gonna get your a$$ handed to you. And it is your fault! ;-)