Category: mmo-champion

With development on World of Warcraft: Cataclysm well underway, the Screenshot of the Day section on http://www.worldofwarcraft.com will now display unique Cataclysm screenshots every day! We’re capturing images of our favorite new World of Warcraft creatures, characters, and environments, and are eager to share them with you. Be sure to stop by each day for the latest look behind the veil of the expansion’s development progress.

Yesterday Bornakk and I were in lead world designer Alex Afrasiabi's office going over more Cataclysm information to share with you lovely folks. As we were getting into the discussion, former World of Warcraft game director Jeff Kaplan stopped by to let us know he's still available for Westfall development advice if needed. As many of you are aware, Jeff did a great deal of the original design of Westfall, so his offer was quite funny to us.

As we laughed he asked Alex, "is there even a Westfall anymore after the Cataclysm?"

"Eastfall, Jeff. It's Eastfall now."

I hope your day is going well.

Population Balancing
Keep in mind Tol Barad is still deep in development, but we do have plans to implement more stringent faction balancing measures than those which exist for Wintergrasp today. We want to have the queue system try to create a battle with as close to a 1:1 team ratio as possible. In other words, if 40 Horde and 150 Alliance players are in the queue, it's going to make the battle somewhere close to 40 vs. 40. There will be a maximum cap of players allowed on each side as there is with Wintergrasp, but there will also be a minimum cap as well. Since the system will be looking for a 1:1 team ratio, the minimum cap will be designed to ensure a battle can't be thrown by a faction if no one shows up. So, say if the minimum cap is 25, there is a chance the battle could be 25 vs. 5.

Because of this new design, it'll be much more beneficial to play on a realm where the faction balance is roughly equivalent rather than seeking a realm where your faction dominates. For this reason we'll continue to monitor faction balance on all realms and work to ensure players enjoy the best gaming experience possible.

[…] Right now the issue with Wintergrasp is it actually encourages the behavior of selecting a realm where your faction dominates. If the reverse becomes true for Tol Barad, that only serves to help improve faction balance rather than further impact it. In Cataclysm it will be more beneficial to be on a realm where your faction is underpopulated (which will lead to a natural trend of balancing out the population), or be on a high-population realm where the maximum Tol Barad cap is reached, or close to reached for each battle.

I hate to ask, but would you explain again how the maximum and minimum caps work, or shall I say how you think they are going to work? I'm a bit confused. 😡
The maximum cap will essentially work the same as it does in Wintergrasp. If there are hundreds of players in the queue for Tol Barad on both sides, the system is not going to overcrowd the zone and make it unplayable. It will create an even match with up to a certain number of players on each side.

The minimum cap is intended to prevent griefing from factions which are extremely underpopulated. For example, if it's 3 in the morning and the Alliance have a very low population on a realm, a single Alliance guild could decide to boycott Tol Barad. If there were no minimum cap with the 1:1 ratio queuing system, this could lead to a situation where Tol Barad ends up being a, say, 3 vs. 3 battle leaving many Horde players locked out. So if we set the minimum cap to 25, it means in this scenario that it would be 3 Alliance vs. 25 Horde. In other words, the underpopulated faction on an imbalanced realm can't fully dictate the battle size of Tol Barad all the way down to 0 participants on either side.

Does this apply to Wintergrasp too?

I just got word that we are planning on implementing this new balancing mechanism for Wintergrasp sometimes shortly after the next Wrath of the Lich King minor content patch. So you'll get a chance to see it in action and provide us with feedback prior to the launch of Cataclysm!

So in cliff note form: With the minimum cap is 25, if 25 Horde que and 150 alliance que, the battle will be 25 vs 25.
And if 25 Horde que, and 10 alliance que, will it then just 10 v 10 or 25 v 10?

Your first example is correct. For your second example, the battle would be 25 Horde vs. 10 Alliance.

1) Will Tol'Barad flag players between battles on PvE servers? Please say yes!
2) Will flying mounts be disabled in the zone when the battle isn't taking place?

The current plan is for Tol Barad to function like Wintergrasp with regard to your questions. So it will be a PvP zone at all times and flight will be disabled once the battle begins.

As an update to the original announcement, there will be two tiers of PvP weapons in Cataclysm. The lower tier weapons will correspond in quality to items found in the latest raid tier on normal difficulty and cost only Conquest Points. The higher tier weapons will correspond in quality to items found in the latest raid tier on Heroic difficulty and will have a minimum personal rating requirement in addition to costing Conquest Points. All of the highest-stat PvP armor, including shoulder and head pieces, will cost only Conquest Points and have no rating requirements. We have updated our original announcement text to reflect this clarification.

To ensure all participants in the Arena Tournament have the best experience possible, there will be a zero-tolerance policy for any inappropriate character or Arena team names created on the Arena Tournament realm.

Characters with inappropriate names will be deleted. This means that you will need to customize another template from scratch and re-earn all personal and hidden ratings. Keep in mind that in a later phase of the Arena Tournament team rosters will be locked down. If your character is deleted during this time, no exceptions will be made and your team will need to use whoever is left on that roster in order to continue competing.

Arena teams with names deemed inappropriate will be dissolved. This means that you will need to create another charter for your team and climb back up from a rating of zero.

Please think twice before naming your characters and Arena teams!

Buff Homogenization
We really don't want the buffs and debuffs you bring to be the reason you get a spot in the raid. We hate the thought of kicking a good player for a bad player because the latter provides so much of a dps increase to everyone else. We hate the thought of not being able to raid with your friends because playing raid buff Tetris is more important to your success.

Raid buffs and debuffs exist for two main reasons:

1) They encourage you to bring a diversity of classes and specs rather than stacking whatever is highest dps at the moment.
2) They make you feel more powerful in a group than when you're solo. For an MMO, WoW is pretty soloable, so we like for it to feel really awesome when you're in a group.

Whenever we read "Without my buff, there is no reason for a group to take me," our typical response is: awesome. You'll have to figure out another reason why they should take you. Whenever we read that a particular buff is the driving decisions behind why you took one player over another, then we know we still have some work to do.

There will be more buff / debuff consolidation in Cataclysm. I look forward to the day when the raid buff everyone brings dominates less of the forum discussion. (Source)

Personal Rating removal on PvP Weapons in Cataclysm
This is the kind of thing that we're likely to iterate on a lot before Cataclysm and the new PvP season go live, but it will probably be something like those PvP weapons the same ilevel as raid weapons will require no rating but a lot of Conquest points, while those PvP weapons the same ilevel as the HEROIC raid weapons will require a rating of some kind.

We want everyone who is interested in PvP to have a reasonable shot of getting decent gear so they can actually compete. We also want to still offer rewards to those players who are the best of the best at PvP. We don't want everyone just dying their way to the most powerful weapons in the game.

When we've settled on and are ready to talk about ilevels, then it will be easier to have a discussion about actual numbers and not just goals. (Source)

Druid (Forums / Talent Calculator)
Spamming Wild Growth
I addressed this with my first post in this thread (I think). We could just make the mana cost so high that it's prohibitive to spam. What could very well happen though is healers spam it anyway, run out of mana, and then say there's no way for them to heal without using the spell and that the mana cost is just too high. You can argue that's still the right answer anyway. I concede that that might be the way we go.

In the case of say Flash Heal vs. Heal, there's a pretty clear alternative. There isn't a clear alternative to Wild Growth other than just tab targeting Rejuv on several different people. Nor are we crazy about giving druids yet another heal to be the fast, inefficient AE so WG can be the efficient AE. We think it's better just to design an environment in which you don't need to AE heal as often and get a chance to use your other heals in the meantime.

To those players who say they don't want to cast a lot of different spells, I'm a little perplexed as to what you thought you were getting into with the Resto druid. Surely you thought there would come a day when we'd try to make those other spells attractive again or else cut them. (Source)

Hunter (Forums / Talent Calculator)
Hunter rotations
Yeah, I would describe the Feral "rotation" as more of a prioritization. Instead of the player just hitting 123123, they have to make the best decision for their resources at that moment. Feral druids are rarely "starved for resources" unless it's an unusual fight like Vezax. There is almost always a button they can push and the decision is whether to push a cheaper button now or wait a sec or two to push a stronger button.

That's more of how we see the hunter playing. If hunters don't use about the same number of shot that they do now, then we've failed. What will feel different is that you won't hit long stretches of being out of mana.

It's definitely possible that the long term cooldown abilities won't cost any focus. You shouldn't have to bank part of your bar for emergencies.

My apologies if you just really liked mana as a mechanic. For us, and for plenty of hunters — because they told us constantly — mana just never fit the hunter class. You're firing arrows, not winding up big spells. (Source)

Warrior (Forums / Talent Calculator)
Warrior AE Tanking
For me it comes down to whether warriors can AE tank or not. The impression I'm getting from a lot of these posts (though not yours) is a lot of warriors can AE tank okay but just want it to be easier. "Easier" is something you have to be very careful about. If you're making it easier because it's currently frustrating then it might be a good change. If you're making it easier because it's currently challenging, then it might be a bad change. Those aren't easy conditions to untangle though, because for some players any failure to win (or sometimes even a failure to be efficient) is frustrating.

Regardless, as I said before, given that we don't expect tanks to be doing a lot of AE tanking, we're not sure they need a ton of abilities solely devoted to AE tanking. If warriors truly can't AE tank, then we'd rather make the tools they have work rather than trying to add Whirlwind as yet another button on your tanking bar.

Given that warriors generally seem to be able to AE tank fine today (and in fact could AE tank fine back in BC when the tools were even less AE-friendly) and given that there will be fewer oppo…

After years in exile, the Darkspear trolls are preparing to invade the Echo Isles and reclaim the land once bestowed to them by Thrall. Led by Vol'jin, a wise and highly regarded Darkspear, the tribe's bravest warriors will set out from Orgrimmar and Sen'jin Village, seeking to bring about Zalazane's fall and begin the process of rebuilding their homes and villages on the Echo Isles. In World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, new troll adventurers will begin their journey on these tiny islands off the coast of Durotar, where they'll be able to experience this time of trial and transition firsthand.

Though the Darkspears may once again have their land, the tribe's turmoil is far from over. The impending cataclysm will spark rivalry among the Horde leadership, and after years of running from a seemingly endless string of conflicts to preserve the Darkspear nation, Vol'jin is done fleeing. The Darkspears have reclaimed their islands and have no intention of settling elsewhere. Of course, as an untested member of the tribe, you'll have some training to do before tackling the Darkspears' larger matters.

Every great hero starts somewhere. As a troll of the Echo Isles, the journey begins with safeguarding your people's well-being. Early in your adventures, you'll be charged with protecting the local Bloodtalon raptors and hatchlings from the sorcery of a nearby sea witch, slaying the beasts that feast upon the Darkspears' primary food sources, and assaulting the naga who've overrun the northern isle. But it won't be long before Vol'jin trusts you with vital — and potentially dangerous — information about the political struggles plaguing the Horde and, ultimately, the fellow members of your tribe.

In World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, you'll face these trials and more in the trolls' new and enhanced introductory questing experience (level 1 to 5). Be steadfast and honorable, and your actions will help usher in a new era of Darkspear perseverance in a time of ultimate peril.

This is exactly what we are working on implementing with Battle.net and real-life friends. You'll be able to add friends at the Battle.net account level and talk to them while in-game whether they're on the opposing faction, a different realm, or another Blizzard game entirely. This is coming prior to Cataclysm.

[…] No one outside of your faction on your realm will be able to communicate with you unless you accept their friend request, or they accept yours. You will still have your normal World of Warcraft Friends list, but we'll be adding in the ability to have Battle.net players on your Friends list as well. The characters on your Friends list will allow the same communication functionality which exists today. It's only when you've confirmed someone as a Battle.net friend that you can take advantage of the additional communication features.

We'll get more into that soon, but it's safe to say in advance that you shouldn't accept a Battle.net friend request from anyone you don't know, similar to Facebook or other social networking media.

Along those lines, will it be possible to un-friend people from this list? Just because I accepted them as a friend at one point doesn't mean I'm interested in giving them info on me for the rest of my time with Blizzard.
Definitely.

I'll probably have to wait until then for an answer, but just in case: Does the Battle.net communication methods include private chat rooms with several friends at once? (And, even more specifically, persistent ones that will be autojoined upon logging in?)
Private chat rooms are something to consider for the future of the system. Initially you will be able to invite up to five friends into a conversation.

Please add the option to ignore someone's entire Battle.net account as well. I for one am sick and tired of ignore listing someone only to get bombarded with "f**k u" tells from 5-10 level 1 alts.
We would like to do this in the future, but it likely won't be ready at release. You can block a Battle.net account, but that won't block all characters on that account's World of Warcraft license from messaging you. It's a technical limitation between the two systems which we'd like to overcome in time.

Here are some clarifications to some common concerns we're seeing:

So this means that at some point I'm encouraged to stop playing because I know my current valor will convert to hero and I'll have a huge stockpile of points which I can then just use to buy the set I'd be after anyway.
Our basic model throughout Wrath of the Lich King has been that you can get the shiny hotness now, or wait until it “goes on sale” next tier. In this example the set one would be after would be the old set and everyone else would be pursuing the new set.

People should have to progress through more than just two tiers!
They will, just not at the 4.0 stage. All we’re really doing with the badges is removing the need to keep adding new types every tier, which proved confusing.

What is the valor total cap? (a little more than double the highest item point cost?)
We haven’t made that determination yet. It will be something in line with how Honor works today; that is you can save up for expensive things but can’t have so many points that you can just rush out and get everything all at once and be done.

What is the valor weekly cap?
We haven’t made that determination yet. We want to pick a number such that you don’t feel compelled to complete all of the content every week just for points if you choose not to.

What's the system/time between when a new raid is released and points are converted?
Probably almost simultaneously. The points will be converted before new loot appears on the vendors.

Why are rating requirements being removed?
The current system has a touch of the rich-get-richer syndrome where players who lack the ratings can’t get the most competitive gear and feel like they have no hope of competing. Better players will still gear up much more quickly because they will have more points to spend. Rating requirements on, for example, weapons was pretty unpopular in the community.

And won't this bring back the issues of people gearing weapons through PvP for raiding?
PvP equipment spends a chunk of its budget on resilience so it’s always going to be sub-optimal for PvE compared to equivalent raiding gear. We don’t mind players using PvP gear in PvE (or vice versa) as long as it’s a stepping stone towards getting more appropriate gear.

Why not have a 'heroic' equivalent for PvP gear?
We are still tweaking item levels, but the basic concept is that there is the current season and there is the previous season. In this first season there is no previous season, so we also have to provide the “Honor gear.” That is supposed to be roughly equivalent to the pre-raiding tier that you’ll want for PvE before you begin raiding.

Essentially all of the PvE changes together seem aimed to disincentivize 25s, is there some reasoning as to why 25s are no longer being encouraged?
Our goal through Wrath of the Lich King was that players could choose 10 or 25 as a personal preference. We think we missed that mark though. Because 25s still provided more powerful rewards, it felt like that was the “real” raiding, and 10s were what you did on off-nights, or if you just couldn’t stomach the logistics of recruiting or pugging 10 more players. We know there are a lot of players out there who just prefer to raid 10s but felt like we didn’t deliver on our promise to let them just raid 10s. The Cataclysm model is to let players raid 10s or 25s as they see fit. There are advantages and disadvantages to both raid sizes. The larger raids can feel more epic, yet the smaller ones tend to have less loot drama because there is less competition per item that drops. The smaller raids in some sense are more hardcore, because there are fewer opportunities to include novice raiders or folks who just aren’t carrying their weight.

We understand that changes like this can cause social upheaval and we didn’t make the decision lightly. The community was similarly concerned when we removed 40-player raids (and we literally did remove those; today we’re just offering an alternative to the larger raids). We think there is a non-trivial audience of players who prefer the 25-player raids and we’re going to continue to support them. We tried many different raiding models in Wrath of the Lich King with regard to Heroic modes and lockouts, and rest assured that if we don’t like how the 4.0 raiding game evolves that we will revisit it for 4.1.

The term 'points' is not RP enough for PvE
This is a legitimate concern and something we struggled with. On the other hand, one of the problems we kept running into with the current badges was granularity — you can’t offer half a badge the way you can offer 1, 3 or 5 points. Depending on your perspective, you can argue that your character “earning”; valor for defeating an enemy makes more sense in the game world than the dragon having all of these badges on its corpse.

AE'ing your way through instances
Right. You shouldn't be AE'ing every pull in the Cataclysm version of Naxxramas, at least until the Cataclysm version of Ulduar is available.

Players were wiping in the heroic dungeons more, up until they had all of their easy Naxx loot, at which point they could blast through the heroics.

There will still be some AE pulls. AE pulls are fun and they give you a chance to use some different abilities. But what we want is variety so that you actually stop to think about whether the next pull requires single-target, CC or AE (or some mix) rather than doing the same thing every time. (Source)

Healing Spells
Spells need to be distinct in order to have a reason for players to cast them. If spell A healed the same and cost the same as spell B, then what is the point of B? Spells without cooldowns generally can't be as powerful as spells with cooldowns, or else you would never have a reason to use the latter. It would be easy to make a 1 min cooldown heal that was overpowered. It would also be easy to make a 1 min cooldown heal that was useless. The challenge is in making that spell something you're happy to cast when available, and ideally not the second it's available but when it's the most useful.

I know some players can't see beyond "nerf!" and there's not much I'm going to be able to do to change their minds. Other healers will hopefully understand that the goal is to make healing more interesting and fun for them by letting them choose which of their many heals to use instead of having one heal that can solve so many different problems. Sometimes you literally need to heal 5 or 6 pla…

We have increased the potency of the Strength of Wrynn and Hellscream’s Warsong buffs in Icecrown Citadel by an additional 5%. These buffs now increase total health, healing done and damage dealt by 15%. In addition, the number of attempts allotted for all final bosses on Heroic difficulty has been increased to 45.

We're continuing to refine the badge/emblem and PvP point systems in Cataclysm and we'd like to share some of those changes with you today. Please enjoy!

Our primary goal when approaching badges in Cataclysm is to address a lot of the confusion that comes with these currency systems. To that end we're changing badges to a more straightforward point system, similar to the ones we've used for a while for Arenas and Battlegrounds. There will be a total of four types of points you can earn in Cataclysm (two for PvE and two for PvP), and these will remain the same even as we introduce new content.

Here's the breakdown:

PvE

• Hero Points — Low-tier, easier-to-get PVE points. Maximum cap to how many you can own, but no cap to how quickly you can earn them. Earned from most dungeons. (most like the current Emblem of Triumph)
• Valor Points — High-tier, harder-to-get PvE points. Maximum cap to how many you can own, as well as a cap to how many you can earn per week. Earned from Dungeon Finder daily Heroic and from raids. (most like the current Emblem of Frost)

PvP

• Honor Points — Low-tier, easier-to-get PVP points. There will be a maximum cap to how many you can own, but no cap to how quickly you can earn them. Earned from most PvP activities.
• Conquest Points — High-tier, harder-to-get PvP points. There will be a maximum cap to how many you can own, and a cap to how many you can earn per week. Earned from winning Rated Battlegrounds or Arenas. (currently called Arena Points)

When a new tier of raiding gear is released or a new PvP season begins, your higher tier of points will be converted into the lower tier. For instance, if a new tier of raid gear is released, your Valor points will be converted to Hero points, and similarly if a new PvP season begins your Conquest points will be converted to Honor points. Of course that means with these new releases you'll always begin without any of the higher tier of points, and thus be unable to stockpile them.

As noted for Conquest points, the Rated Battlegrounds and Arenas will be sharing this same point type. Because of that, it will in fact be possible to get the best PvP items without setting foot in Arena; however, more powerful armor and weapons will of course require more Conquest points, so players who win their matches more often will still gear up faster. We're removing personal rating requirements on almost all items; they're definitely removed for weapons. We might offer a few items to the absolute best players based on personal rating, largely as cosmetic or 'bragging rights' type items. And you'll have the option of purchasing the previous season’s gear with the more readily available Honor points.

We do plan to have a way to convert Honor points (PvP) into Hero points (PvE), and vice versa, at a loss. The conversions will be possible, but it won't be a 1:1 rate, and you'll have fewer points after the conversion process. We won't allow the higher tiers to be exchanged for each other, however.

To explain the reasoning for the weekly cap on points for the higher tiers, this is to provide flexibility in how players choose to earn the points without feeling like they have to do all of the content as often as it is available. If your Valor income from raiding is sufficient, you may not feel the need to run Dungeon Finder every night, or perhaps even at all. Likewise, a PvP player could choose to participate in a lot of Rated Battlegrounds but no Arenas, or focus on both, and still be able to earn the points they want.

We realize that with any changes to progression pathways there are going to be questions. We're eagerly awaiting any that we may have left unanswered. To the comments!

Time is running out for those who wish to claim their Zhevra, as the launch of the X-53 Touring Rocket is now scheduled for tomorrow, Tuesday, April 27! If you’ve fulfilled all of the Recruit-A-Friend requirements necessary to claim a mount now but choose not to claim the Zhevra, you will be able to claim the X-53 Touring Rocket instead once it launches. Sounds like they’re firing it up for a final test run now….

You can find the original announcement here: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/hread.html?topicId=24038460723&sid=1

We're continuing to refine the raid progression paths in Cataclysm, and we'd like to share some of those changes with you today. Please enjoy!

The first of the refinements being made is that we're combining all raid sizes and difficulties into a single lockout. Unlike today, 10- and 25-player modes of a single raid will share the same lockout. You can defeat each raid boss once per week per character. In other words, if you wanted to do both a 10- and 25-person raid in a single week, you’d need to do so on two different characters. Normal versus Heroic mode will be chosen on a per-boss basis in Cataclysm raids, the same way it works in Icecrown Citadel. Obviously the raid lockout change doesn't apply in pure Icecrown terms though, as this change goes hand-in-hand with a few other changes to raid progression in Cataclysm.

We're designing and balancing raids so that the difficulty between 10- and 25-player versions of each difficulty will be as close as possible to each other as we can achieve. That closeness in difficulty also means that we'll have bosses dropping the same items in 10- and 25-player raids of each difficulty. They'll have the same name and same stats; they are in fact the exact same items. Choosing Heroic mode will drop a scaled-up version of those items. Our hope is that players will be able to associate bosses with their loot tables and even associate specific artwork with specific item names to a far greater extent than today.

Dungeon Difficulty and Rewards

• 10 and 25-player (Normal difficulty) — Very similar to one another in difficulty; drop the exact same items as each other.
• 10 and 25-player (Heroic difficulty) — Very similar to one another in difficulty; drop more powerful versions of the normal-difficulty items.

We of course recognize the logistical realities of organizing larger groups of people, so while the loot quality will not change, 25-player versions will drop a higher quantity of loot per player (items, but also badges, and even gold), making it a more efficient route if you're able to gather the people. The raid designers are designing encounters with these changes in mind, and the class designers are making class changes to help make 10-person groups easier to build. Running 25-player raids will be a bit more lucrative, as should be expected, but if for a week or two you need to do 10s because half the guild is away on vacation, you can do that and not suffer a dramatic loss to your ability to get the items you want.

We recognize that very long raids can be a barrier for some players, but we also want to provide enough encounters for the experience to feel epic. For the first few raid tiers, our plan is to provide multiple smaller raids. Instead of one raid with eleven bosses, you might have a five-boss raid as well as a six-boss raid. All of these bosses would drop the same item level gear, but the dungeons themselves being different environments will provide some variety in location and visual style, as well as separate raid lockouts. Think of how you could raid Serpentshrine Cavern and Tempest Keep separately, but you might still want to hit both every week.

We do like how gating bosses over time allows the community to focus on individual encounters instead of just racing to the end boss, so we’re likely to keep that design moving forward. We don't plan to impose attempt limitations again though, except maybe in cases of rare optional bosses (like Algalon). Heroic mode may not be open from day one, but will become available after defeating normal mode perhaps as little as once or twice.

In terms of tuning, we want groups to be able to jump into the first raids pretty quickly, but we also don’t want them to overshadow the Heroic 5-player dungeons and more powerful quest rewards. We’ll be designing the first few raid zones assuming that players have accumulated some blue gear from dungeons, crafted equipment, or quest rewards. In general, we want you and your guild members to participate in and enjoy the level up experience.

We design our raids to be accessible to a broad spectrum of players, so we want groups to be able to make the decision about whether to attempt the normal or Heroic versions of raids pretty quickly. The goal with all of these changes is to make it as much of a choice or effect of circumstance whether you raid as a group of 10 or as a group of 25 as possible. Whether you're a big guild or a small guild the choice won't be dependent on what items drop, but instead on what you enjoy the most.

We realize that with any changes to progression pathways there are going to be questions. We're eagerly awaiting any that we may have left unanswered. To the comments!

Here are some clarifications to a few common questions we're seeing.

Regarding how the raid dungeons will share the same lockout. This means that you cannot do separate instances in the same week. If you defeat an encounter in 10 player normal mode then you are locked to the 10 player mode of that dungeon for that week and can flip between 10 player normal and 10 player heroic on a per boss basis (assuming heroic is available). In this scenario you cannot do the 25 player version. Is this correct?

Correct. There should be no circumstances under which you kill a boss more than once per week on the same character. However, in the same way that you can decide on a per-boss basis whether to try normal vs. hard mode, we might allow you to change between 10 and 25 on a per-encounter basis for additional flexibility. If you started a raid in 25-player mode and then found that you couldn’t get everyone together later in the week, you might be able to downsize the next few bosses to 10-player.

Will legendary items be available through 10 player dungeons? How about special mounts like Invincible?

In some of these specific cases, the answer is that we just don’t know yet. We’re going to have to walk a fine line between dropping the same items in both 10- and 25-player modes, versus still offering something extra for the 25s. If we over-reward the 25s, then players who like 10-player raiding will still feel compelled to find more warm bodies. If we don’t provide any extra incentive for 25s, then some players may stop playing with their friends in order to avoid the extra organization required for a large raid.

Overall, our goal is that you make the decision between whether to raid with 10 players or 25 players based on what you find fun and not because of the reward structure.

For perspective, it might help to look back at how we changed lockouts and hard modes on every single raid tier of Wrath of the Lich King to see what felt right and try to fix problems that arose from previous tiers. After seeing the first tier of Cataclysm raiding, we may decide to adjust our design for the next tier.

How many pieces of loot will drop for 10 and 25 player modes respectively?

When we say “25 should drop more loot,” we’re just sharing a philosophy. You shouldn’t assume that this means that 10-player modes will drop 1 item or that 25-player modes will drop 6 items, or whatever. We haven’t finalized how much loot will drop, but our general goal is that 25s should drop more to help make up for some of the logistical cost.

Will achievements be broken down by 10/25 modes? Will realm first achievements/titles be only for 25s? Will meta-achievement mounts be available for both versions still?

There will just be raid achievements, not 10- vs. 25-player versions in most cases. The achievement won’t care if you complete it in 10s or 25s. If we do meta-achievement mounts, it’s possible we’d still have different colors of mounts, or maybe even different mounts; but for some players that might mean that 25s feels mandatory again, which would be a potential problem. This is the kind of thing we’re going to have to consider carefully, and again, we might try a few different implementations before sticking with something we like.

We’re also not sure about realm first achievements or titles. We don’t want to encourage, say, 25-player focused guilds to run a 10-player raid instead because they think that will get them the ream first title faster. One potential solution is you can earn a realm first title in 10 or 25, but not both. These types of achievements also serve as great content for guild achievements.