Dalaran opens. Three new dungeons take shape.

City of Dalaran entered beta testing

The October 8 development notes made the new City of Dalaran dungeon available to test. For our October 9 report, that was the immediate gameplay change behind a broader set of dungeon announcements from the official podcast and PAX Australia.

On the podcast, the developers described both factions entering through the sewers, with different stories for Horde and Alliance. That shared entrance did not mean every aspect of the city was intended to become equally available to both factions. The distinction became important within hours of players exploring the newly opened content.

Dalaran also served as a test of immunity rules. Blizzard discussed complaints from Arcane mages about enemies resisting their main damage type and linked that behavior to the creatures' arcane nature. The practical preparation is to consider your available tools and the group's damage coverage rather than assume every enemy can be approached with the same spell school.

The Horde access correction was a separate issue

On October 9, a Blizzard designer said Horde characters having full access to Dalaran was not intended and that adjustments were likely. Another reply identified Horde Kirin Tor reputation gains as a bug, with a fix already made internally and expected to reach the beta during the week of October 12.

An internal fix and a deployed fix are different states. Our October 9 coverage did not turn that expected rollout into a claim that every live beta character had already been corrected. A player preparing a run needed the dungeon's intended faction story, rather than a promise that the observed access behavior would remain available.

Before setting out, check the City of Dalaran guide for entry preparation, encounters and loot. A boss's summon requirement is separate from the steps needed to enter the instance.

Blackmaw Hold turns an old Azshara landmark into a destination

The podcast connected Blackmaw Hold to the large stone gate labeled Timbermaw Hold in original Azshara. In Forever, that previously inaccessible landmark leads into a dungeon of corrupted furbolgs and demons, with substantial vertical movement.

The developers said level 60 should feel comfortable there, while entry could happen a little earlier. One described its footprint as probably larger than Blackrock Depths, but acknowledged that the comparison had not been directly measured. It is a description of scale, not a verified area calculation or a guarantee about clear time.

The preview placed Blackmaw near the end of leveling and emphasized its vertical layout. It did not include a boss-by-boss walkthrough.

Krol'Dok Stronghold and the hole left in the bridge

At PAX Australia on October 9, Clay Stone discussed Krol'Dok Stronghold, an ogre dungeon in the Riverglades, a new Eastern Kingdoms zone. The intended range was levels 40–45, with a story connected to the Twilight's Hammer. Stone also said the team had begun with six planned new dungeons and ended up building nine.

His playtesting example explained a deliberate obstacle: a hole in a bridge crossed during waves of attacking ogres. Players could usually survive the fall but would have to find a way back up. The team kept the hole as part of the encounter instead of smoothing away the inconvenience.

That example captures the exploration philosophy more clearly than a general promise of difficulty. Positioning and recovering from a mistake can become part of the story a group remembers. The presentation did not name Krol'Dok's bosses or supply a separate beta opening date, so neither belongs in a supposedly complete walkthrough based only on that appearance.

Barrow Deeps and different group sizes

The podcast ended with Barrow Deeps footage. An in-game message identified it as a ten-player instance, and the developers said people familiar with the Warcraft III missions would recognize locations. That provides a concrete group-size reference without requiring guesses from the appearance of the footage.

A separate interview with 4Gamers discussed new ten- and twenty-player instances and single-boss forty-player raids as a way to make larger encounters easier for people to join. Our episode paraphrased that interview with attribution. It did not establish a final lockout schedule, all encounter counts or a fixed release order for every instance.

Maps, summoning stones and attunements

Blizzard said dungeon maps probably would not be added, explaining that a visible map can encourage everyone to follow the shortest route and skip the rest. Summoning stones were also deliberately not functioning as summons: traveling to the dungeon remained part of the intended experience. These were explanations of design direction, with the map statement itself qualified as probable.

Attunements had more specific launch rules. The Onyxia attunement remained per character, while the new raids were not planned to require an attunement merely to enter at launch. The team still expected to use attunements where they fitted later stories. One rule should not be generalized to every dungeon, raid or future release.

The October 8 XP changes sit alongside that approach: approximately 20% more dungeon creature XP and a fix to party level-based penalties, while the earlier cut to the dungeon quest bonus remained. Read the separate XP explainer for the arithmetic. The shared aim in these announcements was to make dungeon visits worthwhile while preserving travel, exploration and a reason to return to the world.