Major Ulduar testing news: PTR soon, not all bosses available
Quite big news from Daelo, the lead encounter designer concerning the release and testing of Ulduar. First and foremost, Daelo says that we're getting close to the point where Ulduar will be available for testing on the PTR. That means that PTR is soon, and given the maintenance today and other majorannouncements, I wouldn't be surprised at all to see it tonight.
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
They will be testing both 10-man and 25-man versions of the instance, so everyone will get a chance to test the new content.
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.
