BlizzCon 2010/Dungeons and Raids panel

The Dungeons and Raids panel at BlizzCon 2010 was presented by Cory Stockton, lead content designer, and Scott Mercer, lead encounter designer.

Dungeons and Heroics

Dungeon quests are going to be given inside dungeons in Cataclysm, removing the need to complete long quest lines to complete dungeon quests.

Classic dungeons have been altered to be shorter and less confusing for new players. Some dungeons, like Maraudon and Uldaman, have been split into multiple wings; while others, like Wailing Caverns and Sunken Temple have been trimmed. 2D maps have been added for all dungeons in the game.

Heroic difficulty for Deadmines and Shadowfang Keep is going to be introduced in Cataclysm. The heroic difficulty for those dungeons completes the story of the Westfall and Silverpine Forest zones, allowing you to face Vanessa VanCleef and Lord Godfrey respectively.

Raids

Cataclysm ships with four raid zones:

The number of bosses per zone has been reduced compared to Naxxramas, aiming to allow players to complete a raid zone in one night. The Flexible Raid Lock system saves normal difficulty raid progress to be saved per character, allowing players to complete raids on normal difficulty by joining multiple pickup groups (without letting them to kill the same boss twice).

Patch 4.1.0

Patch 4.1.0 will introduce a new raid zone and a new dungeon:

Firelands Raid: Culminating the story from Mount Hyjal quests, players face Ragnaros, and 6 other bosses, in an outdoor raid set in the elemental plane of fire.
Abyssal Maw Dungeon: A 5-person dungeon set in the elemental plane of water, 4 bosses.

Enhanced Maps

Detailed boss information will be available through the dungeon/raid maps, listing:

A 3D portrait of the boss
Lore background
Abilities
Loot

Q & A

Plans to prevent ninja-looting: More detailed restrictions about which classes can roll on which items will be introduced.
Balancing raid sizes: The intention is to make the encounters the same difficulty across raid sizes, but some bosses may be slightly easier on one than on the other.
Blackrock Depths: Teleporters have been added to the dungeon, similar to Ulduar; likewise, teleporters have been added to Shadowfang Keep, and Deadmines, and are part of the design of Cataclysm dungeons. Graveyards are now closer to the dungeons.
Boss Mechanics: Trying to make mechanics more visual, rather than relying on stacking buffs; introducing encounter-specific "meters" that show things like the Sanity mechanic in Yogg-Saron encounter. Also, aiming to make it easier for players to find out why they died.
Rewards in 10/25-man raids: Bosses drop the same amount of loot per person, but more [Justice Points] in 25-man raids compared to 10-man raids.