Enter Zul'Aman

Regular raiders can look forward to Zul'Aman, a new instance coming down the pipeline in Blizzard's upcoming World of Warcraft patch. Located in the southwestern region of the Ghostlands, Zul'Aman will be a 10-man level 70 raid. With its intimate party size and lack of any attunement or reputation requirements, Zul'Aman seems designed to provide smaller raiding parties and guilds burnt out on Karazhan with some fresh stomping grounds.

Above: Quests may be picked up outside Zul'Aman's main entrance in the southwestern region of the Ghostlands

With a lush outdoor landscape and trolls drunk on their misuse of magic, Zul'Aman also appears to be a spiritual successor to the 20-man raid instance, Zul'Gurub. The head honcho in this new instance will be the Amani chief, Zul'Jin. With his powerful mojo, Zul'Jin has trapped the nearby forest spirits of the bear, the eagle, the lynx, and the dragonhawk in his minions, making for a foursome of furious half-troll-half-beast boss fights before the final showdown.

But it's the attention to the little details - not the lore - that has us excited about this fresh zone. "There's more scripting in the [Zul'Aman] to give the dungeon a more dynamic feel," explained lead level designer, Cory Stockton as he showed off some of the quirkier things players will see in the new instance. In less technical terms, this amounts to designing Zul'Aman so monsters aren't just empty shells, waiting to spawn and be killed.

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