Pre-made 80s Available in Lich King Beta (PC)
New Naxxramas dungeon opening soon.
By GameSpy Staff | Sept. 5, 2008

Beta testers for Blizzard's upcoming World of Warcraft expansion pack Wrath of the Lich King got an unexpected surprise today. Level 80 pre-made characters were made available for all players in order to test high-level content. While not a major announcement in itself, this was coupled with a few new details about the new Naxxramas dungeon that will apprently be "opening soon" on the beta realms. Until now, there has been no end-game content for beta players to test, leading to speculation that Blizzard is entering the final stages of its beta test program and the expansion may be close to release.

Naxxramas, the floating undead necropolis that was home to the lich Kel'Thuzard, was widely considered the most difficult pre-Burning Crusade instance and impossible if a character didn't have powerful equipment from lesser dungeons as well as considerable damage-resistance enchantments. It was also the last 40-man instance prior to Blizzard's shift in design emphasis to 10 and 25-man dungeons. As a result, many players prior to the release of the first expansion pack never managed to get inside to see some of the best content in the game. Perhaps in response to this complaint, Blizzard decided to move the instance to the new continent of Northrend where it will become the first piece of level 80 "endgame" content.


According to an official post on the World of Warcraft forums, the development team is making some signifcant changes to the dungeon to take more powerful characters and an advancing storyline into account. While old trash mobs will be returning, there will also be new ones. The number of trash mobs has been reduced a bit to speed progression through the instance and the so-called "Heigan gauntlet" has had its difficult considerably reduced and the time to clear his room shortened.


Source: http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/world-of-warcraft-wrath-of-the-lich-king/908185p1.html