Hard Boiled

With the upcoming patch that will unveil the Ulduar raid in Northrend, Blizzard is also implementing a new feature called "Hard Boiled", as they so eloquently describe it. Basically this is going to be like difficult mode for the boss encounters in the raid, a bit similar to Sartharion and his three dragons in Obsidion Sanctum. Defeating the boss on Hard Mode is suppose to yield greater rewards than normal.

Apparently in Ulduar there is going to be an optional side boss in the raid named Algalon the Observer. Basically he's Ulduar's version of Nightbane from Karazhan. Not exactly the final boss of the instance, since Yogg-Saron already has that honor, but an extra, deeper challenge for would be raiders.

Algalon the Observer has earned a rather unique nickname in the Blizzard development teams who have dubbed him "Algalon the Raid Destroyer".

A quote from the Blizzard team:

"Hard mode rewards will be the best in the game. With that said, I want to be sure that everyone understands: Hard mode is hard. Some hard modes are harder than others. Then there's Algalon the Raid Destroyer. He feeds off of your tears."

Despite their gross foul ups with PvP and class balance since Patch 3.0, I honostly have to say that Blizzard's attention to the PvE aspect of the game has been really top notch. I could give less than a frozen pile of cat poo about PvP, but hopefully they'll fix class balance enough so that classes that have been neglected (warlocks and rogues) can get back their equal share of the pie. Even so, this raid sounds trully epic, and I can't wait for it.

EDIT: Ok, maybe I'm being a little unfair about the PvP aspect of the game, because Wintergrasp is a pretty cool concept. However, I do say that class balance since 3.0 is a travesty and it needs to be fixed. The game has pretty much been given to Paladins and Death Knights, served nicely on a platinum gilded dinner platter, and players are getting drunk off it. Take it away and alot of them might very well leave, but things are getting not so fun for those of us who like to play other classes. More on that some other time though...