Krol'dok Stronghold Location, story and what Blizzard showed

Krol'dok Stronghold stands in the Riverglades, a new zone on the east coast of the Eastern Kingdoms, next to the Badlands, the Burning Steppes and Redridge Mountains. The zone is for levels 36 to 44. Alliance players fly to Farholde Keep, Horde players to Rog'mar.

The fortress sits on a hill in the zone’s level 42 part, beside Bolder'ok, with Twilight's Shroud (level 44) further on. The run goes up the hill and ends at the top: an early plan sent players up and back down, and the team changed it after playtests.

The game’s files already draw its buildings: on our world map the fortress stands at about 48.6, 26.3, against the border with the Badlands.

Nobody was meant to reach the Riverglades in the beta, though Blizzard said some players got there in large groups.

The in-game map of the Riverglades, as Blizzard showed it. The zone has its own page on our world map, with its places and levels from the game’s files.

At BlizzCon, Blizzard presented it as an enormous outdoor dungeon held by ogres who raid settlements and kidnap people (What’s Next panel, 13:28).

Blizzard wanted a dungeon that feels like the original game. Gnolls came first to mind, then ogres won. For the story the team went to Cho'gall, the two-headed ogre who leads the Twilight's Hammer since the Warcraft strategy games, so Krol'dok is a Twilight's Hammer ogre stronghold. Classic has few ogre buildings besides their mounds, so the team looked at the ogre fortresses of Blade's Edge Mountains, from The Burning Crusade.

The Riverglades are also home to the Brotherhood of the Horse, an Alliance order from the first Warcraft game’s manual. Their insignia is already on the army that crosses the bridge in Forever’s BlizzCon cinematic, while the dwarf and the bear hide.

The game’s files already hold:

• Krol'dok Compound Key and Krol'dok Ogre Key, two keys. The second says “It get job done.”
• Krol'dok Moulding, which begins a quest. The files hold two of them.
• Krol'dok Battlegear, a set of five pieces Blizzard still keeps hidden: see the hidden items.

Blizzard did not name the bosses, but showed five of them: a big ogre in purple, an ogre with two axes, a green-skinned woman between two wolves, a two-headed ogre holding a purple crystal, and a heavy red ogre with one horn.

The encounter designers’ favourite part was writing the ogres’ lines. Two read at PAX: “Bigger rock, bigger stick!” and “Puny! Pathetic! You suffer now!”

On a bridge, the dungeon sends waves of enemies at you, and the bridge has a hole. A player who falls through usually lives and has to find the way back up. The team found the hole in an early playtest and kept it on purpose: “bro, they’re ogres.”

Nobody has filmed inside the dungeon yet. Blizzard’s presentation:

• PAX Australia keynote, October 9, from 1:14:00 (Twitch)

In the same talk, Blizzard said it first planned six new dungeons and built nine.