In the next patch a new feature will be become available that will give players the option to extend the instance lock, or instance ID of a raid or heroic dungeon. It will be possible to extend an instance lock more than once and each extension will grant an additional amount of time equal to the duration of the original instance lock. In other words, you'd gain 24-hours if you chose to extend the instance lock of a heroic dungeon, whereas you'd gain 7-days by extending the lock on Ulduar. Additionally, extending an instance lock is a choice that's solely up to each individual, and is not controlled by the group's party or raid leader. This new option is being added as a means to allow parties and raids to progress through an instance at their chosen pace, and should prove to be a useful option available when the patch is released.

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Q u o t e:
What guilds don't realize though, apparently, is by keeping the lockout stretched, you never get back to the bosses that you CAN kill. Which means your raid doesn't progress stat-wise, which just might be what is keeping you stuck and extending the raid lock in the first place.

I'm not sure this is a good idea.

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I'm not sure how you'd figure having new options in addition to what's currently available is a bad thing. As for your example, sometimes a guild doesn't need loot off of the bosses they can kill, and would rather spend time practicing on the bosses that they can't kill. Even if your raid needs some gear, it might be considered a good option to sacrifice the week's loot to gain an edge on progression.

Sometimes you need to take one step back to be able to take two steps forward.

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Q u o t e:
- if the Raid leader locks himself into the Raid for an additional week, does it set the flag for everyone on the team? and that the individual users have to turn it off?

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If the raid leader extends his ID, it won't automatically extend the instance ID for everyone who was in the raid. Each player will have to extend the ID his or her self. If the ID expires before it is extended, players can still view their most recent expired ID for the particular instance and extend it.

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Q u o t e:

- if some of the raiders lock it out, because the raid leader says too, but the raid leader changes his mine (for what ever reason) is there a way for people to unlock them selves post Tuesday?
as in, Opps, sorry, you didn't get the memo, you cant raid this week because your locked out in a mostly cleared instance?

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Let's say you clear roughly half of Ulduar, but your guild is struggling with the last half because you don't get enough time to practice each week after taking the time to clear the beginning of the instance. So Monday night the raid leader instructs everyone to extend their IDs. Tuesday maintenance happens and everyone who extended the instance ID for Ulduar have an extra week to continue clearing the instance.

Now even though your ID is extended, you're not technically locked to the instance for the week. You have to go into the instance and do something that would save you to the instance. If the raid leader changes his mind and decides starting at the beginning again for more chance at loot is the best thing to do for that week, players can go and revert the ID extension provided they did nothing that second week to re-lock themselves to the instance.

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Q u o t e:
- with all the griefing in the past of people getting falsely locked into raid ID's is there an avenue for people to reset the instance ID if they get tricked into getting an ID they dont want?

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I'm not too sure what you mean. If you go into an instance with a group that has an extended ID, you should notice pretty quickly that it's not a fresh instance. You shouldn't be saved immediately upon zoning into the instance. As I mentioned above, you have to do something to save yourself to that instance first. If I'm wrong about this, then a warning should pop up upon zoning as it does now warning you that you will be saved to the instance so you have a chance to leave.

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Q u o t e:
- I ASSUME that as long as the raid leader locks our the instance, and everyone join's into his instance, we will be all at the same point? every raid member doesnt need to have to do this? there is a Leroy prevention clause right?

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If I understand you correctly, I believe you have it right.

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Q u o t e:


So does this mean I could do the following?

My guild is working on Yogg-Saron. We spend all week clearing to him, and on Monday, we extend our locks so we have all next week to work on him. Tuesday maintenance happens, and then we spend all the next week grinding on yogg, but don't manage to kill him (thus not re-saving ourselves). On Monday, since we've not downed a single boss in the extended lock, can we revert our lock, and re-clear the instance?

Edit: Oh yay! my first first!

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After some discussion with our development staff, we've clarified that the current functionality of ID extensions shouldn't allow you to do this. If the raid leader has extended his ID and you zone into the instance with him, you should be prompted with the warning that you will be saved to the instance. In other words, it functions exactly as it would if you were to zone into an instance right now when the raid leader already has an instance ID after clearing the first couple of bosses any time since Tuesday's maintenance.

We are considering the functionality you've suggested above, however, it likely will not be ready for patch 3.2.

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Q u o t e:
When a 2 day a week guild (like ours) wants to extend, just a few do it in case one is out, and when it's time to raid next week, everyone who enters the instance is asked "Do you want to be saved to this raid ID"?

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Based on the aforementioned development discussion, this is how it should function. We're still having our quality assurance department verify on the test realms the exact functionality and correct any existing bugs.

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Q u o t e:
So basically only the raid leader needs to extend their ID while everyone else who ends up raiding for the next week can just re-save to the one they were saved with before when they join the RL's instance?

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As I understand it that is correct. Of course you should still be warned that you're going to be saved to the instance.

Just to reiterate though, we're still going through the testing process and all of this information is subject to change.