Patch 5.2 interview with Dave Kosak
Inside an old alt's vault
The latest patch 5.2 news
All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsIcecrown raid access progression
by Adam Holisky 
Nov 18th 2009 at 12:25PM
- Icecrown Citadel is going to be broken up into four distinct sections: The Lower Spire, Plagueworks, Crimson Hall, and Frostwing Halls. We plan on releasing these four sections of Icecrown Citadel over time and not all immediately when patch 3.3.0 goes live.
- The first section that opens will include the Lord Marrowgar, Lady Deathwhisper, Icecrown Gunship Battle, and Deathbringer Saurfang encounters. "Several weeks" until the next encounters become available.
- Players may not attempt any Heroic versions of 10 player encounters until they have defeated the Lich King in a 10 player raid. The same goes for 25 mans. This means no heroic Icecrown until after the Lich King is defeated, which will apparently be, at the earliest, in a couple of months.
- The four most difficult bosses have a limited number of attempts on them each week. Once those attempts are gone, you have to wait another week to try again.
- There will be no explicit rewards for defeating the Lich King with a specific number of attempts remaining as there was with Trial of the Grand Crusader. There will also not be an achievement to complete Icecrown Citadel without being defeated by a boss encounter, or letting a raid member die. (i.e. A Tribute to Insanity).
- In the weeks and months after all twelve encounters are unlocked, additional attempts against the final four boss encounters become available.
- Over time, after all bosses are defeated, players will begin to get a buff, making defeating bosses easier.
The full statement after the break.
The full statement from Daelo:
Icecrown Citadel testing has been progressing very well over the last few weeks, and this has been a huge help to the encounter design team. I want to thank everyone who has logged onto the PTR and tried the encounters there.
As we're now getting closer to the release of 3.3.0, I wanted to talk about our plans for access progression within Icecrown Citadel. Icecrown Citadel is going to be broken up into four distinct sections: The Lower Spire, Plagueworks, Crimson Hall, and Frostwing Halls. We plan on releasing these four sections of Icecrown Citadel over time and not all immediately when patch 3.3.0 goes live. At this point I can't give precise dates for these release dates as they are determined by when patch 3.3.0 goes live. Once dates are known with more certainty, I'll update the community so they can plan appropriately.
The first section that opens will include the Lord Marrowgar, Lady Deathwhisper, Icecrown Gunship Battle, and Deathbringer Saurfang encounters. Progress beyond that point will be prevented for several weeks. Then the Plagueworks will open with Rotface, Festergut, and Professor Putricide becoming available. After another period of time, the Crimson Hall will open and you can then fight the Blood Princes and Blood-Queen Lana'thel. The final Frostwing Halls unlock then occurs after that, making Valithria Dreamwalker, Sindragosa, and the Lich King available. We believe a staggered release of the content will allow players to experience Icecrown Citadel at a sustainable, measured, and ultimately more enjoyable pace.
There are other elements that gate access along the way. Players may not attempt any Heroic versions of 10 player encounters until they have defeated the Lich King in a 10 player raid. Similarly, players must defeat the Lich King in a 25 player raid before they can attempt a Heroic 25 player encounter. So players must master every normal difficulty encounter in Icecrown Citadel before attempting Heroic difficulty.
The Lich King may not be attempted until Professor Putricide, Blood-Queen Lana'thel, and Sindragosa are defeated. Furthermore, the Heroic difficulty of The Lich King encounter may not be attempted in any week unless the three aforementioned encounters have been defeated in Heroic difficulty that week.
The Ashen Verdict provides reinforcements and material for players to assault Icecrown Citadel, but this support is not endless. Raids will have a limited number of attempts total each week to defeat the four most difficult encounters in Icecrown Citadel: Professor Putricide, Blood-Queen Lana'thel, Sindragosa, and the Lich King. As these boss encounters are unlocked, the number of attempts available per week will increase. The initial number of attempts provided for defeating Professor Putricide is only five. When Blood-Queen Lana'thel unlocks, the amount of total attempts remaining will increase to 10. Then when Sindragosa and the Lich King unlock, 15 total attempts will be available to defeat all four bosses. After a raid has exhausted their attempts for the week, the Ashen Verdict must withdraw their support and the four most difficult bosses all despawn and become unavailable for the week. The limited attempt system is a feature of both Normal and Heroic difficulty.
There will be no explicit rewards for defeating the Lich King with a specific number of attempts remaining as there was with Trial of the Grand Crusader. There will also not be an achievement to complete Icecrown Citadel without being defeated by a boss encounter, or letting a raid member die. (i.e. A Tribute to Insanity).
In the weeks and months after all twelve encounters are unlocked, additional attempts against the final four boss encounters become available. This represents the Ashen Verdict growing more powerful and gaining a stronger foothold in Icecrown Citadel. To further help raids, Varian Wrynn and Garrosh Hellscream will begin to provide assistance by inspiring the armies attacking Icecrown Citadel. This is represented as an additional zone wide spell effect applied to all players that will increase their hit points, damage dealt, and healing done. This effect will also increase in effectiveness over time. Players may opt out of the spell's effect if they so wish.
Patch 3.3 is the last major patch of Wrath of the Lich King. With the new Icecrown Citadel 5-man dungeons and 10/25-man raid arriving soon, patch 3.3 will deal the final blow to Arthas. WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.3 will keep you updated with all the latest patch news.Filed under: Patches, News items, Raiding
Reader Comments (Page 4 of 9)
Amak Nov 18th 2009 8:15PM
I LOLed
Orkchop Nov 18th 2009 12:55PM
I like the progressive difficulty. 15 attempts for the last 4 bosses does not sound like a lot. And its nice that eventually everyone, whether they're in a hardcore raiding guild or not, will have a chance to go through see the raid to the end.
nevertree Nov 18th 2009 1:05PM
I'm not gonna complain about this...... i just want to kill the icy bitch :D
Titusx Nov 18th 2009 12:57PM
For all the big hardcore raiders there will always be hard modes, achievement runs and what not to keep them busy. Don't kill the hopes of the many small raiders out there to just go a "see" the game.
You guys can brag about your legendary weapons, tittles, achievements, BiS gear, unique mounts and world/server firsts later. Don't be the guy that feels bad because everyone else got to see the end game and not just those leet few.
A Slave Obeys Nov 18th 2009 12:58PM
That's a perfectly valid point, but consider how long the tops guilds have to wait to experience the encounters designed for them. How does that make any sense?
Tor Nov 18th 2009 5:56PM
I have absolutely zero qualms about you or anyone seeing the content. Your ability to see and experience end-game bosses does not affect me at all. I'm happy for you. Please enjoy.
However, I don't understand why you seem to feel that the converse doesn't hold. Why do you feel that the game is materially improved if I'm personally held back and forbidden from clearing the content as quickly as I'm able to?
It doesn't make the game better for me as a hard-core raider. How does that make the game better for you as a casual? How does my progression affect you at all?
There's lot of different types of people playing WoW. Why shouldn't the hard-cores types be allowed to play the game the way they want to as well? As long as the content doesn't remain so hard that only they can see where's the harm?
A Slave Obeys Nov 18th 2009 12:57PM
For anyone who has a brain and realizes how lazy and insulting this is, head over to mmo-champion and get into the discussion on there. It's actually populated by players, not n00bs who learned how to raid in Naxxramas 10/25 and think that ToC is a well-designed raid.
Jaxal Nov 18th 2009 1:09PM
okay sport.
ross Nov 18th 2009 1:11PM
Yes - we're very sad for you. And boy, you look really MAD about it...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YersIyzsOpc...
Have you calmed down yet?
dpoyesac Nov 18th 2009 1:25PM
I read the first six pages of the discussion on mmo-champion. Some were for it, some were agianst -- in fact, the discussion there was remarkably like the discussion here...
Kind disproves your implicit claim that all the 'good players' hate it and all the 'bad players and n00bs who read wow.com' love it.
Sinthar Nov 19th 2009 6:28AM
Maybe if you stop ranting and insulting everyone that doesnt immediately agree with you with statements such as 'For anyone who has a brain ' you may JUST find out that people do actually prefer NOT to be insulted. You open with that sort of statement and 'oh wot a surprise' your gonna be downrated, its nothing to do with 'fanboys' or 'nubs', just peoples natural dislike of being insulted by someone whos raging. Try it in your local housing estates, in pubs etc, and in my city you'd either be knifed or wake up in hospital (if your lucky). Downrating rude and insulting people is a 'no brainer' for 90% of the population, whether a raider or not, so please take the advice and post more constructively please.
Oh and just before you start raging, and replying, i DO raid, and im not that bad at it. I ceraintly dont expect world or server 1sts, but i will be in the top10%
jam Nov 18th 2009 1:00PM
I guess Cataclysm is still far away, and they don't want another Sunwell situation where they have to do an unplanned raid instance to keep people happy.
Solution -> Artificial content lengthening.
Yeah, this will get downgraded but that's nothing new.
Darthregis Nov 18th 2009 2:27PM
Well, that's usually what drives most people - new content. Sure, it's an artificial speed governor, of sorts, but it should be able to draw out interest right into Cataclysm. That awful lull between 2.4 and WotLK was, well, awful.
Sinthar Nov 19th 2009 6:28AM
actually i think you will find most agree with you. And as you dont actually insult everyone in saying it - i think you will be pleasently surprised with your rating :)
Alanid Nov 18th 2009 1:02PM
The whole releasing the raid in parts every few weeks is so that Icecrown doesn't get totally wiped out in a few weeks by the high end guilds. Please learn to think things through before being a douche.
A Slave Obeys Nov 18th 2009 1:07PM
This is the whole argument here. It's only going to take people a long time to clear this raid because is artificially limiting guilds. So instead of making challenging content, Blizzard has chosen to put up walls to stop progression.
The Gates of Ahn'Qiraj were well done. That was a cool, role-playing based experience. The Sunwell Plateau was a bit of a push, but at least that was balls-to-the-wall difficult. ToC was just absurd and this is the final stages of the decay of raid design.
I understand that they want everyone to have an opportunity to face the Lich King because it's a very important event that this expac is centered around, but they're further alienating players who have been disappointed by their choices so far in this expansion pack. If they want to limit our progress, I think they should have the Heroic versions available from the beginning.
clundgren Nov 18th 2009 2:11PM
Waaaahhh I want the content of a game with over 10 million subscribers to be solely driven by the needs of me and the 2% of players like me. Waaaaaahhhh!
Alanid Nov 18th 2009 7:55PM
A slave Obeys obviously did not read nor understand what I had wrote. Please try again and come back later.
Como Nov 18th 2009 1:15PM
"We believe a staggered release of the content will allow players to experience Icecrown Citadel at a sustainable, measured, and ultimately more enjoyable pace."
I await some blizz fanboy who thinks blizz can do no harm to downgrade me for this, or maybe I will be received positively who knows because it is a legit complaint but.... wow eff you blizz, eff you, eff you. Again you release a raid on a schedule. I was "dealing with" the 5 wks of easy mode for ToGC, plowing through fights blindfolded because you have made easy mode accessible to everyone. Fine I get that, but I can't take on hard modes? Why? Why must you force me to deal with this raid, which for me and my guild will be about the same as blowing through naxx each week in t9. Making hard modes accessible to me has no damn affect on casual players and allows guilds who want to put in the effort to have a challenge. I'm sorry the only reason for this is you know people are going to blow through this and take their expansion breaks now that the current one is "over". You know where I heard that shit before about restrictions that make everything more enjoyable. The f***ing RIAA and MPAA shit that they spew out to make more money.
I'm sorry, I try, try try, to give blizz the benefit of the doubt. I have played their games since before they were blizzard, yea rock and roll racing and lost vikings, but I can't handle this crap anymore. So now I'm stuck doing the same easy shit that we will down in 1 or 2 tries (our guild down easy ToC in 1 shot, 1 shot, 2 shot, 1 shot, 2 shot(sorry if that doesn't make sense and it was horrific doing these same easy fights each week)) because YOU say it will be more enjoyable? GAH my head hurts from all of this. /end rant
Please blizzard stop with this shit that the entire industry thinks it can pull. I'm begging, pleading. I have loved you for so long and I can only find myself saying bad things about you lately. PLEASE!
A Slave Obeys Nov 18th 2009 1:13PM
Join the down-graded party for having a brain. Seriously, I'm with you, mostly. While I'm not a Blizzard die-hard like yourself, I too am a bit frustrated with this development. I feel like Blizzard is just ignoring all those raiders they idolized during TBC.