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 5 of 9)
ross Nov 18th 2009 1:15PM
Go outside once in a while, Poindexter... look at that big ball of fire in the sky. Maybe you should consider that this is just a videogame.
Of all the people's comments here,.... man, you REALLY need to get laid.
Como Nov 18th 2009 1:18PM
Wow you are the epitimy of troll, or 12 year old. Guess what asshat, I play 12 hours a week, and I'm about to down heroic anub (at least I hope). I am in a nice paying job in Washington, DC, have a nice girl that I'm about to ask to marry, and I get laid all the time. How about instead of making stupid comments taht add nothing to the conversation you try to at least argue why this is a good thing? Really you got nothing? Dumbass at it's finest.
Charlie Nov 18th 2009 1:20PM
I am taking your concern seriously and wish to pose you a question.
Is it better to beat all the content and have nothing to do afterwards? Or to be forced to wait and experience content over a longer period of time?
I don't really have an answer to the question, but I think blizzard believes in the second half. I believe the term is "Delayed Gratification".
Como Nov 18th 2009 1:33PM
Well, I don't know about you I pay a monthly fee, so when I see done content being blocked from me I get a little pissed. So yea I'd rather beat all the content, cancel my sub for a few weeks and enjoy another game while I wait instead of doing the same crap over each week while I pay for it. I believe the term is "money grab"
and if the above post come off as sarcastic...well it is a bit, but not really aimed at you, I am very frustrated where this game has come and where it is headed, and while I hate people who threaten to cancel their subs, I actually and seriously considering it. It sucks =/
Colin Nov 18th 2009 2:54PM
Alright, to be fair I'm not from the states, but what the hell does the MPAA and RIAA have to do with Blizzard restricting access to the new raid?
I've seen this argument once already on this thread and have no idea how that comparison works.
Como Nov 18th 2009 3:34PM
That other comment was by me too. It is just a comparison. People like to say blizz can do no harm, and everything they say is good, and blah blah. I was simply pointing out the fact that they are while 2 completely different things, both blizzard and RIAA/MPAA are trying to tell us how to enjoy our content. It is something that I disagree with and that's the only reason I made the comparison, sorry for the confusion.
On another note, I hate this commenting system, you can't get an intelligent conversation with 2 different view points at all. It's all just hardcore vs. casual vs. troll. I am just sick of getting downgraded in the damn commenting system from people who just assume that hardcore raiders want to block off their content (this is not you, but the comments from people who start to name call at anyone says this is dumb), when in reality it has nothing to do with casuals and only servers to slow down the hardcore and prevent them from taking their few months off.
Newchron Nov 18th 2009 5:30PM
I really like how you "made the genre."
Sinthar Nov 19th 2009 6:28AM
Hi Como,
From your comments - i have a couple of points for you
1) please dont swear and insult - it doesnt get your message across and as i have posted to 'a slave obays' it just gets you downrated immediately - nothing to do with your point - but how you make it. Personally i uprate ANY contructive comment - and vica versa downrate insulting or openly trolling posts - whether i agree with their point or not.
2) from you comments about taking time off after you blow through the content - well ofc thats what Blizz doesnt want you to do, after all its their bottom line. But theres nothing to stop you from say cancelling now - and rejoining a week or two before the last gate opens, and blowing through the content then.
So why the anger in the post? Noone FORCING you to play, if it wound me up that much id have cancelled my subs already and be doing something else, waiting for gate 3 to be opened.
Tis a game people, have fun with it - or quit it - never bang your head on it in frustration.
razedruid Dec 8th 2009 2:58PM
well.. technically speaking, blizzard is a for profit company. they have targets to achieve and they dont really care if u dont like the gating of the content..
how many hardcore raiders do u think will cancel their accounts because of this?? will they, who have put days or months on their characters (so that they can play the content in question) quit playing and cancel their subscriptions?
even if they did (even for a couple of months), if 98% (just assuming) of the population on wow doesnt quit cuz they are not going to blow through content and then get bored then who do u think blizz is going to favor??
total population :12m x $15 = $180m
2% hardcore :240k x $15=$3.6m
98%casual :11.76m x $15=$176.4m
who do you think they will want to retain??
(i know its a lot of opinions framed as questions.. but hey it gets them across)
Radiophonic Nov 18th 2009 1:03PM
Admittedly, I'm not happy with the attempt system. IMO that needs to be reserved for heroic versions of the raid. Why penalize a normal raid?
zappo Nov 18th 2009 4:03PM
Well what are "heroic" versions if not for those who claim to be elite at the game. When you don't have gated versions of the normal content, then you basically give those so called elitists a lot of rehearsal time. So this puts a stop on that as also. Well that's my take on it.
Really I'm not so sure why people are bent out of shape over this since the raid will be around (and relevant) for months.
nevertree Nov 18th 2009 1:06PM
What i do like about this is that, for me, I really only get one night a week to raid the night away. A lot of times, i.e Ulduar, I never got to finish because we couldnt get to yogg in one night. My guildies have downed him, but because of my limited raid time i have not.
Now that I think about it..... as the new content is time released, will we have to go through the first quarter to be able to do the second each weak? Or does finishing each quarter unlock the second playable, being able to bypass the 1stQ each week with a new raid ID?
Other words, if we unlock the 1st quarter week one unlocking the second Q (when it is released of coarse), the following week (with new raid ID) will we have to go through 1stQ to get to secondQ, or can we just simply go straight to second Q and skip the 1st?
I would like that for sure!
Sinthar Nov 19th 2009 6:50AM
No idea, but you could effectively do the same by reactivating your raid id.
Titusx Nov 18th 2009 1:06PM
Well, to be honest... most (ok, maybe not most but many) of those guys ARE experiencing the content. How do you figure this guys cleared everything so quickly? PTR testing. By the time the patch comes out this guys have mastered the encounters them self. This without mentioning that they already mastered the game overall.
The problem is that the only thing that can sate this kind of player is something like Sunwell which blizz stated that they dont want to repeat.
If you please the hard core raiders, you alienate everyone else and in some cases even some of those very same hard core gamers you wanted to please.
If you make them wait a little and allow others to experience the content you just make the leet minority temporarily unhappy. In the long run they will have their BiS gear, their legendary weapons and their tittles while smaller less dedicated raiders will be happing having actually played the game they payed to play too.
jhoover Nov 18th 2009 1:09PM
@A Slave Obeys: Wow. So the new content is *ONLY* designed for the the top guilds huh? The rest of us don't really matter? The fact that 95% of the WoW population never got to see some of the content, eh...who cares right? If you aren't a top guild member you are a n00b and should have no voice in what's going on, right? As long as the top guilds get their world firsts the day the content is released, that's all that's important right? Way to push elitism to a new level...
wllmsgame Nov 18th 2009 1:15PM
Barvo sir, you said it better than anything I could come up with, bravo!
A Slave Obeys Nov 18th 2009 1:20PM
WoW is a COMPETITIVE (READ, COMPETITIVE) game. If your arena team is getting slaughtered in the 3v3 bracket by people who win 15 matches for every 1 you do, you don't complain to Blizzard that someone is better than you, you spend time practicing, learning how to play like that team.
Having a design that favors either hard-core guilds or casual guilds is unacceptable either way. As a casual raider of TBC, I understand what it was like to be walled off from the content. In WotLK, given the raid lockouts and general easiness of non-HM encounters, there's no reason that a casual guild couldn't finish Yogg in a month (on ten-man, at least).
The people who Blizzard rolled out the red carpet for during TBC are being completely ignored by a decision like this. If Blizzard wants to create an raiding environment for both hardcore and casual players, then they should allow HMs to be played on the first week, it's as simple as that.
This allows the top guilds, like Ensidia, to have a humbling challenge on the first day; at the same time, the casual and less serious players will be able to focus on the regular versions of each fight.
This is a fair approach to gated progression.
On the subject of limited attempts, this actually hurts casual guilds more, as it provides less time for learning fights each week. Most top guilds have players on the PTR (if not their whole guild), so they at least have some preliminary strategy for these encounters.
jealouspirate Nov 18th 2009 1:24PM
@ Slave Obeys
Funny, I would have called WoW a cooperative game, not a competitive game...
A Slave Obeys Nov 18th 2009 1:28PM
Have you ever logged into WoW? Have you ever read trade chat? How often do you see players saying "OH my god! The top guild on the server downed Algalon on 25-man! That's so neat! My congratulations to them. If you need any help with the next raid, I'd be glad to help such neat people!"
No, you haven't!
Sure, when you raid you're working with your time, but it's you guys against the world.
Charlie Nov 18th 2009 1:37PM
Playing Devil's Advocate here. [[TL;DR: Top-tier players have feelings too!]]
It's very possible that the man you are replying to isn't even in a 'elite' guild as you mean it. The current misconception of "elite" brings of images of people downing final bosses in the first week, but this notion is just wrong. To be an elite guild all you have to do is attempt and down hard modes while they are still current. And the number of guilds doing that is staggering compared to the "elite" guilds of BC, and even more extreme when compared to vanilla. So when you say that "Elite" guilds and players are a small part of the population, you are mistaken.
There are many people who wish a challenge, and normal modes are not a challenge for them, nor their guilds (myself included). However when you have only a few hardmodes left in current content, and you hear that there will not be new ones for you to try for another good 3-4 months possibly, its frustrating.
I do understand where you're coming from. I never got to experience AQ40/Naxx/Sunwell, but that doesn't mean that the top tier doesn't have a right to experience the content.
Let me finish with this. I have stopped raiding because my guild has stopped doing hardmodes. I want to raid, i really do, but ToC normal is non-challenging. We clear it in an hour, and then stop raiding for the week on 25mans. I learn this, and although I think it is good for the game (see my comments below) I am dissapointed as it means I won't get back into the content i truly enjoy untill at least february.
Finally, he never said that 'casuals' (another overused and outdated term) didn't deserve to see the content, he just said, in essence, that he is frustrated because it will be a long time untill he will see the content he enjoys. I guess i could have just said the last sentence... but i already typed the above and I ain't gonna delete it =D.