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 7 of 9)
MechaKingGhidra Nov 18th 2009 1:37PM
"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."
Now, I really would like to hope that this will not be an issue, but let's assume that when everything is unlocked and you happen to be raiding a particular week in which you get that far in. If you happen to use little or no attempts before the bosses despawn and decide to extend the lockout, are you pretty much hooped?
Hopefully, when they say 'week', it actually translates to 'lockout period' and they simply just commented with the (completely 100% correct assumption) broad generalization that people are going to continue doing what they normally do: let it reset many times, if not every time, over and over again. Eventually, they gear up enough that you don't actually need to use so many attempts in a given week later down the road on the last section.
Sorry for the run-on sentences, but I couldn't quite find the words to articulate my *exact* thoughts in a shorter post.
Muse Nov 18th 2009 1:33PM
When I was little and got lots and lots of candy from easter-treating, my dad told me to not eat all of it at once.
In hindsight, I really should have listened.
Same principle. I agree with Blizz.
Monsoon Nov 18th 2009 1:35PM
As someone who doesn't get to raid enough to have even seen, much less downed, Yogg-Saron, I look forward to this. It means that I may have a chance to see the entirety of Icecrown Citadel before Cataclysm comes around. There are parts of Vanilla and BC that I haven't seen, since I never seem to find a guild whose raiding schedule matches the times that I play.
And to those of you QQ'ing about being downranked, we're not downranking your posts because you don't like the controlled release of content. We're downranking your posts because you're coming off like bags of douche. No, make that 50-gallon drums of industrial-strength douche.
Aralo Nov 18th 2009 1:41PM
Ice Crown....
I've been playing the Warcraft story since the tides of darkness.
I started playing World Of Warcraft for the most part to see the man himself Arthas die.
I raid. My gear is almost up to par to handle TotGC. I realize that seems late, but I raid 1 to maybe 2 nights a week. I do not have a lot of time to raid 3-5 nights a week for 3-5 hours a night to get all the gear needed.
With the guild I'm in now and the players I regularly pug raids with I know I will be in Ice Crown that first night. No I did not play during BC or have I attempted the nightmare that is the Sun Well. Personally the amount of limited attempts on normal difficultly, unless the raid is uber hard and to enter you need 232 in all slots, I think its a bad idea. Limited attempts seems like an idea left better for hard modes.
The main thing though, the gate progression. Yes for everyone who is down graded this is Blizz pacing the release of content and keeper subscribers through the last patch lull. This however at the end of the day assure a few things.
1. Top end guilds will not blow through it in 1 week, and have nothing to do but gear up for months on end. Personally when I blew toc reg on first attempt i was sadly disappointed. This way at least I will have things to look forward to.
2.Not everyone is in elite high end super guilds. Yes I'm referring the Elitist jerks who say WoW should be made for them only and forget about everyone else. Yes WoW is no where near as hard as Everquest back in the day, but at the same time people have lives, responsibilities, and things that must be done out of Wow. With this new system I can raid 1 night a week maybe 2 like I do now and still not fall behind to people who can play 6 hours a night 5 nights a week....Where i come from thats called a job. The thing that pays cash to pay my bills...Like Wow.
3. Everyone will have a chance to see the king fall. Easy enough. We play for many reasons, however at heart this expansion and the current player pool has one thing on their mind...Death to the king. We have waited since launch over a year ago to see the man... Well we have seen the man, now its time to kill the man. 3 months down the road which each week going at it, gearing up, facing down each boss, making way to the end. Ladies and gents this is a siege on Ice Crown and a siege is not won in a night. The progression guilds, our spear tip will pave the way for the shaft to breach the walls and win this siege once and for all..... One word sums this up in my, epic.
If you dont like the game stop playing, otherwise stop your bitching, buckle up and enjoy the ride. Arthas is going to die... Some time in March.... Odds are.
Blacksabre Nov 18th 2009 1:43PM
"Icecrown Gunship Battle"
So we have to do another idiotic vehicle combat raid in order to advance.
Oh yes, Blizzard learned so much from Occulus. Not.
If I wanted to play a gunship pilot, there's lots of places to do that. I want to play Wow, and use the skills and equipment I've earned to fight. Wow can keep their dragons, tanks, gunships, Flame Leviathans and Krakens.
Can't wait for the next expansion after Cataclysm, when Blizz decides to make all raids required to use only Blizzard weapons and vehicles. No more complaints about balance, right? We'll all suck.
Charlie Nov 18th 2009 1:48PM
Have you even read anything about the battle?
You get to be a freaking pirate. It's not a vehicle combat fight. You take half your raid and have them jump from your ship to the other side (i think you might get blown out of a cannon), while the other half stays on your ships and defends it.
It sounds really fun TBH.
Mikee Nov 18th 2009 4:03PM
"when Blizz decides to make all raids required to use only Blizzard weapons and vehicles"
What the fuck are you talking about?
catharsis80 Nov 18th 2009 4:53PM
Yeah, the airship battle sound freakin awesome to me. Not sure what you're talking about.
Dranaerys Nov 18th 2009 1:50PM
Wow. Son, I am disappoint. So after looking forward to the huge content patch that IC was meant to be, what I can really look forward to is defeating teh same 4 bosses each week until the next tier opens up, and rinse and repeat over and over again? So, like, getting a few ToC-like bitesized content udates every month?
ITs a rather crappy way of artificially increasing the duration of the patch to make time for Cataclysm. But I guess its the wave of the future, huh? Activision knows best how to keep us p(l)aying.
Feel free to downgrade my comment, Im just venting anyway, and nothing I say will change a damn thing. All I know is I was looking forward to a crapload of content with the launch of 3.3, and now all I know is that Ill be stuck on easymode content, and the same bosses for months before I can even get to Arthas, and that, quite frankly, sucks ass.
perderedeus Nov 18th 2009 2:01PM
They are introducing a LOT of artificial barricades in 3.3, to the point of being logjams. Why? Not that I mind, I'm not in a mega-progression guild so I'm sure my group will be doing those first 4 bosses for a few weeks before we get them down pat... but still. Slowing progression by simply turning off content?
As an earlier poster said, way to keep people playing and paying until Cataclysm comes out.
Andrew R. Nov 18th 2009 2:03PM
Yesterday I was laughing so hard I wanted to cry. Today is the same way.
"Don't give into Blizzard's lies! They're hiding things from us! STAND UP TO THE MAN! YOU KNOW IT'S THE TRUTH!"
It's like the people who talk about how the Government is hiding the aliens from us or Kennedy was never assassinated.
Nith Nov 18th 2009 2:15PM
Yes this is a ploy to keep subscriptions active but personally I prefer it this way. First of all instead of just saying "Eff u Blizz" suggest how you would keep content going until Cataclysm w/o staggered progression or another Sunwell patch. They said that ICC will be the final raid. So if they release the whole of ICC right away and then do 3.4 im sure all the same complainers will be here saying wtf Blizz you said there will not be a Sunwell in Wrath. Seriously it takes time to design and develop something like the Cataclysm expansion. And no they are not busy with SCII or D3, those are separate teams.
The biggest question to all those complaining is have actually cleared everything so far. And by everything I mean have you finished 25 man TOGC with 0 casualities, or with even 25 attempts left. On top of that have you defeated Alagoln and Yogg+0. What about Resilience will fix it? If you have grats, for you the complaint is legitimate, and I would suggest branching out to other games hardcore Arena. I don't have the numbers but I am pretty sure thats about 1% of the guilds in the world if not less. Most of the even most progressed guild still have stuff they can do.
rtm_mike Nov 18th 2009 2:33PM
Sounds to me like a lot of people really like to shoot their wad early.
Katarnx Nov 18th 2009 2:46PM
Anyone consider that this may potentially allow us to see some content FASTER and have the QUALITY of other content improved? If they gate encounters further down the line in Icecrown, that will give Blizz more time to tune the encounters and make sure they are working and ready to go, while at the same time not delaying the entire instance while they wait to finish up the rest of the content. Getting to see the first four bosses of the dungeon for a few weeks while they perfect the rest of the dungeon - rather than having it all come out a little later in one big chunk, perhaps with the quality not as high - does make sense. It does seem quite plausible that this is simply a money grab to keep subscriptions running, there are a lot of good reasons for it.
Also keep in mind that they do have story elements tied into this. The Lich King is NOT someone who should be easily or quickly overthrown, and that would certainly happen if all the raid content was released at the same time. Even though gating content seems like a bit of a cheap out to make this happen, there is really no other way to capture that element of the story. The raid needs to be accessible to a broad range of players, so it can't be so difficult as to give the feeling of 'the overwhelming challenge' that the Lich King is meant to be. Gating the content accomplishes this, though obviously at the expense of the top raiding guilds. Most players won't feel the consequences of the gating; they will simply feel the overarching epic scale of the dungeon and be caught up in the story the gating helps to weave. The top raiding guilds will certainly notice the fabricated gating and probably not experience the same story-driven flare that the majority of the player base will. But the majority wins the day, and thus gating does make a lot of sense.
The top end players get the benefit of superior rewards and a (I think) higher quality of gameplay in the encounters they will eventually reach and overcome. So think - the hardcore are asked to wait a little longer for their content, which they WILL get eventually, while the majority of the playerbase gets to experience the dungeon and its story in a way that makes it much more engrossing and epic for them. When the next expansion hits, I think people will look back and realize that Blizz made the right call here - in retrospect, the most players will be happy and feel rewarded.
If you are so worried about getting bored and not being able to quit sooner, just drop your subscription right now and join back up when all the content is out (or about to be out), do your runs, beat the stuff, and hopefully the next expansion will be just around the corner.
ciskos11 Nov 18th 2009 2:34PM
Blizzard reveals their secret plan to power Orange County with the energy harvested directly from nerdrage! We all win!
Seriously, there are some posts here that just go too far into complaining, QQ, and borderline trolling. You're getting voted down for that, not because you voice an unpopular opinion.
There are some very good (but negative) posts too. Unfortunately, some of them follow with "i know you're going to downvote me". IMHO, anyone who wants to complain about getting downvoted deserves it. Saying "You will hate me for my Truth!" doesn't help make your point.
Como Nov 18th 2009 3:43PM
It's actually because this site caters to casuals(not a bad thing) and every time someone complains about how content is done you have many of the casual players who don't ever read the article (just read how off base some of the comments are and you will know this is true) turn the thread into, "No the hardcore players just want content to themselves" when in reality it has nothing to do with that (and yes it goes the other way around but much less imo).
I don't like that because I can complete hard modes on 12 hours a wk of raiding, I'm being told that I must extend my subscription longer and into the summer months when I like to take a break in order to finish content because I will "enjoy" it more. I can "enjoy" my content by the end of February and have competed all the hard modes but now they get to milk me for another $45. And guess what even tho my posts were filled with intelligent discussion and not targeted at anyone but blizz(how ever heated that may be) I am still downgraded like I said.
ScorchHellfire Nov 18th 2009 2:44PM
All I can say is that those first 4 bosses will be a lot more tired/boring than the others by the time Cataclysm hits... I'm just glad that the gunship battle is one of them since it drops the upgrade to Eye of the Broodmother... =P
computermachina Nov 18th 2009 3:15PM
So this is how Blizz is going to eat up time till the expansion is released..well played blizz ...well played.
Rialle Nov 18th 2009 3:18PM
While it is true that this could be seen as "artificially" extending Icecrown Citadel out, this will probably benefit most players by staggering the raid and thus providing new content to look forward to over time, as opposed to people sitting around bored while they wait for Cataclysm. Presuming (and this is a big presumption) Cataclysm comes out in Summer, this timetable makes reasonable sense.
While I can somewhat understand the POV of the more hardcore crowd here, I think a lot of you fail to appreciate how long it takes to create content versus how fast you can clear it. I don't know anyone (hardcore or casual alike) who really enjoys having a content lull like the one between Sunwell and Wrath.
Condor Nov 18th 2009 3:22PM
Only 5 attempts per boss? Or is that just for the "end bosses" of each wing like Thaddius was for the Construct Quarter (wing)?
I like my guild... we get through a lot of content but it often takes a few wipes to just get into the team rhythm. Here's hoping those extra areas unlock quick enough to allow for our wiping, I expect they probably will.