Icecrown Citadel Preview!

[FATAL]

just i little somethink i stumbled across .cant seem to paste http ? its on wowhead anyway

[Azunai]

It's been on official WoW page for a few days too

Here it is.

[Azunai]

Seems like the 5man's no pushover either, at least not in terms of time it takes to clear it. One of the achievements for it:

"We're Not Retreating; We're Advancing in a Different Direction - Escape from the Lich King in under two hours and eleven seconds."

[Jim]

Seems like the 5man's no pushover either, at least not in terms of time it takes to clear it. One of the achievements for it:

"We're Not Retreating; We're Advancing in a Different Direction - Escape from the Lich King in under two hours and eleven seconds."

placeholder?

[Azunai]

Could be. Would be damn fun if it weren't though :> 5 man raid-size instance, woot!

[Gandalf]

Looks like it's only a week or two away. Just logged off and 3.3.0 is now downloading so it's ready for launch.

:yahoo:

[Bellanie]

Quote from: Daelo (Source)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. We 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, we 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 we 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.

well it looks like all the top guilds wont be spamming us with realm firsts anytime soon:) also means if we can pull our fingers out of our arses then even we could have a shot at getting the LK down within a good period of time.

[Azunai]

The attempts limit is sorta meh but I can live with it I guess..

The gating is very annoying. I don't know why it's being done either. Would be sort of ok if it were only a week or so but looks like it'll be what, 3 weeks/month per section? I just don't get why they do it...

[Drakelin]

The attempts limit is sorta meh but I can live with it I guess..

The gating is very annoying. I don't know why it's being done either. Would be sort of ok if it were only a week or so but looks like it'll be what, 3 weeks/month per section? I just don't get why they do it...

tbh i think its so that even the not so good guild can keep up and reach the end material whitout getting swamped, but just a guess

[Azunai]

Keep up with whom or what? It's not a race for them is it?

[Bellanie]

its not a attepmt to keep the top server guilds back, or stop any1 getting a world kill within 24 hours, they are staging the release of the to prolong the patch, because this is the last major content patch before the next expansion. personally i like the idea of having to wait for it:)

From our point of View its a good thing as it means we can focus our efforts on the first few bosses, and then by the time the next lot are ready we should be at a point where we can 1 shot them:)

its also good from the view of it as it means that we can farm the first few bosses with out any1 from within the guild getting bored and wanting to get onto the first lot of tier bosses:)

[valdeko]

In my opinion the wait time for the ICC bosses is a good idea even from ToC start days.
It eliminates the new raid instance "boss kill rush" that few raiders in each guild have and makes the raiding more fun and not " comon lets kill and get to the next boss already" mood.

[Azunai]

From our point of View its a good thing as it means we can focus our efforts on the first few bosses, and then by the time the next lot are ready we should be at a point where we can 1 shot them:)

its also good from the view of it as it means that we can farm the first few bosses with out any1 from within the guild getting bored and wanting to get onto the first lot of tier bosses:)

My point is you can do that even if there's no gating system. What's to stop you from creating one for yourself? Progress guilds I predict will be twiddling their thumbs after 1 or 2 raidweeks waiting for new stuff.

The only reason I can think of for the existence of this gating system is indeed to prolong the patch, meaning that Cataclysm is still far away.

Still looking forward to 3.3 don't get me wrong, just that I don't like the sound of it, cause it looks like we'll be 'stuck' with this content for a loooong time. Unless they plan on adding some aspect chambers or whatnot to keep us busy.

[TeaLeaf]

Most progress guilds raid hard, then take time off.  Gating just means they get bored as they have to wait for content to be released and it ultimately means they have to raid more often and get less time off.