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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.

Blatant stall tactic so they can finish cataclysm before the player base mutinies is blatant?

Or a balance between hard core guys and casual players? It sounds like it will be a lot harder - which is good, IMO.

If it's legitimately difficult then yes, I do appreciate the time to allow for guilds like us to become more familiar with each wing as opposed to the hardcore dudes who will likely have each wing on farm within the first week or 2.

If however we clear the first wing in a few hours the first night inside ICC, I will be sorely disappointed.

I wonder if encounter tuning will still be happening on the PTR while the early wings are live. It's a good way to adjust difficulties of upcoming bosses by judging how well the average raid performs.

It would be nice to see the difficulty ramped up, but it might be too much for people who are used to wotlk.

This plus the new tier piece system really does make it seem like they want to drag out this last patch until Cat comes out.

It's just gonna piss off the super-progression guilds when they only get 5 attempts and then have to sit for new content.  The forums are going to explode with elitist QQing.

If they are truly elite they should be 1-shotting the bosses.

when people say "i hope the are hard" or "i hope its really ultra hard" you have to keep in mind, most guilds havent killed algalon. and alot of guilds cannot kill anub on heroic. do you want to make it content we wont ever see?

Quote from: tulion on Wed, 2009-11-18 : 20:51
when people say "i hope the are hard" or "i hope its really ultra hard" you have to keep in mind, most guilds havent killed algalon. and alot of guilds cannot kill anub on heroic. do you want to make it content we wont ever see?

That's the kind of whining I love.  I think the game is in a good place right now with average raid content being beatable by the majority of the game population.  And it's good for business.  It doesn't make any sense to pay all that revenue to develop content only 10% of your customers will ever see.  The new heroic encounter mechanic is there to appease the hardcore "I must be challenged!" types who only seem to be happy when they can lord their phat epics over everyone else.

I think it should be tough since it's the culmination of the expansion pack. I don't think it should be insurmountable.

I feel that Wrath was not as epic as it could have been, though. They could have had the Scourge armies attacking south, sailing on ghostly longships and riding on the wings of netherdrakes. Our cities and outposts should have been under attack.

They clearly don't have good DMs running content.

I think all this makes a lot of sense as a direction to go. Although, it is clearly meant to tide people over as long as possible. It also will close some of the gap (which is already fairly small) between high end guilds and more casual guilds on the majority of servers.... not all servers have guilds like Ensidia or the other world first crowd. I also think this type of stuff shows that Blizzard has lost that WoW magic formula even more.... or maybe I am just not liking it as much. I long for the raiding experience from vanilla.

Quote from: wildcard on Thu, 2009-11-19 : 04:59

Quote from: tulion on Wed, 2009-11-18 : 20:51
when people say "i hope the are hard" or "i hope its really ultra hard" you have to keep in mind, most guilds havent killed algalon. and alot of guilds cannot kill anub on heroic. do you want to make it content we wont ever see?

That's the kind of whining I love.  I think the game is in a good place right now with average raid content being beatable by the majority of the game population.  And it's good for business.  It doesn't make any sense to pay all that revenue to develop content only 10% of your customers will ever see.  The new heroic encounter mechanic is there to appease the hardcore "I must be challenged!" types who only seem to be happy when they can lord their phat epics over everyone else.

its hardly whining, ill see the content. i would just prefer to see it with my guildies.

Quote from: tulion on Thu, 2009-11-19 : 16:42

Quote from: wildcard on Thu, 2009-11-19 : 04:59

Quote from: tulion on Wed, 2009-11-18 : 20:51
when people say "i hope the are hard" or "i hope its really ultra hard" you have to keep in mind, most guilds havent killed algalon. and alot of guilds cannot kill anub on heroic. do you want to make it content we wont ever see?

That's the kind of whining I love.  I think the game is in a good place right now with average raid content being beatable by the majority of the game population.  And it's good for business.  It doesn't make any sense to pay all that revenue to develop content only 10% of your customers will ever see.  The new heroic encounter mechanic is there to appease the hardcore "I must be challenged!" types who only seem to be happy when they can lord their phat epics over everyone else.

its hardly whining, ill see the content. i would just prefer to see it with my guildies.

I wasn't talking about you whining, just the elitist whining in general from the people who think they're the bees' knees because they've seen more content than others and therefore they deserve to be special. :)

Quote from: wildcard on Thu, 2009-11-19 : 18:38

Quote from: tulion on Thu, 2009-11-19 : 16:42

Quote from: wildcard on Thu, 2009-11-19 : 04:59

Quote from: tulion on Wed, 2009-11-18 : 20:51
when people say "i hope the are hard" or "i hope its really ultra hard" you have to keep in mind, most guilds havent killed algalon. and alot of guilds cannot kill anub on heroic. do you want to make it content we wont ever see?

That's the kind of whining I love.  I think the game is in a good place right now with average raid content being beatable by the majority of the game population.  And it's good for business.  It doesn't make any sense to pay all that revenue to develop content only 10% of your customers will ever see.  The new heroic encounter mechanic is there to appease the hardcore "I must be challenged!" types who only seem to be happy when they can lord their phat epics over everyone else.

its hardly whining, ill see the content. i would just prefer to see it with my guildies.

I wasn't talking about you whining, just the elitist whining in general from the people who think they're the bees' knees because they've seen more content than others and therefore they deserve to be special. :)

i actualy agree that not everyone should be able to see all content.

Quote from: tulion on Thu, 2009-11-19 : 20:30
i actualy agree that not everyone should be able to see all content.

That's why they have beaded curtains covering the doorway to those back rooms ;)