Quote from Daelo
Icecrown Citadel Raid Access Progression
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. (Source)
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. (Source)
Lord Marrowgar
Icecrown Gunship Battle
Deathbringer Saurfang
Lady Deathwhisper
And we'll only get a chance to kill these bosses on normal mode. This will last "several weeks" until The Plagueworks is released:
Festergut
Rotface
Professor Putricide
Also of note, we will only be allowed 5 attempts per week on Professor Putricide before we are locked out.
After several more weeks, The Crimson Hall will be released:
Blood Princes
Blood Queen Lana'Thel
At this time, we'll have a total of 10 attempts for Putricide and Lana'Thel, and our attempts on Blood Princes will not be limited.
Finally, after several more weeks, we'll get The Frostwing Halls:
Valithria Dreamwalker
Sindragosa
The Lich King
And we'll get a total of 15 attempts to kill Putricide, Lana'Thal, Sindragosa, and The Lich King.
After Arthas is killed on normal mode, heroic modes will be unlocked.
The FINAL catch is that in order to get to the Lich King (heroic) on ANY given week, we will have to kill Putricide, Lana'Thel, and Sindragosa ALL on heroic. Remember that our attempts will still be limited to 15 total for the 4 bosses. Over time, the number of attempts will be increased.
This will be good for prolonging the time until The Lich King heroic is finally killed, but in what I feel is a VERY superficial way. It will be at least 6-8 weeks until the Lich King is even unlocked, and then the following week we'll finally get a chance to try hard modes. After that we will have 15 attempts a week to kill Putricide heroic and continue on to Lana'Thel, Sindragosa, and finally, Arthas.
Personally, I dislike this system, even though I don't think my guild will personally be held up too much by the gates. Whether or not I am personally affected, I feel this will kill the race for world first Arthas heroic by just making it take too long until it is released.
I will reserve my final judgment until I see how difficult each of these encounters are, but I'm not holding out a lot of hope.
3 comments:
I quite like the system myself. Ulduar was cleared in the first week on my server by the top guild. Becuase there are exceptional players? Sure they are. But they also raided 12+ hours a day, every day, until Yogg was dead.
That's not a good way to experiance contact, a heathly approach to raiding or, I'm sure, the way Blizzard want their encounters delt with.
It's also excellent for casual raiders like myself. I may have hated this idea when I was hardcore, but now that we raid 2 nights a week that gives us time to get bosses on farm before worrying about progression again.
All in all, I absolutly love it.
I do agree with you coming from a casual standpoint. We also raid 2-3 nights a week, and this will give us a chance to progress in ICC while finishing up TotGC as well. I guess what I'd really like to see is removal of the gate system while keeping the limited attempts. That way hardcore guilds can blow through normal but really need to plan and take their time on heroic, while as a casual gamer I know I won't have to wait around for new content to be released.
I think that would probably be the best of both worlds. I think it's pretty shite to see the content destroyed in a week by people that raid an insane amount of time, but limited attempts instead of gating means the really skilled guilds will shine though more than the really dedicated and I think thats fair enough.
Now that we agree I'll call Blizzard to let them know
=D
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