World of Warcraft Arthas Icecrown Patch Released
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Patch 3.3 of WoW goes live today, players will finally get to face the Lich King himself.
It’s finally here. After years of waiting to see the conclusion of the epic tale of the fallen hero, players in the World of Warcraft will finally get to meet Arthas face to face in the final big patch of Wrath of the Lich King.
Patch 3.3 goes live today at 11am PST on US servers and will go live tomorrow in Europe at 11am CET.
Arthas has been sitting in Icecrown since players fought to the end of Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne.
Fans have been playing World of Warcraft for five years to find out what happened to the tragic hero. Having had numerous meetings with the Lich King during the third expansion, including a long chain quest in Icecrown itself, and the ability to travel back in time through the Caverns of Time to play through the Culling of Stratholme, now the end has come.
Blizzard have pulled out all of the stops for the Icecrown Citadel, it is no exaggeration to say this will be the biggest and the best raid instance ever conceived, driven by both a strong narrative and the chance for players to access the new Tier 10 loot.
One of the decisions Blizzard has taken is to open up Icecrown progressively rather than all at once. This will force players to focus on the carefully and lovingly crafted boss fights episodically before building up to the final encounter with Arthas himself.
Like Naxxaramas before it, Icecrown Citadel will be split into four wings, each wing will represent another level of the citadel which will be unlocked over a period of months. Each wing contains three boss fights and one final boss in order to complete the wing. Players will only be able to face Arthas once his four lieutenants have been defeated.
The Lower Spire, which is the first wing of the citadel will see players encounter Lord Marrowgar, Lady Deathwhisper, the Icecrown Gunship Battle and Arthas’ most powerful Death Knight, Deathbringer Saurfang.
For non-raiders there will also be 5-man instance content to explore with Icecrown which will give casual gamers a chance to experience some of the stunning new citadel.
In addition to Icecrown Citadel, players will also see noticeable changes to the way the game plays in the day-to-day activities. The Looking for Group mechanics have been changed radically so that players will be able to get into dungeons quicker and easier than before without waiting for 30 minutes spamming the trade channel with “LF1M Tank daily hc”. The main change is that players will be able to instance with others from different servers in much the same way that the Battlegrounds work for pvp.
Anyone who is familiar with the addon QuestHelper will long ago learned how much easier it is to grind and quest when mobs are highlighted on the map with directions of where you need to go to kill your quest target. Blizzard have integrated a similar system into 3.3 to make questing easier and less frustrating.
All in all, 3.3 looks set to serve up some of the best content Blizzard has ever delivered. Quite how they will top this with Cataclysm seems impossible at this stage. However, as Greg Street told IGN: “We’ve got to make everything more epic than the last. That’s something I used to stress about a lot. ‘There’s no way we to top this! What can we possibly do?’ Every time I think that, our team manages to pull something out.”
Enjoy patch 3.3. Tell us your thoughts on the latest Blizzard content with a comment below.
Blizzard has to give level 80′s something to do or they will realize that a real world already exists outside their fantasy land.
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Too late. I realised that a year ago and haven’t been back since.
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That’s why you’re commenting? Dumbass…
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I’m not going to bother with it. It could be good but what’s the point in spending months raiding it getting gear and paying loads of repair bills when I can wait 2-3 months for a new patch and get all the gear in 2 days from 5 mans. WotLK sux
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That kind of argument is lame, WoW is a progressive game and therefore it is inevitable that stuff will be upgraded and will supersede the current best stuff. That doesn’t mean you should not bother at all with the end game content.
If you buy a new PC, 3 months later there will be a much better one available for the same price you paid, does that mean you should never buy a new machine because it will be outmoded soon??
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How stupid of me, I thought the game was still about enjoying the content rather than simply just picking up shiny epixx.
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For a game just about content, the work required to finish it is insane. You’d be far better off spending those 30+ hours a week you spend raiding working on a doctorate.
Blizzard forgot the number #1 rule about challenges:
If a challenge isn’t worth the reward, there are other challenges that are. WoW is just a somewhat entertaining time-sink now. The game has absolutely no sense of accomplishments of permanency.
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This is going to be awesome. Stop hating on how easy it is to get epics, this raid content is going to be amazing.
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We have been spending months on TOTC just waiting for something new to open!
Now we have the chance to be some of the first people in ICC and that’s what its all about for a lot of us. I personally am tired of doing nothing but the old content and am very excited to see how ICC plays out.
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I smell another Black Temple.
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I have to agree on that one. But I did enjoy me some BT ;D
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Cant wait gonna try to kill Arthas tomorrow. I also agree WoW is just as much about the lore as picking up shiny epix.
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Blizzard has become so lazy with WoW; the old content was much more creative, just go look at places like Dire Maul, BRD or Blackwing Lair. Now they have to artificially restrict people from getting too deep too fast, because the fights are just too easy. There was no need to restrict people in BWL or the Sunwell, because they were genuinely challenging places to master.
Now everything dies so easily, so Blizzard can satisfy a larger number of players, but cheapens the experience for all. It feels like they have moved their creative people from WoW to the upcoming Diablo and Starcraft sequels, and are just riding WoW out for the cash cow it is.
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BRD – creative? Hold on while I pick myself up off the floor. BRD is one of the worst instances in game – notoriously long, monotonous drab corridors that go on and on, way too much trash and a horrible place to navigate.
BWL was very cool, but in terms of creativity was easily surpassed by Karazhan – just think of the scope of the place and fights like the Opera. WoW gets bigger and better, and ICC is going to be the best yet.
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Oh my god, are you serious? I have to agree with the other response, BRD was a drag. Sunwell was awesome, but this new patch is amazing! The 5-mans are more challenging(Wow I haven’t said that since MGT), the raid will be intense, and the new features are awesome.
Gear, yes is easier to get. But content is a lot harder to down! HoR for instance, is not easy. And no, I’m not saying this from an undergeared player. I joined a group for this(and the prior dungeons) as SOON as Spirestone came up. We raped the first two, but HoR was a LOT harder. It was fun to have even a challenging 5-man again.
The raid content I haven’t experienced as of yet, I had to leave when our 10man core group started ICC. But they told me it was extremely difficult, and awesome.
So this new patch is not cheapening the experience at all! It’s making it more challenging for the raiders, and easier for those who just like grinding the(old) heroics. It wins for everyone.
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False
No-one could kill Chrommaggus in BWL for months because Blizz literally made him unkillable so they could finish up the Nefarian encounter.
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When the servers are broke.
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Top Lvl Gear grind takes too much time, much longer then you can actually enjoy it once you get it. If you like that sort of thing great.. but its gets.. OLD.
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Must continue reading wowdetox.com. I’ve quit wow and now all I hear about is how good wow is going to be with this addition. aaaahhhhhh
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Woww.. I remember spending months in BWL, AQ40, NAXX to get my tier 2, 2.5 and tier 3. Pshh you guys got it easy.
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WoW is lame, it took me 3 years to realise it, but it is. There are so many more worthwhile things to do outside the world… of warcraft.
Having said that the changes for 3.3 look interesting.
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So I have the patch and now WOW won’t open. Awesome I’m impressed. Yes I’m a noob, yes my WoW guys are low lvl but patches need to not break my ability to play the game.
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It’s an endless cycle and you’ll get bored with this and want the new stuff and realize that your current content is boring and you “just can’t wait for the next patch!”
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The content is cool and the new gear is cool but when you raid painstakingly and work hard to clear content and get good gear only to see some lamer that doesn’t know what spec he is have better gear than you from badges and such, is really not the way it should be.
You should only be able to get the awesome gear from doing the end game content in raids and same with pvp gear! Instead of doing time in bg’s and arena’s you can just buy your main set with badges and call it good nothing to it full set in a week or less with the new pugomatic system for heroics. Very ridiculous! Making it too easy, soon it will be for ages 1-4 with a two button maximum for game play?
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I don’t understand this comment, if you are clearing end-game content, there is no way a casual heroics gamer will have better gear than you. Even if you are not getting drops from the raid (which you will eventually) you still get more badges for top tier gear than pugging.
Add to that the fact that raiding provides better drops than can be acquired from pure badge runs, the raider will always be rewarded with the best gear in game.
PvP is just the same, the best gear is only available to those players with the dedication and skill to get high arena ratings.
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I’ll just wait for the private databases and play this offline to experience the content.
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Molten Core FTW
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I’m glad that they made patch 3.3′s content more difficult than others so far. If you haven’t noticed by now, the new 5 man dungeons are quite difficult on heroic mode without a high tier of gear.
My tankadin is in full 226/232 and had trouble staying alive with a disc priest in full 232/245 gear. This stuff is going to be quite difficult in the 10/25 mans. As for getting gear, you can only get a few pieces from the badge vendors anyway… Sure, you can run heroics to get a mixed set of 245/232/226/213/200, but you’ll know who’s pulling the top numbers when you see people just coming out of ICC with full 245/251/264. Gonna be the shit.
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Wow 3.3 has broken my will to play, the new changes to the LFG system mean I don’t know what I’m getting, and what’s happening is I’m getting people I don’t know, or haven’t seen before, from other servers and wiping in heroics more often.
Over all the LFG cross server stuff is more frustrating than useful.
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I could not disagree more. I downloaded the patch last night and managed to do all of the new ICC 5-man content and 3 heroics in a few hours.
The new LFG meant that it took literally 30 seconds to get a full group together rather than the 20+ mins it used to take to find a tank or healer. Plus you are rewarded for grouping with people you don’t know with extra badges and buffs.
Great job Blizz.
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What people need to realise is that the majority of people who play this game are people with jobs and lives. Maybe you might even be lucky enough to have a smoking hot girlfriend as well like I do ha.
Anyway Blizzard is catering for everyone now which is a good thing. I took time out from WoW as I simply didn’t have the time whilst working and doing a degree to be in raids 2-3 times a week in order to get the best gear.
That is why I like the emblems, badges style of gear progression. I will also be honest in saying that I am not a master of my class by any means, and this is due to the lack of time I have been able to put into my character. Hence anyone who does have more time and more skills will progress to a higher level than others with less time.
I feel that everyone is catered for in WoW and am not sure why there is complaining.
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Saying that though one small part of the game is now lost I feel due to the instant teleport to dungeons ability. Through the new LFG system, you lose that sense of being in a ‘world’ of Warcraft. Almost everywhere is instantly accessible.
Anyway. Good job Blizz! Now I can actually power up my alt Mage which has always been vastly inferior to my main Priest. With a bit more speed.(Weird, if I spent a whole day on my Mage I could probably get half my Tier 9! lol).
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Shoop da woop, it’s over 9,000!!
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Why don’t they just put 40-mans back in and make them like they used to for the people who like a real challenge? I know they said they would never do that again but it would get the hardcore raiders to stop complaining about WoW being too easy.
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There are a number of reasons why 40-mans wouldn’t work. For a start, getting together 40 people at the same time and place without 5 going for a random afk or disconnect every 2 minutes is a nightmare.
Even well organised 40-mans were frustrating in vanilla WoW, 25 is much easier to manage. More importantly, being in 40-man raids is less challenging than the 25-man set-up because it requires less effort from each individual.
In a 40-man raid you are one of the masses making up the numbers, in 25-man you can still make a difference. Challenge comes from making encounters more difficult, which is what hard-modes are all about, not increasing the number of players.
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I quit WOW after Ulduar because it became too much like work to do the raids, it was fun at times, but there was always something new to chase after when I got a new piece of loot. I want to play a game where I can sit down and just chill, and not have to worry about downing some damned boss or something.
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