Blizzard just announced that Icecrown Citadel will be a staged release much like Crusader’s Coliseum was. It will be broken up into four separate sections: The Lower Spire, Plagueworks, Crimson Hall, and Frostwing Halls. The Lower Spire will be released first which includes Lord Marrowgar, Lady Deathwhisper, Icecrown Gunship Battle, and Deathbringer Saurfang so guilds can begin gathering information on these bosses for their 3.3 plan of attack. Blizzard has also announced that the final boss of each wing will have a limited number of attempts per week, much like we saw for Trial of the Grand Crusader as an instance. Blizzard does plan on increasing the number of attempts on the bosses each week to allow more raids to pass through over time. Also, as would be expected, players may not enable heroic mode on the bosses until the Lich King has been defeated in normal mode.

In addition to the staged release content, Blizzard also made some comments on some of the more difficult achievements in Naxx, Ulduar or ToGC.

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).

Personally I think the staged releases are good for the community for a few reasons. They provide a more even playing field for less then cutting edge guilds, they extend the lifetime and excitement of the instance, and they allow for several 0 day encounters where little information is known about the bosses. What do you think, are staged releases good for the community or does this hold back the competition of top guilds?

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