Euro WOW Lich King patch tomorrow

By Robert Purchese Published 8 December, 2009

Fight end boss Arthas at last.

Early tomorrow morning patch 3.3, Fall of the Lich King, will be applied to the European World of Warcraft servers and prise open the gates to Icecrown Citadel, home of Wrath of the Lich King end boss, Arthas.

He'll await any 10 or 25-player raid group competent enough to battle through The Frozen Throne, and presumably hold the key pieces of the new Tier 10 armour sets. You'll need to take down Bronjahm, Devourer of Souls, Forgemaster Garfrost, Ick and Krick, Scourgelord Tyrannus and Falric and Marwyn before facing The Lich King ("a godlike being" claims the WOW website) in his private chambers.

There are three new five-man dungeons to be found in The Frozen Halls, too.

To make sure Arthas meets his demise, Undead leader Sylvanas Windrunner (who normally stands idly at the bottom of The Undercity) and Lady Jaina Proudmoore, ruler of Theramore, will step forward. We're not quite sure what they'll do, but it should be suitably showy.

In keeping with the Lich King-themed content will be the quest to forge the legendary Shadowmourne axe. The missing half of the Quel'Serrar blades, Quel'Delar: The Sister Blade, is also due to make an appearance.

"We are really pushing as hard as we can to deliver the most epic experience possible," said lead content designer Cory Stockton on the WOW website. "We know that our players have been waiting for this for a long time, and we plan to deliver.

"Everyone should expect to see this sort of storytelling and attention to detail in Cataclysm as well. I think we are always striving to pull the people who play our game into the storyline and really give them an explanation for why they're there. It won't be too long before they'll get a chance to bring the pain to Deathwing!"

Will patch 3.3 be the last meaty content update for World of Warcraft before expansion Cataclysm hits, sometime next year? Right now, only Blizzard knows.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (26) Latest comment 2 years ago

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  • Eraysor #1 2 years ago

    Back to Azeroth I go.

  • ZuluHero #2 2 years ago

    Does this mean we finally get to 'win'?

  • Dizzy #3 2 years ago

    So arthas will be toast about 5 hours later?

  • MBar #4 2 years ago

    Fight end boss Arthas at last.

    Or in about 9 weeks time when they actually finish releasing the patch. It's being released in stages.

    Which of course is a ploy to avoid what Dizzy said.
    Edited by 1 at 08/12/09 @ 16:34

  • MBar #5 2 years ago

    I don't play WOW, never even seen it being played.
    How does this work, can multiple parties attack an end boss at the same time (as if you were playing it offline), or is there only one end boss worldwide and people have to wait their turn?

    Each raid party has it's own instance of the dungeon and therefore the boss. It's not open-world or whatever.

  • MBar #6 2 years ago

    Does this mean we finally get to 'win'?

    Tirion Fordring: Well, we killed the Lich King. Bit of a pansy really. /flex
    Deathwing casts Cataclysm on Azeroth.
    Azeroth dies.
    Tirion Fordring: WTF?
    Tirion Fordring: I'm too old for this shit ...

  • VicViper #7 2 years ago

    @earlbasset

    The boss himself is contained seperately from the world at large in an Instance (essentially a seperate server with multiple instances being run on each realm) and groups of 10-25 players (simltaneously with other groups but no interaction unless they share a Vent channel) access the raid content to take him on including trash/mini bosses, the instance resets usually every week (can be extended via recent updates) and then he can get killed again and again but he not the end as cataclysm will be here problay next year at some point.

    Sorry if this seems dumbed down my old call centre explanation skills seem to have kicked in

    Oops beaten by mBar, also if WoW ended like that mBar I think I would be pretty happy with it and move on...
    Edited by 1 at 08/12/09 @ 16:45

  • anomagnus #8 2 years ago

    arthas isnt coming in this part, ICC is being released in chunks.

    fucking TERRIBLE idea

  • dingo75 #9 2 years ago

    @Earl:

    3 things to know:

    1. World of Warcraft consists of hundreds of servers each independently of each other.
    Each server runs the "world" for all players that play on this server. In the old days servers could be much more advanced from each other in the history of Warcraft by having completed steps that others didn't yet.
    These days however the servers are more or less equal in progress of the big things.

    2. Bosses in World of Warcraft are either in an instance or outside in the world.

    a) World bosses are only there once every reset (usually a week) and so the first team that kills it wins. The rest will have to wait until the next reset until they can try to be the fastest ones and get the kill themselves.
    This was quite popular in the older days but right now there are no real bosses to race for outside.

    b) Instance bosses are exclusively for each group that enters a dungeon. Those kills can't be "stolen" by someone else.
    The game makes a copy of the dungeon for every group that enters and people that are "saved" to it cannot enter another copy until the copy is reset (usually once a week). The group can try to kill bosses until the next reset and their "progress" will be saved (meaning if you come back a day later the bosses that were dead are still dead unless there was a reset).

    3. The race to kill bosses is between groups around the world. The first ones that kill a boss can call themselves "World First". Next step would be "US First" or "European First" depending whether the original first kill was from a US or EU server.
    Further down we would have "Server first" for the first kill on the individual server.
    Since the newest expansion there are also achievements in-game like "No one died when clearing a dungeon".
    Some are really hard and groups compete on the "firsts" of them as well.

    Hope that helps. :)

  • Wyrm #10 2 years ago

    Not a terrible idea. Allows what should be spm exemplary storytelling and raid design to be digested properly.

  • kangarootoo #11 2 years ago

    Thanks from me too to all those explaning this business. I also know essentially nothing about WoW (I know its an mmo, I know it has dwarfs in it), but now I know slightly more... including that I now know that something called a "vent channel" exists (but I don't know what it is... though by the name of it, I suspect a gastroenterologist might).

  • swills #12 2 years ago

    A 'vent channel' is basically external to WoW. It's a small server all the people in a guild would log on to so they can talk to each other using a mike & headphones. When in a raid, whoever is leading the raid can use it to give orders to people, or to explain what to do etc. Most MMOs require 'raiding' players to have something like that installed as you need voice communication while raiding (typing is too slow and might get you killed).

  • dingo75 #13 2 years ago

    And only with Vent you get these things:
    <a href="http://www .youtube.com/watch?v=HtvIYRrgZ04
    ">http://www .youtube.com/watch?v=HtvIYRrgZ04
    </a>

    Actually usually it's much more fun talking with people you like however things got pretty tense in the past, too with 40 people in a group...


    Here is an example of a kill from back then (today the boss is a push-over):
    http://www .youtube.com/watch?v=V2xCr5ssw6g
    Edited by 1 at 08/12/09 @ 18:48

  • curtlikesmeat #14 2 years ago

    10 man? I'll probably never see it, there's no chance there are 9 other guys on my server who aren't twats.

  • 7creature #15 2 years ago

    The first ones that kill a boss can call themselves "World First". Next step would be "US First".

    Period was missing there, for some strange reason, fixed now.

    (just teasing you guys - gl!).
    Edited by 1 at 08/12/09 @ 22:49

  • Kami #16 2 years ago

    "Will patch 3.3 be the last meaty content update for World of Warcraft before expansion Cataclysm hits, sometime next year? Right now, only Blizzard knows."

    Sorry to be the party pooper but Blizzard have said multiple times there will be no mystery 3.4 patch - they intend to get Cataclysm out next year, so this is indeed the last content patch of WotLK. No ifs, no buts, Blizzard have made it clear very often they do not intend to delay Cataclysm, or do any more with Northrend than is already in 3.3.

    I know people really want a 3.4 patch but I can't see it happening - the closest I think you are going to get to a 3.4 is the opening events of Cataclysm, and that is where I will be rejoining the WoW train. So enjoy Arthas, and I'll see you when Azeroth goes tits-up!

  • Kerome #17 2 years ago

    They may be saying that now, but look at what happened with Burning Crusade - Illidan was built up to be the big end boss for that expansion, Black Temple gets released, and whaddaya know, a few months later The Sunwell and the Isle of Quel'Danas tip up to keep the masses entertained before WotLK hits the shops.

    What I would like to know is, when are they going to update the character graphics? The environments look fine, but if you compare WoW character graphics to the more recent MMO's like Aion, there's a big gap in quality.

  • smartgun #18 2 years ago

    "... bring the pain to Deathwing!"

    Is this WoW or is this the WWF?

  • zootle #19 2 years ago

    Well there won't be a 3.4 because they're staggering the release of Icecrown Citadel encounters to keep people hungry for content that way, until Cataclysm. Unlike with Burning Crusade where they blew their Black Temple load long before Lich King was ready for release and people were wanting new content.

    People have a long while to wait to kill Arthas and they can't progress to the hard modes until Arthas is defeated.

    Rather cunning. The upside though is that guilds will get a bit of time to farm and gear up from the early bosses before each new wing is made available.

  • actionfitz #20 2 years ago

    MOAR PURPLEZ!

    :)

  • Findus #21 2 years ago

    Can someone explain whether or not Arthas could be "released" from the Lich king's grasp?

    I thought Arthas was "taken over" by the Lich King. Is Prince Arthas actually "Dead" or "posessed"?

    Or have I got it terribly terribly wrong?


  • MBar #22 2 years ago

    Can someone explain whether or not Arthas could be "released" from the Lich king's grasp?
    I thought Arthas was "taken over" by the Lich King. Is Prince Arthas actually "Dead" or "posessed"?
    Or have I got it terribly terribly wrong?

    The general idea is that Arthas and Ner'zul "merged" when Arthas put on the Lich King armour. They are not seperate identies in any way now. Nether exist anymore. There is only the Lich King.

    One of the quests in Icecrown involved Tirion Fordring destroying the Lich King's heart, which was supposedly the last remanant of his human form.

    i.e. There's practically 0% chance of redemption for Arthas, judging by the story so far. But you never know I guess ...

  • Kremlik Verified Co-Founder, Crash To Desktop #23 2 years ago

    @Kero - Illidan is EXACTALLY why ICC is being released this way, Blizzard even addmitted it was a huge mistake to begin with, Arthas' death WILL be the LAST thing you do for Wrath AND the first thing you do in Cata, theres no gap, no content patch, no '6 months of nothing' - It's the end in more ways then one, you'll be saying goodbye to the Lichking a second before you'll be saying goodbye to everything we've known.

  • username #24 2 years ago

    Does this mean we finally get to 'win'?

    The only winning move is not to play.

  • Kami #25 2 years ago

    "They may be saying that now, but look at what happened with Burning Crusade - Illidan was built up to be the big end boss for that expansion, Black Temple gets released, and whaddaya know, a few months later The Sunwell and the Isle of Quel'Danas tip up to keep the masses entertained before WotLK hits the shops."

    The official explanation for that was that there was a discrepancy between the patch department and the actual people working on WotLK. Basically, they released the content too fast and that was (supposedly) why we got The Isle of Quel'danas as a stop-gap. It was a bloody amazing stop-gap, and partly was meant to showcase technology they were planning to use in WotLK (The phased nature of Icecrown, for example). That it wasn't out of the lore of the expansion either wasn't a bad thing either, it expanded on it - but admittedly, you had to be really hardcore to get the most out of Sunwell Plateau.

    WotLK they've more or less paced out the patches to avoid having to do it this time. Cataclysm is due in 3-4 months, which is more or less the time we waited between patches in WotLK so they've really strung the content out. But I do understand, TBC we got Zul'Aman and The Isle - both wonderful additions to the raiding side of things - whereas in WotLK we haven't had that. And sadly, we're not going to get it either. Love it or hate it, Blizzard are adamant that Cataclysm is the next step. Considering how much I have hated WotLK's raiding, they need to buck it up and get back to things like they used to do - because not even spanking Arthas appeals to me...

    Plus Arthas runs off instead of dying kind of annoys me even more. What's the fucking point?!

  • Shadman #26 2 years ago

    He doesn't run off. Well, he does in the 5 man dungeon, but not in the raid.

    This article is wrong, by the way. The bosses listed for the raid are the bosses for the 5 man dungeons. The 10/25 player raid has completely different bosses.