Patch 3.3 set to conditionally release next week
by Adam Holisky 
Dec 1st 2009 at 11:40PM
- Patch 3.3 is done, more or less.
- There are a couple server issues to be worked out.
- If the server issues are worked out, the patch will go live on December 8th.
We should have more solid confirmation towards the end of this week (or sometime next Monday afternoon) and will bring it to you when we get it.
All the information about patch 3.3 you need is contained in our guide, so head over there and read up in case you don't know what this monstrous patch will be about.
Patch 3.3 is the last major patch of Wrath of the Lich King. With the new Icecrown Citadel 5-man dungeons and 10/25-man raid arriving soon, patch 3.3 will deal the final blow to Arthas. WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.3 will keep you updated with all the latest patch news.Filed under: Patches, News items
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 5)
Avan Dec 1st 2009 11:51PM
Aren't there supposed to be Frostwyrms available from ICC, likely tied in with some sort of achievement? Didn't Bornakk say that when the next time mounts will be available like that, that we would have one months' warning to clear out Ulduar achieves to get the Protodrakes?
Has there been any one month warning, in the last month?
Amogayvhi Dec 1st 2009 11:53PM
They said they are not removing the ulduar mounts when 3.3 launches.
Odemine Dec 1st 2009 11:56PM
They didn't say that the next time mounts were available that we'd have one month's warning to clear the Ulduar achievements. What they said was they would give us one month's warning before they removed the mounts available from the Ulduar achievements. A bit different.
Avan Dec 1st 2009 11:57PM
I recall them saying that they didn't have plans to remove Ulduar drakes with 3.2, but I have yet to hear anything of the sort regarding 3.3.
Even so, wasn't there also a blue post in the last month saying that 3.3 is at least one month away? I think it came from Zarhym, and was even mentioned here on wow.com.
Adam Holisky Dec 2nd 2009 12:00AM
@avan
That post was made by someone working in technical support, and wasn't accurate. We didn't report on it because we were aware of it's inaccuracies -- he likely just made a mistake, and there was no need to drag his name through the mud.
NOW... that Zarhym guy on the other hand. He hates cranberries, and Azeroth. And still hasn't answered my question. ;-)
Shippleton Dec 2nd 2009 1:16AM
I don't actually see the Ulduar Protos going out 'till 4.0, with the ICC Wyrms going out in 4.1 or as soon as Clysm launches.
Valt Dec 2nd 2009 5:06AM
They said that Ulduar drakes will be removed when "next 310% mount" comes and give about month warning time. Same with Naxx/os/maly achievement drakes that got removed because next 310 arrived.
Theres 2 options in my mind about this:
1) Frost wyrm wont be 310% (wich I doubt)
or
2) They count month from patch release because you CANNOT access lich king this month thus making it impossible to get achievement/drake in this month. So while you are doing IC you have to hurry with those last pesky achievements in ulduar.
I vote for option 2 imo.
Theres also some guys (conspiracy theorists) that might say that blizz will use same gating system for heroic version too making the hc lich king avaible in 2 months and in middle of this 2 months uld warning will be given .. but thats just silly.
Robert Dec 2nd 2009 8:41AM
I think Blizzard was once again surprised at how few people had the Ulduar mounts. They were waiting for 1% of the Warcraft population to have it, and as of now 1% probably doesn't have it, just going by hearsay as to how often Ulduar gets run on my server. Thus they'll probably end up leaving the mounts in until a month or two before Cataclysm.
Hone Melgren Dec 3rd 2009 6:15AM
@ Adam Holisky
I don't think it was inaccurate.
I just think it does not mean what people think it means.
He said "You have about +1 month to download this file" referring to the wow-partial-1.mpq prepatch download people were having problems with
He did not say "You have a month to get all the prepatch data before the patch hits" nor did he say "The patch will be out in a month"
No. What I believe he meant (a point many people are choosing to ignore) is that the pre-patch downloads will probably be up on the background downloader for a month or so before Blizzard turn around and just put up a 3.2.2 - 3.3 patch and a 3.3 Universal patch.
I think they are doing it this way so people who may not have all the partial files can still download what they need to get on. IE If the have one of the partial files but not all of it. The partial files are pretty big after all. It would a shame to waste people's bandwidth but them not being able to complete their pre patch downloading.
IIthryn Dec 5th 2009 7:13PM
We constantly hold on to everything employees say as prophetic guarantees when the comments are usually just their best guess at the time. Insider just posted an article this week about an interview where a Blizz employee talked about how much they debate amongst themselves in-depth about lots of stuff behind the scenes.
Maybe just - surprise - Blizzard changed their minds. We've also been told that you'd never able to have players off the opposite faction on the same PvP server, never change races/gender, never change factions, never fly in Azeroth, etc.
A few months later, they could be seeing that the Ulduar achievements were still difficult for some in TOC-tier gear. Everyone knew they would be harder than the Naxxramas achievements, but not how *much* harder.
pandoranparadox Dec 1st 2009 11:52PM
background downloader is in action again tonight
Avan Dec 1st 2009 11:54PM
http://www.wow.com/2009/12/01/patch-3-3-downloader-active-again/
...It's still on the front page.
pandoranparadox Dec 2nd 2009 6:20AM
Haha. yeah my bad. I jumped the gun after getting off work and seeing the downloader on. In my excitement I didn't think to scan through the pages to see if there was an article yet. My folly. Man that's embarrassing.
freeway8989 Dec 1st 2009 11:54PM
About time. The LFG system will revitalize the game for me. Finding a healer for a heroic shouldn't take half an hour.
Jeff Dec 2nd 2009 12:05AM
I have an issue with everyone saying this is going to get rid of wait times. I'll still have to think this over, but it seems to me it is only going to equalize wait times across realms. For example, the problem tends to be there are 18 DPS in LFG and only 1 or 2 tanks or healers. So 1 or 2 groups form and the rest wait. So if 10 realms were combined, there would be 180 DPS and 10 or 20 tanks/healers. So 10 groups form, and the rest wait for more tanks or healers to queue. I guess the idea is that if a tank/healer isn't available on your server, maybe there is on another, but I hardly see there being an abundance of tanks/heals on 1 server that is going to fix everything for the rest of them.
MasterAsh Dec 2nd 2009 12:22AM
Yes, I'm waiting for the dungeon finder to renew my interest in the game, too.
I'm guildless and don't plan on signing up with another one for a long, long time. So the ability to head into a five-man with the same swiftness of a non-AV BG queue is quite welcome.
Darbyothrill Dec 2nd 2009 12:31AM
Well, consider this Jeff. As a healer, I don't bother to really look for groups because there is no tank in the system. I think this will encourage more tanks and healers to at least try, which is a positive thing.
I'm really looking forward to this feature, and I have confidence in it. I couldn't care less about running with pugs, as I'm pretty well geared, and can help carry a less geared group. I can't wait.
freeway8989 Dec 2nd 2009 12:41AM
I see your point. But there are more things to consider than just numbers. This system fixes a LOT of things broken with the old way of finding groups. Two important ones:
Getting saved to a dungeon, especially the daily heroic, would narrow the chances of finding an eligible group. There have been innumerable times where I would look for a group to do the daily heroic and find a healer, but couldn't bring him along because he was saved to that dungeon. Because of dungeon saves, less healers (who were interested in running heroics) would respond to my query "Tank LFG heroic [dungeon]."
You no longer need to sit in a capitol city spamming the Trade channel to find a group. A lot of potential healers/tanks would be off doing dailies, and what have you, unavailable to do heroics. Many people would rather be doing a quest than sitting in a city, spamming trade in vain. So they choose the former and thus lower the LFG population.
Jack Spicer Dec 2nd 2009 1:00AM
Don't forget the fact that once the LFG random dungeon tool finds you a group you're instantly warped into the instance, and when you're done, you're returned to exactly where you left. Very very convenient.
fatherland Dec 2nd 2009 2:54AM
@ Jeff,
I think your reasoning is based on the assumption that all realms have the same distribution of tanks, healers, and dps in the LFG that yours does. I have toons on a few different servers, and I've noticed that on some tanks will be really hard to come by, and on others it may be healers, ext.
By some statistical anomaly however, what ever I need to fill out a group seems to be what that server doesn't ever have any of... :) I'm hoping that he new random daily will encourage more people to queue up though.