Getting Ready for Icecrown

Patch 3.3 is on the PTR. I'm really looking forward to it all once it hits the live servers. I don't have time to play around on the test realm, but I do keep up with the reports coming from the various data mining sites and people that actually do spend time on there. It's exciting!

Veritas is at a place right now where we're farming normal Coliseum runs for emblems and gear, and still trying to take people through Ulduar as well. I led a team of newer people through last Friday and we got all the way to Thorim and knocked him down. Tonight we're going back for Iron Council, and the rest of the keepers. We may even get to Vezax if we have the time, but I'm not sure if we'll get hung up on Mimiron or not. We'll see!

Eventually we're going to tackle some more hard mode Ulduar and heroic coliseum, but it's tough to fit that into the schedule alongside normal runs of both raids. It's my job to organize everyone, and it's getting a lot harder with more people getting up to raid ready status, but somehow I'm managing, and I think most people are satisfied so far.

So with current content pretty well in hand, we should be ready to step into Icecrown on the first weekend of it's release! I'm especially looking forward to the three new dungeons with the epic quest line. I've stayed more or less spoiler free, but I have seen a few things that look like they'll be very cool. I'm ready to see the culmination of our efforts and quests in Northrend, let alone everything from way back in Warcraft III.

I read a blog called Lorecrafted, and the blogger over there has some really cool ideas about what we could be seeing as we face off against the Lich King himself. I'm in agreement that the Burning Legion, specifically Mal'ganis, has to play a role in it somehow. There's been a lot of hints in the quests in Icecrown that he's not gone for good, and it makes sense that we would need some sort of outside help to take down the Lich King.

Even though I'm excited about everything to come, I'm still hoping for a month or more of time to get more people in the guild geared and ready for Icecrown. There's a good possibility we could have two teams ready for Icecrown soon after it's release. I'll have to see how quickly we can get our second team into regular Ulduar.