Patch 3.3 still might be a month away from going live, but Blizzard recently posted a informative developer interview about the upcoming endgame in Icecrown Citadel to help tide us over, for the time being. Titled "The Heart and Souls of Icecrown Citadel," Blizzard chats with Lead Content Designer Cory Stockton and Lead Systems Designer Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street about the design process behind the upcoming, multi-winged dungeon.

Stockton and Street talk about the significance of Icecrown Citadel and the Arthas encounter from a lore perspective, admitting they had their work cut out for them in presenting this chapter of the Lich King saga. "When we first sat down to discuss the layout of the raid itself, we immediately went back to Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne to think about how the spire from the ending cinematic could be translated into World of Warcraft," Stockton said. "We decided to actually build Icecrown Citadel around the original spire to pull players even more into the storyline."

The pair also talk about gear itemization in patch 3.3; they mention that new raid content is a perpetual learning experience for the developers, and that they've learned "what differences there should be between 10- and 25-player itemization, the role of tradeskill recipes, and what kinds of items to place with badge vendors," according to Street. He briefly mentions the new "Ashen Verdict" faction debuting in 3.3, and explains why the upcoming Tier 10 armor sets are such a substantial improvement over Tiers 8 and 9. It's a pretty insightful interview, which also features the duo answering questions about Icecrown's graphical design, its boss encounters and how the upcoming Cataclysm expansion influenced the dungeon's development. Check out the full interview here, then drop us a comment to let us know what you're  looking forward to the most in 3.3.