Okay, a one-shot.. that is interesting, I suppose.

On the subject of betrayals and things involving major lore characters:

Quest - A Life Without Regret

What are those Nathrezim up to this time? Who is Putress? And the first quest in that line seems to spell trouble for

And if you look through the other quests that've appeared since this last Beta build, things look ... tense between the Horde and the Alliance. There are multiple quests in Icecrown that involve killing enemy faction players. To me, it looks like they're building on the notion that the crusade against Arthas is corrupting the players and the NPCs involved, threatening the whole world with chaos. It's a nice touch to make things darker.

It looks to me like Blizzard is kicking off WotLK by having Varimathras revolt, Orgrimmar flattened by troops from the Lich King, and (most shocking) killing off Thrall. This will piss off a lot of people once the WoW forum populace reads that quest.

It also implies that Sylvanas is still with the Horde. A few pages back in this thread, people were speculating that Sylvanas would revolt, but if Thrall is telling Horde players to go to the Undercity to speak with Vol'jin, then perhaps Sylvanas is offering shelter for orcs and troll that have been kicked out of their home city.

Just as a note, though Thrall is talking morbidly, the quest doesn't say he's dying. He in fact tells you that he'll meet up with you in the Undercity. Also, this doesn't seem to take place at the start of WotLK, but, rather, midway through - a previous quest involves retrieving Saurfang the Younger's armor and bringing it back to his father. I think the point is that, somewhere along the line - presumably during the assault on the Wrathgate, something goes horribly wrong, there's a betrayal by Varimathras and potentially others, and this causes widespread chaos and possibly sets the Horde and Alliance against each other once more.

Thrall doesn't actually seem to die, he's just saying he wants to thought of as a good Warchief when he eventually dies. Although I have to admit they could've worded that quest better, at first glance a lot of people are going to think Thrall kicked the bucket.

If Sylvanas is still there she won't be in control of the entire city, if that. Note that the last quest in the chain is called "The Battle For The Undercity", which seems to imply it's been taken over, most likely by Varimathras' buddies.

So it wasn't Sylvanas that lead the betrayal? But wait, why is Vol'Jin in Undercity if Sylvanas is there? This is madness.

Right now at Wrathgate, there's tons of brimstone and fire and such, and the Red Dragonflight is there, just what the heck happened I wonder. O_o

:: Blizzplanet :: Icecrown Glacier Opens in Wrath of the Lich King

Wait wait, Putress? There is no Putress, could it be that we have a placeholder name for Sylvanas? It would make far more sense.

Once again a request not to use Spoiler tags in the Spoiler thread.

Desperate Research - Quest - World of Warcraft

Still a lot of questions to be answered, of course.

I'm about 70% sure that quest takes place before we head to Northrend in some world event when the Lich King attacks us. I could be wrong mind you. What we need right now is information post-Wrathgate.

I agree that that quest takes place before Northrend, but it does at least explain who Putress is.

To speculate, the reason Vol'jin is at the Undercity is because the traitors somehow incapacitated Sylvanas.

Ah, this Horde storyline looks awesome, should shut those people up who complain about Alliance having all the cool quests. From what I gather, Saurfang will be killed at the Wrath Gate event when Varithamas and Putress betray the Horde. Alexstazsa comes in in dragon form to end the conflict - right now on live servers you can see that Blizzard is working on it, you can see the "aftermath" where everything is in chaos. The main question is whether Sylvanas betrays the Horde as well, given her ingame dialogue.. obviously she and Varithamas have different ends, but perhaps she goes along or even leads the betrayal?

Still, I think this goes to show how awesome the new phasing mechanic is for allowing a dynamic world to exist - it's clear that it was developed partway through WotLK's development cycle, but I can't wait to see how it'll be used when an expansion is built around its existence. Now we can have new content in old locations without tricky "what about the lowbies?" questions. I could easily see the attacks on Stormwind and Orgrimmar, for example, being accessible by level 61+ players only and involving a complete remake of those towns to facilitate the invasion event.

Overall, I have to say that the Northrend story is turning out to be much, much, much better than the TBC story. Granted, there's a better source material, but the way they've kept the player engaged with the various plot threads is great. My main gripe, of course, is cutting out a lore-rich zone like Azjol-Nerub for not-so-lore-rich zones like Grizzly Hills, Zul'Drak, and Sholazar Basin. I understand the technical reasons, but gutting the Yogg-Saron lore.. sigh. It is noteworthy that there's a new Azjol-Nerub-style area under Icecrown, though, which features some interesting (at least, it will be when it's implemented) lore about Yogg-Saron and Arthas. Hopefully they'll expand on that, especially when it comes time in the content cycle to implement the Azjol-Nerub raid.

I was very disappointed Anub'arak was a 5-man boss, and not even a level 80 dungeon boss, just somebody you kill along the way to 80. It was mentioned a few times on the beta R&D boards, but I suppose if they've already balanced an instance and put in the dialog there's not much they can or will do about it.

And yes, there is much praise to be had for the storyline in WotLK, it's all very very exciting, and the phasing element we saw in the Death Knight starting area spilling over to live content, would be downright AMAZING, I'm getting my expectations awfully high here, and I'm hoping it meets them.

Note: When you turn in the Horde quest to Wrathgate, all of the NPCs disappeared, I had assumed they they disappeared for everyone, but this could have been that phasing at work, as obviously the NPCs didn't disappear for everyone, ie people who needed to turn in the Wrathgate quest as well.

It would be pretty cool if he was the interim leader of the Horde in the UC after Sylvanas betrays/is kidnapped/what have you.

Trolls would finally get a City! :P

Ok maybe not, but I'm sure they can dream right? Would be a pretty downright weird twist is Trolls rebuilt and took over Lordaeron.

If this is the case wouldn't the Forsaken joined up with the Scourge and you will be left will 1 less race for Horde? Maybe they could have a machine that converts Forsaken into trolls.

Could have some very interesting Amani tie-ins for sure. Which would further add tension to the Blood Elf - Horde alliance? There are many possibilities for where this may go. It's quite possible that with one of the Horde leaders becoming a Forsaken at the Wrath gate (or even an Alliance leader), someone new could take over the Forsaken to aid them and tie them closer to the Horde (After what would be essentially a Forsaken betrayal.)

Maybe this will have to do with the "new plague" you help to create in a long quest chain in Howling Fjord (a plague supposed to kill even undead). Perhaps Varimathras finally managed to control Sylvanas' Mind to make a new plague, able to kill almost anything (Scourge , Horde and Alliance) for the return of the Burning Legion? The npc in Howling Fjord creating the plague beeing lured thinking it would only be used against Arthas.

The Burning Legion members lost their control over the Lich King, their backup plan might be Sylvanas, using her hate against Arthas and her desire of revenge.

With the new "live instance" they have the opportunity to make a lot of non-permanent change, as we can see during the Deathknight questline. If there is a war in undercity it's likely that low level character won't see it at all and only character with the quest will see it.
If you consider the PVP achievement which still requiers to kill Sylvanas I doubt she will be gone once the quest line is finished.

Perhaps we will see something like

-Before the quest , Sylvanas and Varimathras

-During the quest, Sylvanas mind controled by Varimathas(and/or other Burning legion members) quest give you crazy buff like in Deathknight quest line (damage x10 hp x10 ect) and you are freeing her yourself with the help of Vol'jin during that quest you are in a "instanced world"

-Once the quest is done, Sylvanas is back realise what she has done blinded by her desire of revenge , a new character may take the place of Varimathras for the quests he gave (perhaps Varimathras managed to flee during the war and may appear again in a raid instance).

If the majority of this is to take place with the opening of the wrath gate, I get the sense that it COULD be treated like Sunwell Plateau, in that maybe there wouldn't be as much "phasing", in that once the event was complete in its entirety, the state of WoW would remain that way for the rest of the expansion? (A more grounded change in the storyline.)

I could be wrong, but I'm not exactly sure how Blizzard plans to work with Icecrown on live.

Nah, the Wrath gate will be phased. The NPCs disappearing was probably the first obvious encounter with phasing for non-DKs. They still haven't completed the area, however.

There are Achievements for killing Thrall/Sylvanas/Cairne in WotLK btw, so don't run too far with the speculations about them moving around and/or disappearing outside of quest related one-shots!

I just wanted to add my thoughts regarding the potential deaths and reanimations of Naxx bosses in wrath:

Reanimating most types of undead servitors is a trivial task for the Lich King, particularly constructs. Just get replacement parts, reanimate the essence, and you're good to go. Pretty much anything in Naxx is within the power of the Lich King to reanimate. A lich such as Kel'Thuzad keeps a phylactery as a precautionary measure, as it takes much more power to create them, and thus to reanimate them. A phylactery simply assists in this process, instead of starting from scratch.

I like the idea that was given earlier, that Darion could have gone in himself, acquired the Ashbringer and subsequently been corrupted. Meanwhile we cleared Naxx, handed in the phylactery, and the events at Archerus begin; meanwhile the Lich King is busy reconstructing/reanimating his servants in Naxx. Seeing as the majority of Naxx bosses can simply be reanimated, and the only remotely humanoid ones aren't nearly powerful enough to be more than trivially passing for the Lich King to restore it should be a fair enough explanation.

No clue on how to handle Utgarde and Ashbringer though.

They continued the DK quest line after the battle at Light's Hope Chapel, and the quest has a hint about what happened with Darion to turn him into a Deathknight:

Taking Back Acherus - Quest - World of Warcraft

The follow up quests involve killing a weak version of Patchwerk and some other scourge in Archeus, then taking a letter from Tirion Fordring vouching for you to Thrall/King Wrynn. Until you deliver the letter you are Unfriendly to all Orgrimarr/Stormwind NPCs, and they spit at you/throw fruit/yell at you. Turning in the letter gives 6000 rep and brings you to Friendly.