Call me an optimist, but I suspect that Blizzard still has grand plans for Azjol-Nerob (Including the 25 man raid zone and the 'vast underground zone we could get lost in' everyone was hoping for) but is holding off releasing details on it, for whatever reason.

Perhaps the current 2 zones is all they had time to create by the release date - or maybe AN going to be added in some post-release content patch as a big drawcard. If WOTLK had been out 3-6 months and the next major patch was going to 'fully add and flesh out the vast underground Azjol-Nerob empire in a max-level only zone' would you be excited? I would be.

This is like the 'pacing the release of raid content' thread, theres simply no need to give us so much PVE content at once. I am very satisfied with the amount of levelling content so far in WOTLK currently. Too much solo/levelling content at once can be a bad thing. I would still be very happy if the fleshed out Azjol-Nerub (the version we all want, not the current hole-in-the-ground) was patched in after release as a lvl 80 only zone - as long as it met the expectations us fans currently have.

Blind optimism? Maybe, but we can hope!

Actually he says it should have him who "carried" the blade, not "kept" or "not lent". Consider that, and his disguised state, and it becomes fairly consistent. You can't go around carrying the most famous and recognizable item in all WoW lore and hope for anonymity. This pretty much saved his life, seeing what happened to the lucky guy charged with carrying it.

Speculating further, in his hands rather than some poor peon's it might be much more easily detectable by the Lich King (its power comes from the wielder etc etc, in Fordring's hands it would be a blindingly bright beam of hope, holiness yada yada. Hard to keep a low profile in that condition)
As an analogy with Sauron's mad search of the One Ring, and how the only way to get it so close to him was to have it carried by an average joe: to sneak the Ashbringer into Northrend where it's needed, so close to the Lich King, it had to be temporarily carried by some unassuming guy.

Alright, so after playing through the half-complete (if that) Storm Peaks, all the new lore seems to be around the Vrykul, and it's actually kinda cool. I guess I don't have the whole picture since I'm not Alliance, but here's what I kinda-understand so far.

There's 5 types of Vrkul, starting with your normal fleshy types, and then you have your Sea Vrykul, your Frost Vrykul, your Undead Vrykul, and your Runed/Iron Vrykul. I'm not exactly sure how affiliated each type is, however. I'll break it down:

Regular Vrykul: Ruled by King Ymrion, have presences in Howling Fjord and Grizzly Hills. Have pledged allegience to the Lich King and their warriors seek to "ascend" after death through his favor. The ones who are rejected by the Val'Kyr (who carry Arthas' judgement) become undead Vrykul (Vargul, I think they're called) and the ones who are accepted... well, who knows. The boss of Utgarde Keep is "accepted" and becomes just a regular undead Vrykul, but this doesn't make sense to me since it's said later on that the undead Vrykul are the unascended ones. I'm inclined to accept the later narrative and I think that the Utgarde Keep boss was created before the lore was further developed.

Sea Vrykul: I don't know if these are affiliated with any other types. You mostly see them in Borean Tundra attacking Tuskaar villages. There's some lore about them in Howling Fjord (the quests where you find the four artifacts for the Tuskaar), but I'm afraid that I don't really remember it.

Undead Vrykul: Seen en masse in Zul'Drak, and that's about it I believe. As said above, these are mostly "unworthy" Vrykul that have been raised by the Lich King.

Forst Vrykul: Here's where it gets interesting. Frost Vrykul appear in Storm Peaks, and are very ununified. It seems that the Frost Vrykul are almost entirely female and keep regular male Vrykul as slaves. One group of Frost Vrykul has pledged allegience to the Lich King and their warriors seek to become Val'Kyr (their village is names Valkyrion, and it's the first place you actually get to fight Val'Kyr.) Another group follows/worships Thorim, an ancient male Frost Vykrul who sits atop the Temple of Storms. He claims to be the brother of Loken, who has taken control of Ulduar from him. If they truly are brothers, this is odd because Loken is currently represented ingame with the Male Titan model. This group also hates the Vrykul which has pledged allegience to the Lich King, which is why I doubt that Ymrion is truly the kind of the Vrykul.. he has no domain over Thorim, let alone Loken.

Runed Vrykul: These are the "original" Vrykul made by the Titans. They're led by Loken, along with the Runed Iron dwarves and other runed constructs. Their main focus is fighting the Earthen and Storm / Earth giants, but they're probably considered enemies to all the other Vrykul types. So far the only one seen ingame afaik is the last boss of the Halls of Stone, but there are undoubtedly others which will probably appear in Storm Peaks or Ulduar.

That's my understanding so far, at least. Also, there might be another infinite dragonflight chain in Storm Peaks, but it's not finished yet. There's a tauren who uses something called the "Lorehammer" to detect inconsistencies in the timeline... hope he keeps that thing away from Metzen, it'd probably explode.

Well, that's bastardized Marvel comics lore. Thor (Thorim) and Loki (Loken) are both sons of Odin, and brothers, Thor by blood, Loki by adoption (he's of giant descent). The original Norse versions are more complicated (and not very consistent) regarding the relationship between Loki and Odin's family.

I'm not so sure about that, really. There's no predecessor to Humans other than the Iron Vykrul, and it's said that Gnomes originally came from metal sentinels or something.

That's a good question, though. It's implied that the Earthen are titan creations, so does that mean that the iron races are not? I don't have strong evidence either way.

Maybe the runes on the Iron Dwarves and Vyrkul offer some protection from the Curse of the Flesh? Perhaps the Iron Vyrkul could have been used as foot soldiers in the Titan's War against the Old Gods, and the design was so successful it was then used after the fact or the new Earthen?

Doesn't explain a lot of things though, like why wasn't a new Clockwork Gnome design made.

The real question is though is why the Titans didn't just decide to end the entire project, slay the Old Gods, and move on. Instead they went out of their way after the fact to add stuff to Azeroth that just wasn't normal. Maybe they felt sorry for their former workers and wanted to give them some help. Or, being of a scientific mindset, they were currious as to what would happen to these new varibles in their up to this point, standard design scheme.

In the end, maybe they did know what they were doing, Azeroth has had a remarkable track record of repelling the Burning Legion. No other world has been able to do that, and it wasn't just luck, as it has happened multiple times.

I don't think that's a fair assessment. No other specific-world-known-to-Azerothians. Clearly, besides Azeroth, the Burning Legion isn't all powerful as we know there's still the Naaru who not only battle the Legion, they follow in the wake of the Legion to help (see Outlands).

And of course, as said by me above, there is still Elune. We know the Titans are not "true" gods, but Elune is. Who is to say that Azeroth isn't special because its under the protection of Elune? And there's some basis for this, even in game. Ever notice when we slay Archimonde, thus ending the second invasion, we get Elune's Protection? That power seems very real.

At this point we're not technologically advanced enough to really confirm godship of anything, our "the holy light", gods and the titans may be as non-godly as the stargate mythos gods who are all entirely killable but generally live for a really long time.

I'm pretty sure that the idea of the computer console that Brann stumbles upon is supposed to be heavily leaning towards Clarke's Third law.

How would I got about listening the Malygos' sound file? Been looking around for an explanation but haven't found one yet.

Cam Clarke does Malygos' voice. Of Medivh, Blood Elf Male fame. :0

To get to the sound files:



If mods don't want this posted here, by all means delete this.

On a side note, I have to say I'm not to crazy about some of the voice acting I've heard, I thought after the Archimonde fiasco we wouldn't have to deal with such things again, alas. -_-

I have no idea why they changed Kel'Thuzad's voice, it's literally the same dialog, but this Kel'Thuzad sounds far far worse.
Anub'arak's voice isn't deep enough.
Brann Bronzebeard also sounds a bit wirey, though perhaps this is extremely fitting, still seems a bit gruff.
Arthas at Stratholme sounds far too forced, they should have just copied the WC3 files over. =/
The Lich King reminds me nothing of Arthas, it sounds completely like an Orc, like Ner'zhul, which is odd considering the cinematic trailer gave you the impression there was a lot of Arthas in there, and didn't even mention the old Horde Shaman. On the other hand, if I do think of it as Ner'zhul, I enjoy the the voice alot, it's quite scary.
One of the few voices that sounds good surprisingly is Mal'Ganis, although this might be because:

Was this rhetorical or did you actually want an answer?

Balnazzar obviously from classic(Poor Sylvanas never found out about this one)
The whole of Naxxramas from WoW Classic, including Kel'Thuzad twice(Don't forget he died in WC3 ^_^)
Archmage Arugal
Kael'thas
Teron Gorefiend
Magtheridon(Debatable but he certainly looked dead in the original campaign)
Muradin Bronzebeard

That's off the top of my head. I'll update it if I remember anybody else.

Edit: Medivh, god, how could I forget about him. =/ -1 "Lorelol"points for me, brought back for WC3.
The Alliance Expedition to Outland, we assumed they all died, they were all alive though, save Alleria Windrunner and Turalyon who are still MIA.