Originally Loken was called Kronus and he was trying to free someone he referred to as "Father", probably originally meant to be a Titan or Titan construct. Eventually "Father" was scrapped, most likely because Yogg-Saron needed to be put somewhere other than Azjol-Nerub, and thus the story about Yogg-Saron being in Ulduar was made. Which honestly works well enough, but there are good signs that the Iron Army plotline was going to be separate from the Yogg-Saron stuff.

I've said this a few times so far, but I never get tired of bitching about it because there's so much wasted potential in not doing Azjol-Nerub. I'm not going to get over it until the third expansion is out and they leave out the Tomb of Sargeras or something (assuming it's a South Seas expansion.)

Any chance you have a video or screen shot to back up those claims? I'd be interested in seeing how the zone looked before hand

Well, that explains why Azjol-Nerub is a 20 minute instance when it's implied that it's a huge area in The Frozen Throne. Pretty disappointing. Too bad they didn't scrap Grizzly Hills and put AN in instead.

I think it would have been much better, had they tapped into that one major event that took place in Storm Peaks. You know, that massive battle between Aegwynn and Sargeras' avatar? Yeah, that one. Because, I'd be willing to bet that there was SOME remnant of that battle left behind in the Storm Peaks, and further more, that if Loken was going to refer to anybody as Father, it ought to be a Titan. And who better than Sargeras to start all this. He could even have set Yogg-Saron free by turning something off in Ulduar, which would have been a great segway into Azjol for 3.2.

Now it just seems a bit wrong, but maybe this surprise dungeon really will be worth it.

This pretty much sums up the general sentiment from the community, "Azjol Nerub: Why Blizzard, why?" Hopefully someday we can get a definitive answer. Were original development plans scrapped / changed and why. Out of curiousity, what are some of the major things that people are interpreting as signs that Yogg-Saron wasn't originally intended to be in Ulduar?

I've been thinking a bit and maybe the whole thing about killing Old Gods is hoax. Titans are obsessed with order and you can not have order without control. The titans originally created their little pets to do THEIR bidding under THEIR command.

Then the Old Gods pop up and turn them into flesh beasts. Maybe the titans' creations were limited in potential and easily controlled but when they were turned into flesh their potential became unlimitied and also became uncontrollable by the titans.

Not sure what to do with the fleshy corrupted beings, they sealed Old Gods away for some sinister purpose of control or something and to keep the non-titan creations away from the Old Gods they invented a story that would stop them from killing them.

Unfortunately for the titans, the passage of time made the whole thing fade away and forgotten. C'thun managed to get out of his prison and Loken got corrupted. But no worry, now that we have unlimited potential we can learn great magics and do extraordinary feats and thus defeat Old Gods.

Should the titans learn of this rise in power by their former creations they might feel threatened by it. We're quite handily beating their most powerful creations (aspects and such) and their fail-safeties (Old Gods) so they might just want to wipe us all out before we grow too powerful and perhaps rivals to the titans.

A bit far-fetched but who knows?

Well, I think the "why" of abandoning Azjol-Nerub is somewhat obvious... it was the easiest zone to get rid of, since it was underground. You can't just remove Grizzly Hills without altering the entire geography of Northrend, but cutting off Azjol-Nerub wasn't a big deal. They already had a ton of content planned for WotLK and felt that cutting Azjol-Nerub would help them get the expansion out before Christmas 2008.

As for Yogg-Saron not being in Ulduar... in addition to the old "Father" lines (which I refuse to believe were meant to refer to Yogg-Saron), the tentative ties between Yogg-Saron and the Iron Army (barely hinted at in Storm Peaks and only made explicit when fighting Loken), and the redesign of Ulduar into a prison, well... there's the whole thing where there was supposed to be an Azjol-Nerub raid at some point, and it was confirmed that it was supposed to house an Old God... obviously Yogg-Saron, which is what would have made the most sense.

As for the Ulduar redesign, you can compare things with the beta version here:

http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/...ar_beta_11.jpg <~ The antechamber. Notice the statue here instead of the Saronite pit.

But yeah, I agree... hopefully someday they'll be candid about what happened to Azjol-Nerub, what they had planned, etc. I was really looking forward to the lore on the Spider War, the Faceless, the Aqir, etc., but I see it as highly unlikely that those things will ever be developed at this point.

Well it isn't like Crystalsong was never gonna be added though since it was originally just part of Storm Peaks.

I think the main reason AN was not added was due to technical problems and time. A underground zone would of been a lot harder to do than a above ground zone (making sure the entire thing is underground and not going above ground anywhere) and I'd imagine they ran into issues.

I wouldn't look too into how Ulduar was back in the Alpha/Beta either. That statue in the middle could of easily just been there as a placeholder. Consideirng the effect Yogg-Saron has on the sanity on those he affects me may have just made Loken believe he was his father just like how Yogg-Saron was making Thorim believe Sif was talking to him before his encounter. Ulduar technically never was redesigned into a prison either and for all we know thats what it always was. The only lore we had on Ulduar was based on the point of view of who 'wrote the book' and that is intentional so that the lore can be expanded upon at a later date. And there never really was a confirmed Azjol-Nerub raid and it was mostly speculation.

Considering how the Curse of Flesh was hinted back in Uldaman it seems the entire storyline was planned out 4 years ago or just expanded upon from that.

Considering that Hodir IS Loken's father, and is certainly involved in the whole mess, it seems to me to stretch credulity to think Loken could be referring to anyone else.

When has it EVER been stated that Hodir is Lokens father. Hodir is a Watcher just like Loken and Loken was designated as their leader. The father/creators of all the Watchers if anyone is the Pantheon themselves.

Also Freya has been defeated and as expected gets redeemed also.

This is the 2nd time you've said this and disappeared from the thread afterward, please provide source or reference for it, or just stop saying it.