He already does look like a douche. Bolvar's last thing before he died was to request Horde assistance, and the Horde came through for him. Just that should give Varian something to think about, if you ask me... Actually, I'm rather looking forward to an undead Bolvar snapping at him for being a moron

This is kind of off-topic "is wrynn a douche-bag debate":

Regardless of whether the Horde came to Bolvar's aid before he died, it was the Horde who killed him. I think it's disingenuous to argue that the apothecary society was a just fringe group and they really had nothing to do with the Horde. I mean, right from the Undead starting area you are working to concoct a plague that will kill Alliance members. Really, the Horde is directly responsible for allowing Putress to strike; not only do the other Horde members turn a blind eye to the formation of their plague, they actively participate in it in various quest lines! The Horde is horribly run, and Wrynn is completely right to blame Thrall and Sylvanas' incompetence for allowing the kind of horrors that go on in the Undercity to continue unchecked. I mean, the chick's right hand man was a dreadlord, how can someone be so dense as to trust him? If Wrynn's justification is that the Horde should no longer exist because it's a danger to the continued survival of, well, everyone, he's entirely right. How is he supposed to win a campaign against the Lich King if there's undead fifth columns going around killing indiscriminately? The Alliance's forces could have been largely wiped out by the spread of the plague if it weren't for the red dragons. The Horde needs to get it together.

Garrosh isn't helping either.

That said I don't actually agree with what Wrynn's doing, I just like playing devil's advocate.

Varian really seems to be getting a lot of flak here. But even looking at the original Wrathgate discussion, while there is some understanding of Varian's motivation, few seem to consider Thrall's failure of leadership in the WoW storyline.
Let's have a quick look at the former. There's always a tendency in high fantasy to pin everything to great leaders. But Bolvar's disappearance is not the only 'casus belli' for Varian. Remember that there was also a legion of the Alliance's best soldiers liquefied by the New Plague. But what's more, going down to Undercity made it obvious that the means to do so had been worked on for a long time. The Forsaken are considered a faction with evil alignment, Sylvanas herself is lawful evil, and a whole bunch of quests make their intentions concerning humanity abundantly clear. That is, unless there's some major 'redemption' in the making, the casus belli won't go away anytime soon.
Now consider the second point, assigning most of the blame for the current escalation to Varian. But let's look at this - Varian has been regaining control of his nation, and increasingly the entire Alliance, through his own actions. Thrall, on the other hand, has increasingly lost his grip on the Horde through his passivity and unwillingness to challenge some of the more unsavoury aspects of Orcish society and the Horde in general. Did we see Thrall taking an active interest in what his undead allies were up to? Has he been cracking down on radical offshoots like the Grimtotem? Or was there any real reworking or challenging of the warrior culture that still permeates Orc society? The latter is particularly grave as can be seen in the behaviour of younger warriors like Garrosh, while older ones like Saurfang the Elder have learnt from experience. Blaming everything on oh-so-bad demonic corruption looks like a cop out.
Thrall is ultimately responsible for what the Horde are doing, and hence must also take some of the blame for the current escalation. This blame has to be associated with his passivity, whereas Varian's fault lies with his rashness.

I think something people need to keep in mind before they blame Thrall for ignorance is that we all have the advantage of being near omnipresent and omniscient in regard to the Warcraft universe. Many things are revealed through quests to the player for the sake of story-telling. Just because you know these things does not mean that the rest of the NPCs in the game do. Also keep in mind that Factions like the Grimtotem are frequently dealt harsh blows in quests. If not for the nature MMOs, it's entirely likely that Magatha would probably be very short on muscle right now, considering how many important members of their clan were eliminated.

Dreadlords are also not a joke, and Sylvanas has never been depicted as a fool (in fact she's supposed to be quite cunning). It's unlikely that Sylvanas ever really trusted Varimathras at all. The fact that he stands right in front of her in the throne room is proof enough of that. If anything, the fact that he still managed to coordinate a coup in spite of that fact is testiment to how dangerous Dreadlords are.

Do not assume that just because these characters never move from their thrones in-game that they're just sitting on their thumbs lore-wise and that they're dumb as troggs.

Ignorance is no excuse, but these characters aren't faced with slouches. They're being pitted against enemies that are no less intelligent and cleaver than they themselves are, lore-wise.

If I remember rightly the Alliance had a Black Dragon practically running it not once but twice in recent history. I'd hardly be pointing fingers in that area.

The more I think about it the more I think Wyrnn is beyond redemption and it will come to Jaina having to put him down like the rabid dog he is and take over in the stead of the boy king before Wyrnn can really screw things up permanently.

Also you are trying to make out Wyrnn is acting out of the good of everyone? He's purely concerned with revenge and bloodlust and is incredibly selfish in his goals. If he could he'd probably completely ignore the Lich King just going after Thrall who is really the good guy in all this.

On Garrosh, do Alliance even have any interaction with him?

The difference there is that the dragons were doing it undercover. Varimathras was all "sup guise im a dreadlord" then "btw? betray'd!". It's not exactly a stretch of the imagination to imagine a member of a species known for manipulation and betrayal doing just that.

Varian's a psychopath, true, but at least his character flaws are understandable. Unless Sylvanas was actually going behind Varimathras' back and counter-plotting against him, I fail to see how her moment of stupidity in having him anywhere near the Forsaken can be justified as anything other than bad writing.

There's been far too many liberties taken with logic and characterisation in the name of having four and then five races per side. The humans and dwarves have a long-standing relationship -- as do the gnomes with the dwarves, apparently -- and with the High Elves unplayable that leaves the Night Elves as the Alliance race that sticks out the most.

They don't stick out as much as the Forsaken do, though. The orcs, tauren and trolls fit together nicely. The Forsaken have been trying to kill *everyone* else, regardless of how Sylvanas has been changed into a source of wangst. They don't fit in the Horde.

Hell, the Blood Elves fit in the Horde better than the Forsaken do -- "Garithos hated us! All humans must hate us! Come, brothers and sisters -- let us ally with the Horde in response!"

Varian's a douchebag for blaming the Horde as a whole for the Apothecary society.
The Horde are complicit idiots for turning a blind eye and potentially helping the Apothecary society.

What both sides forgot was - the Apothecary's "plague" worked. Not only does it kill everything living, whether Alliance or Horde, but it kills undead as well. That was a major point - a plague that would kill undead.

I'd say this is a case of hate the sinner, love the sin. You've purged the society, but you should still have at least the formula for the plague. Pull all your troops out of Icecrown and carpet bomb the place. Only the Lich King should survive, severely weakened based on his interaction with a first dose. Enough juice and it might even off him, who knows until you try.

Either the "plague" is non-communicable and it's clear to send in ground forces as soon as it disperses, or it's a constant zone-of-death barring a red dragonflight flaming. If the latter, just quarantine Icecrown. Arthas is unable to generate troops - they'd die instantly.

You either have all your armies going against a weakened Lich King, or you've stuck him in a no-undead zone incredibly weak. Just watch for him to attempt to leave and crush him, or politely request the Red flight breath on the citadel and parachute in troops. With Malygos out of the picture, and undead no longer assaulting their shrine, the Red should be willing and able to assist.

The "new plague" is the WoW equivalent of a nuke. You try to bury it after the war, not during it, even (especially!) if initial "tests" killed many of your best troops. You "do it for the victims of the Wrathgate" and all that rot.

Both the Alliance and Horde suffer for strategy. Their ideas of strategy are either WW1 human waves, or Voltron "form the blazing sword." Who came up with their strategy, Prince Anduin Wrynn?

Sidenote: Personally I think as a "plague", it's pretty bad. It's never been proven communicable to my knowledge (my Horde is still L60, unsure if Wrath quests show it can spread to victims, but in Hillsbrad and whatnot you kill people with it and it never spreads to you or anyone else). It acts more like a cloud of nerve gas. Either it remains as a green cloud (Don't stand in the fire... er... green clouds, idiot!) and people avoid it, or it disperses/settles on the ground and still kills instantly. A plague that kills before it can be passed on to other victims isn't much of a threat. It's diseases with an incubation time of 24 hrs to a week that are the most worrisome. They spread far and wide before people even know they're infected. The "new plague's" instant death argues against itself as an effective contagion.

No. He bides his time in his rocky hut, Alliance never gets to see him. Saurfang Jr is the only notable Horde character they get to encounter, albeit indirectly in the form of a video. And of course, Thrall and the rest, duh.

Well, during the Zombie event you could pass the plague to other people by attacking them. But from a gameplay standpoint it would be a complete pain if you got infected every time you fought an NPC ghoul and needed to get cured by a priest or pally.

Actually, it'd be fine for a game - just probably not a first person perspective MMORPG game, specifically. Although you could tailor it for the quest milieu. 3.0 "Hey, we need dragonscale to concoct the plague. For the quantity we need, there's not enough if we killed half the dragons around, but Malygos is extra powerful. Go bring me one of his scales. And I heard about this Sartharion guy, bring me one of his, too." 3.1 "ZOMG, we need giant mushroom spores from Freya's chamber in Ulduar for the plague, go get it. Oh, and some brain juice from Yogg-Saron would kick it up a notch. Bam!" 3.2 "Oh, we, uh, need Deathwing's toenail clippings/Yogg-Saron's AN gewgaw/magical mcguffin from whatever the secret raid is."

3.3 - "We've concocted the plague and packaged it in these living+forsaken safe containers. Talk to me when you're ready to assault Icecrown." Click. Mount flight, carpet bomb with other gryphons/bats/dragons/etc at your shoulders, be dropped and parachute into Icecrown Citadel zone-in.

Oh, yeah, and did I mention that each faction has a few pots of this held in reserve in case someone gets out of line? Don't mess with us or we'll drop this on <name of your racial leader>.

You can work a lot of things into an MMO with all the clever technology Blizzard has developed (such as flying and phasing). Should you? Probably not. I don't advocate the above. I just hate for huge threads to be dropped. Just because the Soviet Union fragmented didn't mean it no longer had nuclear weapons, now in the control of the smaller states. Same goes for "new plague" - just because Putress is dead doesn't mean the "new plague" no longer exists, has all been destroyed, etc. Heck - I'd shudder to even think about them trying to destroy it without research (a good quest line ensues). Burn it? Pour it into the ocean? Toss other chemicals into it? Who knows what would happen.

It's always painful to see some quests cobbled together because someone was grasping at something legitimate to have you do when there are great gobs of lore-related material they could easily use to springboard. Or things like Sartharion where they drop the lore ball entirely. Fumble! All it takes is one explanatory quest - that's all Malygos got for EoE.

Edit: Gleithan - the original plague sprang from poisoned grain. I've always been under the impression it vectored through being eaten. Otherwise necromancers "manually" turned you into undead after the fact. Such as Arthas and Sindragosa. The plague event ghouls were a special treat concocted by Arthas - maybe it has an incubation period where the ghouls can spread, after that they're clean too. Don't get me wrong, I don't disagree with gameplay mechanics making any undead infecting you ridiculous. Especially after the Icecrown quest showing once infected, always infected. "Damn, Bob died to a void zone, now he's a zombie. Can a tank pick him up?"

Arthas raising your dead raid members would be awesome.

A bunch of people have been asking the boss sounds sources:
YouTube - Yogg Saron Audio - Yogg-Saron
YouTube - Algalon the Observer Sounds - Algalon