This seems a little more reasonable to me than actually handing out Frostmourne and/or Ashbringer. The problem with both of those as player-wielded weapons is that they're both extremely central parts of major lore. There's a lot more sense in the game of THE Frostmourne and THE Ashbringer, much moreso than there ever was for THE Warglaives of Azzinoth, which were just a couple weapons that Illidan picked up from some random doomguard thousands of years before the events of any Warcraft game. It would be difficult to justify a bunch of people running around on a server carrying the actual Frostmourne or the actual Ashbringer, unless they were rewards only available as part of the server first kill, similar to the Scarab Lord title and mount. As cool as that would be, I just don't see it happening when the reward is an actual powerful item usable in combat.

The original Corrupted Ashbringer in Naxx 1.0 is a little problematic in this regard, though. My only argument about that would be that it wasn't nearly as significant a part of active lore then, whereas the cleansed version is now, after the story buildup from BC in Old Hillsbrad and the events at Light's Hope. Admittedly a weak argument, though.

To be completely honest Rhaegal, I think when it comes to those two weapons, it might actually be beneficial for the game as a whole to just say "screw lore/precedent" and just let them drop for players to use.

Edit; By stating "just let them drop" I did not mean to summon the RNG-spirits. I completely agree with Exemplar.

I'm personally of the mind that Frostmourn is part of Ner'zuhl. Kil'Jaeden empowered the armor and sword with the dispersed essence/soul whatever of the former orc. I really do not think that the sword should be lootable by characters but rather should be an artifact or quest item of some kind that would lead to a conclusion of the lore surrounding the sword and Ner'zuhl. On the other hand Blizzard has not shown a pattern of dogmatic behavior when it comes to items that really should be more important than they ended up. The Skull of Guldan was almost as important as Frostmourn lore-wise and we all know how that turned out.
So while I strongly believe that Blizz should embrace the lore of the sword and really make it into something cooler than a drop or even a legendary weapon, I do not think they will take this route.

Personally, I'd love it if Arthas dropped a very specific grey item upon his death -- a sword with sod all stats. [Lifeless Frostmourne], for instance. It could even have some flavour text.

"Nice job breaking it, hero!"

Can't really trust the figures from the Ulduar achievements just yet. They seem to be mostly placeholders (like, there's an achievement to kill a boss in 20 seconds or something, or to kill 3 bosses within 2 seconds of each other, stuff like that).

I originally wrote those exact words in my post, but then I thought to myself, "this doesn't really fit that logic." The fight has already been designed, it's not a matter of tuning. They've already recorded and distributed voices for three visions, so it would make sense that they'd at least write "3" rather than "5", even if the encounter was yet to be completed. Doesn't quite sit right. Perhaps the other two visions don't have any voices whatsoever, and as such we were lead to believe there are only 3? Hmm.

They probably just put random numbers in like they did for everything else so I wouldn't look to into it.

Ooh! On the topic of Crystalsong Forest and how The Scourge can't step foot in that area (for whatever reason - i forget)...

In 3.1, The Black Knight quest chain (Argent Tournament) has placed some Undead (and Demons) in Crystalsong Forest, chopping down the trees.

I found that odd as well, on top of the fact that it's a VERY long way to travel for lumber when Storm Peaks is just East along with the trees that grow there.

Aren't there Highborn ghosts there already. Not all undead are scourge. If the prohibition is against Scourge perhaps it interfers with the way the Lich King controls the Scourge and any that enter are broken off and are just mindless.

A friend of mine mentioned Achievements to kill a thousand adds -- and even a *boss* -- in two seconds.

It's safe to say those numbers are just random.

At the very least, I *hope* 22 minutes isn't considered *fast* for Yogg-Saron. I have no desire to tempt even more DCs -- DCs that only ever seem to occur during boss fights -- than my raids need to.