Sure they have. We had Naxxramas/Scourge Invasion. We had Nefarian/Onyxia/Sartharion. And on a similar and separate occasion we had the entire Netherwing Flight which affects Malygos and soon Deathwing. (Although the Princess of the Blue seems to have gotten lost somewhere).

We even had Scourge attempt to invade Quel'danas.

Hakkar/Old God/Archimonde causing the Nightmare in the Emerald Dream (I fancy Hakkar myself for it). It doesn't have to be contained to the Emerald Dream, it could just be the Nightmare was the Nightmare's way of restoring its power and the like before it re-emerges to the physical world to wreck havoc.

There is also the high likelihood of another world, either a Legion stronghold or another random world (Argus maybe) through a portal. I've warmed to the idea of the cataclysm and having a lot of revamp but I doubt they will get away with it for two expansions in a row. A trip to a Leigon world, or a newly discovered portal world seems most likely. Another planet though, not a disjointed mess like Outland became.

Then there is the whole Titan's return thing ever looming. People assume the Titan's are good guys but if they show up and decide to re originate the planet, they aren't going to seem that way and we'll fight them.

I always imagined that would be the best way to create WoW 2/WC4. The Panetheon fight Sargeras on Azeroth, wrecking the place as they go. We fight some Titans and demons as the planet undergoes a mass evacuation through portals to a newly discovered world, whilst others flee to Outland. Then you can start WoW2 with a completely different landmass so it doesn't seem they are just reusing the old world again.

To do something like that though, they would have to have done everything they want to do on Azeroth first, meaning the Emerald Dream would have to have its day, or be abandoned. There's also things to take into account such as whether or not old gods exist elsewhere other than just Azeroth; and if they do, does it mean the ones that were imprisoned on Azeroth are gone; or can be brought back to the new world etc. Something like that could be retconned/whatever pretty easiliy though. And then there's the dragons (particularly with the Caverns of Time). Unless the dragons end up biting the dust during the exodus/war. That being said, it would appear as though if WoW2 came into existence, Blizzard projects it being in 10-15+ years, plenty of time to wrap up loose ends.

As to the Black Dragons' powers, I agree with what someone said above: extermination-wise, fire attacks are much more effective. Their dominion over earth is used more in setting the stage for the battle, be it their ability to live in extreme underground conditions or to create them (as in melting their surroundings).

On to the last subject: I'd personally hate it if Blizzard decided to take Warcraft out of Azeroth (although the Cataclym trailer hinted at "diminishing resources" - seems we require more Vespene Gas). The Barrens example shows us there's always room for the planet to adapt to whatever catastrophes befall it. And, let's face it, it's endured a churning hole in its center and it will endure a Dragon Aspect who decides to smash its way to the surface instead of taking the stairs.

Plus, with the Emerald Dream to investigate and the option of taking the fight to the Legion's planet, there's more than enought stories to tell at home.

My preferred view on WoW 2 would be that of a "PVP reset". Meaning a return to war between the Horde and the Alliance (and maybe a new/old faction), which can either be done in Wow (perhaps too PVPish, but Blizzard can think of some innovative mechanics, I'm sure, to make faction war be PVE-centered) or Warcraft 4. After that, a new Wow could be focused on both the factions (and perhaps a third) rebuilding and reconquering what the war took from them. Something with a post-war, devastated and grim, yet "light at the end of the tunnel" mood.

And in other news:

Thi, Deathwing and Arthas, and how different they'll be

A Prestor-hint? Although, like it's said, the very Prestor name should mean death on the spot. I'm thinking, however, that Deathwing might simply not notice/care about us. By this I mean his appearances can take place only in Wrathgate-like scenarios. Major battle/lore figure/event, Deathwingy shows up, torch-away time, and he's out. And, out of a miracle, we're the only survivors. Or he appears to take on someone else, leaving us to escape the flaming place in time. It's said he's consumed by rage, but it's not entirely out of him to toy with the "puny mortalsssss". Even if he just doesn't target us out of spite.

Speaking of the Lore in general, and more specifically the Wrathgate scenario ... has there been any Blue or official word on the mention of it being Act 1 of 3, and what happened to 2 and 3? We always presumed Icecrown would be 3, but since we haven't had 2 yet ... did they not mean to imply that each act would be presented via an in game movie, and rather just advanced in story-mechanics / raid encounters and scripting? (If so, that's fine, but kind of a let down since the Wrathgate presentation was just fantastic.)

I'm fairly certain that the tournament is act 2. It is disappointing that there's no cinematic (it could have helped immensely with clearing up the many misconceptions about the tournament), but at the same time it doesn't preclude there being one for Icecrown.

There will be a cinematic for Icecrown, that much was confirmed at Blizzcon.

Snide little Zarhym kind of jested with the idea of Arthas having behaved like a wuss for the whole Expansion. He seemed pretty confident we'll be surprised.

Anyone care to throw their thoughts on what the 3.3 trailer might give us?

What are the chances of there being two cinematic trailers for Icecrown? (i.e. one leading into the assault and then one after the Lich King is defeated.)

Asking the question of "What happened to the Emerald Dream?" is going to be on my list for next BlizzCon (provided I'm able to go, and provided I don't choke on the spot). Because it's something that's existed just outside of the playable game for so long that I'm really starting to wonder if it CAN be implemented at this point.

1) The very early post-release statements that work on the Dream was progressing (with the inclusion of the in-game assets that looked very Dream-esque) made it seem like it was pre-Expansion 01 material. But what we got between release and BC was:
2) The beginning of the Eranikus questline from Sunken Temple, which breaks off before it really starts,
3) The Dragons of Nightmare patch, which provided a bit of outdoor raiding content to keep guilds busy, and hinted at the worsening condition of the Dream,
4) The Green Scepter shard portion of the Scepter of the Shifting Sands questline, which contains the logical END of the Eranikus story with his defeat and redemption.

Given that the Scepter questchain came in AQ40 (the next-to-last major content patch pre-BC) and contains the biggest sense of closure for the Dream storyline, it makes me wonder what exactly they were planning on next.

BC ignored the Emerald Dream completely, and Wrath was somewhat surprising in that an Emerald Gateway (a la Bough Shadow, Seradane, Twilight Grove and Dream Bough) was not in Crystalsong Forest, as was stated in the RPG books. While there is one questline that uses phasing to "enter" the Dream in Moonglade, and the presence of a sleeping Ysera at the Emerald Shrine does mention that the Nightmare mechanic isn't dead, there's still no sense of resolution or build-up to something else.

The recent build-up that we've got right now consists of the last story in the Warcraft Legends vol. 5 anthology, (which has been discussed in this thread before, I think) that discusses Malfurion as being the only one who can understand the Nightmares affecting everyone. This leads into the Stormrage novel, and will ultimately leave us in a position where Stormrage will be free to defend the World Tree (again) from Ragnaros come Cataclysm. So again, we know where the story starts (Nightmares plague the mortal world, and only Malfurion can stop them) and we know where the story ends (after which it's Furion vs. Raggy) but no idea what happens in the middle.

It's like they can't figure out how to tell a complete story about the Dream. Which makes me think that Blizzard doesn't understand the Dream any better than we do.

What if Malfurion actually solves the Nightmare problem, at least in the Dream, and it acts Sargeras-style, entering Malfurion and "gestating" there, learning about the real world?

Malfurion's "pissed" attitude, as stated by Metzen, does seem odd. The last time I've seen him pissed, in Warcraft 3, he said something along the lines of "The land is in pain...that angers me greatly"...talk about a berserker.

Not even in the Frozen Throne did he go rampant against Illidan. And his girl was presumed dead.

So...him being actually pissed (it might be just an expression, I know) doesn't seem natural for such a slow-to-anger guy. Could Malfurion turn into the next Medihv? Maybe open some portal between Azeroth and the Dream, letting whatever lies in there invade Azeroth. A little deja vu, yes, but...history repeats itself.

I think they definitely want a post-Arthas cinematic. Which will be funny as hell once guilds get him on farm.

It's really hard to tell what the cinematic(s) will consist of when we don't know all the players involved. We know that Jaina, Sylvanas, Muradin, Saurfang, Varian Wrynn, Tirion, Mal'Ganis, and maybe even the Reds want a piece of the action when we get in there, but there's a lot of narrative space with the three 5-mans to let some of those play out without affecting the Lich King fight itself.

On that topic -- bringing Muradin back so he can lead the Frostborn is a kinda cool concept. (If you accept the whole "lol he got head-clocked not killed" story). Building him up as a king in his own right presents a very interesting scene for the Bronzebeard Brothers to reunite. But it seems really strange to have Muradin run off and say he's going to bring down Arthas when we've already got so many other people who's project is to do exactly that. It feels kinda hamfisted in that sense, since we didn't really have to bring Muradin back at all.

I'm really beginning to take issue with the whole "former hero went crazy, let's kill him for phat lewtz" mechanic that we're just hashing out all over again. It wasn't a running gag in the classic game, but it was all over the place in BC with Illidan and Kael'thas. Medivh, arguably, was never a hero to begin with, but WC3 redeemed him enough that the precedent somewhat applies.

In Wrath, Malygos going crazy was old before it even started, and in execution he just feels like a sideshow and technical demo for vehicle mechanics than an actual lore-driven fight. The continuing hints that Nozdormu and Ysera are going to succumb to their own threats (The Infinite Flight and the Nightmare, respectively) is just setting up more of the same. I'm glad that beating the hell out of the Keepers in Ulduar is a "let's knock some sense into them" and not a "let's kill 'em, they went cuckoo".

I really don't like the idea of Malfurion going raidboss crazy, because instead of the characters we play in the game becoming heroes, we're nothing more than the slayers of heroes. That... that just doesn't really feel heroic at all.

That empty space is the city of Ahn'Qiraj.

What I'd like in Cataclysm is more Matthias Lehner type quests because not only did provide a very subtle introduction to the Lich King, but it was sufficiently creepy and strange questline through and through. The rest of the Arthas implementation, while cool in that we interact with him, is a bit clownshoes because we keep foiling his plans. I currently have zero sense of urgency for storming Ice Crown on the basis that Arthas is nothing more then Dr. Evil minus sharks with giant friggin lazers.

With phasing technology, Northrend for level 80's should have been exceeding hostile and bleak. Horde/Alliance posts should be getting overrun, Dalaran under siege, Icecrown having a visibly massive military build up and what not. Basically, at the end of the day I want to go into Icecrown because it looks cool, not because I care about the story and that seems to me like a massive fail to one of the original design points for WoTLK in integrating the storylines with raiding.

The only thing that could make Arthas' character worse at this point is if he started talking like Elmer Fudd or using signs like Wile E. Coyote.

Hopefully all of our interactions with Deathwing don't lead down the same road Arthas has walked... or stumbled.

It shouldn't be terribly hard to pull off. Deathwing simply need not acknowledge our presence. We could simply show up at the wrong time at the right place to pick up the pieces of some town he melted or clean up some minions left behind after a raid. If it's assumed we're always one step behind Deathwing, and simply making right what we can of the situations he's already produced and left behind just as we arrive, the villain still seems threatening and all of his plans don't simply get foiled by some meddling adventurers and their dog. What's more, if he's already accomplished his goals by the time we reach them, or left them in the hands of a powerful lieutenant, Deathwing never needs to change focus to destroying the interlopers and becoming an inept character because none of his plans and clever plots ever manage to get rid of us.

I think direct interaction and close proximity to Deathwing is what has the best chance of leaving him in the same situation Arthas is in right now. Leaving us one step behind, following in his wake and never catching more than a glimpse is the best way to keep him threatening and scary. Think of it like a monster movie; the less screen time he has, the scarier he is. It doesn't mean he has to be uninvolved like Illidan, it just means he can't be sending progressively harder minions after us as he sits back and decides he just doesn't feel like crushing us today, but tomorrow he'll be back with a slightly more impressive minion with slightly better quest rewards but the same tight schedule that demands he see his hair dresser immediately after we defeat his monster.

I think the main reason Northrend isn't like that is due to the newness of the phasing system. I highly doubt it's just a couple lines of code they slapped in there one afternoon, and I'd imagine a lot of LK design time was spent developing and refining the tools for phasing technology. By the time they had gotten it up to snuff, a majority of stuff had already been implemented, and rather than go back and rework everything, they just decided to roll it out in a couple major areas (DK starting area, Wrathgate) and sprinkle it about in some other minor places to see how the system went over with a bajillion people playing on it.

There's also a lot more phasing in the higher level zones (presumably created later in the design process) which makes me think they either didn't care about the lowbie areas where people wouldn't visit after they leveled out, or they just didn't have time to implement the phase things they wanted to. Since Blizzard is fairly notorious for doing things at their own pace, I'm guessing it was the former. Furthermore, they've stated that while they don't mind disrupting peoples game experience in a limited scope (zombie invasion) they don't want people logging in every other day thinking "gee, wonder what's gonna be fucked up now?".

Narratively, you tread a fine line doing that, because if you characterize all characters as having that sense of humor, you'll get those players who say that it doesn't fit their characters to say that. This may be the reason why the quest designers don't do that very often.

All that being said, I love those quests and would appreciate more opportunities for interactivity with the game.

Well part of it is. There is supposed to be a lot more back in there than just the city however. In any event, we certainly know there is enough empty landmass to support a full fledged zone "possibly" two behind the wall and small AQ20/40 instance entrance area.

At least once interaction wasn't all that bad. When Arthas spirited Ymiron away, he actively stopped us from foiling one of his plans. At the time it was fairly cool, sudden, and surprising. It's a shame they didn't do more with that later.

If more of the encounters were like that, with Arthas stepping in and actively stopping us rather than waiting until after the fact, we might have a different appraisal of him at this point.

The Lich King's constant failures make for the greatest dissappointment of this expansion and it really strikes me as appaling that Blizzard didn't see it coming while designing the plot.

Apart from the Ymiron episode, there's just the Drakuru story conclusion left to strike some fear of the Big Villain. We know this SoB to be exceedingly powerful, smart (although, if Arthas did kill Ner'zhul's part of the entity, there goes the smart half, in its majority at least) and, well, he can make your dead great-great-great-granny come out of the wall behind you. Actually, dead relatives for everyone. He's the Death God indeed.

And even his last move, throwing us into Anub'arak, which is a great plan with a great entry, seems pathetic. Yes, the fight's easy on normal mode, there's that, but it's just that there's no...mood to it. The scenery's all bright and happy, there are moo-moo-colored beetles wandering around...why not fight Anub in his ancient Throne Room? Something like the room in which we fight Volazj. This could actualy have been a great victory over the Lich King if it was, say, the second or third. It's the nth...We fall 100meters into a Nerubian tunnel with a smile in our face and the "I thought you Lich Kings had learned to stay at home and cry" thought in our mind.

I'm not even going into the fact that Northrend seems a little too brigh, that's probably cause nothing really happens.

Still, there are some good moments. Sholazar's avalanche zone and our trek into it, the Taunka's evacuation from Borean going from bad to massacre, even the Argent Dawn's advance into Icecrown is ok.

But I just reached a point in which I wish for someone to die in Icecrown. Jaina, for example. Well...what the well, even Saurfang, as much as I like the old coot. Oh, and please, Blizz, do litter the floor with corpses from other champions of Tirion's taskforce.

It might be too late, yet, but it'd still be good for Blizzard to actually write some lore on the events of WotLK so we could see our victories were, all in all, of little consequence in the overall campaign.

That seems somewhat unlikely based upon how Arthas, y'know, recruits.

As far as the complaints around us constantly foiling Arthas' schemes, I'm not sure that's how it was intended to come across. It's felt to me like Arthas has been laying a trail to lure in the best and brightest so he can turn them (albeit, it could've been done more overtly):

Outside Valguard, while spirit walking for the shaman:

You are then not killed after aiding Drakuru, and once you defeat him:

It doesn't so much feel as if we're foiling his plans as being toyed with, frankly.

I don't really understand why everyone is so down on Arthas. There's three major quest lines that he's directly involved with: Wrathgate, LHC, and the end of the Mathias quests. At Wrathgate, he gets a weapon of mass destruction used on him that takes out everyone else within sight. He is weakened, but not to the extent that it was intended, given that the RAS spent 4+ years working on it for the specific purpose of destroying him. To me, this was a failure of the RAS, not Arthas. At LHC, he is only defeated because one of the most powerful Paladins to ever exist redeems the Super-Paladin-Ashbringer, something that was thought to be impossible. And as for Tirion destroying Arthas' heart, its still arguable that he wanted his heart destroyed (especially given that right after its been destroyed, he has the power to cast a spell that kills everyone in the room if they don't leave within a couple seconds, so it clearly didn't weaken too much).

We know that the lore is driven by gameplay, not the other way around. People who play MMOs have been complaining for years that we don't ever get to interact with the big bad guy, that you need a degree in the lore to know each of the lieutenants that we fight. Even knowing who they are, there's often to no real reason to kill them other than they stand between us and the real target. What you are suggesting with Deathwing is pretty similar to what's been experienced in MMOs for years. Our characters will still be foiling Deathwing's plans, but with what you are suggesting he won't even notice? People want to be actively involved, and the only way to have that and still keep the bad guy sufficiently powerful is by escaping his instagib Death Coil AOE at the last second.