Erm, Azshara was quite okay doing this when she was a Highborne. She thinks that if Sargaras comes, they can recreate the world in perfect beuaty and splendour - once they get through the whole "trashing everything that moves" phase.

Azshara is mad. Since when did mad people need a reason for doing weird stuff?

You know, it's real interesting to think that Whack-A-Doodle Azshara would still want to pull Sargeras into Azeroth if her bosses aren't into the idea. This bodes a couple of changes to the Cataclysm roadmap.

Possibility #1. Azshara, after 10k years in the depths and in the service of the Old Gods, doesn't have a mad-on for the Big Red Legion anymore. Other than more Nathrezim hijinks from Mal'Ganis or empty promises of the Portal Worlds, the Legion doesn't really play a role in the third expansion.

Possibility #2. Azshara's reason for hauling Nazjatar from the depths is to buy time. Echoing Illidan, she wants to bring battle to the mortal world so she can summon in her "long-lost love" Sargeras, who'll help free her of her servitude to Neptulon and the O.G.s, and usher in that awesome world of awesome they've chatted about. This sets up a monstrous 4-way war between the Horde and the Alliance (who hate each other but hate Azshara too), Azshara and her new Legion buddies, and the forces of Neptulon and the Old Gods, with their traditional cronies, the Twilight's Hammer. Demons vs. Elementals vs. Orcs. vs. Humans.

The squirrely thing here is fitting in the Emerald Dream... which might still be the Old Gods' fault. The lack of completion in the Eranikus questline makes it hard to tell exactly what's caused the Nightmare to begin with, and whether or not the defeat of Eranikus (in the Scepter of the Shifting Sands questline) did anything about the Nightmare.

One of the RPG books I read once said the Azshara was officially a demi-god now on par with Cenarius and the other Ancients. I'd hate to be a Night Elf if this is the expansion!

I guess the Twilight Dragonflight will play out more and we may even get another excursion from the Infinite Dragonflight, something to do with the original well imploding or one of the parts of the original Deathwing Storyline maybe, to tie into current events.

E: As for fitting it into the Emearld Dream we still don't know what is behind the nightmare. Hakkar is still my bet, some people think Archimonde or an unnamed Old God, perhaps it is Azshara. There was also the "leaked info" that said it was due to tidal waves wrecking the land which caused lots of disruption in the dream.

The new Guardian will mostly likely only be mentioned in the comics since there's not even a reference in wow about it so far. The same is probably true for the new Aspect of the blues seeing as Blizzard seems to have finished the blue storyline in wow for this expansion

It looks like they just abandoned the Nexus War after the horrible end that was the Malygos fight and the few lines of text from Sapphiron's key. I guess they will be making a book/comic about it that might give us some information but as they're still developing Med'an in the comics that might be some time.

Azshara was, for lack of a better term, outright omnicidal. She literally stood at the ramparts laughing as Legion troops massacred her own Night Elves. They die along with everything else to rebuild the perfect world with Sargeras. She was also personally powerful and vicious enough that she intimidated Mannorath in person. As in he was going to tear her apart until he realized that she could and would do the same to him a lot more easily.

Much moreso than Arthas, there was never anything there to talk to. Arthas at least fell for misguided good reasons and had some spark of humanity left even as the Lich King. Azshara was always really horrible - a lot of her status as beloved super beauty was enhanced by her own manipulative glamour magic - and was corrupted by "let's crush the world together."

It's interesting that Azshara might be one of the more simplistic supervillains that Blizzard's implemented so far: Illidan meant well, but was power-hungry and lusted after Tyrande, which led him down the path to Crazytown; Arthas just wanted to protect his people but ended up going over to the dark side as a result; even Sargeras fell from grace first, having previously been the warrior-champion of the Titans.

Azshara, on the other hand, is really just a crazy CRAZY bitch. No heroic rise and fall, no redemption, no pity -- I think Blizzard is finally going to give us someone who just wants to blow up the world for the hell of it.

It might not be the height of storytelling, but at least it'll make more sense than Sartharion. And no one will be complaining about the whole "... and then she went crazy, so she's a raid-boss now" pattern, because Azshara was flipping nutso from the very start.

Regarding to Maelstrom's lore goes past back to 10.000 years, my hopes of having the Warden as the next hero class are higher than ever. I can't stop thinking, that Maiev Shadowsong and her force of "trained elite sentinels" whose presentation was no less than a CIA/FBA organization within the Kaldorei community reappears and strikes to hunt down those who WERE criminals, unfolding their files after 10.000 years. Think about it: The mystery of Jarod Shadowsong, Illidan/Malfurion/Tyrande drama, Azshara and her highborne, Shandris Feathermoon and her Sentinel Army... There is so much to remember.

EDIT: Regarding to the few posts above, i am pretty sure that we'll have more than just a Kaldorei/Goblin/Naga triangle story wise. There was always a side-story happened, which leads the game to be more variable with 5man dungeons: Arakkoa & Skettis, The Ethereals and their Nexus troubles, The Vrykul, The entire Zul'drak story etc.

Expect the same for the next Xpac.

Deathwing will probably be one of those sidestory considering that he has tie-ins with the goblins, his main lair (Mt. Kajaro) is in the South Seas and a South Seas XPac would most likely include Grim Batol

The token Troll Raid/instance/Zone will probably have something to do with the Zandalar considering they come from the South Seas

Keep in mind, though, that Varimathras is about as dead as any dreadlord ever is...which is to say, he's not dead. In Warcraft dreadlords are about the most resilient things in existence. He'll come back some time, you can count on that.