Trolls believe those Forsaken who achieve the uncorporeal status of "Shadows" to be loas of manifestations of them. Perhaps the good doctor has become a being of pure shadow as well.

Don not underestimate their crude magic, the troll leader residing at the central isles of Azeroth is said to be one very, very tough mofo. Alchemy and voodoo are quite the combination.

Trying to math out the presence of Skyriss in the Arcatraz made my brain hurt pretty bad once -- eventually, I just chalked it up to the devs making a 5-man encounter out of Prophet Skeram from AQ40. That fight really seems to add up to a developer's playground, since you really could do anything for a fight -- even playing for laughs with Millhouse Manastorm.

Judging by the spell files it seems Mekgineer Thermaplugg is also still alive for the gnome event. I guess it will just end up they were only partly 'defeated' or they'll just say the level 10 quest and instance never really happened.

It also seems during the event we will see the druid troll leader Zen'tabra since there are a few druid forms that mention him/her.

I think the main point of re-taking both areas isn't to give both races their own cities though and these areas will just be used as their 1-5 starting zones instead of sharing them with the orcs and dwarves.

Or, even more likely, introducing the "new" classes. Troll Druidism from the cat spirit referred to in the quests. Gnome Priests because... no clues as yet.

Most likely they'll start "showing" their belief in the Light gained from the contact with humans, dwarfs and draenei.

In this one specific case, I really don't have a hard time believing that what we fought wasn't really Thermaplugg but an animatronic simulacrum or something. Or if we did fight him, that his body was recovered and modified to "ressurect" him (and we then see a steampunk cyborg version). That sort of thing is often cliche, but for Thermaplugg I'd buy it.

Edit: on gnome priests, the existence of gnome priests is nothing new. The safe zone in Gnomeregan has them present. They have existed as NPCs since the game launched, much like dwarf mages have (in BRD). To explain why PCs are now becoming them, we don't have to explain a genuinely novel belief among gnomes, we just have to explain why the behavior of the gnomes in the Gnomeregan instance is spreading to the player base (directly analogous to dwarf shamanism). If we recover Gnomeregan and those isolated NPCs rejoin gnome society, that may really be all it takes.

I never trusted the Naaru. The tranquility they bestowed upon their followers always unnerved me, and their apparent "wisdom and intelligence beyond anything else" (As evidenced by Khadgar mentioning how he learned more in a few months of study in Shattrath than he did in years in Dalaran) always struck me as being forced.

What better way for an Old God -- or a potential counterpart -- to remain unnoticed than to ingratiate itself into the society of its enemies, and be hailed as a force of righteousness? But no, they turned out to be forces of incorruptible pure pureness.

I suppose it's the fact that they don't actually have personalities, that they're just manifestations of a particular 'alignment', that creeps you out, Kaejin -- but it does seem as if their followers are brainwashed, if only to remove that nasty 'individuality' from their minds that always leads to so much destruction.

Hum...Could it be that Blizzard's usual straighforwardness and black/white villany/goodness has blinded me to the Naaru's eventual "downsides"? I just can't see past his holier than holy nature, to be honest. Some characters simply go beyond the "possible" mortal goodness, especially if they're almost divine beings capable of blowing demons with a sneeze.

When you have the ability to overpower all but the most powerful of demons, your concept of good will most likely transcend that of most mortals who simply do their best at fighting evil. Of course, to savvy observants from outside, and in a setting where, despite absolute goodness or evulness, characters do turn sides, sometimes these "absoluteness" may seem disturbing, but I don't think Blizzard intends it to be a goading of some sort. It's not that it couldn't be done, and it could even turn out to be an awesome "crapsack gets crappier" plot. I just don't see it coming. Still, we may get to witness the Naaru performing a "for the greater good" act or decision. Which is natural for a higher being but may lead to some shock and dissenssion on the mortals' side.

Once the Naaru were introduced in BC I saw a clearcut balance. Sargeras and the Burning Legion are all about entropy and Chaos. The Naaru are the opposite side of the scale - Order.

Chaos can be bad, such as Anarchy. A small degree of it can be good, such as brainstorming.
Order can be good, such as laws and government. A large degree can be bad, such as a Big Brother repressive Police State - everything not forbidden is required, everything not required is forbidden.

The Burning Legion isn't going to become warm and fuzzy, they'll stay villainous. But the Naaru's order can easily become stifling if Blizzard chooses to move in that direction.

What I find odd is, the Old Gods are clearly "evil", as opposed to chaos or some other expression. Therefore the obvious scale would be Old Gods evil vs Titans good. However, the Titans are much more Greek/Roman (or, in this case, Norse) and suffer human foibles. They are far from good, they have their own agendas which could be harmful to all of Azeroth. They are also a symbol of Order - in this case potentially the repressive Big Brother version.

I really don't find much of an issue with the Naaru being an expression of absolute good. We've got tons of stuff in the game being presented as absolute evils (the Old Gods, the Legion, Sargeras, Azshara... in no particular order of "eviltude") so it's not hard for me to buy the idea of an incorruptible and purely good being... especially knowing that when a Naara turns from light to darkness, it turns into the most bug-ridden explosively difficult encounter in the game. (hurray M'uru!)

That's my point, Mr. Crow, the Naaru's goody goodness of ultimate good, while understandably unsettling to some, ties perfectly within Blizzard's way of building characters. Like Exemplar says, it can lead to a stalling and cristalizing of natures, but there'll always be a more than enough evil counterpoint to the Naaru.

Your mention of M'uru's death and subsequent transformation into a purely evil being does the trick: the best proof that the Naaru don't have a hidden agenda is the fact that Blizzard has chosen to go absolutely symbolic on them. Starting with their looks, which look like runes or "crosses" of sorts, to the fact that they're absolutely good/evil in their respective live/dead forms.

Plus, they've worked with the Scryers and a multitude of Horde and Alliance characters - even Warlocks - which means they understand the need for less orthodox (literally!) means to achieve victory.

You can at least see the icon of the rewards, the Mograine one is probably the crimson deathcharger that was datamined a while back, and the Uther quest is the Silver Hand tabard that was datamined from this ptr (image taken from Scrolls of Lore forum):

You don't need to presume -- wowarmory confirms that these items are not dropped by The Lich King on any difficulty. The armory does show quest item drops (like Sindragosa's potential weekly quest drop), so we do know that those items are not currently on the loot table.

However, the wowarmory would not show any item that is not currently implemented into the game. These items/quests have not been datamined up until now (3.3.5 PTR), and as such, would be unavailable in the armory. I'm sure once 3.3.5 goes live, it will be a different story.

Those item's don't exist yet on live realms so they won't show on the armory. Now I'd guess the quest item will drop from hard mode Arthas only though and not normal mode (I bet the buff to Arthas' hp was to ensure he'd live till 3.3.3).

It's still incredibly risky. Consider Sarth 3D. Blizzard did not anticipate it to be defeated at that level of content. They expected folk to need Ulduar or better gear to be able to complete it. What if they hadn't put 2 or 3D loot on Sartharion's table? World First Kills, achievements galore and a couple weeks later on "farm" something starts dropping.

Unless there is a literal impossibility mechanic (like a 5 or 10 minute berserk, or a 10 Val'kyr spawn at once and move at Warp Factor 5, or similar) which will be nerfed later, having the LK killable but missing a drop/drops is dangerous for Blizzard.

Blizzard probably had Arthas' health buff in mind from the start. He wasn't tested on the PTR at all so the only real testing he got was internal which is fine for most mechanics (except bombs) but the complexity of the fight doesn't really allow for straight up math to determine what his health should be to provide proper pacing for the 15minutes. However, if you have the first weeks data you can easily see what top guilds wearing current BiS can do and adjust his health accordingly. Just take what those guilds did on those kills and extrapolate from there, then add 30% for the zone buff.

Then it's a fairly safe bet that top guilds won't beat him until the zone buff has reached 10% or so (because they'll have also gotten new gear and optimized the fight a bit). Consider it a second gating system and a way to hide quest item drops for another few weeks until the zone buff starts showing up.

Blizzard's been wrong on their math before - again I point to 3D. Their math said it was impossible (not improbable) in the initial gear. This obviously wasn't true.

I show Heroic Deathbringer Saurfang death dealt 43.9 millilon (to him, add damage not included). He has an 8 minute Berserk. The guild I checked killed him in 4:24.

Heroic Lich King now has over 103 million, but 20 minutes. Yes, there are phase changes, adds to target, and other circumstances. Extrapolate the DPS above (4:24 kill is about 166k raid DPS) and 103 million disappears in 619 seconds - 10:20. Obviously impossible due to the fight itself, but just a comparison. The guild in question did 61 million to kill normal LK in 15:17. That's about 66.5k raid DPS to Arthas himself. If DPS remained unchanged on Heroic it would take nearly 26 minutes.

So first week (where if everything else was oneshot, guilds had at most 20 attempts on LK) numbers show a few kills. Unlikely the "best" strat has yet been discovered - guilds (even/especially top end) refine them as they go along. Blizzard adjusting numbers based on this very small data set would be foolish. First kills are often a huge margin slower/worse than later kills.

I don't see it as inconceivable that a guild could kill Heroic LK in current gear. Blizzard has hopefully learned that betting against the playerbase is a losing proposition as we continue to see content cleared the instant it's released, regardless of limiting mechanics (gating, attempts, etc).

If Heroic LK is missing loot (for unknown reason - the instant it's available the world will know, regardless of kill status, Blizzard's design makes it impossible to keep the cat in the bag these days) and it is added later, then I feel sorry for those World Class Guilds that kill him before the loot is in place.

It's just a quest item that they will get the following week and it isn't like he won't drop loot. Kael'thas didn't drop his quest item for a few weeks at first too. Plus I am pretty sure they have learned quite a bit since 3D Sarth also and if they want him unkillable they will just buff his hp or something else again.

I noticed in the latest PTR build 11599, a lot of Thunderbluff objects are coming up as new in MMOC's database (as are some Twilight Hammer related objects in Silthius). None of these objects are actually new to the game, but I'm curious if something was altered about them that flagged them as new in Boub's database. The last build had new NPC's named Grimtotem Protector, Grimtotem Collector, Grimtotem Vendor, Grimtotem Banker, etc. I'm starting to think that Grimtotems may be coming to Thunderbluff, although it remains to be seen if this is by invitation or by force.

Is it possible that the Arthas drops are the reason why the patch is 3.3.5 and not 3.3.4? I.e. 3.3.4 is a small patch with the quest item or loot ready to be implemented when Arthas' gets killed. It wouldn't be too hard to have a GM hand out the items to the guild which got the first kill.

The patch on the PTR is 3.3.3 and 3.3.5 is quite a while away.