What makes a Hero class a Hero class seems to be the way they're introduced into the game. They could make an archdruid class that starts at lvl 55 with identical abilities/talents to a druid, share same armor, etc. i.e. in all but name, it would be a druid.

But they could give it a cool starting area in the Emerald Dream and some incredible starting quests that are part of an epic storyline and... I think everyone would be happy.

Sorry my bad, in my memory Padaren had a different homeworld, but it seems 'Pandaria' is imply an island on Azeroth. So yes they are not otherwordly. I also don't think their 'weird', because humanoids with animal features are already very abundant the WoW (besides Tauren the Gnolls, Quillboars, Worgen and Centaur come to mind).

While I agree in part with your first statement, I think the second is pretty faulty. The precedent for Hero classes is that they are introduced at higher levels (which I find both convenient and cool). However, saying that Blizz would introduce a new Hero class just to make it a carbon copy of a pre-existing class is crazy. Blizz puts too much pride and effort into every major addition to the game, and with the DK they've shown that they want Hero classes to be major additions.

I think Demon Hunters could still work as hero classes, and you could have them be trained initially with Illidan or wherever. Similarly, Archdruids would lend themselves easily to the Emerald Dream, and Blade Masters to ... well, any arena-type location. However, to think that such Hero classes would be mere copies of other classes, and that people (Blizz especially) would be content with that is short sighted.

I had an interesting thought recently. Sorry that this is not directly tied to Wrath lore (though in a way it is)... the fact that the origin of humans and gnomes is revealed as Titan-based in Wrath got me thinking about the origin of the other Azeroth-"native" races, specifically the aforementioned furries Tauren, Quillboar, Gnolls, etc. We "know" that Night Elves were the result of "radiation" from the Well of Eternity causing mutations in Trolls. The interesting thing about these mutations is they caused the Trolls to look more like Humans... and more like the Titan statues (Archaedeus et al).

What if this was an intentional effect of the Titan-created Well of Eternity? More so, what if this same mutation affected the wildlife of the area; thus, the origin of Tauren is the same as that of the Night Elves: native cattle mutated by the Well of Eternity to be more like the Titans.

People who get laid off and who can post anonymously tend to not be particularly mindful of company secrets. It's been pretty amazing what's come out of Wall Street firms in this downturn, for example. Someone used their phone to photograph a hiring freeze e-mail that was sent to their monitored coroporate e-mail, and then posted that on a Wall Street gossip blog that does not keep IP logs.

An NDA isn't going to stop someone who is intent on getting back at their employer. That said, this sort of inherently anonymous rumor should be taken for what it's worth.

In regards to te origin of humans and gnomes: current WOTLK lore points out that humans are descendants from the Vrykul. The effect known as "Curse of the Flesh" was a curse created by the Old Gods to "facilitate assimilation". Interesting bit is that this curse affected almost every race on azeroth, causing Earthen to become Dwarves and Vrykul to become Human. Funnily enough, gnomes were robots once

More can be read here.

There's no guarentee those other races are "true" Azerothian natives anyway. The contents of Uldum are still unknown, and there could be other Titan areas left undiscovered.

Can't really say that based on a sample of one.

Also, Worgen are not native to Azeroth either.

We also have a decent idea about Draenor, and a vague one about Argus.

You guys should really read up on the Pandaren, even though it was created as a joke, the RPG books have given the race a rich background.

Pandaren - WoWWiki - Your guide to the World of Warcraft

China seems to have a large influence on this race:
The Pandaren originally had a Japanese appearance, using samurai-style armor and weapons. After a negative reaction by many in China, who regard the animal as their national heirloom, (indeed, wild pandas only exist in China), they were redesigned with Chinese-style clothing.

From what I understand, it's because the Blizzard portrayal of Pandaren culture is heavily Japanese. Many in China are still bitter over World War 2. The government, obviously, is looking for openings to exploit that line of thought. A "Look at how Westerners are insulting our culture by comparing them with the hated Japanese" potential to be used as a propaganda tool would give Blizzard cause for concern. Yes, there's some elements of Chinese culture in the Pandaren but it's way more heavily Japanese than anything else.

Ah, I was referring to the non-fiction universe.

I'm not sure but I think I might have edited WoWWiki ages ago with a listing of all the explicitly mentioned worlds, but I can't access it right now.

As for speculation about the next expansion, I'm still surprised we're already facing the Lich King. I was positive the Howling Fjord files indicated some kind of CoT instance. I don't think they'll say we'd be surprised by a Maelstrom expansion, since that's one of the two we know we have left besides the Emerald Dream.

Saying "not continents" might mean "oceans". Might also mean "worlds". There are lots of other dark portals.

A question about the Wrath Gate quest line -- for the Horde, the Alliance show up after the defeat of Varimathras. If this is consistent with the Alliance version of the quest, is there any boss fight for them?

As I recall, for the Alliance, Wrath Gate is followed up by chasing down and slaughtering Putress in Undercity. Happened after, not before, but as part of the same chain.

The Howling Fjord files were inside the "Expansion02" folder, it would have been hard to think of it being just another CoT instance. Given that it was very early on in there (April 2007), one would think that with design priorities focusing on zones before instances, I think it was safe to assume it would be a zone. Implementing a zone like that as an instance seemed a bit odd anyway... I understood that you meant it could have been a CoT instance while the expansion itself could have been about something else.

As for the Wrath Gate series: to put it simply, The Battle for Undercity part of the quest chain is different in that when inside Undercity, Horde are tasked with killing Varimathras and Alliance have to kill Putress. They assault Undercity from opposite ends, Horde goes from the front and Alliance goes from the sewers. Quest-wise, this happens simultaneously, because when Putress is dead as an Alliance player, Varian Wrynn hears about Thrall who has just killed Varimathras and storms the throne room. For Horde players, when Varimathras is dead, Wrynn & Co. storms inside the throne room.

I think an all-around Caverns of Time based expansion might not be entirely unlikely. It wouldn't feature a new continent, per se, and it certainly wouldn't be something most WoW players would have expected. It has a decent amount of plot leading into it (a plot which ought to be much more epic than they treat it), and players already have a familiarity with what the Caverns of Time is all about. It offers Blizzard the ability to reuse old areas and resources and go back and strengthen player's understanding of the story so far, and it has almost unlimited material to draw from with Warcraft's convoluted lore.

They have the potential to draw from events occurring all throughout the War of the Ancients, the First War, the Second War, the Third War, and events taking place directly before WoW. They could even go further and present scenarios from the various Warcraft books or past events on other worlds like Outlands or Argus. Heck, they could even allow players to travel back to the war between the titans and the old gods, and the subsequent rebuilding of Azeroth.

This has already been mentioned earlier, but I think it bears repeating, especially after this interview:
BlizzCon 2008: WoW Insider interviews J. Allen Brack - WOW Insider
(The relevant answer is near the end)

Quoting the section of AJAlkaline's link:

It is not my intention to derail the conversation. That said, and even though the quoted argument is quite well constructed, having lived among the chinese for two years and even speaking their language, I can tell you all that there is not much conscious thought in the vein of respect or reverence for the panda, so to speak. Think of it like the bald eagle. We Americans think of it as a national symbol (I think), but for all that, I have no living memory of someone going out of their way to make a fuss about the eagle. There is even less public nationalism in China toward the panda; but then again it may be that I am the victim of massive coincidence in that no one ever even mentioned it when I was around.

Now, I completely agree that national symbols should not be the targets of people's ridicule. I also know for a fact that the Chinese leaders have really big heads, and want to have their hand in things and throw their weight around things that are really none of their business. Taiwan is a perfect example of this; the Taiwanese govern themselves, and do not possess a great amount of natural resources (like Japan), so why in the world does China even care what they do? But I digress...

By the way, I will be glad to take anyone up in personal messages about this topic, mainly because I am so passionate about all things Chinese, but this thread is not the place to handle it.

SO...
I just read the blue regarding the "previously unrevealed" raid instance. I'm leaning toward something involving Yogg-Saron, personally. He is far too much of a lore personality to forget about, though he may be treated in another expansion. Though, something that I think may be really unique may involve the other old gods that are still around, possibly under the same roof. What I mean is something on the order of a fight with Yogg and some other evil deity at the same time. THERE would be an epic encounter, yes?

I'm very disappointed they didn't visit his insect form which is a very prominent feature of his appearances in other lore.

On the contrary, it is extremely unlikely.

CoT offers an enormous (one could say endless) potential of scenarios. But that's what they are. Scenarios. Missions. We play "Time Patrol" fixers there.

While time-fixing missions work well for a dungeon format, they translate badly into an overall world. Where are you levelling to 90, I mean? Entirely in dungeons? And with the raid inflation and long expansion time, their design needs periodic resets, which imply levelling.

It's not impossible. Everquest tried it, it was Lost Dungeons of Norrath. Near-universal sentiment about them was that they could have stayed lost for all we cared. A WoW expansion based exclusively on dungeons... I'm sure there's plenty (notably on these boards) who'd like that. But the global population? Not so sure.

Who said anything about making it dungeon based? You could just go through a Dark Portal style load screen and have a new Azeroth based around pre-W3 storylines. Not original granted, but not necessarily dungeon based.

Yeah, that was more or less what I was getting at. Sort of like how you can go back to Old Hillsbrad and there's an entire zone there (even if you're only going to very particular places), it's not impossible to imagine going back in time to a zone in the past and finding a quest hub that will take you up an entire level. As in, what if you went to Southshore and there were a bunch of quest givers there? For instance, maybe for level 83-84 you go to the Redridge Mountains circa the summoning of Ragnaros and do various quests from bronze dragon NPCs to ensure that it happens (but also to ensure that the dark iron dwarves are not successful in their conquest). Or perhaps from 85-86 you go to a battlefield of the second war and take various quests from alliance commanders to prevent the horde from getting the upper hand. The idea is that unlike Outlands or Northrend where you just walk from zone to zone, each new zone takes place in a new time period during some epic portion of Warcraft lore.

Hopefully, their sentiments about CoT ("we love it, there's so much we could do with it") may extend to this. It's a pretty great idea.

My personal preference, though, would be for that to be a "subset" of an expansion and not the entire thing. Something in me likes it that most expansions actually add to the physical world.