The Alliance quest after the wrath gate event has you go back to Stormwind and deliver Bolvar's shield to Varian. Bolvar is standing right there:



(Yeah, this obviously isn't intended continuity. Still pretty funny though.)

I don't see a problem with the main villains in WotLK not being connected. I don't think all major storylines should all convolute into one big event. It did in TBC, because all 3 raid instances (prior sunwell) were all leading to one thing. In vanilla WoW, you non of the villains were similar. You could draw that onyxia and nefarian were siblings, but they had no true onnection lore-wise. Ragnaros had no link to any other storyline. Nor did C'thun or Kel'thuzad.

In this perspective, TBC was a bit of anomoly. I think its better that we have more than one main villain in an expansion.

I always thought Malygos' reaction towards magic was -because- of the big Necromancer just north of him. It's interesting to note however Blue Dragons can enter Crystalsong but the Scourge cannot. Equally interesting to note the Scourge don't seem too interested in Coldarra or the Blue Dragonshrine...

In regards to Sartharion, anyone know what's going on there? I mean I know Sartharion is guarding the eggs. But I didn't really see any quests or mention of anything else. As in, whose eggs are they? where are the eggs from? who is he guarding it from? (The scourge or the other dragonflights?)

Malygos' reaction was mainly because of the events at both the Sunwell, and the 3rd War I believe. The demons being drawn into our world due to reckless use of magic. The last time this happened was in the War of the Ancients and this cost Malygos his entire flight. :<

I believe Crystalsong repels only the Scourge for reasons unknown(Obviously the Forsaken can enter Dalaran), it might be explained later.

As for the lack of Scourge interest in the Coldarra it might be because the blues are powered up on the energies from the Nexus and even they can't get close. The entire reason that the other 4 flights ask for your assistance is because the blue dragons in general are far stronger then your ordinary dragon due to the powers Malygos is channeling inside his Nexus. It's possible that the Blue Dragons see the Scourge as a minor inconvenience to deal with after they deal with the mortal races, or that they were originally doing something that would have destroyed everyone and everything in the process so they didn't need to go offensive besides keeping their dragon cousins occupied and defending the Nexus. Again this is all a lot of speculation on my part.

In regards to the Sartharion(I just finished Night of the Dragon yay!) I imagine he was given the charge to watch over those eggs post Sunwell/Night of the Dragon. (Heavy spoilers/speculation here, stop reading if you haven't finished the book). Deathwing most likely charged Sartharion with watching over the eggs that his consort Sinestra had at Grim Batol, the evidence of this is in how underdeveloped the 3 Drakes Shadron, Tenebron, and Vesperon are in comparison to the primary Twilight Dragon in Night of the Dragon. In addition he's called the "Onyx" guardian because he was watching over the eggs of multiple flights that had been altered by Sinestra. Hopefully Deathwing didn't put all of his eggs in 1 basket. I imagine he's guarding the eggs from just about everybody, the potential of the Twilight flight is far greater then that of normal dragons, and probably up there with the power of an Aspect. >.>

It's funny because if you read the novel and then were to walk into the Obsidian Sanctum you'd immediately understand what you're dealing with. However the game itself does a horrible job(See non-existant) of bringing the player into that area or explaining why you're there.

WTB Job on Blizzard's Creative Development team to smooth these things out.

I believe Arthas sees the fight between Blue Dragons and the rest as an opportunity to create more Frost Wyrms. While they are busy fighting he gets more time to dig up the bones in Dragonblight.

There are a lot of transition gaps in WotLk. While I agree it's overall, a much better game in terms of all the new additions (we see a lot more of Arthas this time around), there ARE spots that were missed, and quite honestly, wouldn't have taken more than a few hours of simple implementation.

There's no quest to actually initiate the movement into the Eye of Eternity (i.e. "We cannot access the Eye of Eternity, for only the brood of Malygos have that right. Unfortunately, no dragon alive would be willing to hand over that key, and enough lives have been lost in this foolishness. But there is one... go to Naxxramas, a former agent of Malygos, Sapphiron, should hold the key to access the Eye. From there we can attack him and end this conflict.)

The Obsidian Sanctum (as discussed) has almost no introduction at all. Hell, Nalice is literally four levels above keeping accord with the rest of the Dragonflights, while we go and obliterate her kind below. It's sort of done in all the wrong ways. What's worse is that none of the other tie ins are brought up. (Malygos has also had his Blue Dragonflight rehabilitated by the presence of the Netherdrakes and a fair few of us helped the Netherdrakes regain their independence in Outland. And then there's the whole Night of the Dragon stretch.)

Naxxramas didn't really have too much of a transition either, other than "Oh hey, we did this before. Let's do it again. It's a moving weapon"

I can understand that there aren't many attunements, but the lack of simple quests removes that stepping stone for the lore lovers.

Originally, I had hoped that the Malygos instance might house more than one fight, and that we would see the Undead taking advantage of the Nexus War. But the isolation of the island makes it much harder for the Lich King to control, and is most likely a fruitless endeavor anyway, judging by the concentration of power in the Blue Dragonflight. Of course, I had also originally hoped that we would not kill Malygos, but that does allow for Arthas to notice from this point on. Just because the Lich King didn't act before, doesn't mean that a future patch won't introduce an apparent weakening in the Blue Dragonflight. Another story arc could potentially include the dispersion of the dragonflight, an attack from the Lich King, and the eventual reunification underneath a newly appointed Aspect.

As far as Ulduar is concerned, I'm interested to see how things tie in. Daelo's comment seems to hint that there will be an abundance of encounters and a statement awhile back mentioned that Blizzard was looking to migrate back towards the larger, centralized raid dungeons (more encounters, one zone).

I think the "surprise" instance, will end up being Azjol-Nerub. The truth is, Blizzard's surprises are usually pretty consistent / predictable. Azjol gives them more than just a raid instance, it gives them material for a whole number of things, casual to hardcore, solo to group to raid based. They have new technology to use and abuse, ranging from siege weaponry to phasing. A "Grim Batol" or "Caverns of Time" wouldn't really do justice to all that.

I would be happy if the surprise was that Wintergrasp fell through(rendering it unplayable so it doesn't mess up anything anymore) making an accessible entrance to Azjol-Nerub.

2 birds with one stone!

There's a few videos on youtube of preliminary exploration videos of Ulduar. I think it looks fantastic at the moment. I wonder what the bosses are going to be like, or if we see any familiar faces.

Naxxramas has a transition, it's just buried kind of deep in Death Knight content. Upon leaving the DK starting area, eventually a letter will be mis-sent to you, noting the 'miracle' of Naxx departing, and praising Abbendis, whom the sender thinks he's writing to. Then of course once you meet back up in Dragonblight with Abbendis, the references to Naxxramas, and the failed incursion on the Eastern Kingdoms begin aplenty.

I was disappointed by how few people are hoping for A-N in 3.2 going by the current Worldofraids poll.. although Grim Batol is the only realistic option beating Azjol-Nerub (Emerald Dream won't be an instance and Uldum won't be added in this content cycle), Azjol-Nerub is getting its butt kicked by Grim Batol. And sure, I'd like to see Grim Batol too, but they can throw that in at any time... A-N seems like a "now or never" thing, really, and I just hope that Blizzard doesn't let all the art they made for it go unused.

Maybe that's because Grim Batol has always been in the game, so people who don't know the lore of Northrend think that Azjol-Nerub is just that hole in the Dragonblight.

But Grim Batol is hardly even mentioned anywhere. Wetlands is Alliance-only and none of the quests even lead there. It just has a longer reputation as being unreleased content.

Speaking of Zul'Drak, while it's great for levelling, I despise the zone with a passion. Whereas all the other zones could be divided into sub-zones thematically (Say, Howling Fjord having the Tuskarr/pirate islands, the area around Utgarde, then the Dryad camps, then the Iron Dwarves/Giant area to the east) Zul'Drak is unilaterally... trolls. And trolls. And even more trolls*. To top it off there's a 5-man instance which mimics troll raid zones in that the bosses each take on an animal aspect.

The really scary part is, I think you're right about another troll raid for WotLK. I fear for my sanity.

*Okay, to be fair, there's that little interlude with the Giant king.

I don't know that I agree with Zul'Drak being essentially one big troll zone. The western half is focused much more on the Scrouge and the efforts of the Ebon Blade/Argent Crusade against them. Specifically, the Drakuru questline. From my recollection of leveling there, trolls didn't appear in large numbers until you moved to Zim'Torga and started dealing with the troll primal gods.

If you want to see just how far back the scourge have driven Yogg-Saron in Icecrown, go take a look at the Saronite quarry south west of the Shadow Vault, there's a pool of water that you would do well to look in.

Looks like C'thun's body, but it's certainly just a placeholder until they make his unique, tentacley model (hopefully in 3.2).

There is a loose connect between the black dragonflight and Ragnaros in Vanilla, from memory The Dark Iron Dwarfs were attempting to tap a power source to fight the orcs (lead by Nefarian) who had taken over Blackrock Spire, in the process they opened a door to the elemental plane of fire unleashing Ragnaros. Alot of this comes from some of the quest text in the destroyed DI dwarf town in Burning Steeps. I'd double check WoWwiki but there is a connection, while its not as clear as Keal and vashj were to Illidan it is there. As for other things like C'thun and Kel'thuzad , I have a feeling that during vanilla Blizzard had a lot more planed and perhaps even partial developed then we got to see. Based on resources and need they choose what to release things, so it may see disjointed but perhaps at one time it all made sense. I think they have really cleaned up there content release cycle so that is makes some semblance of sense lore wise and otherwise since however.

I always wonder if this is an issue with the player base or with Blizzard. As has been described above, a huge part of the vanilla end-game was tied together around Blackrock Mountain, Nefarian, the iron dwarves, Ragnaros and the orcs there in a tangled ball of string. However, it seems like if Blizzard doesn't smack people over the head with the lore in a way that can't be avoided few people pick up on it.

Edit: And Onyxia as it was through the machinations of the orcs and dragons around Blackrock - and the interference of the iron dwarves in the war with Nefarian - that Marshal Windsor uncovered Onyxia's deception.

Yep. The entire story of the Dark Horde and the Black Dragonflight and the Dark Iron Dwarves and blah blah blah actually isn't too bad, it just wasn't portrayed as well as the subsequent WoW stories. I mean, for humans the story really begins at level 1 with fighting the Defias, which leads to the revelation that they're working for Onyxia.. I think more could've been made about the war between Ragnaros and Nefarian, but that's well in the past now.

The more you know! Maybe I should level an Alliance character.

I don't think the surprise will be the Zul'Drak raid instance, although it's obvious that something will eventually unfold there (due to the huge building at the eastern edge of the zone).

We've already had 2 raid instances heavily and solely involving troll stuff, a whole zone in Northrend is specifically devoted to it and there are 2 instances in Northrend which are of that nature too. As much as a quite like troll stuff (the whole tribal/cannibalistic stuff makes quite a good escapist storyline from the warcraft norm), another instance would be too much. There is more important stuff that needs to be focussed on first. It has to be something involving dragons as we are left with too much unexplained from our adventures in dragonblight (Ysera's current situation, Nozdormu's allegiances and the twilight dragonflight's and Sartharion's existence [it is explained, although very badly and needs to be expanded on]) , or something involving old gods.

Not necessarily. If Grim Batol ever gets implementet, there's bound to be a lot of "history quests" around it where we the player either acts as a scout or an interrogator (or similar roles), and I'm willing to bet there will be tomes concerning this, as well as interaction with NPCs that played a role in it.

I'm sure it'll get fleshed out, though granted, it doesn't really change that information was lacking in the past (When MC was cutting edge).

The Dark Iron ties go far back more than just two zones, at least for the Alliance. Dark Irons are in Gnomeregan (I know, most of you probably don't even acknowledge the existence of this zone), there are quests involving Dark Iron in the Badlands, Wetlands and Loch Modan.

The Black Dragonflight has been tangoing with Stormwind/human quests since Redridge (and I suppose since Westfall/Elwynn, but you wouldn't know that until much later/hindsight).

There is also a very loose connection between Onyxia and Nefarian. Remember, it is Nefarian's General which must first be killed in order to enter Onyxia's layer. Then Onyxia must be killed in order to combat Nefarian.

In reality, for the Alliance, almost the entirety of the original Azeroth was tied to Blackrock Mountains. Of course, we still had the Plaguelands and the Night Elves weren't too involved, but then again they were on another continent, across a great ocean.

[fake edit] Here's a quest text:
You know come to think of it...

If you really want a tie in. There's an Alliance tie in from Burning Steppes to Eastern Plaguelands (and then Western Plaguelands)... The Scourge are stealing Black Dragon eggs from Burning Steppes and shipping them to Scholomance to create the Plague flight.... That same quest line/giver then leads you to Stratholme.

[e] Heh, I got beaten on some of that while typing >.> apparently for over 20 minutes, but I was looking up quest texts.