Thanks for the disturbing thought, Vaccine, now I can only think that we might have a humanoid mini-Deathwing (as in burning permanently) in charge of Scourge. Someone grab an ice pick and go wake the guy. Then kill him. Just in case.

Although chaotic energies (and shouts of "CHAOS!") are usually related to the Legion, the Old Gods, what with their misterious ways - which may be due to storytelling issues but have been working rather fine - seem more like the embodiment of chaos and senseless acts of mayhem, etc. Unlike the Legion, who actually act more like a horde of vikings (fiery vikings the size of buildings) bent on nothing but destruction and conquest, the Old Gods do seem content on creating a kind of "sandbox" world of eternal conflict, slow and painful destruction. Again, this may be due to a lack of unveiling of their plans, but even if that is eventually changed, I do hope I'm right, to be honest. As far as crapsack worlds go, one that "craps its sack" slowly and painfuly is more interesting.

You've likely checked MMO today, but just in case, here's the daily (I wish) batch of lore. Smells like charred earth already:

Cataclysm Prologue - Gnomeregan and the Echo Isles

Nice to see two neglected races getting their share of glory, here's to these events translating into a bigger role in future storylines as well. The Doomsday quests, too, seem very well done, nice change of pace from the usual "Repel Invasion Good Now Go Cave Their Sternums In". Cho'gall is mentioned, but it isn't clear if he'll lead the attacks on the cities, most likely the hard work will be done by elementals. Can't wait to shut "Mr. Deathwhisper" (always with the prophecy mambo-jambo) up, though.

I believe this would be a nice time to bring up Harbringer Skyriss and his speech in the Arcatraz.

Given that Tempest Keep was a Naaru installation at first, it makes me curious about the connection between the old gods and Naaru. How did they know about the old gods? I'm getting a slight feeling with the old gods and Naaru that they are the reason for everything in the end. The Legion and Titans are just minor baddies compared to them.

Well, we shouldn't forget that Sargeras is still probably the most powerful single entity in the universe - seeing as madness and psychosis tend to break any mental restraints, barring overconfidence, which has gotten him killed once -, unless one of the Pantheon titans surpasses him by that much. Also, the fallen titan commands what is pretty much the mother of all fighting forces, one that can beat any known opposition unless its ties to the world it's invading are cut.

The problem with the Old Gods is that they're unsurpassed schemers in the known Warcraft universe. Sure, there are Dreadlords and there's Kil'jaeden, but the Legion's lack of (or significantly minor) "established structures" on Azeroth coupled with overconfidence (somewhat shared with the Old Gods, although they seem a bit more cautious to show their "faces") tend to make demonic plans shine bright even under broad dailight. Of course, it doesn't help that most races, especially orcs, are absolutely paranoid of demons or their followers.

Old Gods, on the other hand, enlist the very secrets of Azeroth's history, things and beings seen as myths or stories of old. And it's a testament to the true power they might possess if restored that they're able to gain the allegiance (even through mind-corrosion) of extremely diverse and powerful beings. Of course, this also makes it easier for them to be betrayed by said followers (who, like Deathwing or Azshara, are probably too powerful for the Gods' own good - I wouldn't put it past either of the two to be able, and more than willing, to kill an Old God at a reasonable power level), but it also makes them that much more hidden behind said big-bad sized followers' agendas. To put it simply, they do not employ "dragons" (pardon the pun) in the trope sense of very efficient bodyguards, but rather villains that can and do make up for whole storylines.

As far as Old Gods go, us heroes really take the merit of bringing about their defeat. No small feat, seeing as most of the time we rely on joint efforts and heroes that induce voidpant-shitting on demon lords. Against the Old Squids, we might have dragons, titanic overseers or a dwarf's expeditionary force directing us, but in the end, we go alone and do it spec-ops style, in and out quietly. Until the bloody red-haired wizard decides to shoot a beam into the nightsky while screaming to the whole city.

Makes me wonder about the origins of the Titans -- I'll laugh if trolls once spanned the entire galaxy, and due to the trollish tendency toward betraying their own gods somehow turned the galaxy into what it is today and created the Naaru and Old Gods (Directly or indirectly) as a result.

Also, I wonder if Zalazane will have the same sort of 'Wait, what?' reference New!Onyxia did when we turned in her head again. Unless of course the game does mention how he came back ("I know what you're thinking, but level ten was merely a setback!"), and that when we defeated him before he was severely weakened from the effort of displacing all the Darkspear.

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.

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 don't think it's outrageous that they would just retcon Zalazane and Thermaplugg being killed before. It's not like it was hard canon in the first place. Quests are always sort of nebulous in that regard.

The Old Gods are playing a game. Everything is just a toy to them, and they know all the rules and how to bend them. You can destroy their physical presence but they never show the slightest concern over spoiled plans. They're magnificent bastards of an unprecedented level. The Naaru may very well be playing the same game but be less malevolent about it. They are extremely creepy, in any case.

The connection between the Naaru and Titans, or rather the complete lack of one, is the thing that concerns me the most.

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.

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.