Part of the problem with Blackrock Mountain was that the tie-in's for Horde characters are *extremely* slim to non-existant. There are no Horde bases in several of the zones you list, and we don't interact with the Orcs under Nefarians control much because Horde characters never go there - our starting zones were mostly on a different continent, and even Undead ended up in the BArrens because Silverpine didn't contain enough content to get to Hillsbrad when first launched.

Heck, the Onyxia quest and the "Rescue the Princess" in BRD quest both boil down to "Go do this because the Alliance will like it" for Horde characters. The Horde side of the game overall was very lacking in the original game - it seems like they had planned for the Silithid and the Qiraj to be the Horde "big storyline" as Horde players will encounter them numerous times whilst levelling up, but the lore and build up to Ahn'Qiraj got junked out of the window with AQ40 / AQ20, which both completely and utterly failed to resolve with the earlier lore at all, and never made much sense when compared to the build up in the rest of the game.

Maybe that is a compensation for the events that occurred in previous warcraft games. WC3 and TFT were heavily horde based. There wasn't much about the alliance at all. I suspect Blizzard wanted to expand more on alliance affairs when WoW launched, as the horde races were all pretty well established and dominated the story lines for quite a while prior to launch.

WC3 and TFT were solidly about the founding of the horde and it's constituent races, whereas the involvment of the alliance eas mostly about the fall of the alliance, and the struggle that Jaina played in trying to keep it together. (Thinking of the bonus campaign and the cycle of hatred here).

Well, Stormwind was most definitely the first area designed, and so were Elwynn and Westfall. Tigole has more or less stated as much in one/several interviews. This also has the issue of making Elwynn quests rather simple, hell I don't even think there are any multi-item collection quests.

But Stormwind is very fleshed, perhaps the most fleshed out and polished city in the game besides Dalaran. During (original) Beta, the devs had promised to revist all the Horde areas and add/redo quests. Though it seems they ran short of time and did some of it rather half-hearted.

Should be noted there seems to be quite a bit of Kalimdor and Horde content which was patched in, but much less Alliance/Eastern Kingdoms.

Of the top of my head: Dire Maul was patched in, parts of Feralas was redone (and ogre model completely redone from the ground up). Maraudon was also patched in, but I don't remember any changes to Desolace. Dustwallow was rebuilt (for lack of a better term). Silithus was entirely unfinished at release, and lets not even talk about Ahn'Qiraj. I believe (but I am not entirely sure) Tanaris quests were revisted post-Live. In the Eastern Kingdom sides of thing, I remember Thorium Point and Raventusk being patched in; the former being neutral and the latter being Horde-only.

There's probably a couple of things I missed; but I suspect the devs ran out of time and did Horde content second.

But, I believe Horde get compensated with Outlands. Alliance have nothing like Garrosh/Magthar questline. But honestly, I compared Horde's Magthar questline to Alliance' Onyxia questline, granted said questline was removed.

Something to add from Horde's viewpoint, I levelled as BE after TBC was released which was also my first Character. I felt the whole Kalimdor/Eastern Kingdoms progression in terms of the scourge with Naxx being a fitting end point. Now this could be completely different for an Orc/Tauren starting but I suspect for the Undead too the scourge storyline is more fitting than the Blackrock mountain one.

Outlands has been very good to the Horde, (and WoTLK in many aspects will be very good to the Alliance). Especially for the BEs I felt the "cleansing" of Sunwell at the end of TBC was a great end to the story arc.

I just looked at an exploration video of Ulduar (very rought alpha phase though) and it seems like a good mix of indoor and outdoor raid. Certainly looks very promising, lets hope Blizzard delivers with the Lore hidden inside the Vault.

The original storyline(s) were pretty much wrapped up with the banishing of Ragnaros and the killing of Onyxia and Nefarian. Blackrock mountain will probably remain contested until someone steps in to fill the void, but there's no real indication that's been happening. As noted earlier, one may assume that the leaderless Dark Iron dwarves and Orcs will continue their struggle but that's not really of interest to the players at this point, and I would assume that the Alliance and Horde have since moved on to more direct threats (like the Burning Legion and the Scourge) as well.

Deathwing is certainly still out there (possibly hiding at Grim Batol), and events like the scene at Netherwing Ledge suggests he is attempting to continue Nefarian's work, but it's been so much on the background I really doubt it'd make for a good major storyline at this point. It's just not been nearly in everyone's face as the Scourge and Blue Dragonflight have been. Assuming Deathwing is at Grim Batol, the combination would make for a good major content patch. Perhaps with Malygos gone, he will grow confident enough to come out of hiding again. It would be something to consider once the remaining lines are wrapped up, sort of like Sunwell Plateau added an additional (but kind of optional) chapter to the Burning Crusade line. At the same time though, if we're to kill two dragon Aspects in one expansion, then what's supposed to be challenging us at level 90?

The one major storyline that currently is unfished are the Iron dwarves/Titan servants/Yogg-Saron storyline. I'm curious how far Ulduar will finish it and actually wouldn't be too surprised if the final boss turns out to be the Old God himself(or some manifestation thereof). On the one hand, it's great if they smear it out to allow for an Azjol-Nerub raid instance, but that would also make me wonder just when Icecrown Citadel is going to be implemented. Arthas is the one major lore figure we're sure to face in this expansion and given that we've seen him a half-dozen times while levelling already, I wonder how long Blizzard can hold off implementing the instance before the momentum is ruined.

The original Horde storyline seems to be the story of the bugs in Kalimdor, leading down to Ahn'Qiraj. From the Barrens through all the southern Kalimdor zones, you explore this invasion and watch it go from the weird suspicions of some kooky researchers to a dire threat to the entire continent.

Real question is what happened to the haunting spirit in Grim Batol... the Queen of the Dark Irons. She'd also be an interesting character to emerge (well some form of her). There's lots Blizzard can do there, in regards to both Blackrock Mountains and Grim Batol's future.

Regarding the Scythe of Elune and the worgen in grizzly hills, i found a more or less interesting questchain. I hope this is relevant to the discussion in some way. (I can't remember reading this before in this threat, so hopefully this is news to someone)

Local Support

Lieutenant Dumont in Amberpine Lodge asks the (alliance) player to recover a relic that was stolen from the local trappers.
You find a locked chest, and deliver it unopened to the trappers/worgen. There you get this quest completion text:

'You did it! You recovered the Sc... you recovered the chest that the Horde stole from us.'

Does anyone know what happens to the scythe afterwards?

So what we know of Yogg-Saron:
-Body is massive enough to span over Grizzly Hills, Dragonblight, Icedrown, and The Stormpeaks.
-Behind the corruption in Ulduar, the corruption of Vordrassil, and Saronite.

Now just taking a look at all the speculation of just the size of his body, and where his influence's reach, we know that something of Yogg is going to be seen in Ulduar, and if the next raid zone after Ulduar is the vast area that is Azjol-Nerub, there too.

Just due to his massive size, and where his influence's reach, and the encounter of Arthas with the Faceless One in Azjol, there is not enough space in Ulduar to face Yogg safely, so what in Ulduar is going to be connected to Yogg? How far underground will Ulduar go?

Seems to imply more than there is something in Ulduar that will release Yogg-Saron, rather than us facing him directly. But who is in there messing with it?

Now if Yogg-Saron gets release, what is going to happen with the Elementalal Lord's being trapped away for so long? Are they going to be brought back? Since it was the Old Gods who controlled the Elemental Lord's first off, with their imprisoning under the world, the Elemental Lord's were trapped within the Elemental Plane in the Twisting Nether, will Yogg-Saron bring them back?

The book is on my list to read sometime. The point remains though, there's not a lot of ingame hints going towards Deathwing right now.

The other Watchers were missing, one or all might be in the process of releasing him.

Tyr from the Temple of Order
Mimir from the Temple of Invention
Hodir from the Temple of Winter(Though I think he's confirmed dead?)
Freya from the Temple of Life
In addition we also know Thorim was captured and brought to Ulduar(Thanks to us >_<)

There's a chance we'd face all of the watchers in Ulduar, and maybe the unthinkable will happen and Yogg-Saron is released for the next instance(Which would be very cool, as we've never had a raid villain cameo in a previous instance). The watches seem like the obvious choice for Ulduar bosses, though to be honest I have no idea what we would face in Azjol-Nerub if not Yogg-Saron.

And I don't know about bringing the Elementals to our world, last time that happened there was a big-bada-boom, granted an Old God might have better control but still.

Does UBRS not count? :P

I guess it's interesting that Loken doesn't actually say that Yogg-Saron is his master, just that he'll be releasing Yogg-Saron. Maybe his master will really turn out to be Al'Akir or something as the boss of Ulduar. Something like that. Okay, not entirely realistic, I know..

Also, I didn't think the Horde was that poorly tied to the BRM stuff. Okay, they had no reason to be in BRD, but there are some interesting Horde-only quests concerning the Dark Horde... I didn't even know it was called that until I played a Horde character, actually. Thrall certainly had a good reason to want Rend Blackhand dead, though.

Well need to remember that the last time it happened, some of the weakest beings tried it, and while it worked, they had little control over the effects. Now add an Old God controlling the events....

And Liebestod you can't say whether Yogg-Saron is Loken's master or not, there is just not the information. Sure the Old Gods can infiltrate a fragile mind and put whatever image they want in there, but there are also many other foes with those abilities that we haven't seen yet either.

I don't think calling Loken a fragile mind is really correct. He is introduced as a great liar using illusions and trickery to achieve his goals. But I would agree that Yogg-Saron isn't his master as he emphazises on mechanical beings being stronger than the ones affected by the curse of flesh, which was a product by the old gods. I think that they rather free Yogg-Saron to draw the Pantheon into the battle instead of taking orders from him.

The two quotes that we can interpret are:

The latter quote is a clear sign that Loken has been corrupted (and driven insane) by Yogg-Saron, taking it at face value that is. It seems just most logical that he's just been enthralled by Yogg-Saron and is now serving him. There's a possibility that he's only 'half mad', and like you said, releasing Yogg-Saron so that the Pantheon comes for Azeroth's (and thereby Loken's) rescue.

It is denoted that Loken is a being of immense power too. He was charged as being the "supreme defender of all Azeroth" by the pantheon. And the pantheon is the council of which the highest titans belong, they shape worlds and create life. These guys gave the dragon aspects their power.

I don't think Loken's mind is weak at all. He is considered only one tier below titans themselves, of which Sargeras is(was) one. I'm actually quite disappointed he can get killed by 5 mortals. This guy should be harder than any of Azeroth's deadly villains. Boo!

E: There is nothing concrete in the last quote there. All he says is that his master will prevail, and Yogg-Saron will be released. That could just as well imply that Yogg-Saron is being used as a 'weapon' than it is his actual master.

I never interpreted it to be in a physical sense, like a warrior (However haven't read up on the lore enough to know whether this is explicitly stated). Moreso an intellectual, spiritual defender who's real power is his knowledge. That would make more sense when coupled with the, "So how can 5 guys kill someone of his stature" mentality.

If Ulduar has a rumoured high amount of bosses, like Naxx, i'm really hoping they take the opportunity to develop them all decently and not just throw them in the zone. Having lots of bosses is nice, but to complete the package it should all be cohesive/organic with regards to giving them a motive and reason to being in the zone.

Just having bosses 'there' is not the sort of quality we should accept from Blizzard anymore, not after an instance like Sunwell. Sunwell demonstrated how satisfying things can be when done right.

We've seen Thor and Loki, is there any sign of a parallel figure to Odin around yet? Or could he be lurking around backstage?

Father and Yogg-Saron may not be the same creature

Now didn't Sargeras "Die" in Storm Peaks..? His body is in the broken isles and his mind went into Medivh... but maybe...

I'm really beginning to suspect that some piece of Sargeras is influencing Loken. The easiest possible way to corrupt a creation of the titans, is for a titan voice to do the persuading. Now whether this voice of Daddy in his head is Yogg-Saron decieving him with the promise of doing his creators work, or actually Sargeras himself in some form remains to be seen. Either way, getting Sargeras and the Old God's entwined in the story would be a good thing. It'd allow for connections back to Karazhan(the most popular and played zone in the game) with the underground sections, and allow for future connections to the Maelstrom, with the old god whispering into Azshara's ear and the Broken Isles.

Speaking of the Broken Isles, is it ever said in game where exactly the Strand of the Ancients is? What would possess the Horde and Alliance to fight over a titan relic that's presumably thousands of miles from Northrend and what possible role could it involve in the opening of Ulduar or later in the story if it's assumed to be somewhere in the Broken Isles?

What would possess the Horde and Alliance to fight for the Eye of the Storm?

Even the lack of token quests seems to leave those two undeveloped, lore/story-wise.

I always assumed the Strand of the Anceints was just south of Dragonblight some, since you see some of the broken remains of the Path of the Titans while you ride up on the boats, and in southern Dragonblight you can see the path does go southwards into the ocean.