When you finish the Argent Crusade quests in Scourgeholme, they build a tower. Scourgeholme is still there, but there's a new AC outpost northwest of the one you were getting quests at.

I don't think the average Chinese person cares. It's just the Ones Who Are In Charge(tm) - Blizzard has to take care to not give that bunch of people any leverage at all to point at games in general or WoW specifically and say "this form of entertainment is disrupting national harmony".

I'm trying to be as politically correct and inoffensive as possible - these are the same group of people who decided "NO SKELETONS IN GAMES" causing a shitload of work on Blizzard's part just because of some little fancy whim about something they don't even fully understand. So yeah... I agree. Sucks.

Pandas are one of prime symbols of China, considered a national treasure and a symbol of peace. It does not seem unreasonable that the country would not respond favourably to something like this portrayed in a war game. What do we do do in WoW? We kill stuff. Sure, theres lots of types of combat: dungeons/raids/arena/bs, but ultimately we kill stuff. The only images i've seen of pandas from any media are that of a peaceful and vulernable creature that needs to be protected. I think its very reasonable for Chinese authorities to want to regulate their image, even if its in a video game. The same principle applies to any powerful symbol, like the Olympic rings. Even if a few 'average people' don't care about their possible mis-use, their national and international importance/symbolism is something that is important to many others and should be protected.

The vague comment regarding the third expansion is interesting. But i'd still bet money its going to be the Maelstrom!

Pandas are literally the dumbest animals in existence and only by constant coddling by humans have they managed to not finally die off. WOW is only saying what everyone else is thinking.

Am I the only one feeling that Panda Bears don't fit into Warcraft at all?

Yes, there was a playable Panda Brewmaster somewhere in WC3, but I considered that as a funny joke mostly.
He reappered in one campaign as easter egg after finding a room with flying sheep in Dalaran and doing easter egg secret mission which was about developing and building guard towers to kill off never ending waves of mobs than ran in a straight line, waiting to be bombarded.

For me, they were a fun easter egg addition, but nothing that I ever took serious.
At least nothing that I would consider common lore or canon.
Or am I alone with that opinion?

I think initially they were considered a bit of a joke, as you say, but after they became so popular they were incorporated into the lore, and are now considered canon. That's why you can find Chen's empty kegs scattered about the Barrens in WoW.

That description was done from the point of view of the Night Elves who found Krasus + Rhonin. In their eyes, he looked vaguely like an elf, but not really. That's because the High Elves didn't exist yet and they do appear different then night elves (shorter in stature, shorter ears, pale, etc). Rhonin looked decidedly non-elf (busted nose, rounded ears, etc), which is why they couldn't quite figure out what he was.

In actuality, Krasus looked like a perfectly legitimate high elf, which was why he was able to hang around the Kirin Tor undetected.

"Don't think about Continents" - Oh Blizzard, why do you tease us so?

Actually, it's a nice idea if you look at it this way - Illidan, Arthas, Kael'thas et al are all reasonably well known to anyone who's played the Warcraft III games and even if you haven't, there's enough mention of them throughout WoW to clue you in through the course of the game. Azshara, on the other hand, isn't anywhere near as well known to the majority of players, as far as they're concerned, it's a zone north of Orgrimmar and *maybe* some mythical naga boss or something.

If they thrown in a 'quick' Caverns of Time expansion covering the War of the Ancients (perhaps along with the War of the Shifting Sands and the events of the first couple of games, to fill it out some), it provides a nice way to introduce the character while also setting up a Maelstrom expansion afterwards. It'd be pretty fun to get in her bad books way back when by helping play a part in foiling her and the Legion's plans then have her show up again in the present day looking for revenge.

Not that they'll do any of this, of course!

I'm not saying that it can't be done, just that it seems more like a huge investment into a relatively minor part of the lore... I think the WotA would make a great CoT instance as part of a Maelstrom expansion, or maybe you could even have a full Zin-Azshari phased zone or something, but if you start expanding "old Kalimdor" beyond that you're going to have steeply diminishing returns... it could still be interesting, sure, but not quite as relevant to the lore.

Is "don't think about continents" the actual line used in reference to the next expansion? I'd put my money on the Emerald Dream, then... maybe the Elemental Realms as well.

I honestly can't buy this line of reasoning for a couple reasons

1. We kill around 1000 dragons in WoW and dragons have a very wise noble representation in China, Han Chinese ethnics calling themselves "descendants of the dragon," etc. etc.

2. WoW already makes fun of tons of cultures for a laugh. Trolls are a shot at Jamaicans, Tauren are Amerindians, male blood elves are fabulous queens, Dwarves are Scottish, gnomes are little nerdy democratic atheist technophiles that probably resemble a good deal of the playerbase. Druids/warlocks are represented as violent and destructive without offending Pagans. No one seriously thinks the stereotypes in WoW are meanspirited enough to significantly impact the subscription base.

3. As far as national symbols go, I live in one of the most jingoistic countries around but if they implemented a raid boss that was a bald eagle humanoid that attacked you by using a baseball bat to hit apple pie bombs at you I can't see myself or others here being honestly offended, just thinking it was a little weird or out of place.

China's a 21st Century superpower, I don't really buy into this idea that they're these mysterious foreigners we must be careful not to upset their irrational and superstitious ways in a video game