Ah okay, still haven't done much in Sholazar yet, my error there. Still if the Avatar is okay, she may be in better shape then the other four, but yeah doesn't look good for any of them.

How large was the Uldar stuff? If it is the only raid instance to come that patch, and at least four Tier pieces drop in there, it could end up being rather large. Any chance the layout was winged?

Well hmmm maybe another Faceless One, or even a Forgotten One? If Yogg ends up there, maybe something along those lines.

With it being Uldar, perhaps there woud be a clockwork something in there too.

The Chamber of Aspects is the perfect opportunity to add more one shot bosses with one piece of Tier gear, and seems set up to have portals for multiple dragonflights. Since Ulduar has the potential to be a massive undertaking, it would stick with the current setup of having one major instance and one shot side bosses.

So what's the deal with the Kvaldir anyway?

They seem to have appeared due to the Vrykul graveyard at Shield Hill being dug up and robbed by pirates, but does that really explain their large numbers? And they're attacking pretty much the entire southern coast of Northrend, which seems a bit much for one graveyard in Howling Fjord.

And why are they attacking the Tuskarr? Their attacks on the Nage ruins in Borean Tundra seems to suggest it's mostly because they're on the coast, but it doesn't really seem like an effective way to get revenge on the graverobbers when they're not even attacking the right people. Hell, the pirates they're after are literally in visible range from the graveyard, yet they're pretty much the only coastal settlement not under attack by the Kvaldir.

Talking about future instances, there is at least one place where there is an obvious chance to expand: the dragonflight Sancta underneath the Wyrmrest Temple. Now, it seems quite clear that the Red Sanctum is not something we have to fight. That leaves Bronze, Green and Blue.

Bronze could be tied into the mysterious Nozdormu appearance in Mystery of the Infinite and the possible involvement of the Bronze Aspect in the Infinite Dragonflight.

Blue could be easily tied into the whole Nexus War story, although it's unclear why you'd need another blue dragon single encounter instance. It could also be the place for Kalecgos and the 'good blues' to make a re-appearance.

Green is the least likely of all. The only thing I can think of are the corrupted Nightmare-inflicted dragons from the old world Great Tree portals. There's a new Great Tree in Crystalsong, although strangely its portal seems to be missing.

Anyone else get the feeling that maybe the LK is grooming the PC (Player's character) to serve him? As a commander of types or possibly a new host body?

It does seem to be going in that direction... and has been heavily hinted at by blizz employees. The LK is just too confident. If he truly was afraid of us he has had way too many occasions that he could have easily disposed of us...

The whole reason that we are invading Northrend and assualting Icecrown is because the LK attacked us, but it was a rather pitiful attack of a few frostworms and a handful of abominations. I do not think he forsaw the nights of the eblon blade defecting but he admitted that his attack on Lights Hope was just a ploy to draw Fordring out and he expected that his force of deathknights would be killed in the assault.

It just seems like that was his gambit to get everyone to do what he wanted... and the other shoe will drop...

I am very curious to see how his story arc plays out, so far it has been incredibly epic.

Something like that is clearly "the plan", to invoke the Joker. That said, some of the events that have transpired so far have not gone according to plan for the Lich King.

-- A lot went wrong at Light's Hope - Tirion lives, Ashbringer redeemed, the Ebon Blade (a) live and (b) revolt.
-- He's clearly surprised that the Forsaken showed up like that at the Wrathgate.
-- Whatever Mattias Lehner was seemed to not be playing on the same team as the Lich King proper.
-- Tirion lives again by running Arthas' heart through.

So I don't think the Lich King is really trying to job it as much as it appears solely for the sake of baiting the PC on. He's just had a lot of things go wrong. He also got an unexpected bonus where the Forsaken managed to make the Horde and Alliance go at each other again.

I sure hope that the Lich King had some significant setbacks as well due to the actions of players and that we're actually gaining some significant victories. The "you've been working for me all along without knowing it" plotline is quite cheesy. Everytime it's invoked (games, movies, TV shows, novels), there's no way the guy doing the tricking could've foreseen everything that happened and had everything gone to plan. Most of the time, if you rewatched the movie, etc. knowing that plot twist, a lot of events don't make sense at all.

So while we may have unknowingly done Arthas' bidding, I hope that not everything had gone according to plan and that we've actually thwarted some of his plans somewhat.

I never got the impression that Arthas actually wanted us to do everything we were doing, including killing all of his minions. It seems more like a gauntlet, if we survive until the end, he knows we have great potential. If we don't, well then the next guy will come along. He's not setting us up to do these things, he's just watching us do them and knowing what it means. One of the great things in general about the lore of LK is we are finally getting acknowledged as being above the average peon.

I don't think there's any doubt that we've cause trouble for him, and that by the time we get to face him in Icecrown it will be "turn or die." My hope for the Icecrown raid experience is that he is involved throughout, perhaps even with multiple fights against him, rather than just trudging through a bunch of his minions in order to reach the throne he is sitting on. To me, that's always been the greatest flaw of all WoW raids, the "king of the castle" never seems to notice at all the fact you are slaughtering your way through his domain.

I think a big part of Arthas' motivation for letting you struggle against him is that he's already done the exact same thing. Just a few years ago Arthas himself was right were the PCs are now, struggling to overcome the dangers of Northrend and reach the ultimate goal: Icecrown Citadel. His response to the players is colored by his own experiences, and it's inconceivable to someone as arrogant as Arthas (who was a real git even as a human prince) that the PCs could succeed against an evil he himself succumbs to.

It's natural for Arthas to assume that the PCs are just as corruptible as he once was, because even before merging with Ner'zul he was supremely overconfident and self-centered.