Call me an optimist, but I suspect that Blizzard still has grand plans for Azjol-Nerob (Including the 25 man raid zone and the 'vast underground zone we could get lost in' everyone was hoping for) but is holding off releasing details on it, for whatever reason.

Perhaps the current 2 zones is all they had time to create by the release date - or maybe AN going to be added in some post-release content patch as a big drawcard. If WOTLK had been out 3-6 months and the next major patch was going to 'fully add and flesh out the vast underground Azjol-Nerob empire in a max-level only zone' would you be excited? I would be.

This is like the 'pacing the release of raid content' thread, theres simply no need to give us so much PVE content at once. I am very satisfied with the amount of levelling content so far in WOTLK currently. Too much solo/levelling content at once can be a bad thing. I would still be very happy if the fleshed out Azjol-Nerub (the version we all want, not the current hole-in-the-ground) was patched in after release as a lvl 80 only zone - as long as it met the expectations us fans currently have.

Blind optimism? Maybe, but we can hope!

I don't believe that all of the raid instances are in the game files right now, so it's hard to say that AN would or would not be a raid instance in the future. Are there currently unused instance portals in Northrend? I've not been lucky enough to get a beta key yet, but I think that may be an indicator to some extent, although I don't believe that it would be hard to patch a portal in.

Darnassus would be an excellent staging opportunity for a Maelstrom expansion, so perhaps that may be a reason behind it being "ignored" for LK.

Actually he says it should have him who "carried" the blade, not "kept" or "not lent". Consider that, and his disguised state, and it becomes fairly consistent. You can't go around carrying the most famous and recognizable item in all WoW lore and hope for anonymity. This pretty much saved his life, seeing what happened to the lucky guy charged with carrying it.

Speculating further, in his hands rather than some poor peon's it might be much more easily detectable by the Lich King (its power comes from the wielder etc etc, in Fordring's hands it would be a blindingly bright beam of hope, holiness yada yada. Hard to keep a low profile in that condition)
As an analogy with Sauron's mad search of the One Ring, and how the only way to get it so close to him was to have it carried by an average joe: to sneak the Ashbringer into Northrend where it's needed, so close to the Lich King, it had to be temporarily carried by some unassuming guy.

Alright, so after playing through the half-complete (if that) Storm Peaks, all the new lore seems to be around the Vrykul, and it's actually kinda cool. I guess I don't have the whole picture since I'm not Alliance, but here's what I kinda-understand so far.

There's 5 types of Vrkul, starting with your normal fleshy types, and then you have your Sea Vrykul, your Frost Vrykul, your Undead Vrykul, and your Runed/Iron Vrykul. I'm not exactly sure how affiliated each type is, however. I'll break it down:

Regular Vrykul: Ruled by King Ymrion, have presences in Howling Fjord and Grizzly Hills. Have pledged allegience to the Lich King and their warriors seek to "ascend" after death through his favor. The ones who are rejected by the Val'Kyr (who carry Arthas' judgement) become undead Vrykul (Vargul, I think they're called) and the ones who are accepted... well, who knows. The boss of Utgarde Keep is "accepted" and becomes just a regular undead Vrykul, but this doesn't make sense to me since it's said later on that the undead Vrykul are the unascended ones. I'm inclined to accept the later narrative and I think that the Utgarde Keep boss was created before the lore was further developed.

Sea Vrykul: I don't know if these are affiliated with any other types. You mostly see them in Borean Tundra attacking Tuskaar villages. There's some lore about them in Howling Fjord (the quests where you find the four artifacts for the Tuskaar), but I'm afraid that I don't really remember it.

Undead Vrykul: Seen en masse in Zul'Drak, and that's about it I believe. As said above, these are mostly "unworthy" Vrykul that have been raised by the Lich King.

Forst Vrykul: Here's where it gets interesting. Frost Vrykul appear in Storm Peaks, and are very ununified. It seems that the Frost Vrykul are almost entirely female and keep regular male Vrykul as slaves. One group of Frost Vrykul has pledged allegience to the Lich King and their warriors seek to become Val'Kyr (their village is names Valkyrion, and it's the first place you actually get to fight Val'Kyr.) Another group follows/worships Thorim, an ancient male Frost Vykrul who sits atop the Temple of Storms. He claims to be the brother of Loken, who has taken control of Ulduar from him. If they truly are brothers, this is odd because Loken is currently represented ingame with the Male Titan model. This group also hates the Vrykul which has pledged allegience to the Lich King, which is why I doubt that Ymrion is truly the kind of the Vrykul.. he has no domain over Thorim, let alone Loken.

Runed Vrykul: These are the "original" Vrykul made by the Titans. They're led by Loken, along with the Runed Iron dwarves and other runed constructs. Their main focus is fighting the Earthen and Storm / Earth giants, but they're probably considered enemies to all the other Vrykul types. So far the only one seen ingame afaik is the last boss of the Halls of Stone, but there are undoubtedly others which will probably appear in Storm Peaks or Ulduar.

That's my understanding so far, at least. Also, there might be another infinite dragonflight chain in Storm Peaks, but it's not finished yet. There's a tauren who uses something called the "Lorehammer" to detect inconsistencies in the timeline... hope he keeps that thing away from Metzen, it'd probably explode.

Well, that's bastardized Marvel comics lore. Thor (Thorim) and Loki (Loken) are both sons of Odin, and brothers, Thor by blood, Loki by adoption (he's of giant descent). The original Norse versions are more complicated (and not very consistent) regarding the relationship between Loki and Odin's family.

I thought Iron XXX were Mark II versions of constructs build to resist the curse of flesh (which made earthen become dwarfs and vrykull ... well vrykul as we know them and eventually human).

Maybe the runes on the Iron Dwarves and Vyrkul offer some protection from the Curse of the Flesh? Perhaps the Iron Vyrkul could have been used as foot soldiers in the Titan's War against the Old Gods, and the design was so successful it was then used after the fact or the new Earthen?

Doesn't explain a lot of things though, like why wasn't a new Clockwork Gnome design made.

The real question is though is why the Titans didn't just decide to end the entire project, slay the Old Gods, and move on. Instead they went out of their way after the fact to add stuff to Azeroth that just wasn't normal. Maybe they felt sorry for their former workers and wanted to give them some help. Or, being of a scientific mindset, they were currious as to what would happen to these new varibles in their up to this point, standard design scheme.

In the end, maybe they did know what they were doing, Azeroth has had a remarkable track record of repelling the Burning Legion. No other world has been able to do that, and it wasn't just luck, as it has happened multiple times.

I don't think that's a fair assessment. No other specific-world-known-to-Azerothians. Clearly, besides Azeroth, the Burning Legion isn't all powerful as we know there's still the Naaru who not only battle the Legion, they follow in the wake of the Legion to help (see Outlands).

And of course, as said by me above, there is still Elune. We know the Titans are not "true" gods, but Elune is. Who is to say that Azeroth isn't special because its under the protection of Elune? And there's some basis for this, even in game. Ever notice when we slay Archimonde, thus ending the second invasion, we get Elune's Protection? That power seems very real.

Actually we don't KNOW this at all. It assumed at this point with no real facts to back it up.

At this point we're not technologically advanced enough to really confirm godship of anything, our "the holy light", gods and the titans may be as non-godly as the stargate mythos gods who are all entirely killable but generally live for a really long time.

I'm pretty sure that the idea of the computer console that Brann stumbles upon is supposed to be heavily leaning towards Clarke's Third law.

How would I got about listening the Malygos' sound file? Been looking around for an explanation but haven't found one yet.

This seems awfully familiar... And how many people back from the dead does this put us at now?

Was this rhetorical or did you actually want an answer?

Balnazzar obviously from classic(Poor Sylvanas never found out about this one)
The whole of Naxxramas from WoW Classic, including Kel'Thuzad twice(Don't forget he died in WC3 ^_^)
Archmage Arugal
Kael'thas
Teron Gorefiend
Magtheridon(Debatable but he certainly looked dead in the original campaign)
Muradin Bronzebeard

That's off the top of my head. I'll update it if I remember anybody else.

Edit: Medivh, god, how could I forget about him. =/ -1 "Lorelol"points for me, brought back for WC3.
The Alliance Expedition to Outland, we assumed they all died, they were all alive though, save Alleria Windrunner and Turalyon who are still MIA.

Logistically, a city on a tree with, hundreds of yards below, space for a single jetty is hardly the optimal place for staging any serious kind of military action. There are no supply lines for a start, and the greater bulk of any movement of units or resources would have to come from a more populated and productive city. So why hold things up by stopping in Rut'theran village on the way north?

The guys at Wotlkwiki found some pretty interesting lines in the new data files, they say these are subtitles from a not-yet-implemented cinematic.

Looks like Sylvanas may finally betray the Horde.

Try reading the text as if multiple people would say it (faction leaders for example and Arthas). It makes a lot more sense that way. I imagine it looking like they arrive to help each other and say a part each. The last part could reference to the living Scourge allies, too, and not the Alliance/Horde.

I am fangirling over the thought of Sylvanas showing up and annihilating everyone with a new plague. I have no idea how this would work in WoW however(Who WOULDN'T want to side with her? Honestly) for members of the Forsaken. It would be a disappointment and rather dumb if she simply because another bad NPC we had to kill. The Forsaken are easily the most interesting and coolest of the races in WoW atm, and they literally worship Sylvanas as a god, their Dark Lady, their Queen. It'll certainly be very interesting to see what happens.

Make no mistake, when the Forsaken say "death to the living and the dead" they're referring to all living races, not just the Scourge.

Agreed, the end of the text definitely sounds like a dialog between Sylvanas and Arthas. "Did you think we'd forgiven" sounds like something she'd say towards him regarding their death and rebirth as Scourge, prior to gaining their cognitions.

From what are you getting the "Sylvanas may betray the Horde" part?

I would assume...

I can't find anything anywhere to confirm this. I thought the Scarlet Onslaught quests pointed to the Lich King being the one behind the scenes this time.
Is this speculation? If so the Mal'ganis sound files would be from Stratholme Past, otherwise post the info from the Mal'ganis sound files please!

This is no bad thing if true, it establishes named Dreadlords as extremly crafty enemies, it even raises the question of if we have killed any of them yet, even the unnamed ones. Perhaps turning into bats on death isn't just a pretty animation?