Interestingly enough, in Cot:S (which I guess you could consider more canon than WC3 because WoW has much more detailed scripting?) Arthas is 100% correct. As you enter the city people at the door are already complaining about sickness. The first part of the instance is basically you killing scourge with infinitely respawning zombies (600 hp, but GL w/ ressing) and Arthas + pals one shotting people as they run out.

As much as I hate Arthas for being an emodin, CoT:S kinda paints a different picture than the WC3 mission where you basically just walk around killing citizens with generic models and no scripting. It is kind of ruthless and he takes no chances, but I can't say his plan is really out of line with modern containment procedures in cases of biological attack or highly infectious disease. Granted the killing at the door part is more Resident Evil than RL (so far)...

I'd consider it more canon simply because it's written more recently.

Regarding some of the previous World of Raids links

I actually have the opposite impression - maybe due to the fact that Arthas actually speaks to the Strat citizens before slaughtering them, it makes it seem more ruthless. No remorse at all.

I doubt it. There was speculation at some point that Gun'Drak was going to be a raid zone originally, which might explain why they'd include these kinds of things, but I doubt that there'll be a Zul'Drak raid instance against a snake boss. Do we really want another troll raid, anyways?

On a side note, I ran Ahn'Kehnet yesterday and noticed that at the end there were Forgotten One mobs... which had placeholder General Rejaxx models. The last boss (who has a neat mechanic that needs tuning) has this model as well. Now, if you remember, the Forgotten One in War 3 was the C'Thun-like creature... I can't imagine that these are really supposed to be Faceless Ones (whose models haven't been implemented yet) that had just been misnamed. Or maybe they're just retconning that lore. In any case, it's a nice hint of what's to come in the A-N raid. It's still sad to see what was once going to be a sprawling Nerubian city in a non-instanced Azjol-Nerub zone reduced to a little 5-man adventure, though.

Yes, I do want another troll raid, after I went through Gundrak and I realized that Blizzard has learnt tremendously from TBC and improved their instance design. A Lot.

I will have to keep an eye out during questing to see if there is any mention of this snake being.

True. But, have they added any more explanations this time in terms of what exactly are the Infinite Dragonflight's intentions?

Eh, think of the opportunity cost. Lore-wise, Zul'Drak is probably the most irrelevant zone in the game, even moreso than Grizzly Hills. I would've much much rather seen it cut than Azjol-Nerub, but I can understand why the latter was more practical to exclude. Nevertheless, out of all the plotlines that Blizzard can develop, another loa god troll instance seems about as bland as it can get, even if ZG and ZA were pretty fun.

I don't think WotLK's instance design is fundamentally superior to TBC's, though. Yes, there are some new mechanics. And the instances are shorter overall. But the bosses don't seem that complex or interesting overall.

[Edit]

This isn't to say that Zul'Drak doesn't have a decent story to it, just that it ends at Gun'Drak and isn't tied to anything that happens anywhere else.

I didn't specify he had any type of remorse, just that he was doing what was technically right. He's still antagonistic but it gives a much better appreciation for how he fell. Arthas' character flaws are still the main reason he did what he did, but I'd say the story is a lot better now than the Revenge of the Sith treatment he had before where he was basically a raging idiot the entire time. At least now he's doing stuff that's necessary and vengeful bloodlust comes as a result rather than "Oh look the evil prince wants to kill people again..." He's a lot less 2d now; he seems a lot more like an inexperienced prince than someone I want to punch in the face because you can tell what he's going to end up as from the first conversation you hear.

Kumar: No. Infinite dragonflight are still very much serial in nature, its pretty clear Blizzard is saving the Bronze/IDF stuff for later. In fact, I'd venture to say its even worse in Wrath simply because we've already been introduced. They feel more like useless cartoon henchmen than ever.

Yes, no spoiler tags was said at the start, and it is in the title so please don't use them, they are really annoying with this color scheme.

I agree on the 5-man thing - I was really looking forward to Azjol-Nerub being an "ourdoor" underground zone. I wonder if it was a technical limitation or a time constraint that lead to the way it is now. As for the Azjol-Nerub raid - is it confirmed there will be one yet? I thought I had heard mention of it before but a friend of mine in beta insists there are only 2 instance portals at this point and is under the impression that the current 2 instances are it, which would be a huge disappointment.

I don't have the post in front of me, but there was one that said that the plans for Azjol-Nerub were much larger than what was currently in the beta.

Time constraint, I'd guess... they probably decided that A-N wouldn't be able to make it for release sometime in the early alpha, and then they turned the work they had done on it into two instances. An A-N raid against Yogg-Saron was confirmed and will undoubtedly be a part of the content cycle, but not having A-N as a real zone kinda guts his lore, I'd imagine. So you don't just lose that, but it means that the game won't go into Nerubian culture at all (there aren't even any above-ground Nerubian towns) and... it would've just been a cool zone. I'm hoping they work it in somehow when they add the raid, but I'm not confident. They've already cannibalized their current work into the instances that exist now.

There was also just one portal in the Pit of Narjun until they added Ahn'Kehnet, then there were two. When they add the raid, they'll just add another portal somewhere.

Also, a blue made a post saying that A-N, spacewise, is much larger than the current instances cover. Which some people took to mean that they're planning to add A-N later, but I think a closer reading reveals that it just means that we're never going to see most of A-N. Nyah nyah.

I think an Isle of Quel'Danas treatment wouldn't be out of line. It is a secluded area so it can come later, if needed. A completely underground zone would have been new and exciting, but I'm pretty sure they saw the immediate flaw with it as I did: something has to be on top of it. So you're looking at double the development time unless they wanted to give it the Tardis treatment like Naxx or shrink the outside landmass of Northrend down to make up for it.

But they've already begun to have a sprawling area underground -- the Caverns of Time. True, they have to develop something over the new zone, too, but why not just do that? It doesn't need to be spectacular. The CoT ended up being under a fairly vacant part of the Tanaris desert.

How they came to exist in the first place or why they came to Azeroth? I think they're meant to be mysterious in both regards due to their god(like) status

I think it's explicitly stated in the background lore (War3 manual, etc.) that no one knows where the Titans come from.

The more technological they're made to sound the more they seem like the creator of the zerg and the protoss in Starcraft manual lore. Although I'm not 100% sure if I remember exactly but I think the zerg ended up capturing and absorbing that race?

Paraphrased: they modified the Zerg parasites to the larva we now know them as and created the Overmind to rule over them. After some time, the Overmind learned of their spaceships floating above the planet and gathered an army, stormed the ships and killed/assimilated most of them, thus learning of the Protoss and lots of other things.

Pretty much every cave in the game already uses "the Tardis treatment" as you put it. Along with some of the capital cities, I think. So as long as the entrances look like they fit really well, and the overlap isn't too terribly obvious, I don't think most people would ever realize/notice.

Yea, it would be interesting to fight an all out snake boss (not a Naga). Lots of interesting mechanics can come from such a fight.

I think they can already add an underground city for the Kingdom. We have various of those "sink holes" in the zones, just need to make one connect to an underground cave/city.

I don't believe it would be too difficult for them to add AN under a current zone, but one thing I was thinking about is how this would effect zone boundaries. Most zones seem to have no Z limit as to where they begin or end. No matter how high up in the air I end up going, the zone changes appropriately. Same for if I've been under the ground (falling through the world type situations).

Has anyone mentioned the gate inside the Wintergrasp fortress? There's a molten core looking cave behind it that seems to lead directly under Icecrown Citadel. Could there be a future instance down there?

It also brings back memories of Darkness Falls in DAoC which was a dungeon that was accessible only to one faction at a time, perhaps an additional reward for the control of Wintergrasp?

I do believe you are referring to the Obsidian Dragonshrine. There is no real info on the wiki other than a picture, but you are sent there at the start of a mini quest chain that begins in wyrmrest temple.

Water often has this same behavior as well, extending downwards and behaving as a "block".

They can most definitely handle zones changing based on your height in WotLK. Just look at Dalaran for an example. If you're standing underneath it you're considered in Crystalsong Forest, while if you actually stand in Dalaran you're considered in Dalaran.