Northrend: Will It Return?

As much as seeing frozen wastelands with the occasional jungle bores people for two years, you'll probably have skipped over quite a few interesting tidbits that Blizzard could return to this frozen north in later patches or expansions. They're doing it now in Cataclysm by returning to Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms, so why not return to Northrend at some point? Or even Outland?

I'd definitely say we've exhausted the Scourge side of the story in Northrend - in terms of Arthas anyway. But who says that the Helm of Domination won't make Bolvar go slightly on the loopy side? Sure he emanated holy-fire instead of death-frost when he put on the hat, but wasn't Arthas's intentions initially for the good of his people? The Culling of Stratholme had reasons behind it that Uther and Jaina could not understand or see as Arthas had seen. Arthas may have killed Ner'zhul mentally from the Helm, but that was a mere metaphor. What if Ner'zhul realised that Arthas no longer needed him, or was becoming too reckless in order to take vengeance against the Burning Legion, so hid himself away as advisor, until the Helm received a new wielder?

Pure speculations, but it's the kind of plot twists that may come out with Knaak that Blizzard will integrate into their story line. The fact is the Scourge is still out there, but controlled. We'll have to see the story as to why the Eastern Plaguelands still have corruption inside of them, and what becomes of Scholomance and Stratholme, and find out lore behind them again. So a new Scourge could well be a possibility of bad guys, and we'll get to see Icecrown Citadel again (wouldn't you just LOVE Blizzard for sending us back there?).

Following on from the Scourge, whatever will happen to the Vrykul now? And whatever happened to that Utgarde raid that we were promised back in alpha? I guess technically, Utgarde Pinnacle was going to be the raid, Utgarde Keep was to be the high level dungeon, and Utgarde Catacombs was to be the low level dungeon. Oh how plans change, the Catacombs became a lot smaller and more... Worldy, in becoming just an area to quest in to get some trinket of the light while killing masses of zombies wherever you walked. And the Keep and Pinnacle were knocked down notches. In the return to Northrend, we could see the Catacombs being expanded upon, finding out more about the link between the Vrykul and early Arathi Humans.

Another place of interest (especially my own) is the Chamber of Aspects below Wyrmrest Temple. We've seen the Obsidian Sanctum since the start of Wrath, and the final patch before 4.0 will feature the Ruby Sanctum. Admittedly with current times, these two are the most integrated within the Warcraft dragon storyline - at least when in consideration of Deathwing, Malygos had his own raid to have fun in. It would be nice seeing the Emerald Sanctum opening up at least in the Emerald Dream expansion, perhaps fighting some form of the Nightmare inside there. The Blues might have an attack by Deathwing again, like in the Ruby Sanctum, thanks to the Twilight flight needing a lot of magical energy, so the Azure Sanctum would be a great place to siphon some off. I'd imagine that the Bronze Sanctum will open up more as Caverns of Time reaches its peak in the storyline of the Infinites and Nozdormu. I imagine Blizzard has big plans for Wyrmrest, unless it becomes like Gilneas in Vanilla...

The temple of Gundrak has also been a place that seems to just be looming in the shadows over Zul'Drak. What is Frost King Malakk doing in that complex? And of course, a question that's been asked for months now - what the heck is that snake's tail in Gundrak all about? Personally, it looks a little like Hakkar the Soulflayer (or Quetz'lun, who's a bit closer to home but might be lesser known) in terms of colouring. Some kind of wind serpent deity could exist past Quetz'lun for the Drakkari, however only the temple might tell us more. Who knows, in Gundrak we face against the prophets of the loas, in the temple we may be able to fight against the ice troll pantheon itself. With the Scourge largely gone, or at least not pressing as hard against the trolls, how will the notoriously most powerful troll race react? Expansion from Zul'Drak? Only time will tell.

Of course if the return to Northrend did become an expansion, we'd need a zone or two to help with it. Now the bonus of Vanilla WoW was that there were no flying mounts and there were gaps in the map where zones could be placed. However, what about Northrend? We kind of know of everywhere on the continent's surface. Hrothgar's Landing was added later on, but there's only so many islands you can stick onto the edge of the continent - and to make them zone-sized? So where could we go if we've seen the surface of the entire continent...

Azjol-Nerub? As much as we know for the moment, it spans as far north as the northern edge of Icecrown. How far east or west does it reach? What happened to the Nerubian libraries? Doorward? The Inner Kingdom? Surely the Upper Kingdom is larger than a few rooms? As for the Old Kingdom, well you can quite blatantly see that the place is spawling past what you can walk on. And don't forget that drop from Hadronox down to Anub'arak itself (as well as the drop to Anub in ToC), what's lurking between the layers of the lair?

I'd imagine the return to Northrend may see an increasing number of Twilight's Hammer too, admittedly Yoggy bear has been banished/killed, but that's never stopped the Hammer before (Master's Glaive in Darkshore), as well as any other Forgotten Ones and the rest of the Faceless. The only reason I see as to why these guys haven't had much plot to them in this expansion other than in Ahn'kahet/Descent to Madness in Ulduar is because of the Scourge threat. It's a bit more immediate. However, most of the Scourge have now gone, and the rest are under Bolvar's rule (whether or not he stays sane is another matter, don't forget), so more Twilights may flee after we beat them around a bit in the next expansion, to the cold north.

Another thing that's intrigued me is how empty zones like Crystalsong are. Crystalsong is excused slightly for the possibility of too much traffic, because Blizzard said they had plans for this zone (see the Sunreaver/Silver Covenant bases - it was the original place for the Argent Tournament) but the servers wouldn't be able to cope with the amount of data with Dalaran just above the zone. So it stands as a placeholder zone for the magical city to float above, with the occasional quest dipping into there. It also holds the fifth great tree portals into the Emerald Dream, so there's no doubt we'll be returning to have a quick entrance to the Dream from there.

Another "redundant" zone seems to be the resource glut of Northrend - Sholazar Basin. I would have loved to have a dungeon or raid in here surrounding the Titans' playground of Northrend, or some kind of PvP objective between the furries and big-tongues, instead of just a few dailies. My Druid gave up on the daily quests as, despite having different ones each day, quickly got repetitive. My Paladin's not even touched it. Having some kind of bonus, even just to the zone (for example, 2x return on skinning/mining/herbalism if your faction are winning, 0.5x return if you're losing) might bring more people into it. Although personally I'd prefer to see the Makers' areas or Stormwright's Perch have dungeons attached to them concerning Titan artifacts.

Final point about Northrend. Now I do have to say I did quite like playing WC3, especially the storyline about the race to Icecrown between Illidan and Arthas. My question is, where the heck did Illidan's bases go? Surely there must be some kind of outpost for Naga and Illidari Blood Elves. Or did they just de-construct everything and get everyone out to Outland? Not even ruins appear to be left behind of the bases that were conquered. Perhaps, with this new water technology in Cataclysm, on the return to Northrend we might be able to see where the Naga ran off to in Northrend.

All this talk about Northrend is all very nice as it's the current content. But what about Outland? Could we go back there? Easier to implement new zones on a shattered planet after all. But the main thing that would tickle my fancy are the portals Ner'zhul created. What would happen if some agent from the Burning Legion decided to reopen all of them? Would the ripping apart of the planet due to so many inter-dimensional portals have a knock-on effect onto Azeroth through the Dark Portal? Good enough reason to go back there alone, even if the foes through the reopened portals were Burning Legion agents trying to get to Azeroth through Outland anyway.