There could be many reasons: Thrall is gone; Undercity's terrain is revamped and isn't the same; that's true for Orgrimmar too; and the events are in the past of the Cataclysm - you couldn't go back in your past without Bronze dragons...

It was phased, how would the changes to Undercity affect it?

Also, we have multiples of single NPCs across the whole game world, stuck in various points in time, something as petty as "oh Thrall went away" is a pretty lazy excuse.

Because the physical layout of the city is different. They would have to keep both old models for the cities just for this one quest. The files for that version of the city simply don't exist after Cata, and would take up WAY to many resources just for that one event.

I am not in the beta so I couldn't tell you how much Undercity has changed but if the actual terrain of the area has changed at all, no amount of phasing can bring back the old Undercity. Phasing is only changing what the players see as far as other players/objects. Everyone is still looking at the same floor layout because that cannot be changed through phasing.

One solution to this is to perhaps just change the AI pathing to the new Undercity but then not only would the story not make sense because you have a pre-cataclysm event happening in a post-cataclysm city but I don't think it is worth the time it will take to completely change around the AI pathing just to get this one quest back into the game.

Another option is to warp the players to the old undercity but this would take even more time then remapping the AI pathing because the devs would have to create an entirely new zone just for the old undercity.

Either way, as epic of a questline as it was, the developers have much more important things to look to and we can just count this as one of the many casualties to some really awesome quest lines =). This one just happens in Northrend rather then the old world.

@Jonisjalopy

They could just keep the old model as an instance just like Old Hilsbrad and the like. I suspect it already is a separate instance from the real UC anyway and not just a phase.

It will really suck if they remove such an awesome quest. Yeah sure Thrall isn't warchief yadda yadda, but Arthas is dead and they aren't removing all the quests related to him.

@theRaptor

The Battle for UC does, in fact, take place in the real UC and Ogr. If you have ever taken the quest and dropped it you would be painfully aware of this :P It use to phase you out until you completed the quest. You couldn't raid Ogr or UC as an Ally because the NPCs and PCs in town were phased out for the quest.

Old Hillsbrad is an actually instance. Sure, they could make an instance server for the Battle, but as I said, the resources involved for just one quest is a bit much.

It is a phased area, not a seperate instanced area..

I know this due to MANY people being bugged from not finishing the questline, then trying to do holiday events in Ogrimar, SW, and UC, and not being able to do anything due to due to them being in the phased version, and all the holiday stuff is in the live.

I understand why they're getting rid of it. They've already said that some of the lore continuity is going to be a bib wonky and that, while they'd like to get it all straightened out, it would take way too and require too many resources. This, however, would be a giant WTF if left in.

The best we can hope for is a CoT: Battle for the Undercity instance.

"Because the physical layout of the city is different. They would have to keep both old models for the cities just for this one quest. The files for that version of the city simply don't exist after Cata, and would take up WAY to many resources just for that one event."

i disagree. there is no such thing as "taking up WAY to many resources" for an intregal part of the story. the battle for undercity needs to be re-adjusted for the new layout's of the two cities it takes part in, and the npc's involved in it.

i will however say this.. the devs kind of wrote themselves into a corner here. by making garrosh so overtly visible during the low level old world quests so far. how are they going to handle the story between garrosh, and thrall in outland? before garrosh was even in the new horde... how are they going to handle the story in northrend when garrosh is only the warsong offensive leader, and thrall is still the horde leader? they should have held off on the garrosh becoming warchief until a phased event around lvl 81 or 82 where thrall is like "oh crap.. gotta go save the world from a giant whirlpool".. and garrosh is like "kk buddy.. i'll just watch your crap while your gone".

There is no "old model", it's the same zone simply phased. You don't enter an instance, you enter the same Orgrimmar as everyone else, except you are flagged to be invisible, and the quest NPC's and other NPC's are visible to you.

Most likely the remodeling of Orgrimmar did pose problems.

But is it phasing or just an instance? I thought the latter, and if it really is just an instance then they should be able to change it no matter what the new city looks like.

And, yes, if they're pulling it because of continuity, then they should shut down the Outlands as well as Northrend.