Why not an gnome atomic bomb destroying the actual 'stromwind-pointed-goblin-missle' in Azshara? That would be awesome and at the same time would fix this nonsense.

Actually, that's not a half-bad idea. Here's how I see that playing out (your mileage may vary):

-Sylvanas continues her conquest across the northern reaches of the Eastern Kingdoms, which includes creating new undead and deploying the plague. Eventually, this garners the attention of Tirion Fordring and the Argent Crusade.

-Incensed by the actions of what is essentially the new "Lich Queen," the Crusade attempts to fight against the Forsaken but is stymied because of the backing of the Horde.

-Tirion appeals to the Alliance for assistance. This could play out in a number of ways, but the end result: Gnomish fun-gineers deliver a doomsday device to the Undercity similar to the one that wiped out Gnomeregan. It is likely a secret attack made under cover of a joint Crusade/Alliance assault.

-Undercity is destroyed, or at least made uninhabitable, even for the undead. Most of the Forsaken are destroyed. The remnants of Forsaken forces are forced to retreat to the Scarlet Monastery, where the undead remnants of the Scarlet Crusade deal with the choice to either join the Forsaken or be destroyed.

-(Optional) Sylvanas is missing and presumed dead after the attack on Undercity. A new leader arises to lead the Forsaken as a faction: Battered, but loyal to the Horde, unlikely to pursue the "Death to the living" agenda.

Oh, this path of events is highly unlikely. It'd mean either heavy phasing in Tirisfal/Plaguelands or revamping the content that was just recently revamped. Scarlet Monastery would probably go away as a dungeon, and Blizzard seems reluctant to let go of the legacy dungeons.

Still, this seems like a feasible path. And it'd definitely rock the boat for some factions and lore figures that need it.

You wouldn't have to phase a story element like this. What you do is you place it as part of the opening cinematic for the expansion. Any WMD that goes off in Azeroth would have be placed either between expansions, or in a completely new single player campaign RTS - either another chapter to Warcraft 3, or an actual Warcraft 4. Otherwise you run the risk of having player characters in the way, and there is simply no good way to retcon player characters surviving a nuclear explosion right on top of them in-game. In a between-expansion way, you can easily explain it by saying you were out in a dungeon, raid, or battleground, and when you returned back to UC/Org, you found it in ruins, and then have to deal with the aftermath.

Incidentally what WoW needs more than anything is a single-player RTS campaign. A 5-10 dollar DLC to Warcraft 3 would have the dual effect of generating revenue with minimal cost to blizzard, while allowing them to advance the story and allow them to familiarize players with new heroes' storylines.

This is one thing I never understood from WOW... we are in a fantasy medieval world and yet my toons are riding motorcycles, one flies a helicopter, dropping bombs and now we talk about weapons of mass destruction. Would it be better to sort it out the old fashion way??? that is march to orctown with your catapults and seige engines and then launch a few decomposing cows (not taureens... they are just too cool) into the town and then let the sickness take over from there? why do we need to "bomb"? it actually makes no sense in the setting of the game... I know it is a game and we have the EXODAR but we should go back to basics... throw the cow over and be done with it... or catapult a couple of undeads just to watch them land, get up, dust off their clothes and then say "was it really necessary? my cousin was already here..."

Your points about cinematics notwithstanding, Blizzard won't release DLC for WC3. That game is a decade old at this point; if you thought WoW's graphics looked dated, then you'd find WC3 severely disappointing.

In my mind, they really do need to make a Warcraft 4 or some equivalent before they move to a "WoW 2." The story needs an opportunity to move in broad strokes, and be told in a way that doesn't require some measure of balance between the factions. I'd even settle for a single-player RPG instead of an RTS, simply because it's a better medium for moving the story forward.

But that's my two cents. Who knows what the next game in the Warcraft line will look like, or when it would ever be seen?

Scarlet Monastery isn't going anywhere, since Blizzard has already announced the upcoming Heroic Scarlet Monastery, which will be released with MoP and will include the first two wings (Graveyard and Library iirc). It's a neat idea you have, but it's not going to happen.

Re: WoW being a "medieval fantasy world": it totally isn't. It's just a "fantasy" world. Demons, space travel, humans with swords, aliens with swords, industrial age technology, space-y dimensional technology: it's not medieval.

Nothing introduced in WoW is out of place in WoW's universe, except blatant cameos like stuff from Diablo. And even that's not all out of place.

AROD, did you play the RTS games?
They had steam powered tanks, bomb-dropping helicopters, submarines and such even then. These are hardly new developments.

Hal, you are completely out of your mind if you think people wouldn't buy a DLC for WC3. Are the graphics dated? Sure they are. But I played through WC3 just last year, and the gameplay and story hold up, it's still a great game worth a play through if you haven't done it in a while. I think you didn't catch the other part of my point, which is that producing a DLC for WC3 would be super, super cheap, since the art, game system, and infrastructure for the game are there, they just have to make some new maps and maybe a few new hero models. I'm no videogame expert but I can't imagine it would cost blizz more than a million bucks to make a DLC for WC3, which would mean at 5 bucks a pop, they'd only need 200,000 people to buy it to break even or 100k for 10 bucks a pop.

Gameplay over graphics. Tell me, would you rather play a warcraft 3 dlc, or something like, say, dragon age 2?

Why would the Forsaken move into the Scarlet Monastary when they just got done conquering themselves a whole little nation just to the south? The Forsaken move to Gilneas and then, THEN we start seeing some real tension as the Gilnean refugees see this as one insult too many.

@Hal:
I doubt the alliance would use a WMD. The radiation released into Gnomeregan to kill the toggs was from the reactors in the tunnels and mines below the city. I think it more likely that they would drop some bombs onto Undercity, damaging it, but not destroying it.

I think it more likely, as this article suggests, that the Horde will ally with the Blackrock clan, and will then invade(my guess would be anyway) Khaz Modan, in order to connect the territories controlled by the Horde in the northern Eastern Kingdoms. That would, most likely, lead to a full unification of the Dwarves and a new war, likely across Badlands/Loch Modan/Arathi Highlands. It would reshape the power of the entire continent.

Were I king Wrynn, I would consolidate on the EK, hunker down behind my defenses(hey, Ironforge is surrounded by a natural, mountainous fortress, the campaign needed to take it would need to be HUGE), then move over to Kalimdor, retake Ashenvale, Darkshore, Felwood, Stonalton and Desolace. That would apply the same pressure on the Horde that was just applied to the Alliance, and result in the ongoing stalemate between the factions.

However, in agreement with you, I do think Sylvanas's days as leader of the Forsaken are numbered. Either Garrosh will kill her(more likely I think Bane will do it, not Garrosh, but maybe under Garrosh's orders) or she will be banished, and will take a good portion of her loyalists in the Forsaken and(my bet) take over Harthenglen, as the new Lich Queen. Although, I wouldn't count her missing sister reappearing and either talking her down, or killing her(my money is on killing her, Sylvanas's sister is supposed to be a VERY powerful mage, the equal to Khadgar's power), either way, its time for her to start coming back into the fold.

Also, kinda weird I know, but I found something...weird while going around in Feralas, a random gray book drop...written by Vholkahn, a Warlock of "the True Horde," and that he was actually a person of high station among the "False Horde." It would be my bet that the Shadow Council will play a Big role in MoP.

Another person making an appearance, I think, will be Mendiv. He has been in hiding somewhere, most people thought in a hidden room in Kharazhan, but maybe he fled to Pandaria, where he could live in peace, among beings that might be more sympathetic to his ... unusual plight. A Gaurdian of his power, near unbridled, could most certainly add a new twist to the game, one most needed.