Already talking about a new expansion?

World of Warcraft has been around for eight years, and it is still the largest MMO by a factor of ten over the next guy (if I recall correctly.) So perhaps it is unsurprising that, even though number have not quite bounced back to Wrath of the Lich King levels, they're still planning on keeping this thing going. (10 million subscriptions ain't bad. That's $150 million every month - before you account for people like me who go with the lower, long-term rate, but also before you account for the actual cost of the expansions.)

Rob Pardo, who is Chief Creative Executive at Blizzard, recently made a tweet about how the next expansion is going to be "awesome." This is, as far as I know, the earliest we've heard about a new expansion during the life cycle of a current one. Mists has been out for a mere one month and three days.

Yet it can hardly be shocking that they're planning a new expansion to follow this one. Mists of Pandaria is certainly epic, but it very much has the feel of "settling the accounts." The Alliance and the Horde have been at war off and on for decades. Both have expanded to include people who may have had no reason to fight each other before. For example, the Night Elves and the Tauren, by all rights, ought to be best friends. When new Pandaren character come to talk to their factions' leaders, both are informed that all of a sudden, their old friends who merely decided to check out a different group of people are now their mortal enemies.

I had this realization earlier this week: We are introduced to the Pandaren living in an idealistic, nearly pacifistic lifestyle. Their only soldiers are the Shado-Pan, who "serve so that others do not have to." Being a fighter in Pandaren culture is not something everyone is expected to do, but is a necessary evil that is only done by those who are willing to make the sacrifice, all the while placing their primary focus on controlling their emotions so that they do not become bloodthirsty and thus fodder for the Sha.

Yet as I take my Draenei or my Tauren through there, I think: "You know, my people were just as peace-loving and kind as the Pandaren. What happened?" And the answer is clear: the Alliance and the Horde happened.

Thrall's Horde was founded with noble intentions: to redeem the Orcs and save the world from a demonic invasion. The Alliance was founded to save the world from the Blood-crazed Old Horde during the second war. Both want to be the good guys, but by polarizing the world with a "you're either with us or against us" attitude, they take noble, kind people like the Tauren, Draenei, and Pandaren, and turn them into racially-motivated killers.

SPOILERS FOR 5.1 - ASSUMING THE AUDIO FILES ARE CORRECT AND WE DON'T HAVE AN "ALLIANCE NAVY INVADING TWILIGHT HIGHLANDS" SITUATION AGAIN.

The factions as they stand are crumbling. Well, more the Horde than the Alliance. The Alliance has mostly stuck to the mission statement. People like Garrithos are more the exception than the rule. As it turns out, Varian Wrynn is reaching out to the Blood Elves. After all, the Blood Elves were originally High Elves, and had a long history of friendship with humanity (that was not without its problems.) As Lor'themar Theron says (holy crap! He's actually getting to do something!) the whole reason they left the Alliance was to avoid being used, their welfare left unconsidered because they were a "lesser race." Yet Garrosh's theories of racial superiority make Theron very concerned. Garrosh could be another Garrithos. Meanwhile, as Garrosh radicalizes, Varian is becoming more moderate, and actually reaching out to the Blood Elves, attempting to get them to re-join the Alliance.

Meanwhile, Garrosh learns about the Sha and begins to experiment to see if it could be harnessed as a weapon. Vol'jin is brought in to look into the Mogu spirit-binding magics and Zandalari voodoo, but it becomes clear to the player and to him that it is actually a trap to assassinate him. 5.1 is where Horde players will finally be able to join the resistance. Vol'jin is almost killed, but manages to survive, and then makes the player his personal agent to keep tabs on the maniacal Warchief.

END SPOILERS

So if Mists ends with a reckoning of sorts - the Alliance molds itself into what it needs to be while the Horde purges itself of the cancerous growth that is this literal second Hellscream - it stands to reason that the next expansion is going to raise the stakes, big time.

Admittedly, it'll be a bit harder to raise the stakes higher than they were in Cataclysm (the whole world is literally going to explode!) but I think we've been getting hints here and there that that nasty old Burning Legion, they of the green fire, are almost done regrouping and recuperating from their defeat at Sunwell Plateau. Is this to be the final confrontation with the Burning Legion? Perhaps not. Kil'jaeden was defeated, but not killed at the Sunwell, and for all we know, Sargeras may still be using a light touch/being an incorporeal presence in the Twisting Nether to run the show.

But with the Warlock quest chain and Wrathion's image of green meteors coming down to destroy Azeroth, you do begin to suspect that we might have some demons to deal with.

Where might this expansion take place? A full-scale invasion of Azeroth would be very hard to pull off, and would likely require a huge amount of effort to re-work existing zones (something I think they're probably very hesitant to do after having to focus so much on the revamp for Cataclysm.) What I can imagine is that we might head out into space again. Outland was a pretty cool setting, after all. It would stand to reason that other fragments of Draenor might exist. We could see more of the ancient Orcish homelands, or perhaps some of the other Draenei cities. Then, of course, there's also Argus.

The homeland of the Draenei - who were then called Eredar - is either a burnt-out husk or a major base of operations for the Burning Legion. It would be fascinating to get some insight into what Eredar culture was like before Sargeras came. Obviously, the Eredar were not evil to begin with (despite what you might read in a Warcraft 3 manual,) but they also weren't devout followers of the Light either. What we do know is that they were a people who were so skilled at magic that, of all the races in the universe, Sargeras came to them for spell-casters. One has to imagine that the Eredar capital of Mac'aree would make Silvermoon look drab and mundane by comparison.

Anyway, Mists is kind of an interesting story, because it turns the focus back onto us. It's not really a "small" story, per se, but the focus is inward. However, assuming we do achieve some degree of self-growth, we'll gain the strength we need to face this gravest of threats.