Recently, the trademark for a Blizzard game called "Eye of Azshara" supposedly surfaced. Given that Blizzcon is this week, there's a lot of reason to believe that we've got something from Blizzard with that name on its way. (Warlords of Draenor was similarly discovered a little before Blizzcon a year... oh jeez, a year ago. Wow.)
Still, World of Warcraft is not the only Warcraft property that Blizzard makes anymore, and while "Azshara" would seem to rule out any non-Warcraft titles, we're left with WoW, Hearthstone, and even possibly Heroes of the Storm.
I'm going to come out and say probably no to the latter - HotS isn't even out yet, and Azshara is something of a deep cut in the Warcraft universe - sure, anyone who plays WoW or played the Frozen Throne will have an idea of who she is, but she's not a headliner the way Arthas, Illidan, or Grom Hellscream are. Hell, we don't even have a great idea of what she looks like in her Naga form - yes she does show up during the quests in Darkshore, but she just uses a repurposed Lady Vashj model, and I'd bet we're going to see a unique model when we do see her in all her glory.
The biggest strike against a WoW expansion is that Warlords is coming out next week, which means that announcing a new expansion could threaten to steal the wind from the sails of the imminent one.
For that reason, a lot of people expect that it will be the first Hearthstone expansion, presumably adding a lot of cards and possibly even throwing in some new heroes for the old classes. The general rumor mill surrounding Hearthstone, though, is that the upcoming expansion will be largely mechanical-based - with Gnomes and Goblins at the forefront.
However, there's a somewhat crazy possibility that this name does not contradict that premise, which would be if the expansion referred to Azshara the place, rather than Azshara the person. Currently, the town that more or less serves as the capital of the Bilgewater Cartel is Bilgewater Harbor, smack dab in the middle of Azshara. The whole zone looks like a Horde symbol, yes (which the Goblins did in a misguided(?) attempt to curry favor with their new allies,) but one could also imagine it as a big eye, with Bilgewater Harbor as the pupil. Bit of a stretch, yes, but there it is.
Two other "Eye" things present themselves. One is the Maelstrom. The Maelstrom is what's left of the original Well of Eternity following the Sundering (given that we fly through it to get to Deepholm, does that mean that the Elemental Planes are what provided the power for the Well?) The Well of Eternity was Azshara's literal center of power - in addition to the fact that she drew power from it, she had her palace built overlooking it. So even though the well was destroyed, she might still want it for some purpose (though she'll have to clean off the bits of Deathwing that got blown all over it.)
The other possibility is that Azshara now possesses the Eye of Sargeras. The Eye of Sargeras was a relic from the Avatar that Aegwynn fought in Northrend. The Avatar of Sargeras was buried out on the remote Broken Isles, and it was there that Gul'dan died attempting to recover the artifact. Illidan managed to succeed with the help of Naga allies, and he used the Eye to assault the Frozen Throne (which is how the Lich King was weakened enough to allow Sylvanas and the Forsaken to break away.) Now, the snag here is that Maiev destroyed the Eye when attempting to capture Illidan, but still, an artifact as powerful as that might be something that could still be useful.
It's tempting to dismiss the notion of a new WoW expansion being announced at Blizzcon for the reasons I stated above. On the other hand, if they really do expect to be able to release an expansion every year, they might need to announce it soon to get the whole hype/Alpha/Beta/release train rolling. Blizzcon is when they have the most control over their announcements - it's really a convention specifically designed for Blizzard to announce new games, so it would be awkward for them to announce a new WoW expansion at some other convention. Yet unless they have Blizzcon '15 in the early Spring, they aren't going to be able to announce it at Blizzcon soon enough to really get it out on that schedule.
We'll find out soon enough. I'll admit, there's a whole island-hopping South Seas expansion I have all imagined up, but I'm going to try not to get my hopes up and concentrate on Warlords.
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