But I think we can confidently say that the expansion was a big success. After hearing that Blizzard never expected WoW to reach its subscription peak numbers again, they shot up to 10 million, which might be short of the high-water-mark of 12 million, but is a damn sight better than Mists' drop to under 7. People are having fun in the expansion.
It's easy to lose perspective when you obsess over a game like this (something I'll admit to doing: hence the existence of this blog,) and all the issues like a lack of racial customization for garrisons or the seeming laziness of just bringing back a bunch of old Orc characters is, in the long run, not so bad when you consider how much fun people seem to be having with the game.
The dungeons are tuned just right, I think, and while I haven't been able to do much in the way of traditional raiding (we're hoping to get that going after the holiday, assuming my guild is still in a shape to do so,) LFR at least seems perfect (in Mists it was more akin to Wrath's 10-man normal, which is not too hard, but a real pain to organize without voice chat,) as a "preview" version of the raid (though I'll be curious to see how well it works when the regular raiders stop going to it. How's the new wing, by the way? I won't be able to play until January.)
We got a few announcements about 6.1 this week, which is exciting, though I don't think we'll be seeing it for a while. Blackrock Foundry isn't opening until Feburary (which is fine - Highmaul is plenty of raid to keep us occupied for a mere two months,) and I expect 6.1 will have to come out after that's been open for a while, even if it's not a raid patch.
But this brings us to an interesting question: Blizzard said they want annual expansions, but I think most people like Draenor a lot more than they liked Pandaria (I'm super excited about Draenei and Arrakoa, and actually Ogre lore, though I also really liked the wide variety of humanoids on Pandaria, particularly the grummles.)
So while I'm super excited to see if we get a new class, or at least new races next go around, I don't know if I'm so eager to move on. I'm settling in at Lunarfall (and Frostwall on my poor neglected Horde characters,) and having my own little army is, well, pretty darn cool (my Death Knight has Ebon Blade guards! I only wish my Paladin could have Argent Dawn ones.)
Right now at least, I'm actually pretty comfortable with the idea of just announcing the next expansion at next year's Blizzcon and getting it the following fall.
But there's a big caveat to all this: We do need to maintain the flow of content.
6.1 is clearly coming out slower than 5.1 did (if it were the same rate, we'd be getting 6.1 next week or something.) That's ok - there's a lot in 6.0 that remains to be explored. Part of the problem with Mists is that I think Blizzard used up their content too quickly. If they can pace things out a little more reasonably, the expansion can probably fit the two year schedule - but mind you, that's only if they do produce a third raid tier. If we're going from Blackhand to Grommash (or whoever the real final boss will be... Gul'dan seems the obvious one,) then yes, we better get sent off to the South Seas or the Emerald Dream or wherever we actually wind up in early 2016 at the absolute latest.
But, if Warlords winds up being as big an expansion as we are accustomed to, maybe it wouldn't be such a bad thing if we stayed around.
Wherever we go next, though, I want my own Airship (one that I can name, preferably.)
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