We're now less than two months from Blizzcon.
BFA's current state is the following: we've had our second major patch, bringing with it the second "tier raid." We know that 8.2.5 is on the horizon, coming with story developments, various balance changes, and updated models for Goblins and Worgen.
Given that 8.2.5 is not live yet, it's unlikely we'll be seeing 8.3 drop within less than two months, which means that we're almost certain to get to Blizzcon before we see 8.3 go live.
We know that there will be an 8.3, because Blizzard has said that the end of the Eternal Palace raid will make it clear who the final boss of BFA is. Admittedly, a lot of the community doesn't seem to think it is that clear, but to me, if that statement was made in good faith and not just a total lie, it has to mean that N'zoth is BFA's final boss, as it was his escape that ended the Eternal Palace.
Another reason to believe strongly that there will be an 8.3 is that Blizzard did a two-tier expansion once in Warlords of Draenor, and basically everyone felt super cheated by such an insubstantial expansion.
So, we're approaching Blizzcon without the final patch of the current expansion out, despite the fact that we're expecting the next expansion to be announced.
The good news is that there's a ton of precedent for this. Mists of Pandaria was actually the first expansion to be fully complete before we heard about its successor. If you watch the announcement trailer for Cataclysm, for example, it starts with a roughly second-long preview of Icecrown Citadel, which had not yet come out. Wrath was announced before we got 2.4, and Mists was announced before we got 4.3.
Now, what this does mean is that we might not get to see as much of the new expansion as we're hoping.
Expansion announcements are always kind of strange, because we get the very first impression they want to give us of a new expansion. Sometimes, it's ludicrously polished, like how Legion's announcement (which was at Gamescom - probably because they didn't want to have to wait until Blizzcon given how long Warlords' tail was) had the Mardum half of the Demon Hunter starting experience more or less how it turned out on live. But it's also sometimes pretty rough - Mists of Pandaria, for example, basically said "yes, we've got Pandaren and Monks, and there's going to be a vaguely Chinese feel to the expansion" but we got nothing about the centrality of the Alliance and Horde conflict or the Mogu or much about Pandaria itself until a couple months later. In fact, I think the only thing they could show was stuff from the Wandering Isle.
When Cataclysm was announced, they actually spent a good deal of time talking about Icecrown Citadel and the various features of 3.3 - including the dungeon finder, which was kind of a huge deal.
I don't know if we'll be getting another huge, transformational change to the way that raids or dungeons work in 8.3, but I could imagine that at Blizzcon we're going to get a lot of info about 8.3 and just the basic gist of the new expansion.
So what details can we count on seeing?
The name and general premise: We'll know where it's set, and we'll get a general "vibe" for the expansion. Like, will this be the Shadowlands expansion with a bunch of spooky undead? Will it be a dragon-themed expansion on the Dragon Isles? That sort of thing should be covered.
New Character Options: New races and new classes are usually the major headlining elements to a new expansion, and we'll probably get a look at these kinds of details. Now, granted, when BC was announced, they knew Blood Elves would join the Horde, but they hadn't actually decided on the new Alliance race - Pandaren had actually been a possibility. I, for one, am really happy they went with Draenei, who might be my favorite playable race. Still, that was the old days, and I think they'd be unlikely to skip such a major detail.
New Level Cap: There were only two expansions that only raised the cap by 5, but given the possibility of a level squish, we might see something crazy like "new level cap: 60."
Beyond that, it's a bit early to say. I'm hoping that they'll do this more like Blizzcon '09 (holy crap that was 10 years ago) when they gave us a bunch about ICC but also a fairly robust amount of detail about Cataclysm. It'd be good to see things like dungeons, important characters, and details about whatever new systems get worked in.
Naturally, a lot of this is dependent on how far along they are in developing these things. How many zones are polished enough to show off? Naturally, it could all turn out like Blizzcon '11, where we got the basics and had a big series of posts (or maybe panels at other conventions) to talk about Mists in depth.
Still, I'm very confident we'll get the next expansion announced, and if it's not on the PTR by then (which seems very possible,) we'll also get a very big info dump on 8.3.
In a lot of ways, I think BFA has more to resolve than it can in one more patch. So I'm curious to see exactly where the focus will be. I'm leaning toward N'zoth, but that will mean that the Sylvanas story and with it the general Alliance/Horde war story is unlikely to come to a conclusion here. So unless they're going to pull a Wrath and make this a four-tier expansion, or if they're willing to resolve a ton of plot in questing content rather than raids, I think there are a lot of threads that could carry through to 9.0.
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