Blizzcon 2014 and What That Means for WoW

Blizzard has posted the schedule for their upcoming Blizzcon. There's plenty of ambiguity in something as simple as a schedule, but I am very confident that we will not be seeing anything about a new World of Warcraft expansion. Warcraft has a few panels, including a Q&A, some stuff about cinematics, a few items and classes discussions, and talk about the upcoming movie. But there's not the kind of major set of panels that one would expect to come with a new expansion.

What does that mean for 7.0? Well, it's possible they'll announce it at some other event. Alternatively, if they are ready to have the Beta go live immediately after next year's Blizzcon, they could wait until then. Still, for anyone who was hoping to get a glimpse of the post-Warlords WoW before Warlords actually comes out, my confident prediction is that you'll be out of luck.

There is, however, a "What's Next" panel for Diablo 3, which I think is a strong indicator that there will be a new expansion to follow up Reaper of Souls. While I'm certainly not as big of a Diablo players as I am of WoW, I do think RoS did a lot to improve on the glaring issues that I had with the first iteration of the game - particularly by making loot drops stronger and getting rid of the awful auction house. Indeed, I have a lot of respect for Blizzard because of their decision to shut down the RMAH, as they probably cut into their short-term profits in favor of gameplay.

There is also a "What's Next" panel for Starcraft II, which I'm certain will be a place to talk about Legacy of the Void, the third, Protoss-centric part of SCII that was announced way back when the whole thing was first announced.

While Heroes of the Strom and Hearthstone will also get some attention, what can we expect to see about WoW?

Well, right after the opening ceremonies, there will be a large panel on the movie, so I think that we can probably expect to see something like a theatrical trailer, or at least some footage of the film.

It should be a pretty eventful Blizzcon, actually, but I think World of Warcraft itself will largely be on the back-burner for now, focusing more on the Warlords release. If I were Blizzard, though, I'd start dropping some cryptic hints at the next expansion. Or maybe I'm just saying that because I love cryptic hints. Oh well.

EDIT:

There are some big gaps in the schedule, particularly on the main stage. Still, I think that if we are to interpret that as some big piece of news, I'm still skeptical about it being a WoW announcement.