Disclaimer: Yes, I made a new account just to post here. I used to have an MMOC account a long time ago, but no idea what its password was, and in any case my old EMail address doesn't exist any more. I lurked as a passive reader for some time now, but this is something I really want to discuss with the community.
So, since the Cory interview, we know that 6.2 is the last major content patch for the Warlords of Draenor Expansion.
Sure, there is the "But they could bring something else then a raid!" - Argument, but lets stop for a moment and look at the non-Raid content this expansion gave us so far. The leveling experience. Apexis grinds. Trashcan. That's it. Other then the first, which lasted only for a limited time (at some point you run out of characters to level), none of them inspired much joy and happiness in the playerbase (That's a very polite way of saying that all this so-called content sucked very very hard). So yeah, this is the last major patch in WoD that contains something that can actually be called "Content".
Now, where does that leave Blizz? What Options do they have in the future?
And as it turns out, there are only two.
Option 1: They rush the next expansion to prevent another draught as we had in 5.4
Well, what do you think, would the end product of a rush look like? Bear in mind, it took them SEVEN MONTHS to "develop" 6.2...and this patch contains a raid tier (Which is admittingly very good, but raiding was never a problem in WoD), a most likely re-used area (because in my opinion, Tanaan already existed in some state of development but was simply cut due to not being finished in time for christmas sales) filled with apexis-grinds, and another facebook game.
Lets say they pumped out the next expansion in...well, lets be fancy with our fantasy here and say, 6 months. What would it look like? How many dungeons and BGs would there be? How well thought out and exiting would the quest areas be?
So yeah, rushing it, would lead to an expansion which makes the impossible happen: Being even more dissappointing than WoD.
Option 2: They take their time developing a new expansion in-depth
Lets make a gross-estimate here: Announcement at Blizzcon, which is in November, lets say at this point we are 2 months away from the closed Beta. Then 4 months of Beta-testing, another month of final polishing and whatnot. So even if we are very very VERY generous, we would look at 11-13 MONTHS of draught-time until the next expansion if they take their time with it.
Eleven months. Eleven months during which we have all the content of 6.2 to sustain us. Do I really need to explain what would happen to sub-numbers if that is what happens?
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Bottom line is: There is no good option for this game to go on. If they rush it, it will be crap. If they don't rush it, they force their playerbase to eat a year of crap. And if you force someone to eat worms for a year, he will still hate you, even if you serve him nothing but the finest foods afterwards. "But we had this in 5.4 and survived"...did we now? MoP, not exactly the greatest expansion, had much more content to hold on to then WoD. WoD has nothing but its raids, and over-sized catchup mechanics make even most of them nil and void now. Yes 5.4 was a bad experience, but not because it was bad content, but because it lasted for ages. Imagine the reaction to BAD CONTENT THAT LASTS AGES (Yes, "non-existent" = bad in an MMO).
What's your thoughts on that? I really want this game to get better, I want it to become worthwhile again, but at the moment...I simply can't see how that can happen.
Edit: Yes, typos happen It shows that I am a human being. If you find a typo, you may keep it ^^