This is an unprecedented situation.
Even before the lawsuit, we have never been this late into the development cycle of an expansion without having established its branding and theme. The negative reception of Shadowlands genuinely shocked most of us, even if its faults are now glaringly obvious. However, as I stated, it isn't as if we haven't started work on the next expansion. Most of the actual systems are well into development, some dungeon and raid fights have been conceptualized mechanically, and so on. The concept art bible material is available for both, as the Wrathion concept has been explored as a potential setting for over half a decade now (or earlier, if you want to include really early stuff from the original WoW concept art), and the cosmic setting would heavily lean on the Oribos / Titan / First One aesthetics that have already been established. Even in a best case scenario, the in-game cinematic team wouldn't be putting in much work on the next expansion for a good while.
We're ready to act, either way, but we are, and have been, very anxious that a direction has not been chosen. We were expecting it well before 9.1 launched. I would assume that management was getting ready to or had settled on something prior to the lawsuit and the ensuing chaos threw everything into question, but that would be speculation. I can only offer perspective on what is immediately relevant to my position, or things I've heard through the grapevine and trust.
If you believe nothing else, all I ask is that you believe that we are trying our best given the circumstances. There are a lot of very talented, very passionate, and very caring people that work here, but we're all being viewed through an unfair lens right now because of the actions and inaction of certain individuals in management.
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Honestly, we know.
We just haven't been receiving clear direction lately, exacerbated by the current situation, so we haven't been able to stick the landing for a few things. This is particularly pronounced when we have multiple teams working on the same system, but no communication between them, so those different design decisions clash when it comes time to put everything together.