Next Expansion Announcement at Gamescom NOT Blizzcon

[kandrathe]

Excited because I want to believe that WoD was pushed out the door by Blizzard, understanding that due to a whole mess of project issues in development, it was a lost cause. The "large team" that's in place has been working on this next xpack and they'll blow things out of the water. Maybe.

I am actually happy too. It bodes well that they are reducing the cycle time. Mostly people dropped off due to boredom in the year between expansions. What would sadden me would be the announcement that there would be no more development. From a production planning point of view, WOW is more like Star Wars where they finished one and then started planning the next. It results in a variable often slipshod and disjointed overall product. They should adopt the LOTR, or serial TV show model. That is to have an overall master plan with continuous development and frequent content releases.

Cynical because it's quite possible that Blizzard has truly put WoW on "maintenance mode" and are just trying to milk the cow as long as they can, as reflected by their last shareholder call when they admitted the large drop in subscribers yet stated they were making more revenue than ever.

I think there has always been the avid farmer/investor milking the cow, as well as the cadre of dedicated passionate artists pouring their souls into new game media content.

Speaking as a former farmer and investor, as long as there is enough milk/profit to be made, the farmers/investors will keep the cow/artists fed. When the milk is gone, the cow gets eaten.