So Blizzard announced the unsurprising news of the next expansion: Warlords of Draenor.

The big question is, how many still care?

Don't get me wrong, at 7.6 million subs they surely aren't hurting for revenue. It's still (I think) the largest subscription based game of all time. The problem is with more mmos going F2P, saying you're the #1 subscription mmo isn't as impressive. I know that League of Legends has the highest daily user numbers. Runescape boasts the highest total accounts created at over 100 million. That puts WoW into some perspective.

It does seem that, finally, Blizzard has realized some of the mistakes they made with Cataclysm and Pandas. First, they're giving us 10 levels again which is a very good thing. The last 2 expansions seemed small with only 5 levels added. This lead to the problem of outleveling areas and boredom from doing the same instances over and over too quickly. The added 10 levels should allow for a wider spread of content. Don't worry, I'm sure there will be some powergamer that will hit 100 a day after launch, but for the rest of us normal players this is a good thing.

We are also getting housing, of a sorts, finally added. I was never sure why Blizzard was so "hands off" the idea of housing. EQ2 had housing at launch.. back in 2004. Rift added housing not long after. Even Dark Age of Camelot added housing later in their lifecycle, before WoW was even released. With millions of subs translating into tens of millions of dollars in monthly revenue, WoW should have had this added sooner. Regardless, it's coming now and it looks like they are taking it beyond just having a small cottage in the hills.

Though the above 2 points are surely positives for the WoW franchise, I have to question Blizzard's reluctance to add classes. Rerolling is one of the lifebloods of any mmo. When Death Knights were added, they were the "first Hero Class", which implies there will be a second. Well it's been 5 years and still no second. They could backfill, add a Demon Hunter Hero Class attached to Burning Crusade. Wrath already has Death Knights, so add one for Cataclysm. Pandas added the Monk as a regular class so we wouldn't really need a new one there. One would think that the lore of Outland's past would allow for a new class to be "discovered" and played by us.

Right now, it's a wait and see attitude many people have. The last two mini-expansions were major contributors to WoW's declining subscriptions. Burn me once, shame on you burn me twice shame on me. I know I'll be waiting for post-launch reviews, both by the "Pros n Joes", before I even consider returning.

Oh and by the way Blizzard, if you go F2P you'll start getting an uptick in revenue. Stop being so stubborn and just do it already.