WoW Expansion announcement at GSC

It looks like Blizzard is taking a different approach this year and, instead at BlizzCon, next World of WarCraft expansion will be unveiled at this year's Gamescom.

Event will be streamed live, August 6 at 9AM PDT (6PM for us living in GMT+1).

In other news, Character names on accounts inactive since Cataclysm will be released so, if you want to make sure you keep your character names, be sure to re-activate your accounts. If not, you will receive a "free" character rename.

IT'S LEAKING!!!

The time has come, the battle's on, oh friends of mine...

It's that time of the year. Winter... I mean, BlizzCon is coming and with it, shitload of "leaks" are appearing all over the internet in regards to next World of WarCraft expansion. Although, Blizzard's guys released a major content patch few weeks ago, fans are merciless and can't wait to see / hear what Blizzard has in store for them next.

Most of the currently available leaks posted throughout the internets is pure speculation and rubbish because of one single thing: All of them are unsubstantiated and everything that you can "learn" from them is a pure fan fiction. We still need to wait for Blizzard to submit a patent trademark request for next expansion so, wait for something like this to appear on MMO-Champion. They are usually the fastest to post the information... That, however, does not mean that provided fan fiction does not make a fine reading material. It gives us insight about what people expect to see in the upcoming expansion.

Here are my 3 favorite Expansion theories: (Note: These are just a speculation about potential expansions.)

Hellfire Citadel is final Raid of the Expansion?

First off, if you want your own [Corrupted Dreadwing] then go and farm Apexis. This week (July 3-6) is Apexis Crystal Bonus Weekend where creatures eligible for dropping it give increased amounts of it. This rule does not apply to Quest/Event Rewards. You don't need much, only 150.000 [Apexis Crystals] (he said sarcastically). Another interesting thing that you can buy is [Rukhmar's Sacred Memory] which along with [Cursed Feather of Ikzan] and [Time-Lost Figurine] makes a nice trio of Arakkoa Transformation toys.

Cory Stockton (@mumper) gave an interview earlier this week and he said that "Hellfire Citadel is currently planned to be the last raid of the expansion" which is, kinda, a let down. Using in consideration all previous expansions had 3-4 major Content Patches and Draenor had only 2, with shitload of negative feedback received from players makes me think they are trying to abandon Draenor as soon as possible and start their focus on new storyline. What will be a new Storyline? We'll probably find that out on this year's BlizzCon that will take place at the Anaheim Convention Center on November 6-7, 2015.

Hellfire Citadel Loading Screen

If 6.2 is the final (major) Patch for WoD, we'll be stuck with it for 5 months, plus the time since announcement 'till release of the new expansion, which seams highly unlikely given that they have been constantly flamed when ever there was a time-gap where nothing is released (example being gap between end of Orgrimmar Siege and our venture into Draenor) and it is supported with his Cory's response:

There isn't anything to announce about future patches, but part of that comes down to how Patch 6.2 plays out. How far players progress in Hellfire Citadel and Tanaan Jungle will give the team an idea of how long the content will last.

Which means, if Citadel is received with positive feedback, we may see at least 1 more Raid but, that's just my speculation.

It is sad that Plains of Farahlon weren't implemented into the game as it was intended originally. It would have be nice to see what Netherstorm looked like before Ner'zhul's portals ripped Draenor apart (in Main Universe).