The Think Tank: What do you predict for this year's BlizzCon?

BlizzCon is back this year after a brief vacation in 2012, and Blizzard fans are bursting at the seams to find out what the studio has in store for the future.

We have a handful of Blizzard fans on the Massively staff, so I thought I'd poke around and see what types of predictions we can get for the con. Will World of Warcraft announce a new expansion? Is the studio plotting a new game entirely? Or will cosplay be the only interesting aspect of the whole event?

I say the new World of Warcraft expansion is a total no-brainer, and if it's not, then Blizzard will have gone from floundering to foundering in a weekend. I just hope it's dramatic and impressive enough to shut down the trolls who've already set aside their weekend to rant on the internet about something they claim they quit five years ago but are total experts on.

I don't think we're going to see much else that we didn't already know for Diablo and whatever Blizzard's MOBA is called this week. Oooh, maybe a new name for that!

Blizzard will announce the future of World of Warcraft. I specifically didn't say that it'll announce the expansion; even failing to announce an expansion will technically qualify as announcing the future (that future being "we have decided to throw the entire game away"). What will be interesting is seeing what it announces for the expansion. You can't claim that World of Warcraft has failed with a straight face, but you can certainly say that the past two expansions have been the exact opposite of crowd-pleasing, and the game is now at a far lower pulse than it was before. Is that a result of time? A result of the last two expansions? Can the game breathe new life into itself?

I will say that if the rumored title turns out to be true, really, I'll have a hard time staying away. I love me some Draenei. Other than that, another StarCraft II expansion wouldn't be remiss, but my money is on more news about Diablo III's upcoming expansion and the usual fan bits.

I'm predicting Jaedong wins. That's my prediction for BlizzCon. I'm really looking forward to all the games; there really isn't any StarCraft II pro there whom I don't get all starry-eyed for. As for the rest of the con, I couldn't care less. Blizzard is past its prime in the MMO industry.

I expect Blizzard to announce the fifth expansion for World of Warcraft at this year's BlizzCon. I'm also going to put on my tinfoil hat and speculate that the next WoW expansion will deliver a housing system into the game. It's something that players have been asking for since launch and games that allow players the freedom to carve out their own spaces in a virtual world have been wildly popular of late. I can also see Blizzard trying to position itself to compete with RIFT's dimensions and the highly anticipated housing features in WildStar. We'll see at the end of the week if I'm just way off or sitting smugly saying, "I told you so."

What do you get when you throw the Massively writers' opinions together in one big pot to stew? You get The Think Tank, a column dedicated to ruminating on the MMO genre. We range from hardcore PvPers to sandbox lovers to the carest of the carebears, so expect some disagreement! Join Senior Editor Shawn Schuster and the team for a new edition right here every other Thursday.