Breakfast Topic: What 6.0 means

I suspect it's different for everyone. For me, the last month of any expansion is always kind of melancholy. My wife and I were discussing saudade last night, a concept I wasn't familiar with, and while it's not that intense I do always feel that small pang for what's lost when an expansion rolls around. Sure, I'm excited for new content, new levels, new dungeons and raids and zones. But at the same time, Pandaria had been my home for two years now. I've explored it, seen the magnificent vistas, done battle with a host of foes and monsters. And now, it all comes to an end. That last month, we don't really even see the content anymore - in our minds we're long past it already, exploring Draenor.

So for me, patch 6.0 is bitter with the sweet - it's full of an awareness of its own mortality, of the world growing autumnal. Yes, we're still there in Pandaria, still running the same raids and dungeons, doing the same daily quests, exploring the same Timeless Isle - but we're already gone, and the world grows colder and prepares to be abandoned. I feel that longing for when it was all new, that now vanished world we first stepped into years ago. But its time is done. And here we are, in its waning weeks, finally aware of how transient it always was.

So enjoy patch 6.0, by all means, and prepare for Draenor. But give Pandaria its last month, and enjoy it for what it was, and will never be again.