What about those predictions, then?

It's normal human behaviour when making predictions, to celebrate your brilliance when you got it right, and rationalize away your mistakes as not really a failure of prediction, more of a failure of others to behave rationally. I'm working on that, but meanwhile, let's look at the predictions I made last week and see what became of them. So here they are repeated in quotation marks, and my comment on whether I was brilliant or Blizzard were idiots following the quote.

• "I already mentioned that I thought Blizzard would be announcing the next expansion at Gamescom. That was the first part of my guarantee." - I don't care what you think, Wilhelm, I'm counting it!
• "The release date will  tie in with the World of Warcraft movie. That was the second part (oh, yeah, sure it seems obvious now, but it wasn't even obvious to most people that there would even be a expansion announcement back when I guaranteed it)." - The jury is still out, though it seems likely still.
• "The next expansion will be set in Draenor, still: in Farahlon and other parts." - My genius outstripped Blizzard's here.
• "The Burning Legion, who have hardly shown their face this expansion, will be out in force." - I'm so hot I'm sizzling.
• "That also means we get to meet Medivh and Kil'jaedan." - I admit Blizzard's greatness in fetching Illidan back from the grave was so greatly great that I feel stupid not having thought of it first; but the jury is still out on Medivh and Kil'jaedan.
• "Gul'dan will finally get his come-uppance. Please let it not be as Garrosh finally got his." He isn't getting out of the Suramar Palace alive.
• "More people with pointless apostrophes in their names will turn up". I think that's a given. Blizzard's names department has an apostrophe where the space bar should be.
• "The gold price of WoW tokens will skyrocket." - We'll only know in the months to come. I will of course count any uptick as proof positive of my magely brilliance.

So that's one wrong, four right (though even the furbolg could have predicted the excess of apostrophes), and three more about which we must wait and see.

Blaugust, day 7.

After 6.2?

Blizzard have told us that 6.2 will be the last patch in this expansion, and so the Isle of Farahlon (Netherstorm) won't be developed as they planned for this expansion.  Also, Hellfire Citadel is the last raid? Gul'dan still at large? That has all set my antennae twitching like a Nerubian. Let's see. They haven't time to implement their vision for Draenor in this expansion, they have a tie-in film coming out in the autumn, and now www.mamytwink.com has given notice of a press conference promising "de nouvelles annonces croustillantes" (thanks for the heads-up from Alternative Chat)

My take on all this is that Blizzard will be announcing a new expansion to release at the same time as the film. I guarantee it. And the new expansion will bring us to Farahlon. And we'll hunt down Gul'dan, wherever that may take us. Perhaps Azeroth in an alternative timeline where Lordaeron is in the ascendant? I don't guarantee that.

Edit: mamytwink's promise of "spicy-hot new announcements" from Blizzard at Gamescom has proven to be correct, and as I predicted, those announcements are of a new expansion for WoW. So that's the first part of my prediction, but it has yet to be seen if it will be released in time for a film tie-in, and we are still far from knowing if it involves Farahlon or Gul'dan.

Who did I just free?

Uhm, Cho'Gall, Teron Gorefiend (under the nom-de-guerre of Teron'gor), and Gul'dan. The Iron horde had made them their prisoner, and I freed them. My first act in passing through the Dark Portal into Draenor. Maybe I should have taken the side of the Iron Horde in this. Are Garrosh and Grom really worse than that trio? Oh, well. As Gul'dan says "there will be time for regrets later".

From an Alliance point of view, I suppose it's all good. We get to kill orcs, either way. From an orcish point of view, there must be more ambivalence. Free Gul'dan? Really? At least Garrosh has saved the orcs of Draenor from drinking the blood of Mannoroth, The shattered planet that is Outland shows how badly that went!