Hours after the third World Of WarCraft expansion was launched, Blizzard's systems designer Greg Street confirmed that the fourth expansion is well underway and shared his thoughts about it.
"I think the next expansion will be something more like a new continent approach. More like the Burning Crusade or Nothrend, where we send players somewhere new that they haven't seen before," he said.
"I think the Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor are good now, we won't have to mess with them. There might be some small areas that may require polish or changing if things still don't feel quite right."
Furthermore, Greg revealed that design and features for the 4th expansion are "pretty close to locked in. We have a direction now but that's not to say that this is the one true path that we'll eventually deliver on."
The systems designer then acknowledged that the current rate of releasing a large expansion every two years is not enough for "a lot of WoW players". As a result, Blizzard is considering moving an 18 months release cycle or to an even more frequent release schedule for smaller expansions.
When asked if fans should expect a WarCraft IV announcement anytime in the near future, Greg made it clear that Blizzard's WarCraft team is busy working on World Of WarCraft and that the company's RTS team is busy working on StarCraft II and its two upcoming episodes, which leaves Blizzard with no resources to tackle such a project.