My theory:They are running out of villains and the game is getting very old now, not to say it sucks or anything, but many people, myself included, feel that Cataclysm is only half an expansion and that their truely professional work ended with the death of Arthas.Blizzard has to have realized this as well. They rushed out Cata even when us beta'rs were telling them it needed more time. It only has 5 levels, so many things were recycled into 'new' content, like Deadmines and Shadowfang Keep just for example (and now ZA/ZG), and we barely got any love with the talents.I do believe Blizz is moving on to new things and only barely maintaining WoW because of the sheer amount of community anger if they took it down. Or perhaps it's just milk the cow till they release their next big thing. Either way.I think that the Mists of Pandaria will be a 'new world' sort of idea (i.e. discovering America by accident). The word mist hints strongly at that. Like a strange foreign land coming out of the mists at sea. So why did I bring up about Blizz slacking on WoW now? Because I think they will finally end this game at level 90. The villain will finally be Sargeras and he will choose to corrupt/invade a land that knows nothing of him. Not the lands we all know, that hidden continent off in the mist.
Perhaps Blizzard is thinking about entering the mobile device game market. "Mists of the Pandaria" sounds too light-hearted to be a serious expansion... but would seem to fit a fun little iPhone/iPad game.
Could also be the new Murlocaggedon game.
Mist will probably represent the Kvaldir race that was released and featured in Northrend and Vash'jir.If they're adding new races, my guess would be pandarean and kaluak.Before you disagree, keep in mind that having playable race doesn't mean the entire populace is siding with you. (namely the human, troll, orc, goblin, dranei, blood elf "factions" that are neutral or hostile to both factions)
this could be a future exspansion i doubt highly blizz would make the pandaren a new nutral race but the might make them a hero class for horde and allience like the brewmaster
I think that if the Pandaren become a playable race they will be neutral, but in some point of the starting quest line you will choose your affiliation To Horde or Alliance and like the Dks only one per realm :P (sorry for my english :/ second language)
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@IcyFrozen: I believe he meant "villains that aren't just pulled out of their ass".Azshara and N'Zoth are likely to be the villains for this expansion. The Infinite Dragonflight will probably be finished in Patch 4.3. I don't think Kil'jaeden will get a whole expansion to himself because we've already seen him so that'd be rather underwhelming. That leaves Sargeras (whose expansion Kil'jaeden would be likely to appear in; I could easily see Kil'jaeden as the Kel'Thuzad to Sargeras's Arthas). There's probably another major villain escaping my mind at the moment (like Deathwing did before Cataclysm; I'd totally forgotten about him.)
Its easy to see the true meaning behind all of this. This is the new xpac that will introduce the new hero class, Brewmaster. Why you may ask? Duh, because currently only mages can make drinks for everyone, and we need another class with that ability.
No it will not be a new expansion. It will be a new island and/or faction that is on an island called Pandaria. "Pandaria is a legendary place of bambus forests and the mysterious pandaren of the Pandaren Empire. " This quote from wowwiki was derived from multiple books.If they got a copyright on it, we should expect to see the Pandarin Monks and their secret island or even the legend of a dead race. I'm sure new dungeons might even be involved as well. http://www.wowwiki.com/Pandaria
Panderia is a refrence to the Panderian Brewmaster Hero Unit from Warcraft 3. Could be cool to see an asian theme to parts of WoW.