Yeh i will admit, there is an air of desperation about it, ok 11mil + subs is a heck of allot, but thats built up over many years - i suspect they are seeing more complaints, more issues and a limited appeal due to the heart of the engine being based on something written over five years ago - a few years back i played Age of Conan when it came out - ok apart from the massive amount of bugs, it was fantastic graphics, some nice touches, better music scores than wow too - think it was the bugs that eventually drove me away, but it just goes to show that the technology blizz are using to run wow has a limited runtime - there will come a day when it just wont cut it for the players i think and suspect Bliz know this too, hence throwing in diablo, the mount and access to the next beta, etc ( and from a perspective of someone who was on the beta for Cata - its not worth doing - you ruin all the fun for yourself when the end version of the expansion gets released ) - in the back of my mind, i cant help think Blizz are working on wow v2 so to say - tbh what with the success of wow, they'd be mad not to invest in a new engine.