Is Mists of Pandaria World of Warcraft's Next Expansion?

It seems that Blizzard has registered a trademark called “Mists of Pandaria” which may be World of Warcraft’s next expansion. Could it possibly be a panda themed expansion? Could we really be traveling into panda land in order to do daily quests and farm gold? No. Come on people; those rumors are as silly as anything else out there.

Give me a break, we’re not going to see a major retail release include an expansion into Pandaria. We’re more likely to see a /panera command to order Panera Bread to-go. If we see anything come from this, other than an epic April Fool’s joke next year is the possibility that we’re going to get mini-expansions.

What are mini-expansions? We’ll, you know how some patches have huge amounts of content like 4.2 and Firelands? Well, we could see these mini-expansions as Blizzard’s way to hold us over until a formal expansion comes. No level cap increases, but we could see it as a new quest zone with some raid content and a few new gimmicks added to the game. This way we’d have more content than during a normal patch run but less content than a whole expansion.

Think about it. Blizzard has Diablo 3 coming out soon and that’s going to take up a ton of the playerbase’s interests, so much so that lots of Blizzard fans aren’t going to be looking around for the latest expansion while Blizzard’s PR media blitz focuses heavily on D3. So why announce the next expansion this year when they can announce a filler expansion (or more likely, just an upcoming major patch) and focus on the fight with Deathwing?

Makes perfect sense to me and a lot more sense than a retail expansion being about Pandaria. The trademark is apparently filed under video games, which doesn’t necessarily even mean it has anything to do with WoW. It could be a mobile game for the iPad that is Blizzard’s version of the Angry Birds (throw kegs of bear at unsuspecting goblins who have stolen the taps).

For those ultra paranoid types out there, this could be project Titan. I’m sure Blizzard would almost bust a gut laughing as everyone who has been eagerly awaiting the news of their upcoming game dies as they realize it’s all for naught and Blizzard is delving into the mobile market.

Whatever it is, it isn’t major and this huge hype about it that is storming every website out there and how Pandarens are finally coming as a playable race. Well, if that happens, then I know exactly what this will be and that is a DLC expansion pack. World of Warcraft’s first DLC expansion pack ever, where you download the ability to unlock Pandarens and explore their island.

Yes, we've seen Cataclysm as a trademark before it was announced, but come on. If Mists of Pandaria is the next expansion I’ll eat my mount - horns, wings, and all. There is no way Blizzard would focus the next WoW expansion on the Pandarens.

What do you think? Has Blizzard lost its marbles and is going into a panda frenzy or is this going to be their upcoming mobile app? Share your thoughts in the comments below.