It may be hard to believe, but this year marks the 10th anniversary of “World of Warcraft,” a game that's been reviled and beloved—sometimes even in the same breath—pretty much since it got started. It would be easy to look at a game that's been in play for, roughly, three console generations (the original Xbox wasn't discontinued until 2008, after all) and say that its days are numbered. But new reports suggest that this grand dame of the MMO has a lot of room to run.

Word came from “World of Warcraft”s lead designer, Ion Hazzikostas, in an interview with CNET that, while he didn't know just what form it would take exactly, there “...definitely is going to be...” a 20th anniversary for “World of Warcraft”. Indeed, Activision-Blizzard is reportedly planning ahead through at least the next two major expansions to the game, though it's more of a “big picture storyline” matter right now than anything else. Hazzikostas stressed that it was all “...one step at a time”, but it became quite clear the company has plenty more in store for players.

Admittedly, the game has been somewhat on the decline in terms of popularity of late, with its height of 12 million players coming and going in 2012, dropping ever since. However, there has been a recent recovery in terms of total player numbers, a development that's doubtless as welcome to “World of Warcraft” fans as it is to Activision-Blizzard itself. With player levels around 7.4 million right now, it's still clear that “World of Warcraft” has plenty of fans even as the game prepares to unleash “Warlords of Draenor” in just a couple weeks, on November 13.

Sure, the game has plenty of potential to expand from here; there are plotlines enough and to spare in this game, thanks to the fact that you've got multi-racial factions going on. At any time, you could effectively break off a race or two to form a completely different faction and completely shake up the franchise. Has anyone ever wondered what would happen if the gnomes and the goblins—already comparable races—decided to break off from the Horde and the Alliance alike? The gnomes and goblins share many common traits, and the two could work together surprisingly well with the goblins' imaginative daring meshing with the gnomes' penchant for safety and achievement to produce amazing machines beyond what either could do alone. After all, it's been said—just check the WoW Wiki—that goblins are notorious for abandoning projects that no longer hold interest or are immediately profitable. What if the gnomes started rooting through those piles and making modifications accordingly?

This is just a start, and could carry on from there. Why not see, say, the Tauren break off from the horde to follow the night elves? What if the Pandaren and the Tauren decide they have more in common than they thought and make their own faction? Lots of possibilities are on hand in here, and any of these could be brought into the fore as “World of Warcraft” continues its next ten years. Only time will tell just what these look like, but there's certainly enough potential to run this series for a long time, and the results may prove more exciting than some might think.