What is the proper size of an expansion?

It’s been about a month since Blizzcon 2023 and thus, a month since we were graced with the announcement of 3 new WoW Expansions. Originally I was going to use Destiny as the Platform for a discussion about Expansion size and value, but as I return to Azeroth to finish out Dragonflight; I think WoW provides a more interesting perspective. Dragon flight is now the 2nd expansion to get only 2 major content patches (10.1 and 10.2) and it’s been all but confirmed in interviews that A War Within (first of the 3 new expansions) will most likely be following the same release cycle.

In most situations I’m a big fan of consistency, however WoW is now 19 years old and every expansion of those 19 years (2.0-10.2) has had its own unique reasons for varying patch cycles and I think people appreciate the variety. Unfortunately, there's definitely been a downward trend in the number of major patches per expansion during this last decade.

Luckily the time between expansions has also become much more consistent and I think the team is in a good spot to deliver content faster without losing quantity. During Blizzcon in interviews and even in the official WoW Q&A; Ion Hazzikostas (Game Director) was very quick to point out that the team is very intent on avoiding “shrinkflation”. Fun buzz words aside I am hopeful that the devs can pull it off.

WoW’s main competition for years has been Final Fantasy 14 and it's worth addressing that the most visible advantage that FF14 devs have always had over Blizzard is long term planning and vision. For several expansions now, Yoshi P has been open about how at any given time his core team has solid plans for the next 3-5 years of content development with many major story beats decided on well over 2 years before ever seeing light.

Having announced 6+ years of content, I'm really hoping Blizzard can stick to the example and really follow through on something cool for one of the most deep rooted communities in all of gaming.