Last evening we caught our pet cat playing World of Warcraft. As the most evil character in the game - Night Elf Rogue - he was fairing okay at level five although was getting a little confused when we kept telling him we'd assigned auto-run to the pause key (they're ALL paws keys to a cat see - geddit?). But it's testament to the massive, wide-spread penetration (yes, in our increasing effort to get slightly more risqué, we actually said 'PENETRATION') that Blizzard's MMORPG has achieved, with player numbers rocketing into the stratosphere.

Seriously though, millions have signed up to adventure in Blizzard Entertainment's world turning it into hugely, hugely successful game. Great, and we doubt the player influx is about to grind to a complete halt any time soon but enticing players to dip a toe in the WoW waters is only half the battle; once they're there, you have to keep them there and Blizzard has been pumping out content updates and game balances in an effort to ensure the MMORPG's player base is kept happy and entertained.

Battlegrounds (WoW's dedicated PvP system), in Blizzard's own words, represented "the single biggest update to the game yet" but what other like major content is Blizzard cooking up for the months to come? What does the future hold for the MMORPG? And what about that World of Warcraft expansion we've all read about? We recently caught up with WoW lead producer Shane Dabiri in an effort to get answers to these and other burning questions.