If you consider the fact that they outsource the subscriptions in China but still count the subs in their own numbers, the likely total of NA/EU/OC/ players is around 2mil give or take, which is really, really low. Asian players will play a game 20 years after the fact but their base for development is leaving in droves.
They banked way too hard on Garrisons and to push out this puny xpac after the same amount of time developing all the other xpacs just did fans in and ended it for them. A couple of raids, hideously overtuned in an effort to mask difficulty for skill, the garrisons and nothing else. You make everyone ride everywhere, you make them spend time to themselves doing the ***-opposite of an MMO, and then the few raids you give aren't particularly well done and are just hard for the sake of being hard.
The next xpac should literally be just pure content. Don't make any dumb gimmicks like taking away flying(something people pooped their pants about in TBC and have loved since), don't have them hiding away in their garrisons, bring everyone out and get them interacting. Make a big event happen again like the opening of AQ. Do something that brings the community together towards this great goal. I guarantee you people will sign up to do something on a server-wide scale.
Honestly, the gimmicks should just die from here till the end of development(I say that right after mentioning a server-wide event but that was a one-time thing and a TON of fun, ask anyone who was around for that on retail, they could easily make it work one more time). I figure they've got 2, maybe 3 xpacs left before it just stops becoming financially worth it and they move on to the next big thing. Use that time and do nothing but make the basics of the game better. Don't reinvent the wheel, just improve it. Make pvp stuff, make pve stuff, ignore the rest of it. Trim the fat of this game and just let people gnaw on the meat and wind this thing up in epic fashion.
