In Las Vegas yesterday, Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime was asked about a certain unannounced project that the company has been working on for a number of years. He answered by talking about the game in broad terms, but there is enough new information to get the wheels of speculation turning.

"Without giving away any details, we have some of our most experienced MMO developers, people who spent years working on the World of Warcraft team, working on this project," Morhaime said. "We're really trying to leverage all the lessons we learned through the years. Some of which we were able to address in World of Warcraft and others that maybe because of the design decisions we've made, you just can't address. So we're kind of taking a step back with all that knowledge to make something that's completely new and fresh. We're not trying to make a WoW sequel." In fact, he explained that the two titles will co-exist in the future.

He talked about playing with friends, the ability to make new friends in the game, and the experience of playing in guilds. "That's probably all I can say," he said. Morhaime had previously said that the game he was playing the most outside of Blizzard's properties was Words with Friends on his iPhone, and he noted how much more fun you have when you play against people you know, not strangers. This is a theme we're hearing from a number of people: social gaming is going to be important in the future.

"To break the mold, sometimes you have to start over," Morhaime told the audience.