World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria

The Mists of Pandaria will open the doors to the mysterious lands of the pandaren, inviting the people of Azeroth to discover the wisdom and power of this mighty race while also exposing some of their darkest secrets. The World of Warcraft Preview panelists unveiled many of the new features, art, and gameplay changes that are coming with this next epic expansion.

After reading the preview of this expansion, I was somewhat upset. With the next upcoming expansion, the level cap has been raised to 90. Blizzard also presents us with a new, playable race, called Pandaren.

Pandaren are a neutral race. Thus, they aren't favorable to the Alliance or Horde until the starting Quest chain ends. At the end of the quest chain, you make the choice of Alliance or Horde. Pandaren characters can be hunters, mages, monks, priests, rogues, shaman, and warriors. The Pandaren have five racial bonuses, that are unique in their own way:

• Epicurean: Increase the stat benefits from food by 100%

• Gourmand: Cooking skill increased by 15

• Inner Peace: Your rested experience bonus lasts twice as long

• Bouncy: You take 50% less falling damage

• Quaking Palm: You touch a pressure point on an enemy target, putting it to sleep for 3 seconds.

Along with the new, playable race, arises a class of peace, yet have the determination to crush you, Monk. The Monk class can be played by draenei, dwarf, gnome, human, night elf, blood elf, orc, tauren, troll, and undead. The monk are a very anticipated class, and many suggestions have been made towards them being implemented into the game. In my opinion, I disagree to this idea. I can relate this class to a druid. Much like druids, monks will benefit from leather armor with agility or intellect, depending on their build, and will depend on Chi (energy) for class-specific moves such as Jab and Roll. Jab will generate either Light or Dark Force, which can be expended to perform other moves.Although druid shapeshift, Monk do not. But, the specializations do. Monks can pull some heavy mobs when in comes to tanking. Are a formidable foe on the charts against Holy priest healing. They can also dish out some intolerable damage per second. The specs are named below:

• Brewmaster:Tank

• Mistweaver:Healer

• Windwalker:Melee DPS

Along with the new classes, arises a few new areas. Only two of the anticipated five areas have been released to the public eye, The Jade Forest (85-86), and Valley of the Four Winds (86-87). Details are as listed:

• The Jade Forest: Players will first enter Pandaria through the Jade Forest. This zone features lush rainforests and statuesque stone spires. The Alliance and Horde will ally themselves with the indigenous creatures to fight a war with lasting consequences to the Jade Forest, and possibly the rest of Pandaria as well.

• Valley of the Four Winds: Featuring lush farmland in the north and dense jungles along the coast to the south, the fertile Valley of the Four Winds is the breadbasket of Pandaria. Players will join Chen Stormstout to discover his family’s roots at the legendary Stormstout Brewery. Meanwhile, trouble is also brewing along the great wall that protects the Pandaren Empire from the mantid swarms to the west….

Scenarios:

Scenarios will allow small groups of players to adventure together in short instances, with progressive objectives and a story arc. Scenarios are completely role-less, meaning tanks or healers aren’t necessary to succeed -- any class combinations can work. Queues will be fast! Smaller scenarios will play similar to group quests and will help players earn faction reputation, while larger scenarios will play out like epic PvE battlegrounds with major objectives and plenty of scripted events.

Dungeon Challenge Modes:

Heroic Dungeons will become easier for pick-up-groups (PuGs) to take on, but that won’t leave players who are looking for a more difficult path out in the cold. Dungeon Challenge Modes will let those looking for a deeper challenge take on dungeon runs with specific goals (complete dungeon in X minutes) and reward players who accomplish these goals with Bronze, Silver, or Gold medals. Challengers will also find their gear scaled to equalize the difficulty of the encounter for all players, creating a level playing field. To the victor will go the spoils, in the form of uniquely designed statless gear that can be utilized with Transmogrification to further define the look of a character.

Another new feature will be the Pet Battle System. I think the idea is absolutely horrid. It's impractically Pokemon in WoW. This system will work much like a Secondary profession and any player can participate. Players will be able utilize their current non-combat pets or capture new non-combat pets to level them and battle them against others.

The new expansion will introduce three new Raid dungeons and nine new dungeons with six of these being located within Pandaria. Scholomance and Scarlet Monastery will attain level-90 Heroic status, much like Shadowfang Keep and Deadmines, with Scarlet Monastery becoming two separate dungeons.

With the addition of the Raid Finder in patch 4.3 and the new Challenge modes, the intention is to open up multiple opportunities for max-level players to take part in a variety of progression options.

Major Class Changes

Here’s a brief look at some of the planned class changes:

Hunters: Hunter minimum range (including the dead zone) and melee weapon use will be removed.

Warlocks: This class will be gaining a unique resource for each spec type in their arsenal.

Shaman: Buff totems will be removed and all totems will become utility totems.

Druids: This class has always felt as if it had four specs, so now it will.

This is not a fully in-depth (p)review. More content will be released for public viewing later. For now, this is all I have.

My Final Thoughts.

This expansion is going to unravel a new view on warcraft lore. Pandaren played a huge part in Warcraft III, so no, this is not a copy of the movie "Kung-Fu Panda." It will show players have have never played the Warcraft series of games the history of the hidden and majestic Pandaren. However, I am not a person to sugar-coat things. All in all, I don't think the new expansion will be a favorite amongst the vast amount of players. Many have already suggested that the expansion isn't going to be worth buying, and they refuse to buy it. Many don't think the expansion is ideal because it attracts the eye of younger players. In my eyes, unless they have a microphone, you will never be able to tell. But, I personally can not say anything until the expansion is released. I'm buying it when it releases, hope you do, too!

Twilly out.

Citations:

http://us.battle.net/blizzcon/en/blog/3768753/World_of_Warcraft_Preview_Panel_Mists_of_Pandaria-10_21_2011#blog

Dude i am so fucking buying this when it comes out xD