Early Mists of Pandaria Media Leaked.

[Correction]

There was similar hand-wringing about the 'furriness' of the worgen female model. In reality unless you intend to roll one it won't affect you even a little. It does look like a Dwarf female in a mascot uniform but honestly there's only so many body types you can cycle through when you're limited to bipedal humanoids. I wanna see their casting/attack animations though since Worgen/Goblins got some creative ones.

[Guitarman]

I don't like the model, but I wasn't planning on rolling a female anyways, so really doesn't bother me. I am jealous of the polygon count, though. My poor orc and his green kleenex-box feet.

[niwaar]

I was pretty gung-ho for this expansion at the start, but lately i've lost interest in it slowly. Not sure why, really. Pandas don't bother me, in fact I like 'em.

I actually liked the entire idea of the Asian theming instead of the fake asian theme of the Night Elves. I thought Panda's was a bit on the edge but I expected them to come sooner or later.

I was really excited for this at first, it even got me to stupidly do the annual pass. But after DS dragged on and on, I just lost all interest in WoW along the way.

Granted I am excited for TERA and GW2, and I think GW2 will be the new mmo for me... but even if GW2 fails (for me) I still don't see myself going back to WoW. Even if they add new features, its still the same basic thing and 5-6 years has been enough for me.

DS was just a symptom of the overeaching theme of the dumbing down and laziness of the Blizzard dev team that started with them only giving us 5 levels of leveling content in the expansion. Wrath lasted because there was a lot of "area" that a lot of people just never got to see until they leveled there third or fourth character to 80. Sure, everyone got to see Borean, Fjord or even Dragonblight 3+ times, but the other zones were far less traveled by people. (I for one only have done Sholozar once in 7 level capped characters, and that was the final character I leveled.) Cata gave us a very streamlined, lobby-like experience where we portaled everywhere, queued for what we did not portal to, and used guild perk summons to travel if the first two were not options.

The only thing that was done right in Cata was the old world redesign and even that is debated by many people. There is very little that MoP can do to change this fact. All they can do is prove that they have righted the ship, but is it too late?

There was similar hand-wringing about the 'furriness' of the worgen female model. In reality unless you intend to roll one it won't affect you even a little. It does look like a Dwarf female in a mascot uniform but honestly there's only so many body types you can cycle through when you're limited to bipedal humanoids. I wanna see their casting/attack animations though since Worgen/Goblins got some creative ones.

I'll be honest, I play female toons. I have always been one to wish to see something attractive to look at than something horribly ugly. I started off as a male human, and played with my "bitter beer faced" human until Wrath when I changed him to female the first week they offered the gender change. I do not like a lot of races, and that's fine. To each their own. However, the one thing every race has had in WoW up until this point is a certain level of uniqueness. Not like Rift or SWTOR where each race is basically a human with certain hair/ear/color/size palettes.

This model is not unexpected but its also not very unique and its disappointing.

MikeB better be correct. I still am going to laugh when Blizzard looks at their week1 sales and realizes that less than 70% of their Annual Pass players bothered to pick up the box if they insist on charging us the 40$ they normally do.

[Boyiee]

I actually like this model a lot more than I thought I would, and it is easily one of my favorite female models.

[Gulkeeva]

looks nice graphically, but I don't think I could play one, we'll know though if its real or fake soon I guess since MMO-champ will be posting stuff in 46min of this posting

[Guitarman]

And Gulk with the early spoiler. Guess he was right. Aoe looting will be great. And lolGTFO Garrosh. Down's syndrome orc can die.

[Kaylia]

It's out on mmo champ!

The final patch of Mists of Pandaria will be the Siege of Orgrimmar! Both factions lay siege to the city to bring Garrosh down and end his reign of Warchief.

He didn't last very long. I almost feel bad for him.

AoE Looting has been added.

fucking yes!

Gonna be so nice for old content

[Guitarman]

You exploit the enemy target's weakest point, instantly killing them.

hah.

sad more than a few monk talents are basically pally skills.

chi coccoon = bubble
blessing of kings, even a lightwell.

[Lexa]

On the one hand, I can't wait to smack Garrosh around some.

On the other, I can't help but think about that interview where they were talking about the perceived faction favoritism by the community and how they wanted to give Alliance some good storylines/make Alliance characters (like Wrynn, for instance) more likeable and interesting... I'm still waiting.

[Gulkeeva]

Some the abilities look over powered... NEEDS NERF! before its even out...!

[Guitarman]

no more "have group, will travel" is going to be a gigantic pain in the ass.

[Kaylia]

no more "have group, will travel" is going to be a gigantic pain in the ass.

This is the part that worry me the most. "Have group, will travel" is probably the best thing that happened to raid in Cataclysm, and I dread the days where we will have to summon everyone one by one again. If they take it out, they better give the summoning stone a "summon everyone" option.


And if they removed summoning stone to make us fly...well, fuck them.

[Gulkeeva]

Ah the good ol days... summon stone.. waiting 30min+ for people to login, then 15min+ for them to get to the instance, then 30min waiting for the random afk's... and then struggle through trash... and get to the first boss about an hour 30min after raid start time.

[Kaylia]

Warlock is afk. Can anyone come outside with me?
...
Anyone?

[niwaar]

Farmville and the ability to kick Garrosh in the ass? maybe? if its free!

[Gulkeeva]

Warlock is afk. Can anyone come outside with me?
...
Anyone?

HALP I'm Being rapped by ally/horde at summon stone HALP ZOMG A WHOLE RAID

world bosses again, should be interesting... on a pvp server. (Doom lord kazzak was hilarious)

[Petitssk]

So the Stonestalon Mountains/Twilight Highlands discrepancies in Garrosh's devlopment weren't just a case of bad writing, but just an indicator as to how irredeemable he is? Not that I mind too much, just somewhat lame how that makes him go from "That Emo-Orc in Gardar" to "Homocidal sociopathic leader that dies in an uprising because he got power hungry". Seems like a bit too much of a set up for what's not exactly the most interesting character development, Zach from Desperate Housewives was more interesting in that regard.

Sure hope that they flesh it out a little, this at least gives them room for a story-relevant string of events throughout the entire expansion, as opposed to "Remember the quests you did three patches ago with the guy you saw the last time three patches ago? You can kill him now, along with 6 other mooks you've never even heard of before".

That's what I'd like to see in general. Raid Bosses not just being tossed in, coming out of nowhere, but quests actually exploring them a little so they amount to more than loot pinatas. Would have liked to see bosses like Blackhorn or Ultraxion (because I love them psychopaths!) outside of DS, but the way they just suddenly appear and die has always annoyed me a little, both in WotLK and Cataclysm, though it doesn't seem like it was much different for BC either.

Anyway, that being said, story-wise I think I'm going to enjoy this expansion, seeing how the shift from cooperation and mutual respect in WotLK (minus Horde ambushing Alliance engaged in combat with Scourge in Icecrown and battles in ICC, of course) to outright war in Cataclysm really felt out of place to me, like WotLK never even took place.

[Kaylia]

Sure hope that they flesh it out a little, this at least gives them room for a story-relevant string of events throughout the entire expansion, as opposed to "Remember the quests you did three patches ago with the guy you saw the last time three patches ago? You can kill him now, along with 6 other mooks you've never even heard of before".

Well, the raid story weren't that bad in Cataclysm. You could see Chogall in many places (Feralas, twilight highland, cataclysm pre-release event), and the other bosses followed specific thematic. Sinestra and Nef have been around for a long time as well.

Same deal with firelands, and we had the molten front quests to go with them. Fanghelm's story fleshed most of the instance already, and the few that weren't presented where hinted. Dragonsoul's bosses were probably the most randoms, but the raid itself was still very well introduced.

There is still room for improvement, but in overall, I think raid story is done much better now than it was back in Wrath or BC day. The raid design however was too linear and bland to feel epic.

[Lordender]

In before Rexxar takes over the horde after Garrosh goes down, which ties in the Orge race to the horde down the line.

[The Stig]

Would have liked to see bosses like Blackhorn or Ultraxion (because I love them psychopaths!)

Blackhorn is easily my favourite boss. I dunno, although the way they suddenly appear is odd, yeh, Ultraxion is justified in that he does state he's created for that very moment, whereas Blackhorn makes me laugh when he enters battle.

I mean you first get a badass boast: "Hah! I was hoping you'd make it this far. You'd best be ready for a real fight!"

He wasn't kidding either, back at Raid launch. Our guild struggled with that fight, and judging by my realm's trade spams, it seems guilds recruiting are also stuck on that fight still (yeh. Not kidding you.). You go from a 5 bosses with what, only 2 mechanics, tops, to a boss where you gotta have random people intercept fireballs, the group intercept a big fireball, streams of adds, dividing ranged and melee, and stop suicide bombers.

It smooths out during phase 2

"Looks like I'm doing this myself. GOOD."

From here you deal with his roars and "How's this!?" shouts, but it's cool nonetheless.
Villains who enjoy their fights always gain my likings of them.

I never knew his enrage, until we enraged him during LFR:

"We're flying a little too close...It's been a good fight, but I'm ending it NOW."

You kind of imagine that he's been holding back on you all this time!

And lastly, I sympathise with this boss when you kill him. I felt that he was someone that wanted a normal life, but was tainted to the forces of evil.

"Well...done, heh. But I wonder if you're good enough...to best him."

It's fine, he had no backstory whatsoever. But what matters is he is the only boss apart from Deathwing to have a personality. Everyone else was rather bland!