How about that Blizzcon? Holy freakin’ cow. Just… holy cow. We had my brother Log and three Wow-playing friends over for most of the con. It rocked. Rocked hard. Opening ceremonies… well, they made that announcement about the WoW yearly subscription thing and I thought my one friend was going to pass out. She’d been wanting to play Diablo 3 and Star Wars The Old Republic but didn’t see her budget supporting both; now she can play D3 for free just by maintaining her WoW account. Rev’s pysched about a new mount – and D3; I’m psyched that they’re still making it worth my while to buy the collector’s edition D3 for the pet.
Pandaren! And done right. I was worried, but the more visuals of the lushly Asian Pandaria I saw, the more I’m hooked. It looks like Warcraft and Asia at the same time. I’ve been to Japan, not China, but there’s definitely elements of Japan in Pandaria as well. Very cool, looking forward to a smaller, gentler expansion.
Talent changes: wow. Just… interesting. We were immediately reminded of the Tech Tree from the SC2 storyline game; you could at any level chose between two options, both cool. I still have faith that the community will find a way to min/max, but this does look for.
Pet battles? Pokemon in WoW…. but that doesn’t mean it might not be fun. I’ve got a pretty decent pet collection – at 115 on my mage right now – and I could see trying it. PVE scenarios might be the best thing since sliced bread, or might suck, depending on how healer-friendly they are. Challenge mode dungeons? I think Rev is going to have a new hobby. He’ll be speed running those things the day they’re released. I was impressed in all three of these, by how much work they’ve already put into the systems. This expansion is coming a lot sooner than Cataclysm did. How soon, I wouldn’t say, but I would not be surprised to be playing it come next Blizzcon.
Anyway. Yeah. Wow. I’ll roll a monk, check out their healer tree. Good news is Rev is going to make a monk tank so we will be partners for leveling again. He’s joking that this will make him a triple bear tank; two druids and a panda! I haven’t decided yet, gnome or pandaren monk, and I don’t know how we’ll I’ll like the playstyle but I’m gonna give it a try. I doubt Analogue is in danger of being replaced… now I need a name for my monk…. Pandalogue?
Anapanda
That would be good… Hmm…
I love Blizzards style. They think, “Hey, too many people don’t like ‘gogogo’ runs and our game design is rewarding those runs… Let’s reward them even MORE and funnel those gogogo-crazy people into their own sub game.
SWEET!
Normalized Gear means everyone on a challenge run gets a standard gear set or at least the stats on their gear work as if they were all standardized. This is great. That one heroic raiding guild on the server can’t just dominate with their uber gear. Everyone will be competing on pure player skill and party synergy.
I can’t wait.
timed runs sounds like fun.
But….also….PANDAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! /squee
Got my 2 names saved already
On Winterhoof – Pandaexpress. And on Drak – Pandabowl
I have Pandaxpress saved on WH!
I can’t wait to see a sneaky fat bear!
One of you two can’t use that name, that is too confusing!
Who has Pandamonium?
I did reserve “Faylebear” on DT!
win
I’m entirely in favor of everything MoP is bringing, but it definitely looks interesting. PvE Scenarios seem incredibly fun. I have a lot of fond memories of my early days in the game where my friends and I would try to three man dungeons (all of us in DPS specs) and get into all sorts of trouble, and Scenarios might be a way to recapture some of that.
I still haven’t decided whether or not I want to play a panda. I think Pandaren are the Best Thing Ever, but when it comes to my own toons, I like to play the more “serious” races. I was gonna race my pally to a pandadin, but then I found out there’s no such thing as a pandadin and became sad.
“I have a lot of fond memories of my early days in the game where my friends and I would try to three man dungeons (all of us in DPS specs) ”
++ to this. I can still remember taking just a hunter, a warlock and a mage to various places and pet tanking and CCing our way as far as we could get. Good times! I have always been a bit dispointed that the newer stuff always ‘requires’ a standardized party.
The Dungeon Finder is my favourite addition to the game they’ve ever added, but if I have one regret about it, it’s that it doesn’t allow for the wacky group compositions we used to be able to have at low level. “Okay, the ret pally will heal, and the hunter’s cat will tank. Let’s do this!”
I think hunters and locks should be able to queue as tanks for dungeons below level 30.
Forgot to reserve a couple of names…guess I need and Alli and a Horde panda and mix up the classes a little 😀
Good thing I still have one slot open!
Eatshootsleaves.
YES!!
Troutwort your comment got marked as spam. I’m gonna have to ask you to post more meaningful comments, such as ways to optimize our blog search hits or where to get cheap russian viagra, please.
I need a hunter named that!!!
Anapanda is great :). Or how about pandanada? Of course i was hoping for a pandadin, but i’ll settle for 1 panda monk, and 1 gnome monk 🙂