Mists of Pandaria

[Zetor]

I have zero problem with them being easy, really... they aren't any more trivial than daily quests (have I mentioned in this post how much daily quests suck? if not, I'll say that now  ) or farming trivially-easy mobs in felwood / silithus / elemental plateau / icecrown / tol barad (pick your favorite expansion). Just the fact that there are two other players in there immensely adds to the replayability and reduces tedium for me. (see also: invasions in RIFT and basically the entire game in GW2)

My main concern is just that being a healer in a scenario is kind of... pointless, and I'm not entirely convinced that it wouldn't be better for a tank to just use a damage spec.

[Rendakor]

I really dislike these stupid monkey people and their annoying slang.

[Jimbo]

ARRRRRRGH!!!  Cure you, you damn poke-mon game!  I spent hours playing and leveling my pets and went to see if I could capture a baby murloc I saw before I trained in pet battles.  This will keep me from leveling like I should be doing, instead I'm out trying to battle and catch them.

[Merusk]

I warned you!

Though, it does slow down once you hit level 12 with a group.. at least it did for me in beta.

[luckton]

I'm not even gonna worry about the pet thing till I'm lvl 90 and had my fill of quests and stuff.  If they keep their promise of trying to bang out new patches at a faster pace than Cata, I ain't got time for Pokemons.  I gotta get my raid on 

Just a couple more hours at work.

[Ginaz]

I logged in for a bit around 4am mst and saw nothing but pandas running around SW.  I probably won't get much time to play today since I'm shooting on the range all day but I'll be going in balls deep this weekend.

[Zetor]

Logged on my resto shaman, figured I'd try out dungeon leveling (mostly because screw questing on a pvp server at launch, especially with cross-realm zones). 14min queue - mkay, I need to clear out my bank and read up on MOP stuff. Anyway, the queue pops, I get in a group that apparently lost its healer, and then...

"Transfer Aborted: instance is full"

I point this out to the group, get zero feedback. Keep trying for a minute or two, same results. Shadowpriest pipes up, asking 'still full?', I say yeah. I spend another minute trying and looking up where to find the entrance to the instance (I note that the group's fighting through all this, with healthbars going up/down), then I get votekicked out of the blue. 10 mins before I can queue again, woo!

Sounds like a new WOW expansion, alright.

[Hutch]

I played a teeny bit this morning. Long enough to uncap my professions, do the fishing and cooking dailies in Org, and then catch the awesome-looking new Horde airship to "Paint this new land RED", on the orders of my increasingly crazy warchief. And then did a couple hub's worth of quests in the Jade Forest.


Anyhow. I am digging questing so far. I like the new gear symbol, above objects that you have to interact with for quests.

[Merusk]

[Setanta]

50 minutes into it and I was bored rotten. The storytelling was all :metzen: and the gameplay was nothing new and the graphics although improved, feel really dated. Maybe hitting 10 level 85s in Cata has ruined the game for me, but I thought that after a decent break I'd be refreshed and ready to give this a go. Obviously not.

TSW and GW2 have ruined WoW for me.

Maybe I'll just roll a Panda and check out the starting zone

[Rendakor]

I disagree; once you get done the introductory quests, it opens up a lot and I'm really liking the "quest through the area however you want" much better than the on rails approach of Cata. I'm almost 87 and having a blast; the quests are pretty interesting and there are a lot of nice QoL improvements (a lot of quest items are clickable while mounted, for example). My only complaint is that they've taken the "back to WotLK" full tilt which means more vehicle quests. 

The two 85 normal dungeons are both easy and short; I'd say run each at least once for the quests because they're worth of ton of xp.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Someone in my guild got an achievement for the irst dungeon within 20minutes of the expansion coming out, it was a bit 

[Zetor]

I keep trying to press my mouse side button for active dodging, and trying to cast ground effects by just pointing the mouse at the location and using the skill, then being annoyed when the targeting circle pops up.

More importantly, I'm assisting every other quester in killing their mobs and don't rush over to mining nodes as soon as I see them (which obviously means they're gone by the time I make my way over there). Ah, GW2, you have broken me on a psychological level 


To add some actually relevant comments, I don't really mind the quests so far, though I wonder if I'll still be saying that when I am leveling my third toon. I am kind of miffed about the dungeon queues and the general lack of them (there are maybe 2+2 of them that are available before level 90?); dungeon xp seems low too, which is a pity because I loved leveling 100% in dungeons in cata. The dungeons themselves are pretty over-the-top, especially the brewery... but I'm fine with that too!

[Paelos]

I like it so far. The Jade Temple dungeon wasn't bad with my guild group of all melee and a healer, and the questing zones are total chaos early on. It feels like a war because there are people everywhere fighting nonstop spawns. I'm almost 86 on my warrior tank, but I haven't worked my way through the jade zone much yet.

A couple of quests actually made me laugh out loud, both of them dealing with flashbacks and raccoons. Another quest with the sniper was really fun, and the quest to keep balanced in your dream state was a nice touch.

Downside? Overpopulation of zones can drive some insane (not me because I'm a grinder). Also, panda children/cubs are fucking creepy. The look is creepy, the voices are super creepy, and the animations just seal the whole thing into one big creeper creepfest of a design. DO NOT WANT.

[luckton]

Finished Jade Forest this morning.  So much stuff to cover...I'll just throw out random bullet thoughts.

- Airship intro was 
- Ghost Iron...Ghost Iron everywhere.  Already at 585 Mining and 580 Jewelcrafting.
- Jewelcrafting changes are niiiiiiiice.  No more daily quest for currency, now it's just Inscription-style research that gives a pattern AND a couple of pre-cut gems.  The JC-only 'eye' gem generation is simplified; already have about 8 eye gems ready to cut when I'm ready.  And I've already picked up two meta gem recipes from mob killing.
- It may be 'Metzen' style, but questing is a far cry better than when this game started now.  The kill 10 foozles stuff is there, sure, but most were relatively painless to complete and didn't have me walking all over damnation to do.  The flavor quests, like the sniper thing that was mentioned, was fun.
- I could listen to these music tracks all day long
- Unique NPCs with unique speech/click voices.   
- Maxed First Aid with little effort.  Took maybe 100 of the new cloth and now I have 100k HP bandages.   
- Pet battle icons everywhere.  Clicked on one just for kicks and had my lvl 1 drake vs a lvl 25 tanooki.  Needless to say, I did not survive 
- Minor issue with quest rewards: Your reward is now dictated by the spec you're in when you turn the quest in.  Sometimes you get an option, like at the end of a story line that gives a rare-qual item, but otherwise if you don't like the tank item being offered, you gotta switch to DPS/heal/vice-versa to get the 'other' reward.
- Kite taxi 

Moving onto Valley of the Four Winds today after work.  Can't wait to start my Farmvile adventure. 

[Setanta]

Ok, I may have had some fun. Logged my DK, specced to blood as I found out the hard way that the geist glyph shuts down dark transformation (WTF) in unholy. Went into the temple and got to the point where I could non-stop pull packs and disease the crap out of them.

Rolled a Panda monk - ok, but I miss the personal story and scenarios in GW2. Plus the dodge mechanism, plus the AoE to mouse mechanism, plus the scenarios. Yeah, GW2 wrecked WoW for me I think. It's "nice" the way an old jumper is "nice". I just don't feel immersed. I can remember being a hard-core raider in Vanilla, but those days are over. WoW is going to be a very casual thing for me.

BTW, I'm sick of hitting "F" to loot/interact etc in WoW - god I miss that.

Caveat: Maybe I'm bitter as all hell towards Blizzard after the Cataclysm/Diablo 3 fails.

[Paelos]

Yeah it doesn't sound like you are taking the game at face. Which is your choice, because you can compare your fun however you want, but it does sound a little bitter.

[Fabricated]

I have literally 0 interest in logging onto WoW while I have Torchlight 2, Borderlands 2, and a backlog of steam titles. I still have my sub going however; derp. Need to cancel for now and come back when I'm done with my ARPG/shooterfest.

[Ironwood]

Ditto.

[Merusk]

Re: Dungeon XP - The Xp gain is still good in dungeons.  What you're seeing is that it takes a SHITLOAD of Xp to make each level.  Since there's only 5 levels they've upped the XP per level significantly vs. Cata where it was still at WOTLK levels.   People who did the "save 25 dailies to turn in" thing only got a bubble out of it, not half a level like at Cata launch.

Enjoying the hell out of it even though I played a bit of beta.  Helps that I skipped nodes and zones and didn't push too hard as I was just trying to get a feel for the new skills and talents. 

There's a shitton of ore nodes everywhere and they're respawning PDQ so while I'll get pissy if someone takes a node while I'm fighting the mob on it, it's never too long before it or another pop again.

Those disinterested/ bored: You're done with the game. It's returned to the state of WOTLK and doesn't seem to have any of the problems Cata did with cranking the difficulty and focusing on the wrong crowd.  If you can't enjoy it now I'll posit you're simply not interested in WoW itself anymore.  That's fine, but move on and don't return because you'll just be a bitter bitch when you do.  Admit it to yourself, enjoy the time you had and don't invest any more money for the Xp or the game time that'll just turn you more bitter about it.  You should know this by now and after all these games.

[Paelos]

I don't like the alliance has to ally with fish people, but Horde get to ally with monkey people.

1 - Fish people are ugly
2 - I WANT TO ALLY WITH MONKIES

[Hutch]

I think that in order for Blizzard to steal the GW2 shared-resource model, they'd have to crank down on the number of nodes available. Because damn, I mined a ton of ghost iron last night.

Jade Forest is either flippin' huge, or it just seems that way because flying mounts don't work.

I started in on Archaeology. While digging in the Arboretum, I was assaulted by what seems to be a special Archy mob. Resembled a Sha. He dropped Mogu shards as loot. Nice touch.

I completely have passed by on pet battles so far. Not out of disdain; I just keep forgetting to go visit the trainer.

In other pet news, I have tamed a crane, a porcupine, and one of the wasps from the Arboretum so far. I immediately ditched the wasp, because he reminded me why I don't already have a wasp pet. (I hate the noise they make). The cats in the JF are too pretty, so I'll probably have one of those soon. I wish I could upgrade my stable.

[Hutch]

I don't like the alliance has to ally with fish people, but Horde get to ally with monkey people.

1 - Fish people are ugly
2 - I WANT TO ALLY WITH MONKIES

One of the horde npc's has the opposite rant. "The Alliance outnumber us 30 to 1, and we're allied with monkies!"

[Paelos]

It's a proud day when you can ally with monkies. This NPC should be shot.

[Merusk]

It's not just you, Jade Forest is HUUUGE. So are the next two zones.  I think they're larger than Nagrand and that zone was large.

Really, pass pet battles until 90 unless you want to take your time leveling. 1) It's much more of a time killer than you expect when you first get in to it.  2) If you're like me you'll be pissed when leveling and you see all the level 25 critters around you that you can't tame and it'll just tempt you to go level your team up instead.

I went back to the hunter main myself and, yeah, tons of tamables I want.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Best part of pet battles? Re-naming my Mr. Grubby to Hans Grubber

[Selby]

Lots of idiots in Jade Forest last night.  Think I'll let the fury die down over the next few days and focus on alts ;-)

[Rendakor]

I started up the pet battles today; it's very Pokemon-esque which is a good thing. Made it to level 6 or so with my squad (Mini Deathwing, Netherray Fry, and Clockwork Gnome). How do you rename them?

The zones are really large, but in a good way ala Nagrand/STV and not "This is so boring and forever taking!" like Deepholme.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Right click their portraits on the left-hand side of the ui to rename/dismiss etc.  Also bear in mind most of the pets you had are poor quality and that catching in the wild will sometimes yield uncommon and rare pets with much better base stats.

[Pennilenko]

I am really happy with the whole expansion and all of the changes. I have only one minor tiny complaint, I want to be able to sort my battle pets by quality, and or level, and right now I can't or at the very least I can not figure out how.

[Trippy]

Parndaria starter area is a bit underwhelming so far. Done a little more than half I think? At level 6 now.

[Pennilenko]

Parndaria starter area is a bit underwhelming so far. Done a little more than half I think? At level 6 now.

I disagree I think it is nice. I thought that the goblin and worgen starts were terrible and long.

[Simond]

The only mod you need for pet battles: http://www.curse.com/addons/wow/pet-battle-pokemon-music

[Merusk]

Right click their portraits on the left-hand side of the ui to rename/dismiss etc.  Also bear in mind most of the pets you had are poor quality and that catching in the wild will sometimes yield uncommon and rare pets with much better base stats.

It won't affect much for the player trainer or overland battles (unless you run in to a rare that's of a strong type vs your squad), but in PVP battles, yeah, you'll get wtfpwnd.   They changed it so some of the harder to acquire old pets are 'rare' quality.   Here's the list.   
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/6080522555

Rendakor - the only 'rare' quality pet you're using is the Clockwork Gnome.  You'll want to change your squad if you plan on doing player vs player battling.

[Rokal]

I'm digging it so far despite coming down with the flu on Monday. The quest flow isn't quite as boring as 1-60 and Cata, the zones are beautiful, and it feels like they have made an investment to telling story through the game this time. The lorewalker stuff is the obvious example (which is what arch should have been) but the quest themselves also seem to have a bit more meat to them.The normal alliance/horde heroes and villains are all more or less mia and the game is free to tell new stories which is pretty refreshing. Plus no Thrall (so far).

You can tell there was a greater attention to detail compared to Cata.