Mists of Pandaria

[Ingmar]

Also god forbid someone ever make something for non-white people?

[Rasix]

Mexicans never get an expansion.  We're always left out. 

[Sjofn]

If I ever make a MMO, Rasix, it'll be nothing BUT Mexican-theme shit.

[Paelos]

Mexicans never get an expansion.  We're always left out. 

I would be interested to see this theme. Would it involve sombreros?

[Sjofn]

Man, do you even need to ask?

[Rasix]

Mexicans never get an expansion.  We're always left out. 

I would be interested to see this theme. Would it involve sombreros?

It better.  

[Ginaz]

Logged in.  Played about 5 mins before getting to a quest where you have to go burn some some of edict.  Get to the place where the burning is supposed to be done.  Encounter wall to wall man Pandas making it impossible to click on whats needed.  Repeat attempts to click for the next 10 mins.  Fuck that shit.  Log out.

[Trippy]

edit: Seriously, if the "Asian theme" in MoP is anything like the other vaguely cultural themes the other races have, it's as likely to annoy the Asian players as to pander to them, because it will be a huge mishmosh of the different Asian cultures, giving off a delightful "whatever, they're all the same, rite?" vibe.

Unless they have different content for the Chinese-speaking countries/territories that seems unlikely. It wouldn't make good business sense to piss off half of your global player base.

[Sjofn]

It would involve a) giving a fuck and b) actually knowing anything about said cultures. Now grant you, they have a much, much, much higher incentive to give a fuck in this case, as opposed to, you know, the tauren. But they don't have a great track record here.

And even if they do it right (which I honestly hope they do), that's only pandering to the Chinese. 

[Rokal]

Logged in.  Played about 5 mins before getting to a quest where you have to go burn some some of edict.  Get to the place where the burning is supposed to be done.  Encounter wall to wall man Pandas making it impossible to click on whats needed.  Repeat attempts to click for the next 10 mins.  Fuck that shit.  Log out.

If you stand at the door and then try clicking you'll have a much easier time than if you join the huge clump of players. That said, this is what I'm talking about when I say the beta isn't all it's cracked up to be.

[Hutch]

Logged in.  Played about 5 mins before getting to a quest where you have to go burn some some of edict.  Get to the place where the burning is supposed to be done.  Encounter wall to wall man Pandas making it impossible to click on whats needed.  Repeat attempts to click for the next 10 mins.  Fuck that shit.  Log out.

Oh you shoulda been in there a week or two ago, when the god damn scroll thing was only respawning when the server got reset.

[Ratman_tf]

Logged in.  Played about 5 mins before getting to a quest where you have to go burn some some of edict.  Get to the place where the burning is supposed to be done.  Encounter wall to wall man Pandas making it impossible to click on whats needed.  Repeat attempts to click for the next 10 mins.  Fuck that shit.  Log out.

Oh you shoulda been in there a week or two ago, when the god damn scroll thing was only respawning when the server got reset.

Good to hear that Blizzard is still on the cutting edge of making retarted quests.  

[apocrypha]

that's only pandering to the Chinese. 

Bad Sjofn!

[Sjofn]

What? What did I do? 

[Modern Angel]

Also god forbid someone ever make something for non-white people?

GW2 Nightfall.

I remember logging in and all the white kids freaking out in chat.

[Sjofn]

I remember logging into Nightfall as my brand new black chick and seeing NOTHING BUT WHITE PEOPLE AS FAR AS THE EYE COULD SEE.

Branch out, nerds!

[Rasix]

Arizona law SB1090 does not allow us to portray people of "dark pigmentation" online.   

[Sjofn]

I hope at some point GW2 does ~Fantasy India~, that seems like it would be cool.

[Modern Angel]

I remember logging into Nightfall as my brand new black chick and seeing NOTHING BUT WHITE PEOPLE AS FAR AS THE EYE COULD SEE.

Branch out, nerds!

That, too. African faces, pale white skin. Names like Galahad Mortimer.

[Xuri]

Won a beta-invite key in a contest at work (heh) so I logged in to test the thing out.

The entire walled-in starting area was literally filled with Pandas. Pandas piled on top of the first quest-giver. Pandas piled on top of weaponracks you have to interact with - and half of those bugged out because someone were either stuck in looting mode or intentionally kept the looting window open to keep other players from being able to use them. 10 pandas to each training dummy you have to attack and destroy - and only the first attacker gets credit for the kill. Pandas piling on top of the burning fire thing, with people spamming chat with a command to use the interactable object when it spawned. Three minutes of spamming that command, and I finally managed to burn the damn thing. :P

[Ingmar]

Also god forbid someone ever make something for non-white people?

GW2 Nightfall.

I remember logging in and all the white kids freaking out in chat.

Well right, that's my point. Someone does something non-Western-default and all of a sudden we're "pandering to the Asians" or "WTF I HAS A FRO".

[Azazel]

Moving swiftly back on topic, yeah I'll be giving MoP a go when it's out. I've also found my urge to play WoW sneaks up and then fades away again very, very quickly if I indulge it. I've just unsubbed again after havng resubbed for only 2 months. But, I have several good friends who will be playing it and playing anything with them is more fun than playing Teh Bestest Game Evar without them.

This is what always used to happen to me. I always lasted for about 1.5 gamecards before my interest tanked. So about 3 months give or take 2 weeks.

I'm addicted all over.  The raid finder & dungeon finder gives me exactly what I cared about: seeing bosses, doing fights without any of the inter-guild politics.   Sure, sometimes I get shit groups and sometimes I rage but it's so much more accessible now.   

So long as I don't care about being a 2nd class citizen with loot it's even more casual than it was when I was raiding.   Two to three hours on the weekend and I've got all the valor and have run my raids.  Done! 

Not to mention I'm not stuck with any one character anymore.  In a guild you were the slot you'd applied with.  Tank, Healer, DPS.  Now that I can play whatever I feel like I've got 4 raid-capable characters now and I'm working on the 5th.  In and out in a day or less.  Sure, the gearing's slower (esp. with assholes looting pieces to trade later) but they're trying to address that in MoP.  Addiction, man.. addiction.

Now this is much more accurate. Since I haven't cared about Raiding since EQ before WoW released, I've always been a second-class citizen. I liked running dungeons, but hated putting groups together. My guild is large and useless, with lots of cliques who do their own thing, and I have no connection to any of the people in it. (Stay for the perks!) My RL friends who we used to play with either mostly play LOTRO after one of them had a huge meltdown ragequit over AV imbalance that made Paelos "I quit" thread last year seem incredibly moderate, and the other is just alt-addicted and plays on about 6 servers which he has filled with characters.

Now I can run baby-raids and see the content (OK, I'd like to at least see the other raids too) and I can do any dungeon with confidence and competence. I'm supremely worried that they will fuck that up though, with "level your pants" being put in over actual gear upgrades from JP. Hopefully there'll be a huge backlash and they will put proper gear back on the vendors after a couple of months.

[FieryBalrog]

JP is still supposed to be vendor gear, it's VP that's changing.

Or so I think.

[Sheepherder]

As far as I'm aware they've announced no changes to JP.

[El Gallo]

Logged in.  Played about 5 mins before getting to a quest where you have to go burn some some of edict.  Get to the place where the burning is supposed to be done.  Encounter wall to wall man Pandas making it impossible to click on whats needed.  Repeat attempts to click for the next 10 mins.  Fuck that shit.  Log out.

Oh you shoulda been in there a week or two ago, when the god damn scroll thing was only respawning when the server got reset.

Good to hear that Blizzard is still on the cutting edge of making retarted quests.  

You'll be happy, and no doubt shocked, to learn that they ended up changing this conscious design decision.  Because it certainly wasn't a beta bug.  No siree.

[Azazel]

I got my JP and VP mixed up. The point remains.

[luckton]

As an FYI, the Annual Pass sign-up thing expires 4/30/12.  If you do not sign up for it by then, you miss out on free Diablo III, MoP beta, and the mount.

Also a FYI, and I suppose this was in the FAQ but I either missed it or misunderstood it, the Annual Pass thing is not a 'pay a year subscription all up front' thing.  It just locks you into a year of whatever payment plan you're on, just like a cell phone contract.  So I'm still paying $15 a month.

I did not know about this until I just tried to sign-up myself.  Don't know why I waited so long...oh right, SWTOR was supposed to be the second coming of Christ.  Riiiight.   

[FieryBalrog]

Why wouldn't you switch to a 6 month plan?

[Rokal]

Any bets on what the Annual pass perks will be after 4/30?

Guessing the offer will be less generous than D3 for free, given that subscriptions have stabilized and they have an end-game focused expansion around the corner. Assuming they get MoP out before the end of the summer, that removes free MoP as a realistic annual pass perk (as most people will be renewing in October or November if they signed up early).

[Hutch]

I expect it to go away altogether. The Annual Pass was a panic button. They did it to try and shore up their sub numbers, in the wake of the Cata launch.

The only reason it worked (if it worked) was because they threw in a "free" copy of D3. I obviously can't speak for anyone else, but I sure as hell didn't buy it for the mount. Getting into the MoP beta was neat, but not something I'd pay money for.

(cue jokes about how all MMO launches are paid betas)

Blizzard can't go to that well again, anytime soon. How long did D3 take to develop? Depends on how you count. If you count the length of the Rumors thread, it's been 4 years at least.
If you count since the launch of D2, it's been more like 12 years.
Next time WoW loses a million subs, Blizz will have to come up with some other incentive to stanch the wound.

[Simond]

Heart of the Swarm.

[FieryBalrog]

Simpler than that. Why not just make Mists free for next annual pass? $40 vs $60, but hey, you snooze you lose. Also they could throw something else in.

Edit: saw Rokal's post. Well, it could just be for people who didn't do the original annual pass.

Otherwise, I don't know. Compared to D3, Heart of the Swarm is a a much less sexy choice for a lot of WoW's sub base. I plan on buying HotS but there's no way I'd commit to a year sub for it after already committing to one year.

[luckton]

So while I sit here waiting for my MoP invite, a new patch came out.

New Glyphs
 Dark Binding: You can now cast Binding Heal, Flash Heal, and Renew without cancelling Shadowform.
 Glyph of Distracting Shot: Your Distracting Shot now distracts the target to attack your pet instead of you.
 Glyph of Outbreak: Your Outbreak spell no longer has a cooldown, but now costs 40 Runic Power.
 Glyph of the Blazing Trail: Your Charge leaves a trail of fire in its wake. If you're going to Charge, why not do it with some style?
 Glyph of Transcendence: Increases the range of your Transcendence: Transfer spell by 10 yards.
 Glyph of Arcane Language: Your Arcane Brilliance spell allows you to comprehend your allies' racial languages.
 Glyph of Deadly Momentum: When you land a killing blow on an opponent that yields experience or honor, your Slice and Dice and Recuperate abilities are refreshed to their original duration.
 Chaotic Energy: You drain energy directly from the twisting nether. Your mana regenerates 650% faster and your spell haste also increases your mana regeneration.  Replaces Life Tap.
 Glyph of Dark Soul: While off cooldown, your Dark Soul ability passively grants you 10% of the active effect, but reduces the power of Dark Soul by 10%.
 Glyph of Hand of Gul'dan: Your Hand of Gul'dan can now be targetted at a location.
 Glyph of Imp Swarm: Teaches you the ability Imp Swarm. Requires Demonology.
 Glyph of Verdant Spheres: Your Soul Shards are transformed into Verdant Spheres.

Nice to see they're finally having fun with the Glyph system instead of it just being a "your main stuff hits harder" crap.  

[Sjofn]

Glyph of Arcane Language: Your Arcane Brilliance spell allows you to comprehend your allies' racial languages.

I know a bunch of RPers that just had an orgasm.

[Azazel]

I expect it to go away altogether. The Annual Pass was a panic button. They did it to try and shore up their sub numbers, in the wake of the Cata launch.

The only reason it worked (if it worked) was because they threw in a "free" copy of D3. I obviously can't speak for anyone else, but I sure as hell didn't buy it for the mount. Getting into the MoP beta was neat, but not something I'd pay money for.

(cue jokes about how all MMO launches are paid betas)

Blizzard can't go to that well again, anytime soon. How long did D3 take to develop? Depends on how you count. If you count the length of the Rumors thread, it's been 4 years at least.
If you count since the launch of D2, it's been more like 12 years.
Next time WoW loses a million subs, Blizz will have to come up with some other incentive to stanch the wound.

Hutch is right. It was a panic button. I was coming back anyway (after a year off) but I would likely have played for 2 gamecards - ie 4 months, then taken 6-12 months off again, likely resub over the Christmas break.. Since I was going to buy D3 anyway, (and I'm a tool for cool looking mounts) it was a "whatthefuck - why not?" for me. Without the D3 and mount, I'd be wasting my time on BF3 and XBox instead by now.

The Beta hasn't been worth the 15 minutes I've spent in it. Starting a Panda there were 4,324,234,564,466,576,456 other newb pandas in the same tiny area, all trying to click on the same starter NPC, so I said "fuck it" and logged off. Trying my other toons, there was no obvious way for me to get my 85s to the new areas, no heroes calls, or NPCs pointing me to the expansion so I just said "fuck it" and logged off. It's actually made me less interested in the expansion.

Heart of the Swarm wouldn't be a big enough draw - Mists? I think that would work.