WoW - Mists of Pandaria

[RollCasket]

To get it out of the way...new race Pandarans, new class Monk, lvl cap 90, and your standard fare of new dungeons/raids/battlegrounds...and then Blizzard displays their EPIC TROLLING ABILITIES by announcing...a ...

what...the...fuck...

You level vanity pets (can be named and hold an item), battle them, ability to trade/sell on AH, find wild pets that are different during day/night/weather and catch them...this is absolutely fucking bonkers.

There are a ton of other changes and such that are also pretty crazy though not quite as batshit crazy, check http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/

[Soeroah]

Looking insanely forward and about to read through everything. I don't care if people say they are quitting, let them quit. Mabye the community will get nicer.


/squee

[Bear]

These announcements have certainly hindered me getting the coloring done on this Friday's comic on time. Luckily Pie is way behind on background because this one was line work heavy, so I'm still waiting on her.

I have a lot to say about the changes, but first of all:

FUCK YES!
New non-faction specific race - I never liked factions, but WoW did a good job solidifying why I HATE factions so much. Great job making me pick which of my friends to hang out with. This is a nice change in the other direction, but still short of what I want since I will have to choose after level 10...

Addressing class homogenization - This really killed the game for me, too much of the same shit between classes. Similar buffs, no way to really min/max for the sake of "freeing raid composition". Fuck raid composition, whats the point if you don't have places where certain abilities/skills are more powerful? Do equal damage on Ragnarok in Fire spec as Ice spec - god I hate that shit. Hopefully new talents will make builds more interesting- but ONE talent per 15 levels?! WTF? At least its a step in the right direction.

Reducing importance of class roles - One of the many, long necessary changes, but I don't think WoW will ever be able to completely eradicate Tank/Heals/DPS roles, which I would love to see.


FUCK NO
Monk's are a non hero class - WHY?! Why must I have 20 levels of new content followed by 65 of (now) old content. Christ. I leveled enough new characters in Cata. I don't want to trudge through the same old shit again just to be a damn panda.

Complete God Damn Overhaul - Yes, change is good and necessary, but god damn man. I don't even have enough time to stay up to date with all these changes, and reading EJ every time a patch drops, let alone massive expansion-by-expansion changes, just to maximize my character performance is boring as fuck. No thanks.

CONCLUSION:
Anyways, that's my rant. Bottom line - too little, too late Blizz (at least for me). Maybe because I came in during late Wrath, but I just don't care enough to pay $60 bucks for an expansion and $15 for one month to check out Pandaria.

I'm just gonna stick with Guild Wars 2, thanks.

[RollCasket]

Wow...you said a lot there and I SHOULD wait to reply when im not on my phone but anyway...

Im up and down about factions but I don't mind em too much cause my problem with most mmos is people on the wrong SERVER...so yeah >.>

At the very least, monk is pretty different and they say if it goes well will pave the way for other classes and other possible changes. The talents every 15 shouldn't be an issue cause you still get class spells and spec skills (like earth shield) while leveling. This is more to help with that very issue of everyone being the same with the same spec. As far as ice doing more than fire on rag...please no, they had that in vanilla and a lil in bc and nothing is worse than spell immune mobs.

I love class roles because it gives me totally different ways to play the game, I def preffer class roles as an altoholic. I know not everyone feels the same way, but without it I woulda stopped playing forever ago.

They're not a hero class though cause its a race, they can be multiple classes. I think their old world revamp and leveling process is the best part of the game now though. If you haven't gotten to do the newer raids though they're pretty fun now too.

The revamping and relearning is def a pain...ESP for me with having every class...but having played since vanilla I'm used to it changing every expansion =P

[Soeroah]

The changes each expansion is one of the things I enjoy. It almost feels like a different game every time an expansion drops, so I don't get bored :p

[Bear]

Yeah, I know Pandaren are a race, but I wish that the Monk class was a hero class, so you wouldn't have to start from scratch again. Like, starting at 70 would have been a nice marker, I think.

Yeha, I have to agree that if they didn't change, it would get boring. But the level of change seems rather drastic for relatively short intervals. In Ragnarok Online, change came very seldom, so maybe I'm just used to that pace?

In my last post I was being over dramatic, I mean, I would play it because change is interesting, but I don't think I would want to put as much money into it. If I went back into WoW at this point, I would WANT to be playing with Pie, and assuming 3 months of play that's almost $200 which is a big pill to swallow. Sorry if I was raining on anyone's parade haha

[RollCasket]

Yeah WoW has always changed a lot with every patch...totally different from well...a lot of mmos really. Like I said I think I'm just used to it at this point, and to be kinda honest Cata almost killed the game for me entirely, so it's good for them that they are changing so much to keep me interested...bad cause it keeps me interested, lol.

I can understand the financial thing though, so don't think you're raining on anyone's parade, heh.

[Thrishmal]

I am somewhat torn on the expansion. I think some of the new mechanics and content they are adding could be a lot of fun, like the pet combat system. I also think that they are really changing the game more than they need to be. When I first read the announcement I couldn't help but feel that this expansion was going to be a massive departure from their previous ones; that could be a really good thing or a really bad thing.

I have to agree with Bear about being disappointed that Monk is not going to be a hero class. I have leveled around 20 characters over the years from 1-60/85 and have to say that leveling in that game has gotten quite dull. I will say that I enjoyed leveling through the Cataclysm content once per faction but after that, I just lose interest. Granted, this all is probably just due to higher burnout rate due to six years of the same game.

While I may go back to WoW to level through the Pandaria content, I doubt it will pull me away for long from SWTOR or GW2.

[RollCasket]

Maybe it's just me, but it doesn't seem like they're really changing things all that drastically. To be honest, I think it's maybe more of an issue that you guys are content with expansions like what Guild Wars does where it's like...a new class or two, a new area, and some new items...there are content patches with almost as much in WoW and you don't pay for those. In fact most of the expansion changes will be playable a week or more ahead of time.

In any case, I flop back and forth about WoW a lot about stuff I do and don't like but I keep playing anyway...mostly cause of friends that keep pulling me back in. I DO love leveling though, as I now have 9 85s, but thats not the main reason I don't want monk a hero class. I loved the DK starter itself...but it's extremely jarring once you finish it, and as my DK is my only non 85 (81 still) I just haven't bothered cause it's so boring. So yeah, I'd hate to see monk end the same way, esp since they're trying something new with it I want it to succeed and not become the new "huntards" that DKs are now...well, DKs and retadins...yikes.