Mists of Pandaria: My Photos from Blizzcon

[Sadron]

I'm just going to throw this out there.

Monk class.

[Sol]

FLAMINGOS!

[Beltharean]

PANDARIA

Spoiler:

Couched in myth and legend, rarely seen and even more rarely understood, the enigmatic pandaren have long been a mystery to the other races of Azeroth. The noble history of the pandaren people stretches back thousands of years, well before the empires of man and before even the sundering of the world.

Denizens of a wondrous and fertile land, the pandaren once labored under the oppressive thumb of a monstrous race of ancient warlords known as the Mogu. Through tenacity, diplomacy, and a unique form of unarmed combat, the pandaren staged a successful revolution that deposed the Mogu and established a pandaren empire that would prosper for thousands of years.

During the bleak days that preceded the sundering of the world, when demons flooded onto Azeroth and threw the entirety of the mortal realm into jeopardy, the last Emperor of the pandaren discovered a way to protect his land from the devastation. His deal with fate shrouded his land within an impenetrable mist for ten thousand years, but the nature of his transaction has left Pandaria haunted ever since...

VALLEY OF THE FOUR WINDS

Spoiler:

A tranquil plain of lush farmland, bordered by dense mysterious jungles along the south and impassible mountains to the north. The valley is considered the "breadbasket" of Pandaria, but the year’s harvest is in jeopardy and a terrible malaise has overcome the pandaren that live along the coast. The valley is also the home of the legendary Stormstout Brewery, where Chen Stormstout and his niece Li Li hope to journey to discover the whereabouts of their long-lost ancestors.

Featuring lush farmland in the north and dense jungles along the coast to the south, the fertile Valley of the Four Winds is the breadbasket of Pandaria. Players will join Chen Stormstout to discover his family’s roots at the legendary Stormstout Brewery. Meanwhile, trouble is also brewing along the great wall that protects the Pandaren Empire from the mantid swarms to the west….

The Stormstout Brewery

Spoiler:

The Stormstout Brewery has been overrun by the Hozu. According to Blizzard, they couldn't resist making the main theme of the instance monkeys, because they mesh so well with the thousands of barrels that will be in the instance. The Brewery of course, belongs to the infamous Chen Stormstout's ancestors.

Spoiler:

From the outside

Spoiler:

A typical room; Seemingly everywhere is some form of storage for barrels. They each contain a different brew, and according to Blizzard, in the instance you'll be able to hit them for different effects.

Spoiler:

A pandaren brewing tank

Spoiler:

A bridge connecting two rooms from the outside

[Dareksar]

In my honest opinion the Pandaren should be able to choose to stay completely neutral, having their own capital city and be able to go to both side's cities, but never gain reputation past neutral etc. Also, the PvE Scenario BGs are a good fix to the fact of no real PvP for Pandas in that situation. Just an idea, please dont flame me! (Even though CoTH population is overall very friendly).

EDIT: Also, they could make Pandaria a place where the neutral Pandaren can attack both Horde and Alliance.

[CappnRob]

I abhor people who go DURRHURR TOO CARTOONY. MoP has the best art direction I've seen in WoW, it is colorful and vibrant, but also centrally themed (unlike TBC) while still being varied (unlike WotLK). Babies gonna bawwww.

The one thing that does kill me here is that they haven't updated the old models for the Player Characters. In addition to them being a bit lower on the polycount than contemporary models, their textures and hair are very inconsistent to the current style, and in general, they've just learned so much in how to make things for WoW over the years, I feel like they should apply themselves here.
Just look at how much more accurate and stretch-free armor textures are on Worgen and Goblins compared to Vanilla models.

I mean, they remodeled the face of Azeroth in a way that fits their current look- with this entire new and foreign environment, they're going to look like they're from a different game.


But on the expansion itself, Pandarens were an inevitability. No one should be suprised.

That much I will agree with. You compare the human models to blood elves or draenei, then compare that to the worgen and goblins, it looks silly. They should do a total overhaul of most if not all Vanilla races, especially since they showed us how good humans can look with the Vykrul models.

[Anski]

All this time and nobody thought to go explore the gigantic continent on the other side of Azeroth?

[Mikain]

Hey, man. If they can forget continents in TES, they can do it in WoW!

[Rigley]

There was some kinda explanation that there was some magic thingy protecting it 'till the Cataclysm broke it.

So rank the reasoning up there with the whole 'Kul'tiras isn't around because of tectonic plates' explanation. :B


Eh, regardless. Also I heard somewhere that they were actually planning on updating old player models for this game and god I hope they do. Seriously, looking at the caliber of the art in this new expansion it just doesn't feel like the original models are even from the same game!

...Then again it already feels like that if you put them in Cata gear.

[Binkleheimer]

I wanna play it.

[FlyingSquirrel]

Eh. Pandaren have really been popular for a while now. I just feel like this was a move by Blizzard to get old players from Classic and such back at the promise of Pandaren.

[flammos200]

About Monks: You can be a monk/brewmaster-like thingy with any race except Worgen and Goblins. /nod.

Not really any news. Any race in the WoW-Rpg could be a Brewmaster. But yeah. Fun...

The Monk class is the only change that I approve of in the entire expansion.

Flight at max level? No Dual Wield, instead using single-item dual wield weapons? No Auto-attack? Pokemon battles?- Okay, I have to admit, pokemon battles are kinda' okay...

ALSO! Mists of Pandaria makes use of Azshara Crater: Dota-like map.

[Daggermouth]

I'm not sure about this expansion.

WoW jumped the shark, nothing more nothing less.

Basing an entire expansion around a joke character from the unofficial campaign of the expansion of the third game in a series is not a good sign.

[flammos200]

I'm not sure about this expansion.

WoW jumped the shark, nothing more nothing less.

Basing an entire expansion around a joke character from the unofficial campaign of the expansion of the third game in a series is not a good sign.

While I find that MoP is my least favorite of all WoW expansions, I do have to counter that point, on principle, if not for any other reason.

In the RPG books, for instance, the Pandaren race was given -extremely- large amounts of background Lore, and the same goes for Pandaria itself. The Pandaren way of life, their style of combat, their armor, weaponry, food and drinks have been detailed by Blizzard since 2005.

So, yeah. They're just giving us more content to work with in-game(that already existed in Lore), lackluster though it may be.

I am disappoint at the lack of ranged weapon options for all classes except Hunter, and the lack of melee weapon options for Hunters. That causes an immense stat drop, and conflicts with Lore on numerous occasions. But hey... It's Blizzard. I'll just have my Melee-focused Hunters segue into Monks eventually...

[Rigley]

I think so far my biggest hangup is on how they're redoing weaponry; Mostly because I'm not certain Blizz has thought through the way they're suggesting hunters and duel-wielding (if that is being affected; I didn't see the quote on that) will work.

By that I mean how they level, of course; they're saying everyone will lose stats to round it out, sure, but look at anything prior to this expansion. Most notable would be if they are actually changing duel wield to a specific weapon type, since I don't really know if they would go and add those into the previous content.

Also I have the Arcanite-Steam Pistol and other such engie guns on Rigley (a warrior) on retail, and a really nice looking rapier on my hunter. I don't really enjoy the idea of having to just sell those off since they'll be completely useless to me now with their equip slot going away. :/

[Beltharean]

For the monk class I'll break it down

Brewmaster = Tank

Mistweaver = Healer

Windwalker = DPS

As for where Pandaria is... People have looked for it for thousands of years, and we can only presume that the dude on Azuremyst based on Odysseus was -probably- keeping an eye out for it. Unfortunately, the Pandaren Shodo-pan (emperor) after the war of the ancients decided f*** these guys, we're better off on our own. They shrouded Pandaria in an eternal mist (hence Mists of Pandaria) that made it impossible for anyone to find their way through it and into Pandaria. That is, supposing they could find the mist at all. This came at a sacrifice however, and the Pandaren homeland was cursed; For whatever evil, violence, and war that took place on their land, it would be able to take a physical manifestation, that being of Sha.

There are eight major Sha, the only two announced being the Sha of Doubt and Hate. The Shado-pan Clan of Kun-Lai Summit were tasked with protecting the land from the Sha, and trapping them within the Sha Prisons in their temple atop the peak. This is likely why the Pandaren have such a peaceful philosophy about life, because if they fight then there are repercussions for it. For the most part the Sha aren't a big problem, but with the advent of the Horde and Alliance coming to Pandaria, and turning two of the native races against one another, the Sha have come out in full force.

-written from my itouch, so sorry for the spelling and grammar errors.