Blizzcon and Mists of Pandaria

Blizzcon this year was huge. As a follower of all Blizzards games I must say that this years event had the most information ever. Tons and tons of info on Diablo 3, Starcraft 2: Heart of the Swarm and of course WoW: Mists of Pandaria (aka MoP).

Mists of Pandaria was both expected and unexpected. Crafty people had already found out that Blizzard had trademarked the name a few months before Blizzcon so it was no surprise really. What was unexpected was how drastically Blizzard had changed from their ususal semi-dark themed expansions into something that could basically air on the disney channel.

The theme is controversial and personaly I'm not very happy about it either, however a lot of people have jumped on the "omg I'm gonna quit this game after cataclysm"-train solely based on pictures of pandas. For those of us that followed the panels there was a lot of other points that really stood out.



The big change to talents and spec seems like a really great change. Blizzards attempt at fixing "cookie cutter builds" in Cata was only marginally successful, usually there was only a point or two that you could really change as you wanted. With this all new system it will be a lot easier for Blizzard to balance out your options and thus having you actually making hard choices. That said I don't really see any dps raid Warrior not taking Avatar as a top tier choice, that 1 min cd is great.

There where also a lot of other implementations that will serve to highten the genral quality of the max level gameplay, like challenge mode dungeons with uniqe transmog rewards, hinted changes to Archeology and of course pet battles aka pokéwow.

All in all Mists of Pandaria leaves me with mixed feelings. I really like the mechanics and max level changes but I really can't come to grips with the theme of the expansion. It does not seem to be related in any way to regular warcraft lore. For example: did the titans create the pandaren, pandaria and the surrounding veil that has sheltered the island for all these years? And a new sentient insectiod race that has no relation to the other sentient insectiod race that was spread all over Azeroth (the Qiraji)?

There are a lot of questions that are unanswered and I will reserve my final judjement until there has been more light shead on these mysteries.