Mists of Pandaria

[Kane]

Fuck World of Warcraft.

 

[Syl]

EIGHT Inches?

 

[ohWOW]

The user score for this game proves a few things. As much as gaming would like to step forward, be much more mature and not just a hobby for raging 14 year olds, along and unemployed thirty something man children, it's not quite there as a hobby yet.

 

[Zed]

Sorry for the incoherent writing. I just thought I would write down some thoughts and impressions of MoP.

I'm a 90 monk currently leveling professions (herb/inscription). I played 1-90 with a new character without any boosters or anything like that. I've spent 2 days at max level. So far, I like it.

One of my major gripes with Cataclysm was all that fucking phasing in the game world. That has been improved a lot in MoP.
Questing and leveling is great in general, and there's so much of it that you can easily skip the quests you don't like. Leveling via PvP battlegrounds, or through gathering, are also viable options. To be honest, the only aspect lacking from the leveling in GW2 is the exploration (although, in hind-sight, GW2s world wasn't really rich enough for all that exploration).

MoP/WoW has far better quests than GW2, at least in terms of "story" and monster variety. You liked that part about strangers co-operating to down a quest mob? They added that for any sort of significant quest mob in WoW as well. Camp chieftain, bandit leader, etc. All you need to do is be part of the beating, no need to "tag" them.

Another gripe I've had since basically near the end of WotLK is the slow pace of new content. Yet to see if that has been improved, but they are unlocking raids 1-2 at a time so that's promising (as long as the raids don't suck). The LFR is still there, sadly.

Dungeons are good. Well-paced, good amount of trash, good enough bosses. Not too gimmicky with vehicles or any shit like that either. Like always, rewards will actually improve your character (unlike GW2).

Music and general atmosphere of Pandaria surprised me (in a positive way). It's asian themed, but that mostly shows in music and architecture. Other than that it's just a lush, mostly green island. The music is great. I usually don't like ching-chong bullshit but this was melodic and nice.

The monk class fits pretty well into the game. They can play any role, but the Mistweaver (healing) is probably the most innovative and fun one. It's a very active healer, who basically punches shit to heal allies.
The panda race is very well-animated. It's not as "silly" as I thought. And to be honest, my monk looks pretty badass.

I haven't done pet battles but I've heard they can be kinda fun? Someone on the Codex wrote that anyway.

The new talent system is pretty shitty, but so was the one before as well. It's not worse, it's not better.

I have a bunch of people I've been playing with for a long time, and that's definitely an aspect that adds a lot to how much fucking time I spend with this shit, but MoP is pretty fun on its own. GW2 was fun leveling but hit a brick wall at max level, so I'll be sticking to MoP for some time to come.

 

[fizzelopeguss]

Pretty much every mmo forum i browse says the same thing, pandaland smashes the shit out of Guild wars and cata. I might spend the Bnet balance when i've finished dragging myself to 80 in GW.

" The LFR is still there, sadly."

One of the things i'm more looking forward too, i have zero fucking intention of poopsocking this game again.

 

[felipepepe]

I found leveling up in Pandaria worse than Cata... may be personal burnout with MMOs, but man... every bloody mob on the first area have like 150k HP and fights the same way, it just get boring to always follow the same pattern on every goddamn fight... GW2 didn't do a thing for me, but after playing the combat in TERA Online beta I just can't see this the same way...

Also, it annoys the hell out of me how Blizzard never gives us a sense of power & progression; WoW is like the worst level scalling game ever, I'm a bloody lv 86 fire mage, that killed Lich King & Deathwing, yet I have a hard time killing rats of a farm! FFS, make them die in one hit and consider hunting them the quest purpose, do not force me to throw 10 fireballs to kill ONE RAT!

I haven't done pet battles but I've heard they can be kinda fun? Someone on the Codex wrote that anyway.

It is, but sadly they made it too much grindy... you better choose well which pokemons you are gonna use from the start, because leveling those thingies from lv 1 to 25 takes FOREVER! It took me 4 hours straight just to get them to lv 10... also, pokeons have a HUGE chance of missing most attacks (like 20% or so), making me wanna punch the screen sometimes when I lose due missing three times straight...

EDIT: Reading this post I realize how I'm really not enjoying Pandaria...

 

[Zed]

" The LFR is still there, sadly."

One of the things i'm more looking forward too, i have zero fucking intention of poopsocking this game again.

I know a lot of people like it, so I guess I'm glad it's there.
I suppose the only real issue I have is the nerfing-to-hell of end-game content... Then again they usually do that when something new and harder is coming anyway.

 

[RK47]

So pokemanz and kung-fu panda. Any takers on what the next WoW expansion is gonna be about? Maybe romancable NPCs to drag in the bioware crowd. You may mock the idea now, but a year or two down the road whichever city is closest to the highest-level zone will have 500+ copies of Bimbo the Slutty Blood Elf following players around.

I was looking forward to Tybalt's hentai fanfic where he gets it in the Harpies' Tear when using the illusory disguise for Demmi, but it never happened.

*growling* "Stop - you don't know what you're doing, Captain!"

 

[Ulminati]

So pokemanz and kung-fu panda. Any takers on what the next WoW expansion is gonna be about? Maybe romancable NPCs to drag in the bioware crowd. You may mock the idea now, but a year or two down the road whichever city is closest to the highest-level zone will have 500+ copies of Bimbo the Slutty Blood Elf following players around.

I was looking forward to Tybalt's hentai fanfic where he gets it in the Harpies' Tear when using the illusory disguise for Demmi, but it never happened.

*growling* "Stop - you don't know what you're doing, Captain!"

 

[fizzelopeguss]

Zed

How's the monk working out, is it a fun class still?

 

[Zed]

Zed

How's the monk working out, is it a fun class still?

I'm in Windwalker specc at the moment (melee DPS). It's alright, but I wish they would change some abilities. Essentially what the monk does is weave weak attacks to open up for bigger ones, but it doesn't work very well all the time. I wish they hadn't put weak attacks into Chi spenders (or combo point spenders to put it in Rogue terms).

Brewmaster (tank specc) is supposedly crazy DPS in raids. Mistweaver seems to be a okayish healer, probably the most fun to play in any case.

The only bad dungeons this expansions are the scarlet monastery remakes. The rest are fun. Scenarios can be fun but offer very little in rewards. Haven't PvP'd, not my cup of tea.
Haven't really done any raiding yet, besides an outdoor boss. Factiongrind and Daily quests are relatively painless.

 

[Black Shogun]

Are there any blizzdrones left? I found this on metacritic

I think you are a fanboys of other game and try to lower WoW score, but look,

Most of them are dying out. I think it's because by now most people can spot blizz-drones from a mile away.
There are stil CoDrones and Biodrones though. Watch out for them. They're vicious.

 

[Rivmusique]

The only bad dungeons this expansions are the scarlet monastery remakes. The rest are fun. Scenarios can be fun but offer very little in rewards. Haven't PvP'd, not my cup of tea.

They are all boring shit on heroic. Especially as a healer as very little damage goes out if a tank knows how to mitigate, I am now spamming my 1 damage ability on most fights. Might be worse than WotLK 5mans. Challenge modes may redeem it, but I have not tried them yet.

 

[Zed]

The only bad dungeons this expansions are the scarlet monastery remakes. The rest are fun. Scenarios can be fun but offer very little in rewards. Haven't PvP'd, not my cup of tea.

They are all boring shit on heroic. Especially as a healer as very little damage goes out if a tank knows how to mitigate, I am now spamming my 1 damage ability on most fights. Might be worse than WotLK 5mans. Challenge modes may redeem it, but I have not tried them yet.

Not worse than WotLK, but I don't think they intend HC dungeons to be much more than that. I haven't tried challenge modes.
I haven't raided either but my guild has and they say raiding is okay.

 

[Metro]

I heard the design philosophy is that since too many people cried about hard heroics in Cataclysm they went back to the dirt easy type of heroics in Mists. Basically 'heroics' are just the level 90 versions of dungeons and not necessarily anymore difficult. The challenge modes are supposed to take the place of them. Pinnacle of heroics was back in TBC before they started nerfing them into the ground -- probably the most fun I had in WoW.

Funny story about the new Scarlet Monestary. When I was playing on a seven day free pass and leveling through them I would say half a dozen or so runs I would have wiped because people were too stupid to read the big:

"Destroy the corpse piles first"

message that popped up in the graveyard. People would just AoE or whatever, be swarmed with elites, and the group would wipe. If Blizzard is going to put obvious tips like that but have people ignore them anyway they might as well just leave them out.

 

[abija]

Not worse than WotLK, but I don't think they intend HC dungeons to be much more than that. I haven't tried challenge modes.
I haven't raided either but my guild has and they say raiding is okay.

They are easier than WotLK and challenge modes are harder than any heroic 5 mans they got out so far. The only issue with challenge modes is how gold is tuned for mob bypassing and force you to do it. I'd prefer to plan how to kill mobs more effectively than what and how to bypass.

Regarding scarlet and tips: ended up in a dungeon with a group of 4 friends, one of them dies at spinning dude and starts laughing because he gets a huge tip message after death then other 3 jump in next spin to see it too...

 

[Metro]

Never was really a fan of the timed stuff and I'd much prefer legitimately harder enemies forcing you to improvise, use crowd control, etc. but I guess there's no way to have leaderboards for stuff like that so they went with a 'race' aspect.

 

[Angthoron]

So apparently hackers found a nifty new way of fucking around with the WoW population:

http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/10/07/reports-entire-cities-dead-on-certain-realms/

TL;DR, someone found a way to kill entire zone populations, NPC and player alike.

 

[fizzelopeguss]

Shit like that makes online stuff worth it, reminds me of the corrupted blood debuff wiping out org and ironforge years ago.

 

[Angthoron]

Yeah, or that wandering plague from ZG.

 

[Metro]

Blizzard security = infallible. Amirite?!?

 

[Zed]

Yeah, or that wandering plague from ZG.

wasn't that the corrupted blood thing though? hakkar could put it on player's pets and then players could dismiss those pets and re-summon them in AH to cause mass death.

 

[Gold]

Yes, those were the same event.

 

[Metro]

 

[Kane]

Shit like that makes online stuff worth it, reminds me of the corrupted blood debuff wiping out org and ironforge years ago.

You know, it's funny. If shit like that was part of he standard game WoW would be worth playing.

 

[fizzelopeguss]

I'm amazed no company has built shit like into the game as standard. A standard White con sumatran ratmonkey mob that leaves a lingering debuff/disease on some guy that gradually gets worse and spreads.

 

[RK47]

I'm amazed no company has built shit like into the game as standard. A standard White con sumatran ratmonkey mob that leaves a lingering debuff/disease on some guy that gradually gets worse and spreads.

I prefer if a banned character has AIDs that reduces his max HP by 10 for every second he's logged on.

 

[Pika-Cthulhu]

I'm amazed no company has built shit like into the game as standard. A standard White con sumatran ratmonkey mob that leaves a lingering debuff/disease on some guy that gradually gets worse and spreads.

To trick the player however, it should open up a new quest where he is directed to go to a healer, who in turn sends him to a more populated zone and from populated zone to another seeking a cure, doing dickass fetch quests along the way because every schleb needs 10 mongrel rats anus'.

 

[Gold]

It was a feature of wow for about 2 weeks before WotLK. Player driven afflictions that turned players in zombies who could spread the disease. It was the best two weeks of reasonable griefing and butthurt.