Mists of Pandaria is the fourth World of Warcraft expansion, taking the eternal sort-of-battle between Horde and Alliance to a brand new, Asian themed corner of Azeroth. Most of the classic species have been to night-school to learn the ways of the Monk, while both Horde and Alliance welcome a new member - the neutral Pandaren, whose homeland is about to be torn apart by several million kill-crazy players in search of gold, glory and ever tougher monsters to beat into a fine paste.
But can this new world turn around World of Warcraft's recent fortunes, or is it just pandaren? Join us in the Mists of Pandaria review in progress all week for regular dispatches from the furry frontier.
Contents
Start here, or skip straight to something of interest....
Page 1: Preparing For Pandaria, The Wandering Isle
Page 2: Pet Battling 101, Pandaria Itself, Questing
Page 3: The First Three Zones, Topless Blood Elf, Farming, Dungeon Griping
Update 0: Preparing For Pandaria
Lok'tar ogar, everyone - or if you're Alliance, 'die Alliance scum'. Welcome to the review in progress of Mists of Pandaria, where I'll be sharing my thoughts on this expansion and lots of comments will no doubt be calling me an idiot for never getting King Varian Wynne's name right. We'll be getting started on that and the mysteries of this new land soon enough... but first, a quick bit of admin.
World of Warcraft has many, many types of players, and hopefully you'll get something out of this whatever type you are. That said, if there's a focus, it's going to be the generally accessible content rather than hard mode dungeons and theorycrafting, with a particular focus on how Pandaria changes things up for players who may have lapsed after Cataclysm or are in need of something to rekindle that World of Warcraft passion once again. If you're an active player, it's not like you have a choice about upgrading anyway - 85 is going to be the loneliest number by next week. We'll also be looking at the world from the Horde side, because I'm sending my Undead mage to Pandaria.
Finally, because I'm playing the game at the same time as filing updates and there's a lot of stuff to check out in a fairly short amount of time, I may not have much time to respond to questions or comments directly. I will be reading them though, including the mean ones, and will try and respond to what I can or check out things you want to see checked out if at all possible.
In our first update, servers-willing, we start things off with a trip to the brand new starting area, the Wandering Isle. It's not Pandaria, but it's the best place to learn the ways of the Monk...
Update 0b: On Your Marks... Get Set...
Blizzard promised that when Mists of Pandaria went live, it would simply spring into life even if you were on the server making Achievement based puns - your marching orders just appearing, with no need to quit and relog in or do any last minute patching. Ha! As if that would ever work as plann...
(checks)
...that actually worked as planned. At least on my server. Not a bad start.
Update 1: The Wandering Isle
World of Warcraft's engine may be old, but Blizzard knows how to make it sing. The Wandering Isle - a giant turtle with the descendants of Pandaren explorers living on its back - is easily the prettiest starting location so far, not just for its light colours and fluffy clouds, but for its sense of scale and majesty. Like Pandaria, it's a land of lush terrain and intricate temples, full of Asian themed decoration. This is the unspoiled beauty, albeit by proxy, about to get well and truly spoiled by war.
It's not however particularly thrilling so far.
This is a question of taste, yes, but it feels like a Saturday morning cartoon - and sadly, not Avatar: The Last Airbender. As a gentle introduction to the Pandaren it works fine, just... well... saccharine. Everyone is nice. Everyone is friendly, if occasionally a little arrogant. I'm just not entirely sure why a race of people on an island whose biggest problems seem to be a few easily dispatched tigers and giant rabbits called 'Carrotcrunchers' feel the need to devote so much time and effort to martial training.
Hopefully Pandaria proper will add a little bit more edge to these guys and make them bad-ass instead of cuddly. They're not a joke race, but they're very kiddy so far - an early scene where Tushui master Aysa Cloudsinger bounces around the scenery like a Gummi Bear not starting things off well, to say nothing of the Pandaren actually having the racial trait "Bouncy". Half falling damage, even less dignity.
(It's also a little strange how the training area is thematically designed around you being a Monk, even if you're not. It almost seems like there should have been a different approach for the other classes for the first nine-ish levels before they tie back for the main zone story. An objective like sparring with fellow trainees is just kinda silly when they're using melee and you're spamming Frostfire...)
Within that though, there are some lovely touches. I especially like the Singing Pools - a shameless rip-off of Ranma 1/2, where the Pandaren train. They consist of poles above pools where animals have fallen in and died, with the result that anyone tumbling in takes on their form. Unlike that series though, it's only temporary. Pity. It would be interesting to have a whole game where you turn into a skunk or whatever every time it starts raining. Most of the story though is hyper-predictable, from meeting your elderly master and knowing he will have a long, fulfilling life, to the romance between a couple of the members of the small group of monk masters you assemble to figure out why the Wandering Isle is swimming off course and risking the lives of its passengers all of a sudden.
Breaking a habit of a lifetime, I've created a male Pandaren to explore this area, on the grounds that if I'm going to stare at a panda's backside for the next couple of hours... wait, never mind. I like that anyone can create a Pandaren, whether they have MoP or not, though the Monk specifically is only for upgrades. Of the other races, anyone can suddenly learn their ways, save for the Goblins and Worgen. Pandaren themselves can also be Warriors, Hunters, Priests, Shamans, Mages.
Sadly, no furry Death Knights. Damn that lore...
This early in the game, it's pointless to try and cast judgement on the Monk class itself, save that it has some fun skills - a few of which I also saw in the recent beta. Touch of Death is the most hilariously over-powered from later on, giving you one-hit kills on more or less anything other than a boss with less HP than you. Monks can also cover any part of the tank, healer, DPS trinity. Already though, the shadow of Guild Wars 2 hangs over things more than a little, especially when it comes to the fluidity of combat and general niceties like the 30 minute cooldown on Hearthstones. We'll see how that goes though, especially when we get out of the tutorial area and to Pandaria proper.
First though, there's a Wandering Isle in need of saving...
Update 2: Our New Allies
The Wandering Isle is a cool location, and the second half of it ratchets up the danger a little. A crashed Alliance prison ship has mortally wounded the turtle, with the crew and prisoners setting up a couple of different camps. Only with both sides working together can the damage be repaired, with sea monsters emerging to demonstrate boss mechanics make things worse for everyone. It's very pretty. It has an explosives-loving goblin called Makael Bay. At the end, you and your friends separate to join either the Horde or Alliance and do what you can to save Azeroth. In theory, it's a tight little story that sets up the Pandaren and gets them out in the world to fight the good fight.
In theory. In practice though, it ends up being a poor bit of narrative, riddled with thematic issues.
The big plot draw for Pandaria is reigniting the war between Alliance and Horde, or to give it its proper name, 'the what?' Pandaria, as a neutral place, becomes the unwilling battleground for this. That's cool, and I hope it pays off later on. On the Wandering Isle though, what we see are the two factions yet again immediately dropping their differences to work together, give or take the occasional "Grrr!" Seeing this, our main Panderen characters - broken apart by a minor difference of opinion that ended up just fine - decide that the best way to get involved is to sign up, refuse to talk to anyone who chose differently (you only get your side's language skill) and commit themselves to fiction's least enthusiastic war.
Pandaren, listen up: this idea is a bad idea!
Unless it turns out that this is all part of a 90 level long scheme - in which case cool - none of this passes muster. What the Wandering Isle needed was to set up conflict, not co-operation, with players being forced to pick sides early and the characters alongside them burning their bridges and ultimately having no choice but to leave the island even if they wanted to stay. They've been dragged into the war, possibly against their will, and are now pot-committed to their faction. Or something. It didn't need to turn into Apocalypse Now with pandas or anything, but there should be more emotional weight to this first contact than simply "Well, these guys seem cool. I'll fight my loved ones on their behalf, I guess."
Unfortunately with the focus being on the Pandaren being noble and friendly, it just falls hollow. It's a wasted opportunity, and a pretty, but honestly fairly unimpressive starting area aside from its ambience. Not bad, just tough to play without thinking of all the ways it could have been established exactly why the Pandaren are an interesting race, instead of ending on 'they're cool if you like the idea of kung-fu pandas'. Hopefully the more advanced, gloves-off action later on will help redress that balance.
That said, the actual execution of much of it is splendid. Along with the visuals there are some nice individual set-pieces, like a fireworks based fight with a dragon early on, and a good early boss fight that demonstrates basic techniques like dodging out of the way of attacks and dealing with adds. All the bosses are group-enabled, so you don't have to take a turn or group up with someone just to get kill credit. I also like several of the smaller stories and recurring gags, which I won't spoil here, but which offer an nice playful introduction to the world before heading into the aftermath of Cataclysm.
Opting to join the Alliance kicks off a very similar thing to the Death Knights back in WoTLK, involving wandering through a phased Stormwind. The difference is that where Death Knights were met with disgust and spit, Pandaren are cute. You get people waving or going "My goodness, Pandaren?!" and kids running up to see who you are, and it's all very adorable. Slightly dented by seeing so many other Pandaren around, admittedly, but never mind. I also like that when you visit the King to officially sign up, you get the chance to do something the rest of the Alliance can only dream of...
Somewhat annoyingly, despite being the hero of the hour, it's your friend Aysa who is immediately given a promotion from Level 10 or so to Level 90 and made Stormwind's official Monk Trainer (a role which essentially means nothing now that all skills are just given to you when you level). You, hero, are off into the world to punch rats and get exactly zero respect from anyone.
I however plan to switch to my Level 85 Mage and return to the higher level stuff - a brand new world, and the chance to play Pokemon with my Pets. Next time, it's mage time!
Next Page: On second thoughts, let's try out Pet Battles first!
Update 3: Gotta Catch 'Em All!
I wanna be the very best
Like no one ever was
At doing stuff with cosmetic pets
For no point but because...
I will travel across the land
Where they cannot hide
Adding pets and ignoring
The hardcore being snide
Pet battles! Something they added!
Oh, yes it's true
That Blizzard just copied you, from
Pokemon!
But who gives a crap
'Twas Nintendo left this gap.
Pet battles! Worth me trying?
Read the damn review!
But it's something that feels brand new
You hate it and I'll shun you
Pet battles! Hope nobody sues!
Hope nobody sues!
Pet battles!
Sorry, not sure what happened there. Anyway! My plan for the evening was to jump on the nearest blimp to Pandaria and begin carving through the new levelled content. Having just left the Pandaria-themed Wandering Isle though, I felt like a change and headed back to Orgrimmar to at least get started on one of Pandaria's cool new Things To Do - Pet Battles. PokeMMOn, if you will.
You can make a start on this at any level, unlike most of Mists of Pandaria's content, with trainers in the capital cities. If you don't have the expansion, you'll see the trainers but won't be able to buy the necessary skill. My Monk acquired the skill automatically during the tutorial area. My Undead Mage simply had to walk up to a trainer and ask for it. Every race also gets a custom pet that they can buy if they don't have any. For my Undead Mage, this was... a cockroach.
(makes note to deduct five percent of expansion's score on grounds of racism)
No thank you, GOOD SIR, I do believe I shall find a pet MORE BEFITTING of my STATUS!
I've seen a lot of people be sniffy about the Pet Battle thing. Personally, I think it's great - the concept at least. I've not played enough to make a verdict on how much it actually adds, but so far I don't see any reason to complain. It gives a good reason to track down pets, as well as to explore the world more thoroughly. It's a fun mini-game to play during downtime. If you don't want to do it... don't do it. I'm pretty sure we're not down a raid or anything for its inclusion. Just pretend it's not there.
Getting started involves doing a five minute tutorial that teaches you the basics of fighting, levelling up your various pets, capturing more - in crates rather than Pokeballs, but the principle is exactly the same - and taking on other players in three-on-three combat. You can swap out your pets mid-combat, each have three abilities to choose from that have assorted strengths and weaknesses against other pet types, and they level up and get new skills as they win battles on your behalf.
There doesn't seem to be a vast amount of actual point in doing Pet Battles, though there are a ton of Achievements up for grabs. Everywhere in Azeroth and Outland has a set of Pet Tamers to challenge, many of them unlocking daily quests. If you beat them all, you get the title of "Tamer", which is rubbish and needs to be changed to "Supreme Minion God" or similar in the next patch. For a time-killer though, that's probably an okay reward. There may be others. I'll keep my eyes open.
Other players can be challenged too. A new 'Pet Battle Duel' option is available on the menu, if you're feeling lucky. You can also use a Find Battle button in the pet interface that will matchmake you a fight where you won't get crushed. Disappointingly, chat or even the identity of your opponent are hidden during this - I'm assuming to avoid trolling problems. Still, it's a little boring not being able to put a name to a face and knowing that the best your defeated enemy will be doing is shaking their fists and bellowing "ANONYMOUS UNDEAD MAAAAAAAAAAAGE!" You don't even get a way of sending a GG before you're unceremoniously teleported out of your victory/defeat, which seems a bit stingy.
Overall though, I like the pet battle system and hope it continues to be fun. It's nowhere near as good as I'd expect from an actual Pokemon MMO, but it's not trying to be one. Taken as simply another case of Blizzard looking at their world and figuring out cool new things to do with it, it's a nifty addition I look forward to playing with quite a bit more as I continue my journey through Pandaria proper.
Update 4: The Bear Necessities
While the Wandering Isle drops the ball, Pandaria proper opens with exactly the right introduction - an all-out battle to remind you that there's more to the Alliance/Horde war than simply King Varian and Warchief Garrosh drawing little pictures of each other with knives through the testicles. Many soldiers are all-out murdered by turrets and flying vehicles, there are big explosions, and the Horde's newest ship - Hellscream's Fist - forces its way through Pandaria's back passage. What? It's true!
Why are the two sides fighting specifically? King Varian Wrynn's son has been shipwrecked on Pandaria, and he's sent the fleet in to help. Garrosh... well, he's Garrosh. (shrug)
The opening battle, at least for the Horde, is set in and around a village with the oh-my-diabetes name of Honeydew Glade. The name may be soft, but the enemies aren't. While obviously not 'fighting the Lich King naked' level opposition, even this first encounter is tuned with the idea that you've spent a fair amount of time in the dungeons gearing up for this assault. My mage not being very well geared, it's a struggle when more than one enemy decides they want a fight... and they're quite closely packed. Arse. On the plus side, this should make getting better quest gear much more satisfying.
The end of the first encounter sees absolutely no potential for double-entendres, as Hellscream's Fist pounds into Pandaria's Jade Forest. Its captain's anger unleashes the Horde's first glimpse of the Sha and... well, I'm willing to be convinced, but I have concerns about the Sha.
Again, this ties into what Pandaria is about - the war, rather than the pandas. Though let the record show that lines like "Drop your weapons or you face TWO enemies on this continent!" are always going to be more badass when the warrior delivering them doesn't have the Racial Trait "Bouncy".
The Sha are a decent idea, up to a point. On Pandaria, negative emotions take on a life of their own in the form of these ghostly white creatures. As a side bonus, they - unlike the philosophical concept of 'war' - can be punched in the face and be made to drop loot. I'm concerned though that introducing them so early and as actual walking enemies who you have to kill 20 of in order to complete a quest is a little too on-the-nose. Likewise, looking through the Dungeon and Raid guides you now get in the interface, I see a lot of enemies with names like "Sha of Anger" and "Sha of Fear", but not much in the way of... well... the big war that's supposed to be feeding them in the upcoming content. With the obvious exception of Pandaria's final planned raid, The Siege of Orgrimmar, of course...
The quests could still have lots of good Horde vs. Alliance stuff, of course, and the first Pandarian area is a good start. I just hope MoP doesn't reverse its own plot's needs and think that the presence of the Sha as a symbol of war means we don't need the actual war. The ideal use for them would seem to be phasing and world progression - you have a load of quests against your opposing number, and as you do them, the land rips apart in these cool ghostly effects and these creatures as spawned. They feel like they should be an environmental factor, not - as they currently seem - a faction.
But we'll see how that develops. This is just the start of a very long journey.
Speaking of which, Pandaria looks very pretty. But I miss being able to fly on my dragon.
Update 5: A Question Of Quests
Blizzard has, by far, the best quest design team in the genre.
Sometimes, that's actually a problem.
Mists of Pandaria's levelling content is frequently stunning, and almost always packed with imagination. MMO quests get a lot of flack for just being 'collect 20 bear skins'... and yes, there's a fair amount of that stuff here too. That's a problem. We'll get to that in a moment. Here though, just as much of your time if not more is spent on far more interesting things. Interactive flashbacks. Teaming up with a badass NPC to go clear out spies in the forest or super-tough rabbits in battle-armour. Vehicle sequences. Shooting galleries. Blizzard has a ton of interaction mechanics, and uses them constantly.
Even when the basic mechanics are stock, they're often wrapped with something that makes them more fun - and often goes that little bit further than it has to. In the second zone, Valley of the Four Winds, there's a section where you chaperone a little Pandaren girl, Li Li, who just wants to see new places and keeps a running narration as you explore. She also however comments on a couple of other quests that you can pick up at the same time, rather than just on her own. Nice touch.
Phasing and scripting are much, much more subtle than they have been in the past, but used constantly. Characters move around as the story emerges, and situations shift. Much of the story of the first zone, Jade Forest, is Horde and Alliance recruiting allies for their fight - a group of fish people for the Alliance, some intelligent monkeys for the Horde. This is lampshaded a lot by orcs going "The Horde is recruiting MONKEYS now?!" and similar. As you quest, you see and feel this relationship emerge. Early on, the monkeys are hostile. As you win them over, they become neutral. When you establish a formal alliance, they're just sitting around. Just before the zone's big (and really impressive) set-piece, they're marching in formation, with a Pandaren sage saying "Okay, this is kinda worrying, guys."
It is really, really good stuff. In the inevitable Guild Wars 2 comparison, and taken purely on story and atmosphere, Pandaria roundly humiliates ArenaNet's open-world action. If you want to skip the quest text and cut-scenes, fine. You're missing out though on some great writing, really funny jokes and set-pieces, and some well worked out lore. I'm still not convinced by the Pandaren or the Sha to be honest, but individual people on Pandaria are absolutely worth hooking up with.
The catch is that with all this scripting, Pandaria may as well just bite the bullet and be a single-player RPG. There are no group quests, unless you count the bosses everyone can just team up against, and the story is resolutely personal and scripted around you being alone. For antisocial me, that's fine.
But.
All this good stuff really throws what I shall politely refer to as "MMO Bullshit" into sharp relief. It's not like I have a violent reaction to anyone combining the words "Bring me" "things" and a number, but it's increasingly out of place in a game that can do so much more. It's like going to a rock concert and being blown away by an awesome first song, only for the entire band to walk off stage and the drummer to spend the next ten minutes playing a kazoo. Long sequences of generic collect quests, and especially generic collect quests with low drop rates, are beyond infuriating in a game that repeatedly proves itself better than that. I really wish it had kept things short but sweet and focused on good stuff.
At this point, I hear you cry "But Richard! If not for those, the levelling would be far too fast!" Hardly, I retort. Players are already at maximum level, and for zem, zis vor iz over. I would have loved to have seen Blizzard experiment a little more with its quest system, to prune out this nonsense and instead think up ways to focus on what it absolutely, officially does best. The padding, and see also The Old Republic and The Secret World on this, contributes nothing. It just gets in the way.
This is especially the case here, with the focus being on endgame content - on dailies, dungeons, raids, scenarios, challenges and so on. Make the quests more about factions, for instance, with each zone's quest completion tied to cool gear and pets and mounts and things instead of chasing the XP dragon. The players who don't care about the story content aren't playing it anyway - not really.
As good as the quest design is though, good god am I fed up with the ancient mechanics. Coming not simply from Guild Wars, but TOR, TSW, Tera, DCUO and many others, Warcraft's combat especially is like being trapped in treacle. Not being able to move or dodge during combat, and that combat being incredibly simplistic most of the time, is seriously tedious. The downtime of eating food to recharge between fights also feels ridiculous, even though as a mage I have as many Conjured Mana Cakes as I can stick down my throat and therefore probably shouldn't complain too much.
Ordinarily, wanting something like a fundemental overhaul of movement systems would be ridiculous. This is Blizzard though, which ripped out its whole talent tree system in the name of making things smoother. It might be a lot to ask, but it's still in a suggestion box of its own making.
Finally, a few quick updates on previous entries.
1) Early fights in Pandaria can be tough if you're not very well geared, but as soon as you get to the Jade Forest's hub - the village of Dawn's Blossom - you can hook up with an Adventuring Supplies panda who'll sell you a full set of Pandaria ready greens. Thumbs up. Nice addition.
2) My concerns about the war continue though. The Jade Forest builds up to a really awesome finale, but as soon as you're done, you end up in Nagrand 2.0 where your focus shifts to doing random crap on a farm for several hours. More updates on whether the war continues to be a big deal later on.
3) The Pet Battle theme sounds like Castlevania music. I spent ages trying to work out what it was.
4) The Sha become much less scary if you say it in a dismissive Valley Girl accent.
5) I feel really sorry for the poor mages with the job of holding open portals back to the capital cities 24/7. They definitely drew the short wand with that assignment.
6) There is a quest that asks "What would you like Miss Fanny to do with the watermelon?"
Next Page: A closer look at the first three zones!
Update 6: The Rough Guide To Pandaria, Part 1
So, having finished three (and a bit, but let's round it off) of Pandaria's quest zones, this seems like a good time to take a quick look at them in turn. Do they work? Are they cool? Is the questing fun?
Trying to avoid too many spoilers then...
Jade Forest is the first area, and while it goes on far too long, is really cool. Several stories are kicked off and well told, with the focus being on meeting the locals (including training at their temples for no apparent reason), building an army to bolster your side's forces, and finally... I won't ruin it, but it kicks the Pandarian campaign off with a serious bang. It's a shame about the padding in the middle, and like the next zone there's the weird idea of having you training as martial arts even if you're a mage who should never, ever be getting into a fist-fight with anything, but never mind. It fits the mood.
A few quibbles aside*, this zone is the promise of Pandaria, properly realised, nicely designed, with a good story arc and a solid intro to the main campaign. Thumbs up. Next!
(* Looking at you, the vital-to-the-story mountain you can fall off and have no way back up until you get a new flight license at Level 90. How the hell did that one get through beta testing?)
Valley Of The Four Winds isn't as strong, mostly because it's much quieter. You're not really on a quest here, just doing Stuff. Some of that Stuff is cool, especially the story of a Pandaren called Chen and his niece. A lot of the time though you're just helping out on farms, which begs two questions. First, are you kidding? Second, you do know that my faction just helped kick off a continental disaster level problem, smashed up a monument your people have been building for centuries, and are generally acting like complete douchebags about five minutes over there? Just checking...
This is part of the problem with the Pandaren so far. They're absolute doormats. There's essentially one guy who even seems to have a problem with the two factions showing up and unleashing the Sha, with everyone else more or less going "Well, at least we have time for a drink first." There are good individual characters, and as said before, some really cool and funny bits. I am far from convinced that the Pandaren as a race deserved the honour of a whole expansion pack, and it increasingly feels like the designers weren't allowed to do anything with them that would get in the way of some hypothetical toy line a little further down the road. Possibly even their own spin-off cartoon series.
Also, while we're on the subject, does anyone else have a problem with the country being called "Pandaria"? There are multiple races living there too, including fish people and ancient conquerers and a whole society of sentient monkeys, called 'hozen', not just the celebrated kung-fu pandas.
Pos before Hoze, I guess.
The Valley does however end - after visiting another zone - with a truly fine, epic encounter that I won't spoil, but does a great job of tying together a lot of the stories and things you've done. Old characters re-appear, there are several callbacks to moments in these two zones, and an intriguing glimpse at the penultimate one - the spooky Dread Wastes. Overall, I enjoyed this zone, but I suspect it's the final nail in the coffin of the Pandaren turning out to be the badass heroes from the intro instead of just teddy bears who drink a lot. There are three more zones to prove otherwise though, so we'll see.
Krasarang Wilds however is a tedious abyss of absolutely nothing interesting. It's a generic jungle where generic things happen, and if someone said that Blizzard assigned their naughty developers to it as a punishment, I would not be surprised. It's the Warcraft equivalent of writing out "I must collect bear asses" a hundred times, only more annoying because of the bad drop rates.
Not only does this zone not boost the main storyline, it takes it in odd places. As a long-time member of the Horde, in an expansion pack about the horrors of war, I'm sorry but I should not be running errands for and partnering up with Anduin freaking Wrynn. It's not even a desperate situation. It's just "Oh, hey there, undead mage. Mind killing some snakes for me? Cheers."
When Horde players are teaming up with the Prince of Stormwind, this is no longer World of Warcraft. This is World of SlighttensionoverunresolvedissuesbutbasicallyeverythingsfineCraft. This will be confirmed on the next box, with a special fold-out bit to get the entire name down. If we're going with ghostly manifestations of emotion as a sign of this war, I fully expect to be fighting the Sha of Cooperation by the weekend. He's the raid boss who asks what loot you want, goes to fetch it from the store-room, then cuts his own throat for you. But not before handing out free ponchos so that you don't get his blood over your nice clean boots. And when you look him, you get free cake.
Also, Blizzard - for shame! Go stand in the corner, whoever implemented this...
Next on the hit-list is snowy Kun-Lai Summit, before finishing up the edges of Pandaria with Townlong Steppes and the dark, spooky Dread Wastes. After that, the final area is the Vale of Eternal Blossoms, where only Level 90 players dare tread. And some dungeons, of course. Mustn't forget those...
Update 7: Down On T'Farmville
One of Mists of Pandaria's more involved features is the Tiller faction, or as it's been dubbed, The Farmville Bit. You'll find it in the Valley of the Four Winds, where a naive new farmer called Yoon needs your help to establish himself. You plant and water crops, returning each day to harvest and deal with trouble, make friends with other farmers and generally create the best farm ever.
This could well be your favourite part of the game. My thoughts however are as follows:
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha, no.
Update 8: Narrative Splits
Today's update plan was to go dungeon diving, though that didn't work out so well. One day there will be an expansion where DPS is a much sought-after role. Pandaria is not that expansion. Instead, I've been continuing my trip through the levelling content on Kun-Lai Summit and the next region, Townlong Steppes, and honestly I don't have much to say about either at this point - save that I'm surprised by just how early the final zone is opened. I was expecting it to be behind the giant, besieged wall in the Dread Wastes, and requiring an epic battle to open. Instead, it's a Level 90 zone unlocked at 87/88 that exists mostly to say "We have so many dailies for when you think you're done..."
Kun-Lai is a massive, massive improvement over the other zone in its level, the dark and depressing Krasarang Wilds. Its mountain regions are particularly impressive, with the zone entrance in the Veiled Stair having a real Skyrim feel to it. It plays like a mix of Valley of the Four Winds in terms of scale, with Jade Forest's element of establishing a foothold and recruiting the natives to your side's cause. Easily the most notable feature of this zone is the Sha of Anger, who will leave you alone unless you go really close to it, but acts as a world boss for raid parties who want a big public challenge. It's got scale, good quests, and a really fun introduction. Thumbs up, if not as high as for Jade Forest.
Townlong Steppes I'm still working through. Thumb has no comment as of yet.
Disappointingly though, while Kun-Lai and Townlong Steppes both have plenty of story, the Horde and Alliance stuff seems to have fizzled out in favour of general quests and a focus-shift to Pandaria's own lore and problems. It's fine, and suitably Warcraft style, with the mantis-like Mantid and former conquerors the Mogu doing their thing, and in fairness, in the former case because of the Sha, but I don't feel much resonance with the story or historical conflict at this point.
This isn't a massive problem though, just a personal preference amongst the stories the expansion is trying to tell. I hope the compass swings back its way soon, ideally without having to wait for the next chapter of the story proper to shake things up in however many months.
Just to get it off my chest, I also really hate how the dungeons and single-player story intersect. Pandaria does an interesting thing with the first couple, where you preview the terrain before it gets infested with monsters, but then things go back to the same old system - a quest chain will end in a capital-D Dungeon. This has always bugged me, not least because the levelling content assumes that you've done them, but is especially silly in a story that otherwise has no group quests.
If the game is going to offer a single-player story - and make no mistake, that is what Mists of Pandaria's levelling content absolutely is, despite being able to team up with people - all of its narrative based content should be available to all. That could be done with alternate dungeons, with NPCs filling in for other players... I don't care. It's not like people aren't willing to go back and repeatedly do dungeons and raids for challenge and loot, even though there's no plot or character-based reason to do so. It is however jarring to have the game simply assume you've done this stuff, to the point of finding a major character you were just tasked to rescue less than two minutes walk away.
I have no idea why Blizzard keeps doing this, and admittedly things like the Dungeon/Raid Finder make it much less of a problem than it used to be to see everything while flying solo, but it still bugs me. In World of Warcraft, distance = time passing, and that's okay. It shouldn't be too hard to design around this to keep the story flowing though, or ensure people see the major beats when they're meant to happen in the story instead of in some parallel narrative world. Give raids and dungeons their own stories, or use the same content but re-tune the bosses for solo action as well - I don't care.
Don't however expect me to play solo for hour after hour, then lock me out of key plot points in my personal story, simply because I prefer experiencing narrative content without grumpy paladins going 'food mage' or the group rushing through because the tank has already seen everything.
