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Post by Reverend Evil @ 12:03am 26/07/12 | 74 Comments
Blizzard has confirmed the official release date for Mists of Pandaria the next expansion for World of Warcraft has been locked in, now just two months away, on September 25th 2012.
“Mists of Pandaria contains the biggest variety of new content we’ve ever created for a World of Warcraft expansion, with features that will appeal to new players, veterans, and everyone in between,” said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. “We’ve received a lot of great feedback from players during our most extensive beta test yet, and we hope they enjoy exploring everything Pandaria has to offer when the expansion comes out in September.”
Digital pre-orders are now available directly from worldofwarcraft.com. For more details on the game, check out our interview with blizzard's Dave Kosak, and Steve's preview of levels 1-10.

Promoted/edited forum item



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Latest Comments
Basket
Posted 06:27pm 26/7/12
It's like people who pay $25 over and over to get special pretty mounts, Stupid as f***.
DM
Posted 10:56pm 26/7/12
Pretty much agree with this. It's amazing how long the raiding content of BC took to finish vs from WotLK onward.

Basket
Posted 03:02am 27/7/12
I really loved 70 Arena tbh, It felt fresh and fun, But I think WoW has had It's time, There really Is only so much they can do with the 2003 engine....God damn I forget how long It has been smashing the MMO market sometimes, They know how to hook gamers blizzard I'll give them that....Apart from D3 load of crap that was :(

P.S DM great video, I completely agree with this guy and his voice rocks hah

last edited by Basket at 03:02:11 27/Jul/12
Jim
Posted 08:13am 27/7/12
geez live in the past much? if you can't do current heroic raid content, don't make up a bunch of starry-eyed crap about the way things used to be and how great it was - just stop being bad and learn how to play your class
Basket
Posted 09:12am 27/7/12
He is complaining about s*** being to easy you moron not "being too hard" did you even watch the video lol..?
Jim
Posted 09:21am 27/7/12
I watched it a while back - I was referring to you guys, not him - he's in method so at least he's actually cleared relevant hardmodes, even if he is coming from a completely skewed perspective. have you?
Khel
Posted 10:29am 27/7/12
He is complaining about s*** being to easy you moron not "being too hard" did you even watch the video lol..?


Do you really want to play raid content the Method consider difficult? There'd probably only be like 1% of the WoW playing population even capable of doing the content if that was the case. I can't remember the stats on Sunwell, but it was a pretty tiny percentage of people who ever actually cleared it (back when it was relevant that is). They've got like 11 million people playing, they have to cater to as many people as possible with the content they put out, not just the 1% of super hardcore players.

I think the current system they have is fine, three different difficulties of raids so everyone can have a taste. I never did Dragon Soul hard modes cos I haven't played for 6 months or so, so I dunno what the deal was there, but heroic mode Firelands was challenging and fun.

Having said that, BC was still some of my favourite raids, but that was mainly cos I had a lot of fun with the guild I was in at the time and Kael'thas is probably my favourite fight ever.
Enska
Posted 05:39pm 27/7/12
Wow Basket cry over spilt milk much?
You sound like one of those homos that stopped playing after BC but seem to still have so much knowledge on how end game content works (but the youtubes said soo!#!^!!) two expansions later, oh wait you are.

I haven't played much the last few months between work, d3 and Skyrim but will be keen to get back into it once there's some new raid content for sure.
Reverend Evil
Posted 06:59pm 27/7/12
Speaking of Black Temple, I only cleared it fully for the first time a few days ago. The size of that place is f*****g incredible and I would have hated to do it back at lvl 70. It' would have taken an eternity. I went healer on my shammy and grouped with 4 other guys and we blasted thru it like nobodies business. Even at 85 it still took ages to do a full run.
Reverend Evil
Posted 07:00pm 27/7/12
LOL

I just noticed that. It's funny when you type another werd and you don't even notice. And I wasn't even drunk. Ah well.
Obes
Posted 07:34pm 27/7/12
Sorry nothing in wow ever has been hard.

EQ with world bosses and lengthy quests to get keys (and possibly bane weapons) for 60+ people with 1 per week per server spawns ... No mods. No agro meters. No DPS meters. No power auras or Boss mods.

Jim
Posted 08:03pm 27/7/12
lol EQ
when I was a boy we walked 56 miles to school with no shoes...

if EQ was so hard, how come you ragequit all these 'easy' games as soon as the going gets tough obes =]
Obes
Posted 09:44pm 27/7/12
if EQ was so hard, how come you ragequit all these 'easy' games as soon as the going gets tough obes

I didn't rage quit anything recently ?

I got bored of sitting in WoW and raids getting cancelled so I stopped turning up ... "rage quit!"



Timmeh
Posted 09:53pm 27/7/12
lol EQ when I was a boy we walked 56 miles to school with no shoes...]

in the snow.
And we didn't have video games, my mum used to cut the bottoms out of my pockets so i had something to play with.
Jim
Posted 10:58pm 27/7/12
maybe I made the rage part up - you expect me to stick to facts?!
it's always something with you isn't it obes, first all the rage quitting and now this
shad
Posted 11:28pm 27/7/12
We wore shoes in EQ, but they had no stats other than AC.
Dazhel
Posted 12:00am 28/7/12
You were lucky!
We used to have to get up at six in the morning, strip and rewire a phone cable with our bare hands, telnet over a 1200 baud modem connection to a shoebox computer run by a few yorkshiremen, type /wear [item] on each individual item of clothing, grind a 20 hour day at the MUD week-in week-out for tuppence a month, and to disconnect we had to slice the cable in two with a bread knife.
Reverend Evil
Posted 11:15pm 28/7/12
So many morons over at the WoW site regarding the Digital Deluxe Edition...

- do we get a pet?
- we better get a feat of strength for buying this
- why isn't the soundtrack included
- when is MoP getting released
- I paid for this, why don't I have my mount?
- what does the pet look like?
- digital version does not include the pet

Seriously. Some people are tards.
Khel
Posted 11:35pm 28/7/12
I can understand the confusion about the pet, cos originally (they may have fixed it now) the ad for the digital deluxe version only said you get the mount and only had the picture of the mount.

I dunno why anyone would care about the Feat of Strength, they're even more worthless than achievements.
Obes
Posted 09:02pm 29/7/12
I dunno why anyone would care about the Feat of Strength, they're even more worthless than achievements.

No way!

Achievements are it!
TicMan
Posted 08:06am 30/7/12
For me WoW died when the community was diluted with the dungeon finder. It created a generation of players where there is hardly any patience to learn fights, be forgiving to mistakes and expect a steam roll through all the content.
Khel
Posted 10:17am 30/7/12
Yeah, Dungeon Finder is a double edged sword for me. Like, I think theres a lot of positives to it, I mean just play an MMO without a dungeon finder or group finder and you'll quickly realise how much better it is to have one than it is to not have one. But on the negatives side, like you said, it has killed any sort of team cohesion or the motivation to pull together and work through content. Because you're just getting thrown together with randoms (probably not even from your server), a lot of people just don't give a s*** about their group and at the first sign of failure will just f*** off, especially if they're a tank or a healer and know they can easily get another group. And if you happen to be the guy who hasn't done the instance before and is learning, theres no patience for that, watch the vote kick come through hard and strong the first time you make a mistake.

Compare that to my experience in The Secret World lately, which doesn't have a group finder. It makes getting groups together more of a pain in the ass and you can end up just standing around for a fair while spamming the LFG channel (even as a tank, so I'd hate to be trying as a dps), but once you do get a group, they're much more likely to stay together and work through any problems just because everyone knows how much of a time-consuming pain in the ass it would be to build another group. Every instance I've done, even if it was my first time and I didn't know the fights, people were happy to work through the wipes and keep going. People were happy to explain fights to me if I didn't know them, and when we wiped it rarely become a whinge fest, it was more about "Ok, so how did we die? What did we do wrong?" and working to overcome it.
Reverend Evil
Posted 11:22am 30/7/12
WoW would be horrible without the dungeon finder. Sure it can be bad but I've had way more positive experiences with it than negative. If you wanna run a dungeon as a proper group than do a guild run. I sure as hell don't wanna go back to the days of spamming trade looking for a group. Remember the days when someone would leave and with no easy way of adding a new member the run just falls apart. Bugger that.
Khel
Posted 11:27am 30/7/12
Yeah, I don't disagree, and while I wouldn't want to go back to those days either, I still think groups in those days were in some ways better than what you get with the dungeon finder. Maybe part of it was you were with people from your own server, who you very well might run into again, so people had to be a bit more accountable for their actions. But it just seemed to be a much more social experience back then too, a lot of the time in dungeon finder groups nobody even says anything.
glynd
Posted 11:45am 30/7/12
WoW would be horrible without the dungeon finder. Sure it can be bad but I've had way more positive experiences with it than negative. If you wanna run a dungeon as a proper group than do a guild run. I sure as hell don't wanna go back to the days of spamming trade looking for a group. Remember the days when someone would leave and with no easy way of adding a new member the run just falls apart. Bugger that.


completely agree. I definitely do not miss the 45 minute wait for trying to get a UBRS run together.

I've just started jumping back into WoW, where is everyone located and anyone got QGL/Ausgamers guild or channel? haven't found a good guild since WotLK. most of mine are just whoring off the big ones to get the perks.

Most of my toons are on Jubei'thos and a few on Doomhammer
Reverend Evil
Posted 12:32pm 30/7/12
a lot of the time in dungeon finder groups nobody even says anything

Yeah. I always try and break the ice by saying this at the start. "Let's dedicate this run to the kids who can't fight back!"
deadlyf
Posted 01:11pm 30/7/12
Yeah, I don't disagree, and while I wouldn't want to go back to those days either, I still think groups in those days were in some ways better than what you get with the dungeon finder. Maybe part of it was you were with people from your own server, who you very well might run into again, so people had to be a bit more accountable for their actions. But it just seemed to be a much more social experience back then too, a lot of the time in dungeon finder groups nobody even says anything.
There was also the part where you would log in and get tells even as a DPS from people you had grouped with before and you'd get a certain amount of renown as someone dependable to group with.

That just doesn't happen anymore which is a shame.

I think social/community development is actually a place where MMO's can improve and I find it surprising that there hasn't been a lot of effort put in on that end of things. It's certainly down the list of priorities but still a major aspect, after all if you make friends in a game you are more likely to stick with it.
eXemplar
Posted 07:35pm 30/7/12
Most of my toons are on Jubei'thos

Hope you're reppin' the saddle club, y0
Kimbo
Posted 11:53am 02/8/12
I'd like to play World of Warcraft but I'm not to sure. I was going to... Bbbuuuttt...

My friend who played World of Warcraft said it used to be good during 2005 to 2007 then he directs me to articles like:
http://surlygamer.net/2012/04/11/specialized-gear-why-subscription-based-mmos-need-you-to-need-them/

He says that the Pick Up Raids are crap, its all nerd rage for not doing enough DPS and stuff, also that they don't give items out to you for finishing the RAID or helping they just kick you or want to sell items from said RAID.

Which lead me to this:
http://surlygamer.net/2012/06/05/raiding-sucks-why-guild-wars-2-doesnt-need-this-endgame/

Oh and this:
http://www.arena.net/blog/the-pillars-of-guild-wars-2-gameplay
- I also kind of saw this recently and I have a copy of Guild Wars 2 pre-purchased already (23 Days and counting until launch), but I'd kind of like to know if everything that is said about WOW Raids being full people who just kick you from parties for not doing enough DPS is true or not up to some PUR (Pick Up Raid) mythical standard, also how they use addons to measure DPS of players and if you're not like doing/not doing enough numbers they kind of get rid of you from the raid group. Also how much of an issue is the whole people AFKing.

Will Mists of Pandaria fix the whole power creep issue?


Power creep is the gradual unbalancing of a game due to successive releases of new content.[1] The phenomenon may be caused by a number of different factors and, in extreme cases, can be damaging to the longevity of the game in which it takes place.

As new expansions or updates are released, new game mechanics or effects are introduced, making it increasingly difficult for older content to remain in balance without changes. Usually, this means new content releases grow successively more powerful while older content becomes regressively outdated


http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/power-creep

I'm hoping that Firefall will be looking promising as well:
http://www.firefallthegame.com/2012/07/
- If you look up the "Easy to learn, Difficult to master series" on the blog it seems interesting.
http://www.firefallthegame.com/2012/07/16/no-longer-easy-to-learn-easy-to-master-part-1/
http://www.firefallthegame.com/2012/07/18/summer-milestone-design-update-biotech-edition/
http://www.firefallthegame.com/2012/07/20/no-longer-easy-to-learn-easy-to-master-part-3/
http://www.firefallthegame.com/2012/07/23/no-longer-easy-to-learn-easy-to-master-part-4/
http://www.firefallthegame.com/2012/07/25/no-longer-easy-to-learn-easy-to-master-part-5/

I do like the idea behind the The Secret World -- well from what I've seen with the puzzle solving via the web searching in game and having a ton of skills but rolling your character however you want. Just if I was to buy a life time subscription I've heard FUNCOM eventually has a habit of making games free to play like Anarchy Online & Age of Conan.

Also I saw what SWTOR did recently with the free-to-play thing. (I have a friend who plays SWTOR F2P)
http://www.swtor.com/free/features

I don't mind paying a fee or subscription but I'd just rather know what I'm getting for it. I just want to know I'm getting a game kind of like Tribes Ascend, Team Fortress 2 (That has incomparables in the weapons minus the mini crits/crits -- but that is only if you follow competition play where they turn crits off minus the Kritzkrieg and ban certain weapons like the sandman for the Scout because of the stun), Super Monday Night Combat, or League of Legends. Not being jacked into a hamster treadmill, paying for power (like a certain last F2P MMO title I played that is now dying slowly) or an MMORPG / MMOG that is ruined by gold farmers (Certain experience from 2006)
Jim
Posted 11:31am 02/8/12
yeh you should definitely stay away from wow
Kimbo
Posted 11:55am 02/8/12
yeh you should definitely stay away from wow


I'll take it as fair truth.
Reverend Evil
Posted 12:37pm 02/8/12
More loot for me if you don't play

8-)
eXemplar
Posted 10:54pm 16/8/12
Bumping this for official blizzard mop cinematic trailer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvYXoyxLv64
Khel
Posted 11:07pm 16/8/12
Awesome
Nerfy
Posted 11:17pm 16/8/12
Heh
Eorl
Posted 11:21pm 16/8/12
Quite a Kung Fu panda feel to it, was expecting Jack Black to voice the panda.
Khel
Posted 11:24pm 16/8/12
To be fair, Blizzard did it first :P
Reverend Evil
Posted 11:26pm 16/8/12
Awesome intro as usual. Only a few more sleeps until it's out.
Enska
Posted 05:37am 17/8/12
lulwut rev? it's still a month away man :P
Jim
Posted 06:35am 17/8/12
rev gets hammered, posts on qgl then sleeps for a week or so at a time =]
Thundercracker
Posted 08:41am 17/8/12
The new zones are looking really tidy.
Jim
Posted 09:50am 17/8/12
yeh visually/theme-wise it's pretty decent levelling up even though you're forced to see it all from the ground since you can't fly there until you're 90. lots of asian style countryside and buildings, pretty cool

there's only 4 5man dungeons available while you're levelling though which I thought was a bit s***. you're stuck with only two from 85-87 with another two available from there to 90. ilvl l440 seems to be the entry requirement for heroics which opens up another 4 or so heroic-only 5mans including sholomance and scarlet monastery - SM is two instances which combines the original 4
Reverend Evil
Posted 09:53am 17/8/12
Hmm, dunno if I like that Scholo is in there. It's long enough as a normal dungeon. Plus with all the optional bosses it's gonna cause friction if you need gear from them.
Jim
Posted 10:02am 17/8/12
scholo and sm have both been reworked for the new heroic versions, they're not long and the bosses are all kind of different than the originals. not sure how many of the fights are optional, if any
Thundercracker
Posted 12:45pm 17/8/12
though you're forced to see it all from the ground since you can't fly there until you're 90


Apparently bliz are trying to recapture what made vanilla questing so much more fun that recent attempts in cata. Perhaps it's rose tinted glasses, but there was more of a feeling of exploration and it wasn't about a single bad guy, instead a number of smaller sub plots going on. They said part of that feeling is only being able to wander around on foot and actually having to explore.

I tend to think breadcrumb quests are great for maintaining flow, but they remove the need to explore. They need to put in content that can only be found through exploration and actually reward it.
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