WoW 5.0 - Mists of Pandaria

AnimeJ wrote:
Slacker1913 wrote:
Rahmen wrote:

I haven't played WoW since Cataclysm but saw the trailer today and my first reactions were:
1) Is there no big bad to fight anymore?
2) gnomes still get no love in the cinematics
and 3) man oh man I wish their cinematic team just went ahead and made a movie for the theaters

What's the story hook for this one?

Well, there is Sargeras, but I guess they are saving him for the final expansion. They can always pull out another Old God as needed and Pandaria's last boss is supposed to be

Spoiler:

Garrosh Hellscream

Not really a spoiler, it's been openly discussed that Garrosh is heading this one up. As for 'big bads' most of the really known ones, save Sargeras have been offed at this point. Arthas is gone, Illidan's gone, Deathwing's gone. We're kind of off into uncharted lore at this point.

Spoiler Alert (Though purely speculation)

Spoiler:

MoP is supposed to be split into "chapters", kind of like how BC and Wrath were. I'm surprised we never saw the Old God who was helping Deathwing, but we'll likely get to that in MoP.

If we assume three acts, then:

Act 1 is the discovery of Pandaria and helping them deal with their problems.

Act 2 is the escalation of the Horde/Alliance war.

Act 3 is the two factions banding together to take down Garrosh.

As mentioned, the final battle is the Horde and the Alliance laying siege to Orgrimmar and killing Garrosh. There are a few interesting theories circulating around (none confirmed, so take with a grain of salt, of course):

1. Lore states that Anduin and Baine have been getting kind of buddy buddy as of late, what with Anduin giving Baine the hammer that Magni gave him a little bit before Cataclysm.

2. Varian could potentially die (possibly killed by Garrosh), which would lead to Anduin taking over the Alliance. There's been talk of Anduin "expanding his role" and it would certainly even out the factions: the Horde had a leader (Cairne) die before Cataclysm. Of course, Jaina is supposed to either die/go insane when the Horde sacks Theramore during the lead up to MoP, so this could count...

3. This relationship leads to the Horde and Alliance pausing for a moment and taking stock in who the actual bad guy here is: Garrosh. Most of the Horde hates/wants to kill Garrosh anyway, and you can sort of tell that the other Horde races are being pulled into the war they don't want.

One of the questions that remains is who's going to take up leadership of the Horde once Garrosh is dead. Thrall is the most obvious choice, but I think they pushed him a little too far down the "super shaman" story line for him to just drop that and become warchief again. Eitrigg is another good choice. Saurfang is... Saurfang. One could also see Baine or Vol'jin taking over as well, but I think an orc is the likely choice.

I love me some lore theorycraft.

Here's your handy-dandy currency conversion time line.

Aug. 28 (i.e., next Tuesday) is the VP-to-JP and Conquest-to-Honor conversion. Valor and Conquest will take a month off to get ready for Mists. You can still get and spend Justice and Honor. The old Valor and Conquest gear will now be available for JPs and HPs, respectively.

It looks like Mists will keep the same currency system (Justice/Valor and Honor/Conquest) and award them largely the same way. Two new sources of Valor are Mists dailies and the new scenarios.

The big change: The Valor vendors you all know and love won't sell Mists gear. Instead, you have to get them from various faction vendors, and you have to have enough rep (honored for blue gear, revered for purple) to spend Valor. Blizzard seems to get away from the currency grind and back to a hope-you-win-the-roll! system that spawned the Justice/Valor system in the first place.

Enix wrote:

The big change: The Valor vendors you all know and love won't sell Mists gear. Instead, you have to get them from various faction vendors, and you have to have enough rep (honored for blue gear, revered for purple) to spend Valor. Blizzard seems to get away from the currency grind and back to a hope-you-win-the-roll! system that spawned the Justice/Valor system in the first place.

In the beta at least, the blue gear was JP rather than VP. There is also a pair of vendors at the temple in western Townlong Steppes that sells all the JP/VP gear on one vendor. It's the same stuff, just all in one spot. Then again, these vendors are farther away from the new cities than any of the other quartermasters, IIRC...

There's still plenty of currency grind available, just with a bit of extra rep grind as well. And the VP gear (389) is better than LFR (376), IIRC. I think even crafted stuff was 376.

Overall, aside from potentially having to grind rep with multiple toons again, I like the new system. If you're raiding normals/heroics, you're probably doing it with a regular group that hopefully has a reasonable system for handing out loot. If you're raiding LFR, it's certainly better than it was since everyone needing all the time regardless of need (or mostly guild groups taking all the loot) cannot happen; you getting loot is only dependent on your roll and you have the coin mechanic to get extra loot (even make sure you get something from the boss that has the one piece you want, if I understand the mechanic correctly). If you're not raiding at all, you can run heroics/do dailies to get the VP loot (and if you're running dailies you'll get the rep anyway). Not sure about gear requirements for normal/heroic raids, but you can hop in heroics pretty much in quest gear plus a little normal dungeon gear. LFR didn't require much more than heroics I think. It's a little hard to tell those in the beta, since it normalizes your gear anyway, but the rules were in place.

After reading your post, Rob, I remembered (or think I do, anyway) is that the big change in Mists is that you can't use gold to get PvE gear. Is that correct from what you remember from beta?

Aries wrote:

Agreed on all the above posts regarding the cinematic; damn they know how to get hooks in ya!

I haven't played in over a year, and it's been worth it because I've been able to play a lot of other cool games, which I was really missing out on when WoW had its claws in me. I think I'll probably pick this up and dust off my toons for a spin this fall.

If you need a scroll of resurrection, let me know.

Enix wrote:

After reading your post, Rob, I remembered (or think I do, anyway) is that the big change in Mists is that you can't use gold to get PvE gear. Is that correct from what you remember from beta?

I haven't been paying any attention, but my understanding is that valor buys it all.

I decided to jump back in.

My 83 Fury/Prot Female NE Warrior was still there in Deepholm waiting. For some reason, this go 'round the story in Deepholm really has it's hooks in me, particularly as I'm making my way through the Stone Lord's Trials.

After messing with F2P games over the past year...it's a welcome breath of fresh air to get a storyline I give a damn about.

I'll be getting the Expansion.

Now, if only I could get reset as an active guild member...hint, hint!

I'm usually on after 7 p.m. Eastern (6 p.m. server) if you need an invite. Or just whisper anyone who's on and see if they can find Bifur or one of Sel's numerous alts.

Remember that when patch 5.0.4 comes out next Tuesday the new talent tree will come into play, which means you'll have to re-learn to some degree how to play both specs.

The good news is you have a month to figure it out before the expansion drops.

AnimeJ wrote:
Enix wrote:

After reading your post, Rob, I remembered (or think I do, anyway) is that the big change in Mists is that you can't use gold to get PvE gear. Is that correct from what you remember from beta?

I haven't been paying any attention, but my understanding is that valor buys it all.

I don't recall seeing any PvE gear for gold, aside from the definitely beta-only vendors to help get initially set up. I also definitely remember seeing ilvl 450 (maybe 463) blue gear requiring honored with factions and being sold for JP. The purple gear from vendors I saw was all ilvl 489 and required at least revered and sold for VP. Can't remember if I saw any that required exalted or if that was just tabards/mounts/fun stuff.

kilanash wrote:

If there's anyone left in the world who hasn't yet participated in the Pandaland beta and wants a key (right, like that person exists), PM me.

I suppose you need an active account for that?

No idea. Probably. It's input through the blizzard account pages.

I get back to the states this weekend just in time for the conjunction patch....then go back to Africa a few days before MoP goes live.... -__- fml

I haven't played in a year and this would/will be the first WoW addon I may miss, but the trailers show nothing that brings me to the edge of my seat, really. Heck, I probably never saw 50% of the overhauled zones in Cataclysm. What are the big guns they are pulling out to retain/recover subscriber numbers?

Luggage wrote:

I haven't played in a year and this would/will be the first WoW addon I may miss, but the trailers show nothing that brings me to the edge of my seat, really. Heck, I probably never saw 50% of the overhauled zones in Cataclysm. What are the big guns they are pulling out to retain/recover subscriber numbers?

Me too. I did love that trailer with the badass panda though. But noooooooo... *backs away slowly*

Luggage wrote:

I haven't played in a year and this would/will be the first WoW addon I may miss, but the trailers show nothing that brings me to the edge of my seat, really. Heck, I probably never saw 50% of the overhauled zones in Cataclysm. What are the big guns they are pulling out to retain/recover subscriber numbers?

Pokemon battles and Farmville.

Luggage wrote:

I haven't played in a year and this would/will be the first WoW addon I may miss, but the trailers show nothing that brings me to the edge of my seat, really. Heck, I probably never saw 50% of the overhauled zones in Cataclysm. What are the big guns they are pulling out to retain/recover subscriber numbers?

It'll still be the same game (shoot, loot, profit!) but with some new features -- new race, new class, new zones, new BGs, new factions, new/revamped instances and raids, 5 more XP levels, all-new talent trees and, yeah, pet battles.

It's similar to the Cata launch except without the complete revamp of all the old vanilla zones.

WoW is what it is. I don't think anyone should expect major changes in a game that turns 8 in November.

Slacker1913 wrote:
Luggage wrote:

I haven't played in a year and this would/will be the first WoW addon I may miss, but the trailers show nothing that brings me to the edge of my seat, really. Heck, I probably never saw 50% of the overhauled zones in Cataclysm. What are the big guns they are pulling out to retain/recover subscriber numbers?

Pokemon battles and Farmville.

Don't forget about Kung Fu Panda. Also, Chen Stormstout.

In case anyone was interested and missed it, Blizzard did a brief overview of the major changes in the patch coming on Tuesday:

Patch 5.0.4 Survival Guide

It doesn't go into large amounts of detail like the massive patch notes are going to, but does have a brief paragraph for each class explaining some of the mechanics changes, such as Druids having 4 specs now instead of 3, with Bear (Guardian) spec now being seperate from Cat (Feral). It also touches upon the new talent system, briefly mentions glyphs, and talks about some of the other major changes.

It could be a good read for those of you who are interested but haven't really kept up on everything going on, and don't feel like reading through what will probably be dozens of pages of patch notes trying to pick out the important stuff from the minor details.

Good grief that's a lot of fundamental changes. It's going to take me the whole time between 5.0.4 and the Pandaria release to get a grip on all my characters.

Damn it if I'm not halfway thinking of getting this expansion and playing again, even though I didn't really even get my full money's worth out of Cataclysm.

I'm took a two year break from WoW, and am finishing up Cataclysm stuff (not taking very long to get to 85) It didn't seem like as good an expansion as Lich. Still there was some good stuff.

So I think I might pick up Panderia, although I am not sure if I can get fired up about it like I was in the past.

If there's anyone left in the world who hasn't yet participated in the Pandaland beta and wants a key (right, like that person exists), PM me.

Key's claimed.

They mentioned account-wide stuff, but I couldn't tell if that included BoA items or not. Anyone know?

Either way, still 50/50 on whether or not I'll be dancing the panda.

BadKen wrote:

Good grief that's a lot of fundamental changes. It's going to take me the whole time between 5.0.4 and the Pandaria release to get a grip on all my characters.

It's actually nowhere near as bad as it looks. I found that it was a really short adjustment period for my 4 different 85s.

AnimeJ wrote:
BadKen wrote:

Good grief that's a lot of fundamental changes. It's going to take me the whole time between 5.0.4 and the Pandaria release to get a grip on all my characters.

It's actually nowhere near as bad as it looks. I found that it was a really short adjustment period for my 4 different 85s.

Agreed. There are some spots where it's a bigger change, but most aren't. I found healing in the beta to be basically the same as it was on live. Warrior tanking was quite a bit different, as the model has been inverted (no rage from damage, but SS & Rev generate rage to use on the defensive abilities), and Arms had a larger change to the style (though I'm happy to see the stance dancing going away there). Elemental shammy seemed the same and Shadow priest was a small change and well guided, though I'm no expert on either. While Affliction changed a bunch, the core concept of keeping DoTs up and then spamming X above 25% and Y below 25% is still the same.

When you boot up, there will be an extra page in your spellbook describing what's changed and what spells/abilities your core rotation should center around. From there, if you knew the class before at all, putting together the basics isn't too hard. Doing top notch DPS might take a little more focus on how exactly every little thing has changed, but that's the way it generally works anyway.

Icy Veins and MMO Melting Pot both have class guides up.

Icy Veins say its guides are for 4.3, but it you click through the guides (some of them anyway) say they're for 5.0.4. The MMO Melting Pot guides are incomplete as of now, but it's coming.

Both sites will give you a general idea of stats, rotations, glyphs, talents, etc. Best of all, they're easy to digest and don't require a trip into the EJ forums.

Relatedly: Does anyone have an all-in-one addon compilation that they like? I've been using nUI but its author only just surfaced yesterday after some time underground, and I don't know if it'll be able to deal with the patch. Playing WoW with the vanilla interface is just too horrible to comprehend.

According to Wowhead, there is a pre-expansion event coming in 3 weeks. It's a 'one week only at 85' deal and has special Feats of Strength & Tabards to earn (think of the Argent Dawn event back when BC was about to come out).

Read here: http://www.wowhead.com/news=205863/b...

Some people better be around to group with me to do this instead of having to pug it...

Or else!

That actually doesn't arrive in 3 weeks; that particular Scenario, as I understand it, will run for the next 3 weeks prior to MOP's launch.

kilanash wrote:

According to Wowhead, there is a pre-expansion event coming in 3 weeks. It's a 'one week only at 85' deal and has special Feats of Strength & Tabards to earn (think of the Argent Dawn event back when BC was about to come out).

Read here: http://www.wowhead.com/news=205863/b...

Some people better be around to group with me to do this instead of having to pug it...

Or else!

I hope to be able to group with you. Assuming the install ever gets finished.

I had my usual issue with downloading tools. Once I got that straightened out, I went straight into the Optimization Stuck at 0 Percent issue. Yippie.

How many guildies on nowadays?