Blizzard's Mists of Pandaria Expansion Now Available

[sykozis]

[citation][nom]Ori25[/nom]World of Warcraft -> Diablo 3 -> World of Warcraft Mists of Pandaria -> Blizzard has a problem...[/citation]
Yes....they do. And the problem's name is Jay Wilson....

[citation][nom]spartanmk2[/nom]Im waiting a few weeks to see how other people feel this game is, D3 and Cataclysm has shook my confidence in Blizzard and made me skeptical of buying anymore of their games on midnight releases. (going to wait and see what other people say that buy it before i do)[/citation]
A lot of people feel the same way....

 

[leongrado]

Think Blizzard needs to up their game? Maybe continuing to buy every one of their games will help them change their minds right? LOL

 

[loops]

I'd might give this a go if I did not have to pay 15 bucks a month. But then again, I am not sure I'd play it if it were free.

 

[vanquished]

Every time I see the commercial I think it's for Kung Fu Panda, every time I see the commercial I'm disappointed it's not.

 

[dalethepcman]

The thing about Expansions in WoW, is to date they have completely invalidate all original world and previous content with the massive increase in stats. EQ1 had it down right when they had small incremental increases to all items / skills with each of their first 4 expansions, then when Sony took over they blew the games items out of proportion and instantly all original content became useless from an advancement standpoint.

When you know your character will replace "The best gear in the game" with "the first green item you find" when the expansion comes out, its hard to get attached to anything or show any real achievement through gear progression.

Add to that the continual dumbing down of the classes and the destruction of character differentiation through talent reduction and you end up with 1 million of each class all skilled and dressed and geared in the exact same way.

Adding additional mini games to try to keep the crowd happy might work to keep some subscribers but to me one word can sum up WoW, boring.

 

[Draven35]

Good, does this mean the commercials will stop popping up on all the flash game sites?

 

[nebun]

CRAP for sale, come get some....but we require your arm and a leg....

 

[billgatez]

A friend of mine says there was a total of 13 people who bought MoP at the best buy he works at. That a lot less then the 80 or so that were there for Cata.

 

[Guest]

This is like when Lucas added Ewoks instead of Wookies to Empire Strikes Back.

 

[Molochi]

I bought the digital version online once it launched it was smooth, no server d/c, no lag. The Jade forest was dead, I only saw 3-5 people the whole two hours I played. The launch was smooth, but the content was boring. I've played since 2005, and I have to agree with the couple others that I am not excited about this expansion. I will probably keep playing casually for something to do.

Overall, I think it was not the way to take the franchise, I'm sure they know what they are doing. Going back to the roots of the game in Vanilla was a good way to go, but I don't think the Pandaren were the way to go about it.

 

[captainblacko]

hopefully WOW2 will fix all these issues....

 

[crackseed]

[citation][nom]dalethepcman[/nom]The thing about Expansions in WoW, is to date they have completely invalidate all original world and previous content with the massive increase in stats. EQ1 had it down right when they had small incremental increases to all items / skills with each of their first 4 expansions, then when Sony took over they blew the games items out of proportion and instantly all original content became useless from an advancement standpoint.When you know your character will replace "The best gear in the game" with "the first green item you find" when the expansion comes out, its hard to get attached to anything or show any real achievement through gear progression.Add to that the continual dumbing down of the classes and the destruction of character differentiation through talent reduction and you end up with 1 million of each class all skilled and dressed and geared in the exact same way.Adding additional mini games to try to keep the crowd happy might work to keep some subscribers but to me one word can sum up WoW, boring.[/citation]

What's a bit ironic about your post is that with transmog items and the revamped talent system, there's actually MORE variety available now then prior. Now you can completely customize your gear appearance and in a given fight, you could have 3 BM Hunters and all of them could have 3-4 different talent choices made whereas prior to this, you always had the same looking gear and the talent system was very much cookie cutter. Now talents are more for utility and obtaining a set skill instead of "5 in this tier, 10 in this tier, blah blah" - it's not perfect but it's a helluva lot more varied in both gear appearance, stats and talents then what we've had to work with for a long long time. Hell, Transmog alone already put character customization [on the appearance front, which is big to players] farther ahead then it's EVER been in WoW.

Some food for thought

 

[infernocy]

are the pandas going to be able to adopt small elephands in the game ..
oh its so adorable ........

 

[noblerabbit]

[citation][nom]Ori25[/nom]World of Warcraft -> Diablo 3 -> World of Warcraft Mists of Pandaria -> Blizzard has a problem...[/citation]

Clearly , Blizzard has won, because ...=> still over 25 million people(have the problem) paying to play their games.

/boycott Diablo3 business model for gaming.

 

[noblerabbit]

[citation][nom]billgatez[/nom]A friend of mine says there was a total of 13 people who bought MoP at the best buy he works at. That a lot less then the 80 or so that were there for Cata.[/citation]

That's probably because the other 67 people now buy digital download, as do most gamers now a days.

 

[wildkitten]

[citation][nom]crackseed[/nom]What's a bit ironic about your post is that with transmog items and the revamped talent system, there's actually MORE variety available now then prior. Now you can completely customize your gear appearance and in a given fight, you could have 3 BM Hunters and all of them could have 3-4 different talent choices made whereas prior to this, you always had the same looking gear and the talent system was very much cookie cutter. Now talents are more for utility and obtaining a set skill instead of "5 in this tier, 10 in this tier, blah blah" - it's not perfect but it's a helluva lot more varied in both gear appearance, stats and talents then what we've had to work with for a long long time. Hell, Transmog alone already put character customization [on the appearance front, which is big to players] farther ahead then it's EVER been in WoW.Some food for thought[/citation]
You can't dramatically decrease choice in talents and say it increases variety. The new talents are very much cookie cutter. Take the Paladin talents, you have ones that are essentially best for holy, ret and prot. You won't have holy palys take a talent best for prot.

As for Transmogrification, this is something that is a armor skinning system that is overly complicated and way worse than in any other game. You have to use Void Storage for it, which of course is a bad form of storage. Any gear you put in it loses any gems and enchants. While the gems may not be a big deal, the enchants can be because some of the old enchants for weapons had unique graphics that people really liked. And of course, certain popular items can't be used for transmog.

Fact is cookie cutter and clones are still a problem WoW will deal with it.

 

[crackseed]

[citation][nom]wildkitten[/nom]You can't dramatically decrease choice in talents and say it increases variety. The new talents are very much cookie cutter. Take the Paladin talents, you have ones that are essentially best for holy, ret and prot. You won't have holy palys take a talent best for prot.As for Transmogrification, this is something that is a armor skinning system that is overly complicated and way worse than in any other game. You have to use Void Storage for it, which of course is a bad form of storage. Any gear you put in it loses any gems and enchants. While the gems may not be a big deal, the enchants can be because some of the old enchants for weapons had unique graphics that people really liked. And of course, certain popular items can't be used for transmog.Fact is cookie cutter and clones are still a problem WoW will deal with it.[/citation]

Sure I can - if we look at the prior talent incarnations, there was almost 0 variance in a given spec for raiding or PvP. Now, any of your "required" talents are more or less baked into the spec when you choose it and the talent choices at each 15 levels allow you to pick a particular perk that gives you more flexibility then you had with the prior systems. At level 30 for Hunter, I can choose to either pick up a silence/interrupt, a root and area control skill or a long term disable that will then apply some damage after it wears off/breaks. Any of these skills have use and it's not uncommon to run into 3 characters each using a different one. This already breaks the monotony of the prior system. In Cata, if I ran MM, I was the same MM as every other single MM. Granted, we're not talking earth shattering variety here, but it's actually still more then what existed, despite the drastic reduction in actual "talent" points spent.

As for Transmog, I think you're giving it an unfair shake. Very few games have allowed you to completely control the appearance of your gear. Yes, it may be nothing but an armor skinning, but letting you slap on ANY item appearance you want [it doesn't have to be in void storage to use mind you ] is a pretty big deal. And if we're talking about stats, having the reforge system to let you actually tweak and fine-tune your secondary stats on gear is also something that alot of games currently don't offer in that level. So yes, the game has grown in variety in terms of giving players more choice and letting players actually LOOK different from each other both in terms of appearance and [less so] in actual skill choice.

Always room for improvement, but it's quite nice having these types of options available to the players.

 

[dominick1233]

Guild Wars 2 > everything

 

[Guest]

The problem is every expansion after Burning Crusade has dumbed down the customization, challenge, and fun factor of what made the original game fun. Once they removed the SSC and BT keying, it's all been down hill from there. If I wanted no challenge at all, I'd play GW2, at least it's free. (flame /on)

I've played the game since launch, but I dropped my subscription about 6 months ago. This is the first expansion where I didn't pick it up at midnight. I doubt I'll pick it up at all.

 

[crackseed]

[citation][nom]boredwowguy[/nom]The problem is every expansion after Burning Crusade has dumbed down the customization, challenge, and fun factor of what made the original game fun. Once they removed the SSC and BT keying, it's all been down hill from there. If I wanted no challenge at all, I'd play GW2, at least it's free. (flame /on)I've played the game since launch, but I dropped my subscription about 6 months ago. This is the first expansion where I didn't pick it up at midnight. I doubt I'll pick it up at all.[/citation]

I do miss the keying quests but they have mentioned there's some interest in returning to that. What I will say however is the Challenge Modes are a great throwback to the days of Timed Stratholme, which still remains one of the most fun and enjoyable challenges put in the early game for me.

Cataclysm was what made me step back from the game [I considered for good at the time] but I've been pretty happily surprised with MoP. Time will tell if it's got more longevity, but thus far it feels like BC 2.0 to me in terms of solid content, interesting story arcs while also at least feeling like I have some pretty fair control over my character [both aesthetically and spec/skill wise]

 

[Guest]

alas, wow hit it in the park again... what a disappointment. now were i to have the expansion i must wait for the patch then wait for the bug fixes... wow is always tried and true regarding the laughably pathetic code source but with all of the lost market share of the past year one was found hoping that after two years in dev they would have gotten their collective act together.

such is not the case. content is lacking as are the more popular professions like firstaid fishing and skinning. if you want these as a pandaran dont anticipate starting them until after level 10. additionally, pandaria is not accessable from other islands except by upper level quest and they are somewhat dodgy and again, underwhelming. all in all? i will continue my routine of new email, new play to level 20 account, two weeks of last resort boredom avoidance gaming... and spend my money on a movie with friends.