So the WoW press tour was last week. I want to know what everyone thinks of the new changes and everything that's been introduced since then!

I'm getting all of my info from the battle.net US forums, this thread:

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/4216984069

I have to admit right now that I'm the pinnacle of a casual player, so my focus isn't so much around what class mechanics have been added/taken away/changed, and more about the world and how much fun I think I'll have running around doing quests and collecting things (achievements, pets, mounts, mog sets).

Female pandaren model: squeal she's cute! I'm excited! Pandaren shaman, here I come! My only complaint is it's a little chipmunky, but I'm excited to see her in motion. Saw some of the different facial options for the male model, as well, and I think it looks EPIC.

New zones and races: Also look awesome. And the Pandaren Wall made me lol. They haven't put the city/cities on the continent yet, I'm curious to see how those will turn out.

I'm a bit disappointed that they told us the end already, although it's something that I'd like to see I would have liked to see the build up to it and be a bit more surprised when it happens...

Female Pandaren model. It's okay. I would have liked bigger and a lot less kawaii but it's Blizzard what do you expect. What I can't deal with is the stupid Red Pandaren. It makes no sense at all and I don't understand why they would include it, alternate colors maybe(even blood elves aren't all blonde) but a fucking long striped tail?

First of all, sorry for the incoming novel:

I have to be honest and say since Cata dropped I've been really unimpressed with the game. I quit about halfway through 4.2, and a large part of it was me just genuinely having zero interest in MoP. I mean, don't get me wrong, I love pandas, asian-esque architecture, etc., but it reminds me way too much of Kung Fu Panda. I also don't like the vanity pet battles, because KFP+Pokemon is just. :l

I did like that they upped the poly count on the new models, which wasn't surprising because they've been doing that every expansion but still; I also liked what I THOUGHT was going to be one of the mounts with the expansion. That alone was tempting me to renew and upgrade once it was out, but as it turns out it's just another way to milk their money cow. Totally will touch on that later. All in all, I think most of my 'oh I like this' reactions went toward the graphics. Now if only they'd redo the vanilla models, lol.

Now for my not-so-mini-rant:

I'll start with the Heart of the Aspects since I already brought it up - seriously, this mount is, overally, pretty badass. I wish the wings were a big bigger, but whatever it's nothing too major. Also, it looks pretty cool swimming, too. Totally expected this to be, like, an achievement reward or something with the expansion, because it would make sense, right? I mean, it would totally suit the races, zones, etc., so I was seriously talking myself into renewing in order to get that. But it's from the store. It's really disappointing that they seem to be putting the most effort into things they charge you for outside the game. That damn lion was awesome, too, and it was also in the store. It's really unfortunate that, generally speaking, all you get without paying an extra $25 is lame reskins (because, I mean really... Invincible has the Celestial Steed mount, which is awful; all the drakes are reskinned, the only difference is they've started getting bigger horns and tail-things; Swift Lovebird? It's just a bigger tallstrider, it didn't even get an updated model with a higher poly count; Spectral mounts are semi-transparent regular mounts... Oh and the firehawks, which looked really awesome... Until they were animated like proto-drakes, ugh)

The female pandaren model is looking really dwarfy... I hope they change that a bit, or that at least the animations don't look dwarfy at all because the female dwarves are awful. ): I was really unhappy with the introduction of pandaren to start with, though; I just feel like I shouldn't expect anything much from an expansion where they had to resort to introducing something that was a total joke from a long time ago. It really is hard for me to take it seriously, because if you base it all around a joke... why wouldn't it, in itself, also be a joke? At least I couldn't say 'oh Deathwing blah blah what a stupid idea for a boss' because he was pretty cool, in theory. I'm not sure I liked how they executed it though. He turned into a tentacle monster, I was waiting for it to turn into a bad hentai. If they're going to make MoP focus more on the Alliance-Horde issues and not some big giant boss that threatens the entire word from the very start, I'd just like for them to be able to balance PvP first. Which is another thing...

Seriously, PvP was terribly frustrating. It wasn't like it was one overpowered class that got nerfed, and in exchange a different class got stupid buffs until they managed to finally get things pretty decently balanced like they eventually did in Wrath (NOT at the very end, because while I had the most fun while everything was OP, it wasn't balanced lol) it was just... Mages. Plus the occasional class that would get a buff, but be nerfed soon after. Mages, though? Man. Have they been nerfed yet? And I don't mean 'oh we should really nerf frost and arcane a little bit and MEGABUFF fire' like they did. Hunters got pretty stupid, too. Definitely didn't have to worry too much about their actual abilities, because all they had to do was run and autoshot you, it hit pretty damn hard. It's really too bad Blizzard couldn't learn from ArenaNet and just split PVP/PVE skills, because they're getting awful when it comes to balancing the game.

My main thing against the game right now though, is that the more they do, the more it really just looks like a money cow these days. Kind of a bummer, I had a lot of fun playing it for however long I was on it. I'm not going to say I wish Vanilla was back, because I've heard just as many complaints about that. But BC/WotLK weren't bad. The PVP was okay, the mounts had some awesome ideas and designs behind them, the raids were fun. Not always easy in BC (and poor pallies... poor, poor pallies) but still fun.

TLDR: I really just think they're trying to change too much in order to keep people interested so they keep racking up money from a really, really tired game. In-game items for RL money (which I recall them saying would never happen...), redoing most of Azeroth, totally kicking hybrids out. All the changes they made for Cata I could handle. I didn't like them, but it was tolerable. I can't say the same for MoP. I read a lot of the changes for the classes I had been playing, and that was what eventually discouraged me to the point of finally cancelling. If I hear it's fantastic or whatever, then maybe I'll go back. But as it stands, it isn't going to happen.

I am very very excited for the eventual release of MoP! I am a semi-serious raider and I love doing PvE. I am not too big on PvP so the changes there don't really affect me much, though looking at the new lv 90 hunter talents, I might actually want to give PvP a try in MoP.

I actually found all my info on MoP from WoW Insider. :) I like the way they section things and point important stuff out. :)

So far, I'm not too upset about any changes raiding wise, but we'll have to see. Nothing has been set in stone yet. I am super super excited about the pokemon battles, and having my own farm!! :D I'm still kinda iffy on the transmog since I spend most of my gold on reforging whenever I get new upgrades, but other than that, the mounts are very very attractive.

I will definitely be rolling a new female Pandaren monk. I guess I will never have that warlock then since I already have 9 characters and I'm interested in seeing how the Alliance story line plays out in the starter zone for Pandarens (I'm keeping the horde Pandaren for sure). As for looks, I thought the female Pandaren would be more feral looking than right now. I still think she looks a bit like the female worgen, but I will take the improvement.

I'm super excited to see the new areas as well. They all look fabulous. :) Want to start rearing my cloud serpent though! It's like the Venomhide Ravasaur! :D I loved that quest line.

I think the red panda is supposed to look like the species called 'red panda', which actually isn't related to pandas at all but they're cute and look similar so they got thrown in the same pot shrug. I probably won't have a tail but I'm interested to see if it's an improvement from draenei tails-my poor mage can't wear cloaks because of the way they stick out on the bottom half -.-

I lol'ed at your tentacle monster comment XD I'll never look at Deathwing the same again!

Paid services for games you're already paying for is definitely a peeve of mine as well. I would've done whatever grindy thing they asked for to get it in game but not pay 25 bucks for it! It's one thing for small, free games to do it but a monster like Blizzard doing it is just...meh.

I actually love female dwarves but I can't get over their short, thick necks and ginormous floppy boobs that flop around like dumbo's ears, even in plate armor. That just really gets to me. So, since pandaren seem to have nice skinny necks and reasonably sized breasts (PLEASE don't make them bigger!), I'm enjoying them immensely :)

YAY hunter! Also super excited about pokemon battles (and taming your own pets in the wild is going to be the best part, talking about stroking a vanity pet collectors ego!) and instanced gardens. Like I said in my first post WoW for me has been so much about just doing all the grindy stuff (Bloodsail Admiral is mah title)...I guess you could say more about the 'RPG' than the 'MMO' for me. I'll definitely be taking a good hard look at PvP and whatever world PvP quests I'm guessing they'll introduce, it'll be a lot of fun.

I was originally thinking of rolling a gnome or dwarf monk, but then I realized that I would have to roll a pandaren to experience it in it's full awesomeness. I hope they upgrade the other models in a MoP patch or something (not going to happen). I'll also be rolling a pandaren shaman, and doing all the grindy new things like the cloud serpet (WANT).

Annnd beta started....I have the annual pass so I'm anxiously awaiting the beta invite so I can pass some more concrete judgements (pandaren starting area is up first, I read somewhere that it was awesome), though it interferes with my plans to finish Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning before Diablo III is released XD I'm a little curious as to how people thought they would be releasing beta to all the annual pass holders at the same time. I always expected it to go in steps, though I thought that you would get a limited amount of time instead of just getting in later. Besides, it's a beta, not a free early pass.

I know what red panda is >.>,

It just doesn't make any sense that pandarens would have "red panda pandarens" at all and the tail is just gaudy. Don't get me wrong I've been a huge supporter of Mists of Pandaria but the tails just make no sense.

As soon as I heard Deathwing had tentacles I was just like ...-cancel subscription- lulz. I just can't take that seriously.

Blizzard is really, REALLY working hard to get every last penny they can from their WoW players, it's honestly kind of sad. More than a little disappointing IMO, but whatever. I guess it's not surprising from Activision.

Female dwarves would be better if they were... more... I dunno exactly, less square, and had less scary faces. I don't mind the occasional 'OH GOD EW' face here and there, but none of their faces really work for me. Plus the animations are really clunky and irritating. But I dunno, I think the female pandaren are alright. I hope they have some way different faces than what they've shown, though; I'd hate to hear about them turning into female chihuahua-orgen. Female worgen were such a let down lol. But yeah, I actually think the neck needs to be thickened a bit. I think Hitsujifox on DA did a really nice edit here. Most of my issues with the model are really just super nitpicky though.

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