Mike B. is back again with another fully featured BFF Report! In this week’s edition (Episode #104), Mike B aka fony takes an extended look at the beta for Mists of Pandaria, the next expansion for World of Warcraft. Highlights include an overview of the new Pandaren starting zone and the early parts of Pandaria itself.
Go watch the video now and find out what Mike B thinks of Blizzard’s latest creation, as well as a roundup of the most amusing bugs found in beta so far!
I'm just gonna let Wowhead's own Ashelia speak for me here:
"In short, Ragefire Chasm is redone. Trogg corpses litter the molten floors of the instance--they aren't the enemies anymore. Instead it's a new cult, former members of the Horde called the Dark Shaman. Garrosh has ordered you to clear out Ragefire before they can become another Twilight's Hammer and it's a pretty obvious lore point calling to Garrosh's eventual overthrow."
Completely new bosses and trash mobs and a much more trimmed overall Chasm? Count me in.
It's getting closer! The juggernaut World of Warcraft's newest expansion, Mists of Pandaria, is inching closer, and Blizzard is now nudging the door open for people who want to get in just a bit further.
I don't know how much more I need to say beyond "Beta test Mists of Pandaria," but in case you need further prompting, there's no non-disclosure agreement, Annual Pass owners don't need to even enter, and those without only need to sign up on Battle.net. More after the jump to Blizzard's site. Go go go!
By now you’ve probably seen the deluge of information emerging about Mists of Pandaria (MoP), the next expansion to World of Warcraft. If you’re still in the dark about the latest episode in Blizzard’s magnum opus then head over to Wowhead, where you’ll find detail on almost every known element. We’ve also managed to grab some exclusive video interviews to extract even more information from the development team!
Since the initial flurry, we’ve had a chance to go through all the juicy morsels of information and work out what the expansion actually means to the players on the ground. Are we looking at a brief burst of activity followed by months of inactivity, or will this be a content update that’ll have us deeply engrossed for months if not years? Will Mists of Pandaria be met with acclaim from all corners of the player base, or will there be groups feeling neglected by Blizzard? Can the veteran game still be fresh and innovative, or is this an expansion of borrowed ideas?
Blizzard’s also going into what could be its most challenging year so far. Star Wars: The Old Republic emerged late last year swinging lightsabers in both hands and aiming for the MMO Story crown. Guild Wars 2 is looking to revamp many of the MMO staples we currently take for granted. The Secret World looks to tempt us from the shadows with a new and interesting setting, and WildStar remains the punk-kid with attitude. A poor expansion at this point in Warcraft’s life and the challengers would pounce on it like wolves on a sickly gazelle.
Last week, members of the press were invited to attend a huge Mists of Pandaria information session, and with the NDA dropping today, you'll probably be spending most of your day reading up on all of the previously unrevealed changes coming. The biggest topics covered include the reveal of Female Pandarens, the fact that Garrosh Hellscream will be the final boss of the expansion, players will be able to have their own in-game farms, and much more.
All of the above and more can be read in Wowhead's extensive coverage piece! Not only do they have pages and pages of new information for you to devour in point format, but there are also exclusive videos detailing the new MoP zones, dozens of screenshots to see, and four exclusive interviews with Blizzard devs Cory Stockton, Tom Chilton, J Allen Brack, and Greg Street.
Some big news from Blizzard yesterday, as they've revealed a revamped Scroll of Ressurection. Upon accepting the scroll, players will receive a single character boosted to level 80, a free character move and faction change, seven days of free game time, and a free upgrade to Cataclysm. For the referrers themselves, they'll be able to get a free Spectral Gryphon (Alliance) or Spectral Wind Rider (Horde) should their friend subscribe for 30 days after their free seven days are up.
Do realize that this is a limited time offer, so if it sounds like something worth checking out (who doesn't want a free level 80 character?), why not check out Wowhead's Scroll of Resurrection Request Thread?
In a letter from Mike Morhaime, we learned that Blizzard is in the process of cutting a number of active positions throughout the company. The reason stated for this mass amount of job loss was to better maintain the health of the company. As a result of certain departments becoming overstaffed, they have decided to scale down these departments to allow for larger growth in others.
These job cuts come about a year after Activision eliminated 500 jobs when they shut down the studios responsible for the "Guitar Hero" franchise. While no developers that work on World of Warcraft will be affected, this job loss could in part be due to the near 1 million subscriber decline in World of Warcraft this past year.
Morhaime did emphasize that Blizzard is still committed to shipping multiple games this year. There is exciting news to be had in the coming weeks with Diablo III's release date as well as the Mists of Pandaria press tour. It's always sad to hear news of people losing their jobs and our hearts go out to those who are affected.
Blizzard giveth, and Blizzard taketh away! While many people have enjoyed the splendor that is the 64-bit client for World of Warcraft, it seems that the upcoming patch 4.3.3 is going to break it, forcing users back down to the 32-bit client. To make matters worse we don't know how long it will be until we get another functional 64-client.
If you were previously running the 64-bit client, according to Blizzard you need to delete the following files in order for the patch to work properly.
For more information be sure to check the support website.
Develop is reporting that Blizzard might be looking into an interesting approach for one of it's upcoming games, saying the company "will embrace free-to-play and will apply the model in an upcoming, as yet unannounced game."
The website couldn't provide further details on the specific project this would apply to, but the studio is widely known for working on a next-gen MMO named "Project Titan". While the move would be a major change from the model we have become accustomed to in World of Warcraft, Blizzard may need to follow suit to keep up with many other MMO titles going free-to-play in the past few years.
It is also possible that this game in question applies to an entirely different "unannounced game" as the California studio has said it will expand business opportunities to create both subscription and freemium titles.
Huge changes went into place for the Mists of Pandaria Talent Calculator, causing a huge storm of community posts about the various changes. One thing that is very clear is that Blizzard is really trying to perfect the idea of playstyle choice. Not just in terms of class specialization, but in the various tools and abilities that are now available for an entire class via the new talent system.
Mages were pretty excited during BlizzCon to see a talent tier dedicated entirely to affecting their main crowd control effect, Polymorph. However, that has now been replaced as a tier that gives more options and style to how a player regenerates their mana. Other major changes were visible in the Paladin's talent tree. Talents like Holy Prisim, can be cast on enemies or allies with varying AoE effects if it's cast on friend or foe.
But talents weren't the only thing getting changed. Even class abilities are being adjusted and even consolidated. For example, tanks now have a debuff called Weakened Blows, which weakens a target's physical damage by 10%. This debuff is applied when a normal rotation ability like Thrash, Thunderclap, and Hammer of the Righteous is cast. This helps eliminate the incursion of a global cooldown on abilities that felt less interesting and helps ensure the maximum amount of debuffs are up on a target.
These changes definitely are going to bring an entire new learning curve for the entire player base. The best recommendation is to familiarize yourself with the changes coming to your class and be ready to experiment when the beta finally launches.
