What do you want in a city?
Nestled on the eastern half of the Vale of Eternal Blossoms, players will find two nearly identical shrines, the Shrine of Two Moons and the Shrine of Seven Stars. In the next expansion, these two locations will serve Horde and Alliance players as miniature capital cities, conveniently located in the heart of Pandaria for easy access to the rest of the continent. Both shrines currently offer most of the usual commodities you'd find in a capital city: Auction House, bank, profession trainers, and arcane reforging. Unfortunately, the shrines also appear to lack other basic essentials, such as class trainers, portals, transmogrification, void storage, and the ability to mount up on a flying or ground mount.
The good news is the shrines still appear to be under significant development. City chat channels (such as trade chat) were only just added yesterday with the latest beta patch, and most of the vendor and trainer NPCs still can't be interacted with. Additionally, you're not currently considered at rest while within the confines of a shrine, meaning you have to sit through that annoying pop-up for 20 seconds before you can log out. It also looks like the mount issue will be handled by an NPC in the shrines who casts Cyclonic Inspiration on you, allowing you to move about the city at high speeds, but the buff doesn't always take and falls off before you can run simple errands between the bank and Auction House.
Since I didn't participate in the Wrath of the Lich King beta, this is the first city I've seen while it was in development, which got me wondering: What would the perfect city be? What would I want a new city in the game to have? Maybe a transmogrification ethereal right next to the bank so it's easier for me to swap outfits? I bet players who deal in lots of buying and trading on the Auction House would want the bank right next door, if not inside the Auction House itself. What kind of features do role players want? How about raiders and PvPers?
What do you want in a city, and why?
It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!
