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Mists of Pandaria Beta: Jade Forest going offline for extended period
If you've been postponing checking out the new zones in the Mists of Pandaria beta, you may want to start rolling. (Yes, that was a monk joke.) According to a recent post by Kaivax on the beta forums, the next patch will see the zone no longer accessible due to necessary "improvements." As a consolation, an NPC will be provided in Stormwind or Orgrimmar that will boost you to level 86 and teleport you to the next leveling area, Valley of the Four Winds. Hopefully, Jade Forest will reopen for testing of the new changes eventually, but the timeline is anyone's guess at this point. The full blue post is below. Kaivax With the next patch to the World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria beta, we will be temporarily removing the Jade Forest zone. We're going to be making improvements to the zone, and want to put the focus of testing on other areas during this time. As a result, starting with this next beta patch (which is coming soon™), you will find that you are no longer able to enter Jade Forest. If you have any characters that are hanging out in Jade Forest when the zone is disabled, they will be automatically ported out to the following locations: Valley of the Four Winds (for Horde characters) Krasarang Wilds (for Alliance characters) Characters that need experience to continue testing can visit either Orgrimmar or Stormwind. In each faction city, there will be an NPC that provides a quest which will reward enough XP to boost your characters from 85 to 86, as well as send you to Valley of the Four Winds to continue questing from there. We expect Jade Forest to be offline for an extended period of time; we'll provide further details as we progress with our updates to the zone. Thank you for testing Mists of Pandaria! source 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!
Mists of Pandaria Beta: Of replays and linearity
One of the most common complaints surrounding Cataclysm is the extremely linear nature of questing, both in the 1-to-60 experience and from 80 to 85. For levels 1 to 60, this linear nature almost works for me, largely because presumably new players heading through this content would like to do so as efficiently as possible. With a multitude of zones to choose from, the replay experience with Cataclysm isn't too bad -- particularly because it's really not that hard to level from 1 to 60 at the moment. And that's especially nice for new players trying to get the hang of the game. However, when you hit level 80, there is one distinct path to follow to level 85, and each zone in that path has been carefully laid out. Quests are divided into hubs, and each hub must be completed in order to move on to the next. If you're taking an alt through these areas, you must replay through the same set of hubs and the same set of quests. If you're replaying several alts, this gets incredibly tiresome incredibly quickly. Thankfully, we're about to say goodbye to that leveling model. Let's look at Mists, shall we? No spoilers, I promise!
New Mists of Pandaria screenshot appears
A new Mists of Pandaria screenshot has randomly appeared in the Cataclysm screenshot gallery on the Blizzard site today. (Update: It's the start of the MoP Screenshot of the Day program.) How do we know it's an MoP screenshot? Because there are four pandaren in it. We also see some large, raid-type portal doors, which are clearly Asian-themed. The whole screenshot has a jungle feel to it and looks like it might come out of The Jade Forest, which is a new 85-to-86 zone. The doors are also identical to the ones in the Temple of the Jade Serpent dungeon. The Temple is the very first instance players will encounter in MoP. Check out the larger version for even more win. World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria is the next expansion, raising the level cap to 90, introducing a brand new talent system, and bringing forth the long-lost pandaren race to both Horde and Alliance. Check out the trailer and follow us for all the latest MoP news!
