mists-of-pandaria-beta
Latest
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: New dailies spark ongoing story
Of all the things I enjoy in Warcraft, it's the little things that please me the most. In particular, I like getting mail. Mail from my friends is all well and good, but it's the mail from NPCs that really tickles me. For some reason, I just really like the thought that there's an NPC out there jotting down a note and sending it my way via post, whether it's a congratulatory letter or simply a note to say hello. Hitting level 90 in Mists of Pandaria opens up a whole host of new dailies and a ton of new factions to gain reputation with. Now, before you roll your eyes and groan about yet more reputation grinds, the new dailies introduce some fascinating bits of player/NPC interaction. When I hit level 90, I immediately headed to an island of the southern coast of Krasarang Wilds called the Cradle of Chi-Ji, the crane also known as the Southern Celestial in Pandaria. Why did I head there, of all places? Because the island is swarming with beautiful, delicate cranes, and I cannot express how badly I want to toss a saddle on one and ride it around. I'm a mount collector. Sue me. But what I found in the Cradle of Chi-Ji was far more interesting than a simple daily grind.
Mists of Pandaria Beta: The Unga Ingoo scenario
During my sojourns on the beta, I assiduously ground my way to level 90 for one reason and one reason only: to get flying back as soon as possible. But since I'm here now, I figure I might as well explore some of the new content the game has to offer -- namely, scenarios. If you listen to the WoW Insider Show, you know that I've been looking forward to scenarios. They're content that you can run more easily than a dungeon without tight constraints on role. Just hop in and go. So of course, I went in as a prot warrior and tanked it. Don't blame me; blame how amazing prot is as a leveling spec in Mists of Pandaria. What follows is a run-through of the scenario I ran (called Unga Ingoo), complete with a variety of screenshots of the action. If you like pirates, monkeys, monkey pirates, monkey pirates on islands, or just smashing any of those things in the face in your own private monkey island, then you'll like Unga Ingoo. Also, Monkey Island was a classic game series -- but that's neither here nor there.
Know Your Lore: As new lore emerges
The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft. There will be spoilers for Mists of Pandaria in this post. So there's no other way to say this: I am enjoying the heck out of the stories I am being presented with in the Mists of Pandaria beta. I'm actually reading quest text. (To be fair, I do that a lot anyway -- lore nerd and all.) Frankly, as Anne pointed out this weekend, one of the things that's best about this expansion is that everything we experience is new to us. Mists of Pandaria isn't just the story of the pandaren. In fact, while the pandaren are very cool, I find myself absolutely drawn to explore everything else up on the buffet table. The Mogu and their astonishing ruins, the mantid threat in the Dread Wastes, the entirely foreign threat of the Sha -- these are all compelling and fascinating to me. Better still, I'm being presented all new ways to explore these story options. More so than any expansion in the history of World of Warcraft, the Mists of Pandaria are parting to show us an entirely new world, one we know very little about. If you're an old codger like me, that in and of itself is an interesting departure. But it's being backed up by all the innovations and discoveries of the past seven years of quest and zone design. Frankly, this first post-Cataclysm expansion owes a lot to the teachable moments of the massive zone redesign effort made in the previous expansion. The fruits planted then are being harvested now, and the results are in places stunning.
Mists of Pandaria Beta: Earning valor points via daily quests
When they said there were hundreds of new daily quests in Mists of Pandaria, they were not kidding. And some of those quests reward valor points. Granted, they don't reward a lot of valor points -- five per daily -- but with so many available, it's feasible that you could come fairly close to capping your 1,000 valor points a week just through daily quests. I found four in the Towlong Steppes alone, and I wasn't really looking all that hard. In fact, I stumbled across one on a remote island to the north of the Steppes while flying around after dinging 90 and ended up doing that one first. The quests range from simple "collect X of Y" quests to slightly more complicated exercises, and they tend to fill in gaps in the lore as well, if you're interested in that. Anne Stickney and I did one of the quests together, and there were some odd issues with looting quest items that we worked out. In general, the quest didn't take very long once we got into the swing of it, and it was a fairly painless way to farm up five valor points overall. While dungeons still offer points as well, it's a nice supplement. 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: Pet Battle Music is a blast from the past
In what will be heralded as one of the more austere, kickass features coming with Mists of Pandaria, Blizzard has finally added in the music for Pet Battles, which is a mix of a little new/little old MIDI tunes that sound more at home on a Super Nintendo. But what's that I hear? Is it ... the original Warcraft and Warcraft II renditions of the faction songs? For Pet Battles? For serious? I guess I have to go install Warcraft II: Battle.net Edition again. Great. What do you all think about the old Warcraft music's making an appearance in WoW? 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: Pandaren flirts and jokes
One of the things that players look forward to the most with new races is what the heck they're going to crack jokes about, exactly. Sure, we've had emotes in the Mists of Pandaria beta since the beta went live, but we didn't have any sounds to go with them -- until now. MMO-Champion dug up a host of new info from the latest beta patch, including all of the assorted jokes and flirts for both male and female pandaren. While I love the sound and feel of the male pandaren voice, the female version was lacking something for me. The voice sounds fine; it just feels like the voice sounds a little too mature for the model design. However, the female pandaren jokes have all but changed my mind on that front. There's some of the usual pop culture references and some truly inspired (and very funny) joking around in light of the pandaren critics out there.
Mists of Pandaria Beta: All heroics open for testing
All of the Mists of Pandaria heroic dungeons are available for testing in the beta. While they are not easily accessed in the Dungeon Finder because of an extra-high gear level requirement, you can still test the heroic of your choice by entering it through the front door. Blizzard has planned two changes to help players get into the heroics via the Dungeon Finder: A higher level will be able to be simulated. The gear level of 440 will be lowered via a hotfix. The full text of Daelo's post is below. Daelo Currently for a player to enter into a Heroic Dungeon through the Dungeon Finder system requires an item level of 440. Currently, this is a more difficult bar to clear in the beta that it will be in the final live game. We're going to work towards hotfixing that value down, but at the same time use some new magic we have to simulate a higher level. When that change gets applied, I'll edit this thread with the news. In the meantime, you can actually go old school to test the dungeons. Form a group, then head in through the entrance! I'm making feedback threads for them all, since they're all open. 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!
Build your lore library with the Lorewalkers
Have you seen shrines and statues with chunks of story throughout the beta lands? They pop with an achievement step completed when you look closer. When you put the whole achievement together, you get the entire short story. Between archaeology items and these shrines throughout Pandaria, there are plenty of lore tidbits to be found. Anne Stickney wished in Know Your Lore for a way in-game to hold on to these stories for later viewing. There is a way, but you have to hit level 90 first to unlock it.
Blood Pact: Embrace your inner demonic lord at level 90
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology, and destruction warlocks. This week, Megan O'Neill is forever remembering to soulstone herself while questing after falling victim to the across-the-map graveyard in the Dread Wastes. I should know better by now than to expect the beta to hold off on its new builds until I've finished working out my latest testing idea. The night I had planned to get Matticus to wipe with me valiantly heal my Dark Apotheosis tank warlock through a dungeon, the beta unveiled level 90 and other things. Along with such wonderful content was a bug involving dungeons that left numerous characters stuck at the loading screens for hours, some almost the entire day. At least I knew enough to have a Plan B, C, and D for posting this week. I was able to get my first warlock to level 90 and play with the final tier of talents in non-group formats. So let's review those three talents while I plan my warlock tank adventure again.
Mists of Pandaria Beta: Level 90 flying and where to get it
Level 90 has been unlocked on the Mists of Pandaria beta servers, which means that beta testers can now reap the rewards of being max level -- specifically, flying! Flying is a trained ability obtained in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms, one of the last zones you'll visit on your leveling journey. The Vale of Eternal Blossoms houses two large shrines, mini-cities of sorts. There's one for Alliance and one for Horde. Each city flanks the impressively gorgeous Mogu'shan Palace and includes a host of vendors, stable masters, and trainers of every variety. This is where you'll want to head when you're ready to take to Pandaria's skies. Horde players are taking up residence in the Shrine of Two Moons, while Alliance players are just across the valley in the Shrine of Seven Stars. Each shrine houses a Skydancer who will teach level 90 players the art of flying in Pandaria for 2,500 gold. Considering that flying in early The Burning Crusade set you back a whopping 5,000 gold, this is pretty cheap in comparison. Remember, though, as with all beta content, the price is not set in stone until Mists of Pandaria is released. Having spent most of five levels happily exploring Pandaria, I can't wait to finally see it from the skies. 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 level cap raised to 90
If you have access to the Mists of Pandaria beta, you may want to log in and start leveling. Late yesterday evening, beta servers went offline for maintenance, and when they came back up, Quality Assurance Representative Sapperwix made the following announcement. Sapperwix -- Beta Server Maintenance - 6/1/12 Realms should be coming up momentarily. And as you will soon find out... LEVEL 90 CONTENT IS AVAILABLE! Go explore Dread Wastes and Vale of Eternal Blossoms! No raids, pet battles, and some scenarios and BGs are not yet available. source In addition to the two new questing zones, players will also finally be able to reach level 90 and play around with their new talents. If you don't have beta access, some game footage of the new zones and talents have already made their way online. 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: New warlock pets get their voice emotes
The level 75 talent option Grimoire of Supremacy grants the warlock more powerful minions, and now those minions have their own voice emotes for their actions. Every demon gets a few options for summoning, attacks, spellcasts if the demon casts, dismissing the demon, and a joke for idling or clicking on them. Wowhead compiled all the voice emotes into one video and have transcribed them all. Each demon's general personality is reflected through the voice emotes. We have the combustive fel imp, the slow but steady voidlord, the ravenous observer, the self-serving shivarra, and the brutal but loyal wrathguard. Fel imp: (spellcast) Yeah, it's fighting time! It's burning time! Let's heat things up! Voidlord: (dismiss) When I consume your world, my armies will save you for last. Observer: (joke) Did you see that, hehehe? Uh Uh Uh Uh. I see what you did there. Shivarra: (summon) How dare you summon me? I am not some trifling toy for you to call upon as you please. Wrathguard: (attack) By your orders! I live to be commanded. Since warlock pets are moving from a spec-based choice to a situational decision, master and minion personality compatibility means more than ever! 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: Now with weather
Mumper, Blizzard game designer, has confirmed that weather has been implemented in the latest MoP patch. Mumper We just added weather to all the zones in the last build. If you are not seeing it yet, just give it some time to show up. source While weather was implemented in both vanilla WoW and The Burning Crusade, most of the Wrath of the Lich King zones and all of the new Cataclysm zones did not have weather changes. Having rain in the MoP areas will be a nice addition to an already visually gorgeous expansion. A few forum posters have reported seeing weather in some zones, but as it is up to the RNG, your mileage may vary. Have you seen any precipitation or other meteorological events in the latest beta patch? 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!
Pandaria makes its appearance on the world map
MMO-Champion has revealed that the latest beta build, 15739, will finally put Pandaria on the map. The fog of 10,000 years has lifted, and the elusive continent's position has finally been established, at least to the satisfaction of Azeroth's cartographers. (That really must have been quite some fog.) Beta testers on Pandaria will no longer appear to be somewhere in the swirling midsts of the maelstrom, which will likely be a relief. While the zone map itself has been accessible to folks on Pandaria almost since the beta became active, its exact position relative to the other zones has not been established until now (although we've always known it'll be in the southern area of Azeroth). It's positioned opposite Northrend, occupying that conspicuously empty bit of the map. It looks, then, as if the continent might be accessible via ship rather than purely via portal, which would fit in well with Blizzard's ideas on increasing the time players spend in the world it's creating. It does make me wonder whether any future expansions will create more continents in this area apart from those four or whether any future zones will be on an Outland-esque plane on a different map. Sure, there's room for more land mass either side of Pandaria, but then where would the pictures of ships go? Or perhaps a new zone will emerge in the middle, to the horror of the navigators of Azeroth's fleet. 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: Hallow's End loot updated
In addition to all the other things Wowhead has found in the latest beta patch, we're apparently getting updated Hallow's End loot as well. At ilevel 470, these epic rings are slightly superior to the blue items dropping in Mists' heroic dungeons. What are we looking at so far? The Band of the Petrified Pumpkin, a strength DPS ring. Seal of Ghoulish Glee, an agility DPS ring. The Horseman's Ring, an int ring with hit on it. That's caster DPS, right? I'm going to assume that's what it is. Wicked Witch's Signet, a caster ring with spirit on it. That's for healing, right? There's also an updated Horseman's Horrific Hood and the Horseman's Sinister Saber, but both are slighly lower in ilevel (463), so we're not sure about them yet. All of it seems to suggest that the plan is for Mists to come out before Halloween, which I suspect most of us already believed. 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: Glyph changes from the latest beta build
Wowhead News has posted a huge list of changes in this most recent beta build, and it includes quite a few changes to glyphs. Since the glyph system is being retooled in Mists of Pandaria, it's not a surprise to see more changes as the beta progresses, and here are a few examples. Glyph of Mark of the Wild becomes Glyph of Charm Woodland Creature, which allows the druid to tame an ambient woodland creature for one hour. The Glyph of Feign Death is now the Glyph of Fireworks, now allowing you to shoot fireworks from your ranged weapon. Glyph of Shadowfiend is now the Glyph of Smallfiend, which summons three small Shadowfiends instead of one large one. The glyph changes all seem aimed at utility or cosmetic rewards, increasing customization instead of damage or healing dealt. (A few, like the Glyph of Death from Above, will increase damage.) This is in line with the new concept for glyphs, that they provide a cool visual or some minor survival benefit rather than raw power. Go check out these and other changes at Wowhead. 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!
Expanding Endgame Choices: How Mists of Pandaria changes everything
In the past year, even before Mists of Pandaria went into beta, we've been seeing an expansion of options for players in World of Warcraft that have broadened our idea of endgame content. Endgame content can be described at its most basic as stuff we do when we're at max level, and patch 4.3 added not only the Raid Finder (which is absolutely endgame content) but also transmogrification (which is content for everyone). It revitalizes older content that was once endgame; it gives players from the level 17 twink to the 70 running BC raids to the new level 85 something to do that in no way actually amplifies a character's power in any way. It breaks with the mold of what we think endgame content is supposed to do. Mists is bringing more of this. From the Pet Battle system, to a mass of hundreds of new daily quests and a removal of the limit on daily quests, to specifics such as being able to level up your own farm and improved Raid Finder support for each new tier of raiding, what we're seeing is an emphasis on broad content -- things people who play for six to 10 hours a day can do but which are also accessible in smaller bites for people with far more limited play time. You can hit up the buffet, do some Pet Battles, run some dungeons, or work on a reputation, or you can pick one aspect of the game and work on it. Do you really want to develop your fishing? Are you completely disinterested in anything but PvP? You can go as deep or as wide as you wish. As someone who has no interest in Pet Battles, fishing, or having my own farm, I think this is fantastic.
EU fansites giving away Mists of Pandaria beta keys
If you're living in Europe and waiting patiently (or even not so patiently) for an invite to the beta for Mists of Pandaria, then consider these fansites -- for they are just giving them away. CM Nakatoir posted the list of participating fansites with stashes of keys to give away on the forums, making it all the easier for you to find and enter as many as you can. There are also threads linked for German, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian players, with a French thread on the way. So get out there and enter some sweepstakes. There's nothing to lose and a possible Mists of Pandaria beta slot to win. If you're an annual pass subscriber, however, you should already have access to the beta. Just head over to your Battle.net account page and check for the Mists of Pandaria beta account. From there, you can download the client and log in to start experiencing all the beta fun. 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: A first look at Battleground blacklisting
Following on from today's Breakfast Topic on your favorite Battlegrounds, we're really excited to bring you the latest news from Pandaria: Battleground blacklisting is live in the beta! This long-anticipated feature allows the world-weary PvPer to go through the list and click a thumbs down icon to the right of a highlighted Battleground. You can see what the icon looks like before it is selected on the highlighted Arathi Basin on the header image. Once the little icon is red, as you can see in the header image on Alterac Valley and Strand of the Ancients, those Battlegrounds are blacklisted. When you queue for a random Battleground, those two will be excluded from your random list. It should be noted that the weekly Call to Arms Battleground cannot be blacklisted -- the "thumbs down" icon doesn't appear next to it. However, as you probably know, the Call to Arms changes every week, so the Battleground in question can go back onto your blacklist straight after the Call to Arms is over. You can blacklist a maximum of two maps at a time. To un-blacklist, simply uncheck the symbol. Being a crafty PvPer, I immediately begged a favor from the lovely Anne Stickney to see if we could blacklist more than two Battlegrounds by joining as a group. It turns out that Blizzard had already thought of that, believe it or not, and the the join as group function is currently disabled. 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!
