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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsBreakfast Topic: What do you expect from this year's BlizzCon?
by Allison Robert 
Oct 21st 2011 at 8:00AM
With a look at the schedule of events on day one, we can reasonably expect to see a preview of the Deathwing encounter (well, more of it), and the most common guess that I've seen so far is that the talent system is going to be overhauled in the run-up to the next expansion. Interestingly, that seems to have been a popular guess even before the BlizzCon schedule was released and all but confirmed that something is afoot. Speaking of expansions, there's the specter of that "World of Warcraft preview" panel this afternoon, and I think we all know what that's going to be about. Sort of.
Pandas? Emerald Dream? Xoroth? Tijuana? Ladies and gentlemen, place your bets.
Turn to WoW Insider for all your BlizzCon 2011 news and information. Get ready to kick off the weekend with the WoW Insider Reader Meetup, cohosted by Wowhead and Gamebreaker.tv, and look for our liveblogs of the convention panels, interviews with WoW celebrities -- and of course, lots of pictures of people in costumes. It's all here at WoW Insider!
Filed under: Breakfast Topics, BlizzCon
Reader Comments (Page 4 of 5)
Zenotho Oct 21st 2011 9:10AM
Reply fail. Maybe joystiq can announce a nerf to the CC in their commenting system. :P
Mperiolat Oct 21st 2011 9:15AM
An expansion announcement.
Details on 4.3 additions, esp. pets and mounts.
Lore details leading to 5.0.
That's it. Anything else is gravy for my mashed potatoes.
evoxpisces Oct 21st 2011 9:15AM
If Alliance get Pandas and Horde get Ethereals....I'd easily say that the Alliance got gypped (again). Ethereals are WAY cooler than Pandas anyday!
Nina Katarina Oct 21st 2011 9:21AM
I'd love to have scalable dungeons and raids. Have 13 people online and geared? There's a 13-man raid for you!
viciouspen Oct 21st 2011 10:04AM
Now that is a very interesting idea and it's tech I've somewhat seen in other games.
The MMO I used to play Champions Online for instance, had the ability to auto scale their world event battles (as they were massive things, covering entire cites of robot invasions and stuff) to the individual player.
So you're have max level players right next to people half their level and it's an equal challenge to each of them, and each can contribute.
Totally awesome
Nina Katarina Oct 21st 2011 10:41AM
Scalable raids would probably not be a good idea for top-tier content, now that I think about it, because top 100 guilds would quickly conclude that boss1 is best killed with 28 people and boss2 is best killed with 12, and everyone would feel compelled to slavishly follow along.
But it'd be great for prior tier pickup raids - we often have 8 or 14 people signed up for our BWD fun runs and it's annoying to go begging for extra warm bodies or tell folks who are enthusiastic about getting back into the game that there isn't a place for them.
crsh Oct 21st 2011 9:28AM
It would be worth going if Tom Chilton would get rolled in tar and feathers, the rest wouldn't matter.
On a more serious note, I expect launch dates for D3 and SC2's episode 2 (both prolly sometime in 2012), possibly an announce for the next WoW expansion because everybody wants to forget the cluster flick that Cataclysm has been.
Abbadon Oct 21st 2011 9:24AM
I'd race change my 6 yr old Orc to Ethereal so fast.... But alas, I really don't think we're getting the option.
What I do think we're going to see is... Panda sidekicks! Ethereal sidekicks would be a bonus!!
One of the selling points of SWTOR is the addition of companion characters which are pretty much as strong as another player but under your control and direction. This would allow the Pandaren race to remain neutral and help both sides, and all players would kinda/sorta get to play as Pandaren via their companion.
evoxpisces Oct 21st 2011 9:25AM
-Next WoW expansion
-Diablo 3 release date
-Starcraft 2: Heart of the Swarm news
-WoW's talent system being overhauled again
My guesses are pretty generic but I'm not the best at predicting what they will show at any game conferences. But as for the expansion I am highly speculative that it will indeed be "Mists of Pandaria" and that Pandaren will NOT be playable, but that Pandaria is the 85-90 leveling area. And for this expansion, they give us Monks who initially train in Pandaria, who are a hero class that also start at 55 like DK's. Assuming they stick with the talent trees, 1 spec will be healing others, 1 spec will be DPS w/ specialization w/ fist weapons, and 1 will focus on self-buffs and self-healing. All classes could be monks like DK's. A new primary profession is added (not sure what). Well, those are predictions anyway.
Haenf Oct 21st 2011 9:29AM
Expect? New expansion, new zones, panda/scattered southern islands theme, Azshara as end boss, increased Burning Legion presence (they really need to come back and stop the World of Lovecraft completely taking over, revamp to talent tree, no need to re-make the 'old world' meaning that we go back to 10 levels added.
Wild random guess/what I'd like to see? Pandaren Brewmasters as summonable allies after completing an initial quest chain at 85+. Have talent trees similar to hunter pets and can ask them to heal, tank or dps. Cost 1% of your total gold for every 5 mins they are active. Solves introducing a new race, class, aspect of play and gold sink in one go.
Haenf Oct 21st 2011 9:30AM
Oh, and it will also allow both factions to get the damn pandas and stop any whining.
DarkWalker Oct 21st 2011 9:46AM
What I want to see:
- More info on the Brazilian WoW version. When is the official release, and why the press release stated the monthly price would be R$15 (roughly $9) when we, like Oceania and Spanish-speaking Americans, will be playing in the US region. Seems like there is some important bit of information still missing.
- Plans for the next expansion, and confirmation of any changes regarding the expansion release schedule and, if there is any change, pricing. I'm not happy with the idea of smaller expansions being released faster but for the same price.
- More info about their current philosophy about group content. Some follow up on the plans regarding LFR and teaching players to raid. Some confirmation if the idea from now on is to offer faster instances, or if this is just for the current tier.
- If there is any intent of further messing with talent trees and specs. I loved the idea being implemented in Diablo 3 (mostly because it seems to be an almost exact copy of how GW2 will handle specs), and would love to see WoW go in the same rough direction. I would also love to see more available specs, dual specs are really not enough for me.
- If there is any change of going back on the requirement to be always logged on to play Diablo 3. I simply won't purchase the game if it expects me to be logged for single player.
What is revealed on Blizzcon will most likely determine if I will try the game again or not. Barring some new reveals that draw me back to the game - and this has more to do with game systems than content, at the moment I couldn't care less about what will be featured in the next expansion - I will most likely just stay on DCUO/LotRO until GW2 and TSW are released. Free respeccing on the fly, like GW2 and TSW will offer, for me is too good an offer to let pass.
viciouspen Oct 21st 2011 9:59AM
Well I would guess there will be an XPAC reveal.
As for levels, I guarantee you it'll be 5 from here on out.
The days of ten levels per Xpac are behind and will not be returning.
Blizz, if they could, would probably like to go back in time and make BC and Wrath both 5 level xpacs so that there wouldn't be as much of a level mountain for new players to tackle to even get into the "real game" as it's sometimes called.
viciouspen Oct 21st 2011 10:08AM
Wait....it came to me in a Nostradamus like image...
Ponies.....
Ponies as....a playable race....
....squirrels....squirrels invading Azeroth......
the horror.....the horror.....
*passes out*
Blacksleeves Oct 21st 2011 10:24AM
I think we should probably be honest with ourselves about the possibility of Pandas showing up as a playable race due to China's lack of interest in allowing anything that looks like a panda to die. I can't imagine Blizzard would make the business decision to create a race that would cause their game to be banned in another country, or even funnier, change the death mechanics just for pandarens so that when they are dropped to 0 health, they just get knocked unconscious with stars spinning around their heads. Then again, they did put skin on the forsaken for china, so who knows.
MattKrotzer Oct 21st 2011 10:40AM
@Blacksleeves:
I'm pretty sure all the panda-related restriction nonsense is all urban legend.
AirBeagle Oct 21st 2011 2:49PM
Going on record here three hours out just to see how close I get:
Mists of Pandaria. Summer '12. Neutral Pandaren send representatives to both factions pleading for help for mysterious something wiping out their race on previously unknown continent in the south. Race between Alliance and Horde to get their first and open it up, a la Quel'danas, Firelands, etc. etc. Opens in stages with in-game events.
New level cap of 90. No new playable races. 1 new playable class. Don't really want to guess on this one, but how 'bout: Monk class which is trained only by neutral Pandaren?
Revamp/overhaul of secondary professions, especially archaeology. Burning Crusade areas get the Cataclysm treatment (overhauled quests, flyable zones). Some sort of revamp to the talent tree system.
And, if my first guess about no new races is wrong, I'll go with Pandaren/Horde and .... erg, I dunno ... Ethereals for Alliance.
Or then again ... maybe my original guess was right: http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/05/13/the-queue-three-of-the-four-winds/comments/34037643/
Looking forward in three hours to seeing how good I am at detecting these things .
AirBeagle Oct 21st 2011 10:57AM
Also wishing to go on record as saying .... please, dear god, let WoWInsider announce a new commenting system ... this one posted my original, unedited post with a couple of things that drive English majors like me wild and now I can't edit it. That's what I get for attempting to tangle with the comment system on three hours of sleep. :-P
Feel like Neil Goldman, when he said ... "How about we fire up the old Segway and find a nice quiet field to do long division in? .... I mean, a nice quiet field in which to do long division. Sorry, sorry, everybody.''
Yeah. I wrote "get their first" when I meant "get there first." Sorry. Sorry everybody.
Heh. Us grammar nerds.
Zaet Oct 21st 2011 10:51AM
I want to get to lvl 100 in the next xpack
Zaet Oct 21st 2011 10:55AM
ohh and new race/classs combinations, like BE shaman and more.