Patch 5.4 patch notes
Virtual Realms feature revealed
The Proving Grounds are coming
The latest patch 5.4 newsBreakfast Topic: Mists of Pandaria beta's lack of NDA
by Mathew McCurley 
Mar 21st 2012 at 8:00AM
No NDA means we here at WoW Insider get a nice breadth of content to show you, discuss, and help refine through the beta process. What content are you most excited to see and hear about once the Mists of Pandaria beta begins? Will you want live streams of dungeons? Cool quest videos? Monk guides? If you're in the beta, what's the first thing you'll do?
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!Filed under: Breakfast Topics
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 5)
Revynn Mar 21st 2012 8:43AM
Same, I'll be copying over my lock to play with the new resource systems. I don't want to spend the initial days after launch standing around Orgrimmar trying to figure out what the heck I'm doing.
sckeener Mar 21st 2012 9:54AM
I'm interested in Locks. Warlock is my main and I typically play either destro or demo. Since affliction is the only spec staying even remotely the same, I'm a bit concerned. I've never gotten the hang of affliction or I've always been able to out dps aff on destro or demo. I'm wary of my two strong specs changing so greatly.
evoxpisces Mar 21st 2012 9:48AM
Same here. My "other main" is a warlock and I'm super curious about the new resource systems, specifically Destruction, since that's what I play. Of course with Demonology getting Metamorphosis at level 10....I might be spending a lot more time in that spec... So I'll most likely copy my warlock over.
silentbob1125 Mar 21st 2012 11:40AM
Warlocks have a fairly solid set of talents that provide damage reduction or self healing soul link and soul leach come to mind couple that with destructions uped mana regeneration meaning less life taping and with any luck the impact from having alot of embers stacks will be minimum
Lindblad Mar 21st 2012 8:11AM
First thing - level my shaman to 90. Second - try out the monk.
mta_kurd Mar 21st 2012 8:23AM
Same
aliwooyay Mar 21st 2012 8:13AM
Make a female Pandaren and squeeeee about how cute it is.
votlemnouk Mar 21st 2012 8:13AM
Sorry to hijack the discussion, but does anybody know what the hell is happening to my servers (EU)? All I get is empty server selection window, and I don't know what is going on (presumably the offline maintenance). My client refuses to load the newsfeed, the Blizzy website and forum are offline as well, and I can't find any announcement about extended downtime today. It's like 1 PM already, more than three hours overdue compared to regular maintenances. My playtime is already limited enough, even without this sort of unprofessional jackassery. :-/
aliwooyay Mar 21st 2012 8:15AM
Same here :(
fayth Mar 21st 2012 8:20AM
You're not the only one having login issues. I'm on an US server, and keep getting an error message at login screen and battlenet is down on the WoW armory site as well =( Seems like this has been happening a lot lately....
fayth Mar 21st 2012 8:26AM
Seems to be issues trying to post things on here as well; I go to post & it doesn't post =( As I just tried posting- You're not the only one having login issues. I'm on an US server and keep getting an error message at login screen, and battlenet is down on the WoW site as well. Seems to be happening a lot lately
Knob Mar 21st 2012 8:51AM
"Unprofessional jackassery"? I know not having the realms up on time can be frustrating, but do you really have to froth at the mouth so much? When was the last time maintenance was extended? If anything, realms have come up earlier than advertised for a long time now. Contrary to what the forums might want you to believe, Blizzard isn't out to get you and they aren't trying to fleece you. I'd wager that they are annoyed as much as we are when maintenance has to be extended.
In any case, EU realms are up now.
muzeipost Mar 21st 2012 8:14AM
I thought the previous dungeon live streams were nifty. :D
Justin Mar 21st 2012 8:15AM
When I get into the beta, I'm going to start off by rolling an Alliance Pandaren monk, and then once I figure out what continent they start off on once they're off the turtle, I'll roll a Draenei monk. That way, I can see how well the monks are integrated into existing races, as well as the new one, and test how they level through 1-90 (or as close as I can get). I also plan to level my Death Knight from 85-90, or, again, as close as I can get, and hopefully that will give me the widest possible view of the expansion from a testing standpoint. I'll also be parsing everything I do for logging purposes; while the data isn't of much use to me, I'm sure that there will be people actively looking for copies of other peoples' logs to use in theorycrafting, and it could potentially help Blizzard too. I figure with three characters doing the new 85-90 content, I should be able to cover all the quests at least once and see if there's anything bugging out.
If I've managed to do all that, I'll probably level a Pandaren monk 1-58 Horde-side, and then use any time that I have left to start doing the dailies (if they're running) for things like the mount and the farm.
Oh, and I will totally be THAT Death Knight who is running around Elwynn Forest looking for more pokemans, sorry, pets to catch and use in battles. Because picking flowers wasn't disgraceful enough.
Scuac Mar 21st 2012 8:26AM
The mental image of this monster/killing machine chasing after a bunny for pet battles made me spit my coffee. Thank you.
Luotian Mar 21st 2012 8:16AM
Monk guides would help a ton. I intend to roll one or several just because their new and that's the stuff I should be testing buuut...I expect, like DKs, its a class that is FAR too complicated for me to ever really 'get'. So, guides on how to play a monk would be helpful.
Nina Katarina Mar 21st 2012 8:17AM
I'm hoping to be fairly early in the beta, and I'm hoping to be testing along with you guys.
I'm hoping that you or Blizzard will keep us up to date on exactly what is and isn't available for testing, and what the known issues are. I take my responsibilities as a beta tester seriously, and I like to write detailed accounts of the issues I encounter. And there's nothing I hate more than writing a long involved account of something only to find out that it was a known issue that everyone is getting, or that that feature isn't supposed to be tested yet but nobody told me that.
wow Mar 21st 2012 9:11AM
This. I signed up the day Annual Pass became available. hehe. My favorite thing in the world when Beta Testing a game is to try and break it. hehe. This will be a fun experience to find bugs. ;) Did the same for FF XI, FF XIV, and STO (And boy did STO break a lot. hehe). :)
Shinanji
Persephanie Mar 21st 2012 8:18AM
Please show us the female pandaren and male pandaren customization options, hair styles, skins, all that stuff. Show us how tillers works as well and about the farm, and pet battle systems too.
Bossy Mar 21st 2012 8:19AM
The non NDA thing is fantastic.
Look at the crappy games that come with extensive NDA's weeks before launch. SW TOR dropped it a mere 3 weeks before launch: we know why by now.
When you want to hide stuff, it means you can't deliver. I am betting a 1000 dollars that next piece of stuffed hype called gw2 will in NO WAY be able to get 200+ people fighting in one instanced zone without huge and extreme lag spikes.
And their hype page still says 500 people will fight in such a preloaded cross server zone.
I say: it defies all internet and hardware rules, so it is clear: they hide behind NDA's to hide the obvious problems.
Problem is: the problem is not solved and including the NDA is a straight way to disaster... ALWAYS.