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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria 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 5 of 5)
Skarlette Mar 21st 2012 11:30AM
I'm torn. I was in Cataclysm beta, and my primary goal was to level through the goblin and worgen starting zones at least once and to explore the new world. I did explore/test the new starting zones thoroughly, and ran through Silverpine, Azshara, Westfall and Darkshore for good measure. I took my main through Hyjal but left the other new 80+ zones untouched.
The rest of the time I just explored Kalimdor and the EK. I found a number of places where I should have been able to fly and couldn't (including, bizarrely, right over an abandoned cart in the middle of Tanaris). Fortunately I was on my mage main so suddenly having my dragon disappearing from under me wasn't fatal--as long as I was paying attention. There were also weird little pockets here and there where the chat channels would change to a completely different zone.
I had fun exploring and reporting those glitches, but my main motivation was being able to take all the time I wanted just flying around and seeing the new landscapes. I was afraid if I waited until Cataclysm went live I'd spend so much time exploring that I'd fall way behind my friends and guildies with leveling my main. It worked out perfectly, since when Dec. 7th rolled around I could just hop right into Vashjr and start leveling without the temptation to explore all the cool new 1-60 zones.
Without that reasoning this time around, I don't know how much I want to spoil myself for Pandaria. My favorite thing in the game is exploring new places, checking out every nook and cranny, and since there's just the 85-90 areas that are new, I'd rather wait to experience it on my main when it goes live. Then again, the temptation will be huge... I imagine I will probably do the first zone and then rein myself in and wait for the rest. I'll also hit up the Wandering Isle because I love lowbie stuff and I'm sure I'll roll (ha! monk pun) at least one or two Pandaren alts, so one more time through won't hurt anything, and I can help test that zone inside and out.
Jason Mar 21st 2012 11:43AM
I'll be trying out the Pandaren Monk and the new 85-90 content. I'll also be giving lots of feedback on healing. I signed up for the Annual Pass for the guaranteed Beta access...the other perks were just gravy.
pinteresque Mar 21st 2012 12:57PM
Talents, obviously. That's a no-brainer.
But profession news will be welcome - I'm an engineer and feel like I got shafted in Cata, so I've got my fingers crossed for something non-lame.
And I'd like to see what we get by way of glyphs.
The actual pandaria content, I can honestly take or leave. I want to know how actually playing my mage is going to feel different.
Morgatho Mar 21st 2012 12:59PM
IF I get into the beta ill be doing what I did for cata, trying to find holes in the game world and trying out the new hunter stuff.
jynxycat Mar 21st 2012 3:26PM
Mostly going to check out DK changes, and how tuned we are.
Of course I'll try Monks out, and see how their playstyle goes. Who isn't?
Jyotai Mar 21st 2012 3:28PM
This time around, a HUGE segment of the WoW population signed up for beta some time back.
So demand for news might be thinner than in past.
Personally, once beta launches... I'm going to go in there, toy around with some Panderan options, explore a bit...
...and try very very very hard to not get bored of the coming Xpac before it even launches...
Forward Mar 21st 2012 3:55PM
I'm going to look at several things depending how much time we've got playing the beta. Blizz has said they're inviting people in waves but I don't see any mention of wether once you're in you can stay in. First off I'll copy over my druid and check out the new zones for mining and herbing. Hardly exciting but I'm seriously considering having a go at a realm first for this expansion and I think one of those two is going to be the easiest way to do it as you can't really get any guild help.
I remember some nut-case power-levelling from 60-70 in 24 hours when BC went live and someone getting a whole guild involved in farming fast spawn areas to get him to 85 for world first when Cataclysm happened.
This is bound to happen again for the world first 90 and I suspect the other professions are going to have some kind of epic mats requirement that will prevent them from being power-leveled so gathering or skinning might be the only option.
I'm also going to bring over my holy priest main after that so I can get myself into pugs to check out the viability of the new dungeons for my guild to run through as we're not hard-core players by any scale and struggled a lot with the Cataclysm heroics at the start.
After that i'm getting me a female panda monk because they are so adorable I just want to hug all of them :)