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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsBreakfast Topic: Were you impressed with the Mists of Pandaria press event?
by Mathew McCurley 
Mar 23rd 2012 at 8:00AM
What no one complained about was how gorgeous the environments, characters, and effects looked. For a game with a decade-old engine, WoW is really pulling some "rovers on Mars" crap on us. One day, when the Martian storms blow the final WoW server offline, we can put this game to bed.
Did you get what you wanted out of the Mists of Pandaria presser? Will all this knowledge and the very important fact that Mists seems close to completion be enough to tide you over until beta? Sound off in the comments.
Filed under: Breakfast Topics
Reader Comments (Page 4 of 4)
xenothaulus Mar 23rd 2012 9:29AM
Frankly, I was not whelmed at all. Nothing really new or shocking, just expanding on what we already knew was coming, and adding detail. I guess taking out Garrosh is cool, but before they were telling us we wouldn't know the big bad of MoP when it released, and now we do, meh.
evoxpisces Mar 23rd 2012 9:32AM
Sort of. A lot of the info I knew, but I was very impressed with how much info they gave us and extremely impressed by the fact that they surprised us with the Beta so quickly after! Honestly, the female Pandaren models alone had me colored impressed, so I guess all in all I was pleased.
Josh Mar 23rd 2012 9:43AM
While many expected the "Whoa!?" shockers of a Blizzcon-like event. They basically expanded on the features already announced. I think this led to an underwhelming experience for some. I really appreciated the honesty from the Devs about the timing of some of the new features. Such as "we're so close on finishing X, but it'll probably have to wait until Patch 5.1".
They totally sold me on their enthusiasm about Pandaria. You can tell they're trying to make up for the "same old same old" Cataclysm endgame by coming up with completely new ways to play the game. (Ok, Pokemon's not that new ;) )
There were 2 goals of the press event for Blizz aside from the PR hype, IMO.
1) Show off and be proud that they can make high quality content quicker than ever. (A goal they strive for, but previously have come up short)
2) To kill as much of the confusion/misinterpretation/nerdrage that results when the community is presented with a beta data mining dump and no frame of reference.
They did good. Right in the middle of heavy development and they take almost a whole work week to preview stuff for us? Kudos.
Orrine Mar 23rd 2012 9:48AM
I wasn't. Especially by dig reveal of Garrosh downfall. I would prefer if we speculated at least until first major content patch
Aika Mar 23rd 2012 9:48AM
I was generally pleased with what was announced.
The biggest unexpected positives for me were:
* The increase from 5 zones to 7. I want a big new continent to get lost in, a la Outland and Northrend, and it seems like that's what we're getting.
* The news about Garrosh. I had been thinking that the "war in warcraft" storyline had the major weakness that there was no way for it to reach a meaningful conclusion (as we know that neither side is really going to lose). This, however, is clever stuff on Blizzard's part. We get rid of a leader widely disliked by both factions and get a satisfying climax to the story-arc.
Only one negative for me, though it's a pretty big one:
* Only getting one more character slot. I really hope Blizzard reconsider this as, if you are already fully alted-up on your preferred realm, this doesn't give much room for creating new characters. I'd like to make 5 or 6 chars in Mists, not just a token Monk, and at present it seems that I'll either need to spread myself across realms or buy a second account, neither of which is appealing.
But .. the reason this is a problem is because I really do want to play this expansion now, and I wasn't that excited about it before, tbh.
Kendro Mar 23rd 2012 10:03AM
Having followed all of the details from Blizzcon and the subsequent Q&A's that followed I was extremely disappointed with the Press Event. Most of the information given in the press event was information that we already knew. A good chunk of the things we didn't know were things that are labeled as "might" be in the game. Then finally nearly all of the new things were only introduced in individual interviews meaning that Blizzard thought that new information was generally unimportant for the event. They put a heavy focus on rehashing already known information which is outrageous.
Bril Mar 23rd 2012 10:10AM
They did a nice job getting out the information they were ready to release. The only info I wanted was a release date, not available yet, and the number of added slots, an extremely disappointing one.
raingod Mar 23rd 2012 10:18AM
I've been far more impressed with all the info from the beta that's been coming out more than the press event; having said that, I wasn't really disappointed with the event itself.
Dominic Mar 23rd 2012 10:25AM
I was disappointed because it really didn't feel like that much new information. We learned virtually everything the "announced" at Blizzcon. The only new info was the female model and that Garrosh is gonna die. That could have been a blue post... what was the need for a week long press conference and NDA when a blue post could have given the same info?
eel5pe Mar 23rd 2012 10:29AM
No. There was no "wow" factor, no huge news. But you know what? The press event followed by all the info we're getting from early beta testers has me really excited for the expac. I think with Cataclysm there was a lot of hard work that wasn't visible to high level players because the developers spent so much time redoing Azeroth. Pandaland shows what the developers can do when they are focused mostly on endgame experiences, and I am REALLY impressed by the new proposed features and the amount of polish they're putting on their game.
And it's only early beta!
Icepuck Mar 23rd 2012 10:30AM
Not impressed... cause the development seems a bit skewed. Especially with the NDA lifted and beta starting I was expecting a bit more.
They got near fully developed classes for MoP on one hand (warlocks, druids, paladins... inc glyphs, spells, talents etc) and on the other they have incomplete classes that dont even have working spells and placeholder animations.
Worse of all the classes are Priests... they still look like they are on the drawing board, havent even completed the holy vs discipline healing complications and shadow priest dps is such a mess that its unusable cause passives and major spells are like completely missing due to the bad conversion from Cata to MoP.
Some word, some insight, some sign of progress from the devs about the outcome of Priests. Seeing so much about locks and druids and other caster/healers make me feel sick and get that bad wotlk beta feeling that priests are going to be rushed again and non-fuctional for all of 5.0. Blizzards beta development still looks like kids playing in a sandbox after all these years.
RGSmith Mar 23rd 2012 10:47AM
I was glad to hear more details about the expansion however I feel like Blizz messed up by not preparing us for no new models. Over the months they have said it will take time but I believe they should have said outright before the event NO NEW MODELS AT LAUNCH.
Otherwise I cannot wait to be playing my new monk and also playing some scenarios. I feel like scenarios are going to make a huge impact on the game in the long run.
Redbeard Mar 23rd 2012 11:40AM
The thing that impressed me the most is that it seems they're shooting for a June or July release, which is earlier in the year than before.
That does make me wonder about how much of this is being shoved out the door due to investor pressure, however.
VioletArrows Mar 23rd 2012 11:46AM
I'm going to go ahead and say I wasn't really impressed with much of what I learned. Most of it wasn't really new news, and the things that wanted to learn about the most (scenarios, account-wide logs, and unlocking the 50 char limit) were either not covered at all, or were quickly glossed over with only a tiny tidbit. Hell, the beta's up and I'm *still* not seeing anything regarding scenarios or whatever the new single-player lore content is; only that they haven't cut it yet.
Only thing I was even remotely excited about was Garrosh is finally gone, only to realize I'll never see it because I simply cannot get along in a raid setting (even LFR, probably especially LFR). I suppose the female Pandaren model is good too. I'll have to seriously consider if I want to level another alt even though I have enough space and alts I could delete.
And then there's all the stuff they're trying to sweep under the rug about taking conveniences away and "nudging people out of their comfort zone to try pvp" as they keep deluding themselves that they're doing a good thing.
erik Mar 23rd 2012 12:08PM
Over all I was excited. But I do feel let down about character updates. There was such a consensus that they had to be done in order for old races to be monks. But Nope. And I really wish there was an update to our mobile experience. A lot of what they shown could be perfect. They did say they were working on both but I guess we will see.
andrews Mar 23rd 2012 12:11PM
The whole event was rather boring. Some interesting details, but too much hype for what was given.
The show was annoying because someone mentioned the new hunter stampede ability and the started talking about new tiger skins instead. Which is more important to gameplay?
Ata Mar 23rd 2012 12:15PM
I find myself intrigued....about the minigames. Which in and of itself is worrying, since Im concerned that when my interest isn't in the game as a whole but in running around throwing my minipets at other people I dont know if that's worth paying a sub when I have a game like Guild Wars 2 and it's lack of subscription on the horizon. I'm thankful I have the Annual Pass and will eventually get into the Beta, because I enjoy testing things and it will help give me a sense of if Im going to continue to play or not.
kdiddy Mar 23rd 2012 12:24PM
I'm more impressed with the info that's coming out now that beta has started. I think they did a decent job, but none of the info was really new or mind blowing. The currency data mining finally has me excited.
Dude Mar 23rd 2012 1:29PM
I am provisionally impessed, especially with and strangely enough the farm. It's about time some kind of land was granted to the player, housing or not. I was hoping for body sliders in character customization as well, but so far so good.