World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria

The fourth expansion pack to World of Warcraft. Mists of Pandaria brings a slew of new content from the shrouded island of Pandaria to the new class Monk and of course the inhabitants of Pandaria the Pandaren. Now I know a lot of people of course wrote this expansion off as a kids expansion or whatever however Blizzard like always delivers a quality expansion. So, let’s see what makes Mists of Pandaria the expansion it is.

With the Mists of Pandaria expansion comes many additions. The first of course the increase of the level cap from 85 in Cataclysm to 90 in Mists of Pandaria. I’d estimate for someone leveling at a normal pace for those 5 levels who hasn’t done them before at about 18-24 hours of playtime. For me it was the longest chunk of time spent while playing however it wasn’t all bad lots of interesting quest lines involving many of the important lore figures in Pandaria. The only bad thing I have to say about the leveling is the 89-90 stretch felt like it would never end. There was just some quest chains that were bugged and left you without quests in the 89-90 zone The Dread Wastes. However those will be fixed I’m sure pretty quickly.

Another addition of course the additions of Monk class and playable Pandaren race are big additions as well. The Pandaren race being one of the sources of the whole kid expansion controversy. Yes they do look similar to a certain movies panda’s but in the end Blizzard did originally have this look down before that was ever thought of (See Warcraft 3). The Pandaren have nice racial as far as I’m concerned and nice textures as well as animations much better than Humans, orcs, night elves ETC. *However with that said within this expansion also comes an update of all of the older player race models so that is for sure something to look forward to. The Monk class has been interesting adding in a new Melee damage dealer as well as a healer and tank. Bringing new mechanics of tanking/healing and DPSing is always refreshing. I hope the end-game mechanics are up to par with the other classes only time will tell.

Of course with Mists of Pandaria… comes the lands of Pandaria! Featuring 7 new zones. From the deep lush forests of Karasang Wilds, to the frozen peaks of Kun-Lai Summit. The zones are far and varied with different themes and new enemies. The new enemies in reality are you, the Horde and Alliance fighting causing the appearance of the Sha. Creatures mostly of pure negative emotion such as Doubt, Fear and, anger among others. But the Sha are not the only threat there are other enemies such as the Mogu and Mantid that are fighting the local Pandaren and weakening them against the Sha. New dungeons and raids have also come along with Pandaria including a revamp of two previous ones being Scholomance and Scarlet Monastery.

The new dungeons are new and different however they aren’t really meant to stay around forever. I’m sure the new luster will wear off but for now they are fun is one thing I can say. Definitely worth a go in each. Unfortunately I have not had the chance to raid yet still waiting for some slackers in my guild to get to 90 and gear up and of course not all of the raid content has been released just yet. They are delaying the release over a few weeks for the better if you ask me.

Overall World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria has been a general improvement upon the existing game. Adding in just tons of new content for players of all skill, levels of commitment and, playstyle. If you are a new player who is thinking about trying out wow I recommend you try it out of course use the trial first as buying World of Warcraft and all the expansions can be a larger investment than most games. For returning players thinking about reactivating accounts if your expecting things from the past don’t bother. However if you are looking for new content and more importantly a fun playing experience then hurry up and buy Mists of Pandaria and reactivate your account!

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