Beast League Gaming

World Of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria

With nearly a decade of undeniable dominance in the online role-playing market and three expansions under its belt, Blizzard Entertainment has released their latest addition. “Mists of Pandaria” introduces a brand new continent to explore, a new race, and a new class for veterans and new comers alike to try out. But, how does it stack up in comparison? Is this this installment the invigoration needed to top the charts or just new content to pacify the problem of dwindling subscription numbers?

WoW’s strength has never truly been innovation but, rather, refinement. At its core mechanics it is still an EverQuest clone, but what it isn’t is a clone of EQ. The teams at Blizzard have always had a talent for blending creative storytelling, simple mechanics, and fun gameplay.

The new race of Pandarens’ inclusion has long been a cry from fans and now that wish has finally been fulfilled. The background and story of these new citizens of Azeroth has been masterfully crafted. Personally, I find their Asian inspired culture, laid back mentality, and their independent nature my favorite of all the races to date. Every line from the NPCs and the voice over cut scenes seems well thought out and intriguing. Every Pandaren seems unique as opposed to the universal actions and expectations that the previous races and characters seem beholden to.

But a playable race is not the only focus of the expansion. The new continent of Pandaria and the Wandering Island starting area are superb. Achingly beautiful geography and architecture outshine any entry to date and I found myself flying around to simply gawk at the environments. This is a first time for me even after plunging head long into Outlands, Northrend, and the reworks of Cataclysm; this should stand as a testament to the advancement and skill that was used despite the dated engine and graphics.

New as well is the monk, a hybrid class that can heal, tank, or function as a melee damage dealer depending on the player’s preference. A new hybrid class has long been needed, and the mechanics seem to incorporate qualities of the established rogue, warrior, and shaman classes. My experiences with this class have been limited and I’ve only used the tanking and dps aspects at lower levels. I have to confess I find the class terribly boring, but that’s more of a fault for the new talent and class re-works, but I’ll get to that later. I have heard healing an tanking is a blast at later levels from several friends of mine who have reached end game content with this new class.

With a new expansion comes new content: new dungeons to clear, new zones to explore, and new quests to complete. The level cap has been raised yet again, now topping out at 90. All professions have also been expanded, new resources are out there to be gathered, new reputations to be leveled, and more raids to gear up for…

But, in truth, despite all these “new” features, it’s still more WoW. That isn’t to say this is a bad thing; this game has been king for eight years for a reason. Many players, though, have burned themselves out on this type of static experience. But static doesn’t mean bad, it just isn’t overly fun. Many, many hours will be spent grinding quests for experience and materials for whatever particular goal you’ve set for yourself. While some innovation has been put towards quests and their parameters, for the most part they are the usual “kill or gather X amount of Y”. And while the new continent features new dungeons to run, they number quite few. This means that you’ll run the same dungeons over and over until you get sick of them rather quickly. This is nothing new, but I mean this is the fewest number I can recall. Even Cataclysm had more variety in instances.

Classes have been torn down and reworked completely from the ground up. Gone are the days of spending points in a specialization tree and visiting a class trainer to gain new abilities. Now everyone get the same abilities that unlock themselves as you level up naturally. Every 15 levels your character progresses, you’ll have a choice to make between three potential perks that change a mechanic or add a completely new ability. The logic behind this was that since so many websites and theory crafters post set ways to spec and play your class, a majority of the people will all play and customize the same way.

There’s a certain sense to this, but honestly I really didn’t like the new system. The rotation and character reworks are all well and good, and for the most part they are the most balanced they’ve been in recent memory. Until you get to a high enough level, though, you’ll just be spamming the same abilities over and over. WoW was all about progression and customization. Starting a new character now loses a lot of that experience. Without progress to make in talents or visiting a trainer every few levels to gain more power in my abilities, the grind seems only more tedious. I feel very little reward for gaining a new level. The inability to customize into niche specs and foolishly experiment on my own leaves me feeling a bit disheartened. I feel like there’s absolutely no difference between my character and everyone else who plays that class.

A few other gripes are minor but present. As previously mentioned, every class has been reworked so you may have to completely re-learn your class and rotations. You’ll have to grind out reputation with new factions to use the points you accrue for running dungeons for current raid ready gear. Cross server zones have made farming profession materials very troublesome, especially older stuff from Burning Crusade or Wrath of the Lich King. And the most nitpicky and personal complaint of all, I find that a majority the epic and tier sets of gear in this expansion are truly the worst I’ve ever seen. I long for the original and intricate designs of the WoW or BC.

At the end of the day, Mists of Pandaria really could be considered a contender for the best expansion to World of Warcraft. It’s just more Warcraft, though. If you haven’t played before, you’re jumping in very late and I doubt it will have the original’s appeal to hook you for months or years. Likewise, if you’re an old veteran who quit, don’t expect this to set that old fire in your heart. If you’re still interested in WoW though, you won’t be disappointed by MoP.

Matthew Lewing