What Does Mists of Pandaria offer?

miir · Post by **miir** » September 28, 2012, 4:09 pm

So apparently, MOP first week retail sales around 600-700k, well below expectations.
By comparison, Cataclysm sold 3.3 million in the first 24 hours.

No doubt that it will be one of the better selling PC games this year... simply because it still has a large playerbase and there's not a whole lot of competition. I read an article a while back about how WOW subs dropped nearly 30% in 2011. I wonder how many of those players are passing on the kung-fu panda expansion.

Digital downloads definitely play a part in it tanking at retail, but why is GW2 experiencing such success at retail. Digital sales of GW2 have been phenomenal, but it is also flying off retail shelves.

Fairweather Pure · Post by **Fairweather Pure** » September 28, 2012, 4:56 pm

Winnow wrote:
Spang wrote:I'm pretty sure most people purchased their copy of MoP via digital download.

Either be sure or throw out something a little more convincing than "pretty sure". At least miir backed up his comments with some numbers.

Numbers from "the guys at the local EB games" count as a serious statistc for you do they? I mean, holy shit.

Here, let me back up my data. My brother says he has seen a lot more people online since the expansion released. Boom. 15+ million sales confirmed.

Aslanna · Post by **Aslanna** » September 28, 2012, 5:07 pm

Even if it sold 0 copies I don't foresee WoW being 'dead' anytime soon. I'm sure it will be around at least 10 more years. Ultima Online is still around!

Boogahz · Post by **Boogahz** » September 28, 2012, 5:53 pm

miir wrote:Digital downloads definitely play a part in it tanking at retail, but why is GW2 experiencing such success at retail. Digital sales of GW2 have been phenomenal, but it is also flying off retail shelves.

Considering that they actually "sold out" of digital copies weeks ago might explain why they're still selling in stores.

Funkmasterr · Post by **Funkmasterr** » September 28, 2012, 6:13 pm

While I maintain guild wars 2 is clearly superior, boog is right. I actually had a shitty experience, the only place I could find digital copies available was best buy, or so they said. I ordered it and after 4 days of not getting my digital download they finally refunded me and I bought it in store, where the sales person told me he wasn't aware of the issue and had sold several digital copies that day.

Spang · Post by **Spang** » September 29, 2012, 9:21 am

BREAKING: Pet Battles are addicting.

Boogahz · Post by **Boogahz** » September 29, 2012, 10:08 am

no shit! don't miss the fact that the opposing pets go up in level by the same progression as the rest of the zone. I got my ass kicked by 3 level 23ish mobs in Pandaria to ruin my perfect record

Siji · Post by **Siji** » September 29, 2012, 3:20 pm

Boogahz wrote:They basically did server merges already, just without actually merging servers. The "shared" zones are a pain in the ass when you hit the zone lines at times. The lag sucks

I completely agree. I dislike this new addition greatly, and I don't even have the experience very much without it. The zone I was in last night (whatever little town where all the pandas are depressed) was so laggy I could barely move. That's the first time I've experienced that in the game. I was starting to think it was an addon freaking out, but all the memory/cpu usage of each was fine.

Saw someone with the Pandaria Exalted reputation mount (Red Flying Disk of something or another) and then found a good guide for it. Gotta get one of those! If you have the most recent Zygor guides addon, it's got a guide for it built in as well.

Fairweather Pure · Post by **Fairweather Pure** » October 4, 2012, 2:08 pm

PARIS, France -- October 4, 2012 -- Following the September 25 global rollout of World of Warcraft®: Mists of Pandaria™, the new expansion to the world’s #1 subscription-based massively multiplayer online role-playing game, Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. today announced that millions of players have already joined the fight for Pandaria. During the first week of launch, prior to the release in China on October 2, the expansion had already sold through approximately 2.7 million copies and the game’s global player base passed 10 million subscribers, with growth across all major regions.

A lesser man would say "I told you so" but I am above such petty things!

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » October 4, 2012, 3:32 pm

subtract about 3 million subscribers after 30 days

Fairweather Pure · Post by **Fairweather Pure** » October 4, 2012, 3:35 pm

Winnow wrote:subtract about 3 million subscribers after 30 days

Keep fucking that chicken!

Edit: (probably 2-3 months though. It will take me a month or more to really tell if this expansion has any real legs)

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » October 4, 2012, 4:00 pm

I wonder how may subscribers GW2 lost after 30 days....

hmmmm

ZERO

No need to shell out 15,000 cents each month for that game!

Boogahz · Post by **Boogahz** » October 4, 2012, 4:03 pm

Winnow wrote:I wonder how may subscribers GW2 lost after 30 days....

hmmmm

ZERO

No need to shell out 15,000 cents each month for that game!

WoW is only 1,499 cents. What game are you spending $150.00 a month for? I also doubt that GW2 lost no players, you just can't count them by subscriptions.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » October 4, 2012, 4:09 pm

douche!

I mean touche!

Boogahz · Post by **Boogahz** » October 4, 2012, 4:27 pm

stop touching me perv!

miir · Post by **miir** » October 4, 2012, 4:57 pm

Fairweather Pure wrote:
PARIS, France -- October 4, 2012 -- Following the September 25 global rollout of World of Warcraft®: Mists of Pandaria™, the new expansion to the world’s #1 subscription-based massively multiplayer online role-playing game, Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. today announced that millions of players have already joined the fight for Pandaria. During the first week of launch, prior to the release in China on October 2, the expansion had already sold through approximately 2.7 million copies and the game’s global player base passed 10 million subscribers, with growth across all major regions.
A lesser man would say "I told you so" but I am above such petty things!

It's the worst selling WOW expansion.
The others sold more in the in a single day than Kung Fu Panda sold in a week.

I wonder if that ~3 million is their current playerbase outside of China.
I'm also curious if 'Starter Edition' accounts are included in their subscriber figures.

Fairweather Pure · Post by **Fairweather Pure** » October 4, 2012, 5:57 pm

miir wrote:
Fairweather Pure wrote:
PARIS, France -- October 4, 2012 -- Following the September 25 global rollout of World of Warcraft®: Mists of Pandaria™, the new expansion to the world’s #1 subscription-based massively multiplayer online role-playing game, Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. today announced that millions of players have already joined the fight for Pandaria. During the first week of launch, prior to the release in China on October 2, the expansion had already sold through approximately 2.7 million copies and the game’s global player base passed 10 million subscribers, with growth across all major regions.
A lesser man would say "I told you so" but I am above such petty things!
It's the worst selling WOW expansion.
The others sold more in the in a single day than Kung Fu Panda sold in a week.

I wonder if that ~3 million is their current playerbase outside of China.
I'm also curious if 'Starter Edition' accounts are included in their subscriber figures.

Trying to downplay 2.7 million sales? Sheesh, I'm not really sure how to respond to that. I mean, it out sold every other MMO released in the past year in 7 days, but hey WoW is dead man!

Also, it was just released in China 2 days ago. Furthermore, Euro numbers are still coming in. I think that number will continue to rise as the positive word of mouth gets out (and it has been positive). We'll have to wait for 30 day sales figures to know how much higher it will go but you know it's going to increase between now and then. As someone who plays and enjoys the game, I was happy with the sales figures. There certianly seems to be a great deal of people actively playing the game right now, but cross zoning may be deceiving me. My guild has a whole lot of old faces showing up, including a friend of mine that hasn't played in 3.5 years. Active players are in the 20-25ish range when before the expansion we might have 7-10 people on at a time.

I have heard that the casual end game is really grindy though. I usually don't mind that sort of thing if there is a clear path laid put for me and the rewards are worth it. That is the only real complaint I have heard about this expansion (so far). I'm happy and having fun. At the end of the day that's all I really care about. Even if it had sold poorly I wouldn't have cared, but it sure didn't!

WoW is a a fuckin' juggernaut that continues to be #1 by an embarrassing margin. All other MMO's have to bow down and kiss the ring. It's been 8 years and the game is better than ever and continues to simply dominate the competition. You really can't even qualify it as competiton because that would imply there was some sort of equal footing and there is not nor has there ever been a real contender.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » October 4, 2012, 7:47 pm

Fairweather Pure wrote:
WoW is a a fuckin' juggernaut that continues to be #1 by an embarrassing margin. All other MMO's have to bow down and kiss the ring. It's been 8 years and the game is better than ever and continues to simply dominate the competition. You really can't even qualify it as competiton because that would imply there was some sort of equal footing and there is not nor has there ever been a real contender.

"Better than ever" may be true when compared to itself, but get any random group of 10 or so Magazine/Blog reviewing nerds and have them rate which MMO is the best and the title will go to Guild Wars 2.

People stick with shit because they are too lazy to switch. WoW is more like just a fancy social network to gab with old friends.

Funkmasterr · Post by **Funkmasterr** » October 4, 2012, 7:49 pm

I wouldn't say because they are too lazy to switch, more that they've put so many hours into the game that they have some sort of pathetic attachment that won't let them drop it like the bad habit it is.

Fairweather Pure · Post by **Fairweather Pure** » October 4, 2012, 8:26 pm

Funkmasterr wrote:I wouldn't say because they are too lazy to switch, more that they've put so many hours into the game that they have some sort of pathetic attachment that won't let them drop it like the bad habit it is.

I'll take it further, because this is how I felt about EverQuest when it started getting real competition. I need a clear upgrade before I switch. When something is very obviously heads and shoulders over what I am playing, I will switch. I know you really enjoy GW2, but to me it's the same old story of the past 10 fantasy MMOs. I have no interest in starting over on a game that just dosen't look exciting to me. Been there, done that syndrome. Furthermore, WoW has not given me a reason to look elsewhere. I am constantly engaged in the game in one way or another. The legacy of failed MMOs also makes me hesitant as well. WoW ain't going anywhere. My time/investment in the game is secure for the long haul.

Those are a few of the things that keep me playing WoW over other MMOs. Of course, I have the social connections too. My wife plays. My best friend plays. My dad plays. My brother plays. And don't forget the straight up enjoyment of the game holding me over too!

Aabidano · Post by **Aabidano** » October 4, 2012, 9:04 pm

Fairweather Pure wrote:...straight up enjoyment of the game holding me over too!

Which is where it counts IMO.

Siji · Post by **Siji** » October 5, 2012, 11:42 pm

Honestly it's pretty silly and ignorant to compare GW2 to WoW. GW2 is new and shiny so obviously there's going to be fanfaire and an influx of new players that can't say enough good things about it. Nearly every single big game that comes out is like that for the first few weeks or months. There was a lot of anticipation for GW2 to be released and that's great. I hope it does well. But get back to me in a year or two, or five or ten and compare it's success to EverQuest or WoW at that time. Personally speaking, nothing I read about GW2 (which I admit was little) spurred any interest in trying it at all. Is it F2P? Don't care, not interested really. So for me at least, perhaps I'm not in the marketing demographic and I just missed the advertising.

As I've said before, F2P is not a stage I ever want to get involved with again. There's seriously no such thing as F2P unless you're a very casual player. Companies don't operate for free, they need profit. So they're going to get money from you somehow. And in my experience, it's going to end up costing you more via those little tiny transactions than a simple $14.99 a month would. Plus you're not competing with guilds/people that are too stupid or rich to know better than to pump hundreds or thousands into a F2P game.

I just hit 90 tonight and have covered probably 80% of the land mass so far. Content wise, I bet I'm not even 40%. So much stuff to do in Pandaria, and still probably a hundred quests pre-MoP to do as well if I wanted to. Just got my 2000 quest achievement the other night, and that's with flying through levels via Zygor's guide (moving to only the best xp giving quests as you level). In MoP I didn't use any guides and have been completing areas/zones. I much prefer it this way. The amount of toys and stuff the quests are giving out is crazy. My HP have jumped almost 200k just in quest gear alone, and that quest gear itself has put my ilevel at 431 which I'm hoping is enough for most everything I need going foward.

In summary, it's a good expansion. Not if you're burned out or not interested in WoW, but a good one if you still like it or are new to it.

Now to go back and butcher mass amounts of fel reavers for revenge..

Edit: You know, I just have to add.. It's all of the little things they've done in the game which make me smile and make me think of what a neat bunch of ideas they've got implemented into the game. Just got an in-game email with a gift/toy in it for hitting level 90. I mean, yeah, it's b.s. and nothing big, but you know it makes it a little more personal. Maybe it's just me. But I've gotten those emails many times while questing. They're just a nice touch. And the way I couldn't stop laughing the first time I saw the quest achievement "Everyday I'm Pan-daren". That shit was stuck in my head for days.

Funkmasterr · Post by **Funkmasterr** » October 6, 2012, 12:39 am

Just wanted to point out that while I generally agree with your assessment on FTP games, it absolutely doesn't apply to guild wars. The stuff that costs money is basically all cosmetic, or exp boost potions and stuff of the like.

Aslanna · Post by **Aslanna** » October 6, 2012, 12:43 am

I hope you are all aware that you're arguing about MMOs. Just let that sink in...

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » October 6, 2012, 1:06 am

You don't need to buy anything in GW2 and it's not just another "shiny" new game. If you care to spend the time, you'll discover the assloads of effort and creative thinking that went into making the game enjoyable while removing much of the tedious crap old games like WoW still have. It's much better than your standard run of the mill MMO release.

It seems people can't believe that they can play a high quality MMO for free after the initial purchase. I'm sure Arenanet wouldn't mind if it you paid them 14.99 a month anyway if it makes you feel better.

Leonaerd · Post by **Leonaerd** » October 6, 2012, 10:55 am

Aslanna wrote:I hope you are all aware that you're arguing about MMOs. Just let that sink in...

MMO's must look small from up there.

Aslanna · Post by **Aslanna** » October 6, 2012, 11:02 am

Leonaerd wrote:
Aslanna wrote:I hope you are all aware that you're arguing about MMOs. Just let that sink in...
MMO's must look small from up there.

Like a bunch of ants scurrying around.

Fairweather Pure · Post by **Fairweather Pure** » October 6, 2012, 12:12 pm

Jade Forest was divine, while Valley of the Four Winds is proving kind of a chore. I'm hoping to see more stuff on the level of the birth of the giant Sha and the entire story leading up to it and it's ultimate conclusion.

I just got a bootable marmot. It's like, the greatest thing ever as far as stupid pointless toys go. You summon a little marmot, then your character takes a running kick, sending that little bastard flying into the horizon. It brings a smile to my face every single time!

Another observation is the increased amount of rare and named Mobs in the zones. I've seen 3 so far. Two were dead before I got to them (damn no flying yet) but I killed the 3rd one. He was an interesting little fight for me and easily the hardest thing I've had to fight so far. He dropped 2 blues, plate gloves and a banner I can click from inventory that taunts mobs of me and runs away with them. It's only usable outdoors in Pandaria, but it's a nice little get out of jail free card (of which my druid seems to have a plethora of anyway).

Symbiosis was kind of a bust too since I have to be grouped and near someone to keep their skill. I briefly grouped with a pallie to try it out and it was pretty awesome having consecrate on my bear. There is a lot of potential here but not day to day questing.

I think I'm going to ignore instances for the time being and just do questing. I'll have all of 90 to do Instances.

Siji · Post by **Siji** » October 7, 2012, 2:32 am

The amount of toys in Pandaria has surprised me. It also makes upgrade choices kind of hard sometimes. e.g. I've got two trinkets right now (Explosive Barrel and Ban's Bag of Bombs) that I really don't want to upgrade because they're nice free dps (BBofBombs is 20k PBAE and the Barrel is 35k DD). It would be much easier to choose if you didn't have to wait for the cool-down period when equipping them.

I think Townlong Steppes was the one that dragged out the most for me.

You're right, the rares are pretty flippin' hard. I've gotten a few (there's an achievement for getting them all) but there's been a few I simply couldn't figure out how to get no matter how many times I tried.

Spang · Post by **Spang** » October 7, 2012, 4:21 am

I can't kill rares that heal (they can't kill me, either). All other rares that I've engaged die eventually.

Fairweather Pure · Post by **Fairweather Pure** » October 7, 2012, 5:44 am

Siji wrote:The amount of toys in Pandaria has surprised me. It also makes upgrade choices kind of hard sometimes. e.g. I've got two trinkets right now (Explosive Barrel and Ban's Bag of Bombs) that I really don't want to upgrade because they're nice free dps (BBofBombs is 20k PBAE and the Barrel is 35k DD). It would be much easier to choose if you didn't have to wait for the cool-down period when equipping them.

Trinkets are usually the only slot that give people any difficult choices. Every other equipment slot is pretty obvious. I lean towards passive effects on trinkets for the most part but keep clickable effect trinkets on me for situational purposes. It's nice having those options around when you need them. For PvE I don't generally have to burst too often, which is where clickables shine. Also, clickables in a PvP situation can be devastating. I've been on the receiving end of that scenario many times! When a player fires off all his cooldowns and clickables at once they can drop some amazing numbers in a very short amount of time.

I need to revisit my talent/glyph selection again now that I'm going full bear for the foreseeable future. I still have kind of a mish-mash of skills I was playing around with and I need to practice a rotation with a solid spec built around just tanking. I have to revisit treants, among other things. Man, my bear sure has a lot of interrupts. I need to learn a rotation of just interrupts so I can shut a healer down when required.

Aabidano · Post by **Aabidano** » October 7, 2012, 12:16 pm

GW2 is not just another "shiny" new game.

Except that it is.... and staying power is somewhat of a crapshoot not wholly in their control.

I think WoW has hit a couple points where they pissed off the "bread & butter" customers and have backed off after losing a chunk of them. EQ1 did too and lost a lot of players by catering to raiders too much.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » October 7, 2012, 12:53 pm

Aabidano wrote:
GW2 is not just another "shiny" new game.
Except that it is.... and staying power is somewhat of a crapshoot not wholly in their control.

Except that it isn't. Guild Wars lasted many many years (only ended due to GW2) and had a big time loyal following, just like Everquest. EQII has done just fine and GW2 has more thought pumped into it than EQII did.

I'm not interested in the masses. There's enough slugs out there with 10 year old systems that will keep paying 15/month to enjoy those 10 polygon avatars and 48x48 textures in WoW rather than save that money and update their PC. It's like any other monthly pay scam pulled on the poor. 15.00 sounds better than 60.00. They don't think of it as $150.00/year, the same way they don't care to think about how long it's going to take to pay off those credit cards paying the minimum each month. Come on you Wal-Mart working , gas pumping rednecks! Even at full price for GW2, you're still up 90.00 on the year over WoW. Use that to feed your kid, or pay for the HIV tests after pimping them out for a new G19 keyboard to try to handle all those skills and macros for farming.

Aslanna · Post by **Aslanna** » October 7, 2012, 1:00 pm

Winnow wrote:I'm not interested in the masses. There's enough slugs out there with 10 year old systems that will keep paying 15/month to enjoy those 10 polygon avatars and 48x48 textures in WoW rather than save that money and update their PC. It's like any other monthly pay scam pulled on the poor. 15.00 sounds better than 60.00. They don't think of it as $150.00/year

There are 12 months in a year!

Zaelath · Post by **Zaelath** » October 8, 2012, 7:59 am

I'm not really invested in this fight, but I do find it amusing that GW2 is "new" and "prettier" than WoW, and yet it looks pretty average to me compared to Aion, which is 3 years old now?

Chidoro · Post by **Chidoro** » October 8, 2012, 11:11 am

Winnow wrote:
Aabidano wrote:
GW2 is not just another "shiny" new game.
Except that it is.... and staying power is somewhat of a crapshoot not wholly in their control.
Except that it isn't. Guild Wars lasted many many years (only ended due to GW2) and had a big time loyal following, just like Everquest. EQII has done just fine and GW2 has more thought pumped into it than EQII did.

I'm not interested in the masses. There's enough slugs out there with 10 year old systems that will keep paying 15/month to enjoy those 10 polygon avatars and 48x48 textures in WoW rather than save that money and update their PC. It's like any other monthly pay scam pulled on the poor. 15.00 sounds better than 60.00. They don't think of it as $150.00/year, the same way they don't care to think about how long it's going to take to pay off those credit cards paying the minimum each month. Come on you Wal-Mart working , gas pumping rednecks! Even at full price for GW2, you're still up 90.00 on the year over WoW. Use that to feed your kid, or pay for the HIV tests after pimping them out for a new G19 keyboard to try to handle all those skills and macros for farming.

Everyone knows you don't like paying for content of any kind so your opinion on the matter holds no merit.

Subs rates are fine if the person finds value in it. I have an all-access and I find it to be a great deal since I perdominantly play eq1 but still play a number of the other SOE games.

I'm with Aab on this one. People always love their new and shiny games and they all lose some luster over time. How quickly is usually the question

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » October 8, 2012, 12:30 pm

Zaelath wrote:I'm not really invested in this fight, but I do find it amusing that GW2 is "new" and "prettier" than WoW, and yet it looks pretty average to me compared to Aion, which is 3 years old now?

Aion has outstanding support and I still play it They have another major expansion (3.5) coming out on Wednesday with a huge additional content and additional 3 class 4.0 expansion coming out within another 6 months.

Aion has been the best looking MMO for a long time. It also had a major update to to its graphics (textures and engine) a couple years back. It's character generator is still first rate.

That said, and Guild Wars 2 graphics are as good as Aions and the armor looks even better than Aions...I should said the way the armor is attached to the avatars, etc. Guild Wars "style" is less colorful and "pretty" than Aion's, which is subjective, but the quality is just as good or better in some cases.

Aion is a little grindy but otherwise an excellent MMO.

As for subscriptions and WoW, I really don't care. I'm just fucking around. I don't care what people play and have plenty of monthly subs to various crap.

Spang · Post by **Spang** » October 16, 2012, 4:06 pm

My legs are now wrapped in Sha-Skin Leggings. Sha of Anger gave them to me.

Boogahz · Post by **Boogahz** » October 16, 2012, 4:18 pm

He really is an angry fellow. Always yelling at people.

Fairweather Pure · Post by **Fairweather Pure** » October 16, 2012, 5:03 pm

I've been trying to post the 5.1 patch notes for a week but keep getting a sql error when trying to make a new thread. Anyone else having issues?

5.1 is a great looking patch. I heard this and 5.2 were developed at the same time. I'm hopeful that Blizzard can keep pumping out the content for this expansion.

Zaelath · Post by **Zaelath** » October 17, 2012, 4:12 am

Yeah, I couldn't make a thread either.

Fairweather Pure · Post by **Fairweather Pure** » October 17, 2012, 12:32 pm

I'll post it here since we cannot make new topics.

The first World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria patch of the year is in development and now available for testing on the Public Test Realms. This patch will include several updates to the ongoing conflict between the Horde and Alliance, the new Brawler’s Guild, Pet Battle improvements, assorted bug fixes, and more. If you'd like to help us test out this patch and provide feedback, you can start by copying your character over to a test realm. Once you've had a chance to try things out, be sure to visit our Public Test Realm forum to discuss the patch.

Note: Features mentioned in the 5.1 Patch Preview may not initially be available on the PTR, and could be included as testing progresses.

World of Warcraft PTR Patch 5.1.0
General
The Pandaren Campaign begins!
The conflict between the Horde and the Alliance has ignited a new series of daily quests along the shore of the Krasarang Wilds.
Players can visit their faction strongholds in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms to begin the quest to summon their war fleets to the continent of Pandaria. (Please note: The Alliance version of this quest is not yet complete, but will still unlock the new missions and features).
Players will both valiantly defend their faction’s outpost and assault the opposing faction's headquarters.
Two new Reputations have been added: Alliance players can earn reputation with Operation: Shieldwall, while Horde players will curry favor with the Dominance Offensive.
Players can slay rival NPCs and opposing faction players along the shore to earn commissions that can be spent to upgrade their faction's base.
Look for strategic objectives to capture, including graveyards and towers. Commissions can be spent to recruit guards that will help protect this captured territory!
Players who are truly dedicated to their faction can spend their commissions on an item that will give their fellows an extra reputation group quest for the day. Horde players can speak with Ongrom Black Tooth, while Alliance players can contact Proveditor Grantley for details.
Pet Battles
A new item has been introduced that can be used to upgrade the quality of Battle Pets: Battle-stones.
Battle-stones are available in two basic types, general purpose Battle-stones that can be used to upgrade the quality of any pet, and family specific Battle-stones, which can only be used to upgrade pets of a specific pet family.
Battle-stones are available in two qualities: Flawless Battle-stones can upgrade pets directly to Rare quality, while Polished Battle-stones will upgrade a pet to Uncommon quality.
Players will have a very small chance to obtain a general purpose Flawless Battle-stone after winning a match against wild pets; defeating higher level opponents increases the chances of obtaining a stone. These valuable items are not soulbound, and can be sold on the Auction House.
Family specific Flawless Battle-stones can be found in the Sack of Pet Supplies obtained from performing Pet Trainer quests, and are Bind on Pickup.
General purpose Polished Battle-stones can be purchased for 1000 Justice Points.
Pet Journal
The quality of each pet is now visible in its slot in the Pet Journal.
Pets can now be filtered by name, type, rarity and level, and filters will remain in place each time the Pet Journal is viewed.
It is now possible to search locations in the Pet Journal. For example, searching “Westfall” will display all the Battle Pets that can be found in Westfall.
Right clicking a pet's portrait will now offer the option to look it up in the Pet Journal.
Players can now keep up to 650 pets.
Battle Pet tooltips will now display whether a pet is owned, and how many pets of that type are owned.
Pet Quality is now displayed in battles, and will be visible on portraits, names and tooltips.
The level of battle pets in a zone can now be seen on the map, and it’s now possible to see the strength of wild pets relative to your team at a glance.
Backline pets now display debuffs affecting them as well as the remaining duration of these effects.
The experience multiplier obtained by all seven Grand Master pet trainers in Pandaria has been increased to x5 from x3.5.
The experience multiplier obtained by defeating Pet Trainers Julia Stevens, Old Macdonald, Zunta, and Dagra the Fierce has been reduced to x2.5 from x3.5.
Macros have been added that allow for summoning random pets and random favorite pets.
The achievement Taming the World now awards the Safari Hat, which increases pet experience gained from Pet Battles by 10%.
The I Choose You achievement has been added for defeating Zen Master Aki. The reward for this achievement is 3000 gold.
A new Master Pet Tamer offering daily quests has been added to the Darkmoon Faire. Completing quests for the new trainer will offer the chance to acquire a new pet: the Darkmoon Eye.
Two new Battle Pets now roam Darkmoon Island waiting to be caught.
Fixed a bug where the Gazelle would join pet battles.
UI
A new banner will appear when a player is subjected to an effect that causes them to lose control of their character. The effect that caused the loss of control and remaining duration will be displayed. Configuration options are available in the “Combat” section of the “Interface Options" menu.
A search bar has been added to the mount section of the Mount and Pet Journal.
The Mount and Pet Journal remembers which tab you were last using.
Brawler's Guild
Underground fighting rings have sprung up in Stormwind and Orgrimmar that will give brawlers a chance to earn bragging rights by testing their solo PvE mettle against some of the toughest creatures found in World of Warcraft.
Players will prove their skill, and increase their rank with the Brawler's Guild, as they win matches against some of the most difficult solo encounters in World of Warcraft.
As their Brawler's Guild rank increases, players will unlock additional rewards and activities within the Brawler’s Guild.
Brawlers on a realm will gather together into the blood spattered ring to watch as their peers face down their own opponents. They can watch the battles in progress to learn from hardened Brawler's Guild veterans as they wait for their own turn to fight.
If this is your first night at Brawler's Guild, you have to fight.

You can hear the data mined dialogue from the patch if you really want to. Suffice it to say, there is going to be some real blood lust between the Alliance and Horde with 5.1. I can't wait to try out the Brawler's Guild either.

Also, Hallow's Eve is here. Here is a 2012 guide: http://www.icy-veins.com/hallows-end-2012-wow

The Horseman will be dropping ilvl470 gear this year and if you've never done it before there is a variety of pets from quest rewards (feline familiar, creepy crate, and the sinister squashling from Horseman). There is also a rare chance to get the Headless Horseman mount. The Horseman item drops are listed in the above link. I will run it until I get my feral ring as well as both of the caster rings just for the fuck of it. I really like this event and look forward to it every year. I think it's my favorite in-game holiday.

Siji · Post by **Siji** » October 21, 2012, 7:46 pm

I'm curious about the Hallow's End stuff, and the Brawler's as well. I've been toying with a priest lately and really only doing cooking and fishing dailies with the druid. The amount of content and things you can do in WoW still overwhelms me. There's a ton of dailies in Pandaria alone, but I haven't even bothered to look into them outside of the two I mentioned. I'd like to get my farm up to full spec and then start getting my cooking skills up to 600. It's much more annoying getting max now than it was before. Debating which TS to do with the priest. Right now just doing skinning and herbalism, but considering dropping skinning and doing either enchanting or tailoring (or engineering). Think I read somewhere that tailoring sucks though.

Fairweather Pure · Post by **Fairweather Pure** » October 21, 2012, 9:05 pm

When I hit 90 the first thing I did was buy the flight ability then headed off to fish and herb for the next 3 hours. I settled in at my farm and I'm doing the fishing quest dailies and working on my cooking. I'll get the faction grind soon enough. Actually, I haven't done any instances or scenarios yet either. This is not like any other expansion ever released. Blizzard is doing an excellent job of rolling out content and keeping people busy. After Cata was released I would've already been fully equipped by Heroics this point.

I'm undecided on if I like my bear tanking mechanics better or worse than before. Having to juggle my 45% dodge can be kind if a bitch at times but man I have a lot more options than ever before when tanking an encounter.

Also, the Headless Horseman event is actually challenging again. It's the same mechanics as always but this year everyone isn't 5x overgeared for the encounter so you really have to time your cooldowns and dps needs to focus in order to get a clear win.

Siji, you should do the Horseman event once a day to have a shot at the treat bag that contains rare loot. You can que as many times as you want a day just to get your ring(s) but you only get a treat bag once a day and that's where the really good has a chance at appearing.

Boogahz · Post by **Boogahz** » October 22, 2012, 6:20 pm

Fairweather Pure wrote:This is not like any other expansion ever released. Blizzard is doing an excellent job of rolling out content and keeping people busy. After Cata was released I would've already been fully equipped by Heroics this point.

wtf have they been rolling out? All you are playing is the expansion.

Fairweather Pure · Post by **Fairweather Pure** » October 22, 2012, 6:37 pm

5.1 is already on the PTR and is a major content patch.

miir · Post by **miir** » October 23, 2012, 12:51 am

Fairweather Pure wrote:5.1 is already on the PTR and is a major content patch.

You're pretty gullible.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » October 23, 2012, 1:03 am

A major content patch? was the content that crappy they need to patch it already? New content would be nice.

Fairweather Pure · Post by **Fairweather Pure** » October 23, 2012, 2:16 am

miir wrote:You're pretty gullible.

What is gullible about the 5.1 patch being on the PTR exactly?

Fairweather Pure · Post by **Fairweather Pure** » October 23, 2012, 2:21 am

Class tweaks on PTR:

Druid
Symbiosis:
The cast time of Symbiosis has been reduced to 2 seconds.
Survival Instincts is once again granted to Brewmaster Monks and now costs 2 Chi to use.
Might of Ursoc is once again granted to Blood Death Knights, and now costs 30 Runic Power.
Savage Defense is once again granted to Protection Warriors, but now only provides a 30% increase to dodge.
Barkskin is once again granted to Protection Paladins, and now costs 1 Holy Power.
The cooldown of Stampeding Shout provided by Symbiosis has been reduced to 5 minutes.
The duration of Solar Beam provided by Symbiosis now displays correctly as 4 seconds.
The Glyph of Solar Beam has been changed, and now increases the radius of Solar Beam to 10 yards (was 5 yards).
The duration of Solar Beam has been reduced to 8 seconds.
Hunter
Aspect of the Fox has been removed.
Steady Shot, Cobra Shot, and Barrage can now always be cast on the move.
Lynx Rush has been changed. Lynx Rush is now a bleed effect that causes damage every 3 seconds over a period of 15 seconds, and stacks up to 9 times.
Bestial Wrath no longer grants Hunter pets immunity to crowd control effects, and instead now breaks existing crowd control effects when activated.
Mage
A new Minor Glyph has been added: Discreet Magic. This glyph prevents Nether Tempest, Living Bomb, Frost Bomb, Arcane Barrage, and Inferno Blast from affecting targets more than 5 yards away from the primary target.
Water Elemental
New Pet Ability: Water Jet. Water Jet channels a jet of frigid water at the target, dealing Frost damage over 4 seconds. Frostbolts cast by the pet's owner that hit the target while it is being blasted with icy water will grant a charge of Fingers of Frost. This ability has a 24 sec cooldown (shared with Freeze) and a 1 second cast time.
Mage Armor now reduces the duration of harmful Magic effects by 25% (was 35%).
The damage absorbed by Ice Barrier has been reduced by 25%.
Pyroblast now has a 3 second cooldown. This cooldown is reduced by spell haste.
Ring of Frost and Deep Freeze now have a 45 second cooldown (was 30 seconds).
Combustion's periodic damage is now based only on the current Ignite, instead of both Ignite and Pyroblast. Damage has been increased to bring it up to approximately the same level as before.
Blazing Speed may now be triggered after recieving damage in any amount.
The mana cost of Spellsteal has been increased to 21% of base mana (was 7%).
Fixed an issue with Glyph of Icy Veins that could prevent all three bolts from firing.
Fixed an issue with Glyph of Icy Veins that could prevent the affected abilities from doing the correct damage.
Monk
The Power Strikes talent now grants the Power Strikes effect every 22 seconds, which causes the Monk's next attack to generate 1 additional Chi.
The Healing Elixirs talent now grants the Healing Elixirs effect every 18 seconds, which causes the next Brew or Tea consumed to heal the Monk for 10% of maximum health.
Paladin
Hand of Salvation has been changed. This ability now removes all of a target's threat for 10 seconds.
Priest
Chakra: Serenity now increases single target healing by 25% (was 15%).
Chakra: Sanctuary now increases area healing by 25% (was 15%).
The Psyfiend's health has been reduced to 10% of the controlling Priest's health(was 30%).
Rogue
The cooldown of Sprint has been reduced to 45 seconds (was 1 minute).
The cooldown of Blind has been reduced to 1 minute (was 3 minutes).
The energy cost of the Burst of Speed talent has been reduced to 50 energy (was 60 energy).
Wound Poison now deals 33% more damage.
Warlock
The Felguard and Wrathguard pet ability Threatening Presence will no longer be auto-cast by default.
Rain of Fire
Aftermath will now grant Rain of Fire's damage over time effect a chance to generate Burning Embers.
Rain of Fire no longer requires Immolate to be present to generate Burning Embers.
Rain of Fire's damage over time will now hit every 1 second (was 2 seconds). The damage animation for the damage over time effect will no longer always display.
Conflagrate now generates Burning Embers.
Demonic Gateway's duration has been increased to 20 minutes, and it will no longer despawn if the Warlock moves too far away.

Symbiosis needs some love. I find the effects, for the most part, underwhelming. I've never heard a class happy to get any of my abilities. Worse yet, I don't even know who gets what unless I consult a list. It's a very convoluted spell with minimal payoff. I hope they look at beefing the ability up at some point. It's great in theory but in reality it is lacking.