Tuesday (7 Aug) - Browsing the MoP Beta Talk

Tuesday (7 Aug) - Browsing the MoP Beta Talk

While waiting for a contractor to arrive (late, of course) I did some random browsing for tidbits about MoP. The following are in no particular sequence or importance. I just thought they were interesting.

The Tillers are a new faction in MoP that is very different from the usual faction grind. To earn reputation with this faction, you must learn to farm. No, I'm not talking about the kind of farming for "stuff" you are thinking of. I'm talking about actual farming - tilling the soil and growing crops. There are a series of quests along the way as you work a small plot of land and, over time, expand and improve on it. As your friendship with the Tillers grow (pun intended) you gain access to additional farm friendly things such as chickens, sheep, pigs, and booze (I guess a farmer's life is just not complete without booze), not to mention a red cricket companion. If you are looking for the epic faction gear that is the goal of every faction grind - well, the Tillers don't have any. It sounds charming, and could be something to do when the usual killing gets to be a bit monotonous.

Another faction that has been previewed is the Golden Lotus. This is the kind of faction grind we are all used to, with one exception that caught my eye. Once you reach Revered, there is the usual collection of nice to have gear. However, unlike most faction grinds, where the gear can be purchased with gold, Revered and better gear has to be bought with Valor Points. So, in addition to grinding faction rep, I'll also have to grind VPs. Since I don't particularly like grinding valor points, this is not a development that I like.

Battle pets are all the rage, and everybody is getting ready for battle pet combat. I haven't really kept up with this; I just hope my jousting pet or other companions don't get arbitrarily attacked at random moments. I did think it was funny that the fact that players are still vulnerable to pvp while engaged in a pet battle "is intentional."

"Elite" raid guilds are complaining that the "casuals" clear content too fast and aren't ready to take on Heroic content. Hardcore raiders proposed that Blizzard force casual players to slow down and spend more time defeating raid dungeons so they'll be better fodder for elite guild needs. I liked the response from the Blue poster: "I'm quite sure that the "casuals" can handle themselves in what they want and how they want it, and they don't need parenting from "hardcore" players." 'Nuff said.

Several monk spells had bugs in beta that Blizz say have been fixed internally (fixed but not in beta, yet). This primarily affected the DPS Windwalker. The spells will be what they are; what I liked about the conversation is what they said about the Windwalker spec: "Their (windwalker) forte is intended to be their strong mobility and the fact that their damage is mostly upfront and instant, as they have very little to no periodic damage." If that means the monk DPS spec is a "strike hard and keep moving" kind of attack, that could be very fun to play.

Anyone planning to kill Coren Direbrew when Brewfest comes along will have to be level 89 first. There are just ten days from launch until the start of the new Brewfest.

A new type of group dungeon has been introduced with MoP. It's called "Scenarios." Scenarios are three-person adventures (Blizz's word) in an instanced dungeon that is a part of the lore. The storyline has to be completed into order to move the story forward. No mention was made on whether these were mandatory in order to continue to advance, or if they can be bypassed.

Here's a nice fix to signing up for a "finder" ( as in raid finder, dungeon finder, etc) - scenarios, dungeons, raids, and battlegrounds can all be queued up for at the same time. No more having to decide which single event to queue up for. Of course, I wonder how that will affect the overall availability of players. "Oh, my BG popped!" The player then leaves the dungeon he just got an invite to.

Ooh, I just saw that multi-seat mounts will become account bound! That means the whole Wild family can have their own Tundra Mammoth with it's extra seats.