During the Mists of Pandaria Panel at BlizzCon several new features of the next expansion were spotlighted.

New Concepts

Blizzard's objective with MP is to combine new gameplay with the fun bits of the past expansions.

They also wish to bring people back into the world instead of spending the majority of their time waiting in queue in Stormwind and Orgrimmar. This will be the return of outdoor World Raid Mobs.

They also don't want players to feel pigeon holed into a certain aspect of the game in order to 'keep up' with current content or gear. This will include daily quests for the solo players that will reward Valor Points.

Character specialization and customization will be more interesting than ever. Game developers wish to get rid of the cookie cutter builds without compromising things like 4% of your DPS

Put a little more fun and humor back into the game


Continent of Pandaria

5 new level-up zones to explore

Single, unified continent

Influenced by Asian landscapes

AH, Bank, and Central Questing Hub

No flying until max level


Lore of Pandaria

A long, storied history

Magically hidden since The Sundering

A new land to explore...

Alliance vs. Horde

Fore more lore check the Lore and Story Panel


The Wandering Isle

Pandaren start zone

It's a Turtle!

Story focused with simple mechanics

Cross faction, choose Horde/Alliance at level 10


Creatures of Pandaria

Jinyu - A race of Fish-Like creatures known as the wise men of the lands.

Hozu - A race of monkey-like creatures known to be mischievous.

Verming - A nuisance race similar to the race of kobolds.

Mantid - Insect race that's been on the island for a millenia. These are one of the major bad-guys on the continent. Unlike the silithid they're not hive-minded creatures but sentient individuals. Some raids and dungeons will be based around these.

Mogu - The first race on the island. The pandarens overthrew them thousands of years ago and now they want the island back. Another of the bad guys.

Sha - A shadow form creature race. The manifestation of all the bad energies on the island.


The Jade Forest

Point of entry for Alliance and Horde (only one starting zone).

Lush rainforests and stone spires

Meet the Hozu & Jinyu which the Alliance and Horde try to recruit and turn them against each other.

The bad energies between the Hozu & Jinyu case the release of the Sha.

Temple of the Jade Serpent - 5 man dungeon run by the Sha


Valley of the Four Winds

Second Zone

Two zones for the price of one! Allows for less linear questing allowing you to choose to go north or south first or mix and match

Pandaren farmlands

Coastal Jungle

Stormstout Brewery dungeon

The Mantid the main enemies in this zone


Pandaren Classes

Hunter

Mage

Monk

Priest

Rogue

Shaman

Warrior


Pandaren Racials

Epicurean - Increase the stat benefits from food by 100%

Gourmand - Cooking skill increased by 15

Inner Peace - Your rested experience bonus lasts twice as long

Bouncy - You take 50% less falling damage.

Quaking Palm - You touch a secret pressure point on an enemy target, putting it to sleep for 3 sec.


Monk Talent Trees

Brewmaster - Tank

Mistweaver - Healer (Melee DPS healer!)

Windwalker - Melee DPS

Not a hero class - Starts at first level

Very martial-arts based

Lots of monk-only animations


Monk Races

Monks are NOT Pandaren only

Draenei, Dwarf, Gnome, Human, Night Elf, Blood Elf, Orc, Tauren, Troll, Undead, Pandaren


Equipment

They hit a lot with hands and feet

But need weapons for some finishers:
Staves, Fist Weapons

One-Handed Axes, Maces, Swords

Off-Hands for healers, no shields

Leather Armor


Monk Resources

Chi (energy) used for Jab and Roll

Jab generates Light and Dark Force which is used for everything else

No Auto Attack!


Cataclysm Talents

Pros

Level 10 Spec

Removed Junk

Some choices

Cons

Risk of skipping talents

Didn't remove enough junk

Not enough choices

Cookie-cutter builds still persist

Not enough customization

No true hybridization

Players grumpy


Talent System Overhaul

Choose your spec at level 10

Get a spec ability at level 10

Get additional spec abilities later, like every 10 levels.
Old talents you need to have, core abilities

Old core abilities not every spec needs


Example: Prot Paladins

Level 10: Avenger's Shield

Level 20: Hammer of the Righteous (Ret/Prot only)

Level 30: Judgements of the Just (passive)

Level 40: Shield of the Righteous

Level 50 Grand Crusader (proc)

Ect...


Talents

No more talent points or ranks

One talent tree per class

Earn talents every 15 levels

Every talent: choose 1 of 3, you can't go back and get the others

No mandatory talents

Change talents as easily as glyphs


More information about ever talent tree will be available during the Talents Panel at 2:15 PST.


Scenarios - The "PvE Battleground"

Short instances for few players

Staged experience - different phases like a quest chain

Utilizing old world areas in a new way

Available to all levels

No player collision

No tank-healer-DPS combo necessary

Could replace group quests


Scenarios - How It Works

Queue and go, like Dungeon Finder

No role requirements = short queues

One of many options to earn Valor Points


Challenge Mode Dungeons

Complete a dungeon in X amount of time

To earn Bronze, Silver, Gold medals

Gear levels are normalized - All characters will be scaled to the same level of gear for the dungeon (no overpowering through the dungeon by overgearing it)

Rewards are sweet looking gear with no stats (Transmogging!)

Plus Valor Points!

Bragging Rights & Leaderboards

PvE competition


Pet Battle System

Collect, level and battle with companion pets

Accessible to all players

Works with almost every pet.

Customize your pets - name your pets, get them individual abilities ect


Collecting Pets

Works with most existing pets
Wild Pets! - Pets you find in the wild. Random varying stats. Certain pets you might only find during the day or night, spring or winter, raining or sunshine, ect.

Pet Journal - Changes the current pet interface to a new system.

Most pets will become tradable, even leveled pets with abilities you've worked on

Account wide pets that retain their abilities and levels

Pet Journal will allow you to figure out where pets can be found.


Leveling Pets

Win battles to earn experience

Learn new abilities as you level

Create builds using abilities

Increase stats

Level multiple pets to build your team of pets


Pet Battles

PvE & PvP battles
Turn based combat

Simple combat system

Fight with a team of 3 pets

Queuing system


Customization

Name your pets

Items

Builds & Teams

Masters & Master Abilities


Dungeons

9 awesome new dungeons!

6 dungeons across Pandaria

Heroic updates of classic favorites
Scholomance

Scarlet Monastery Wing 1 & 2


Raids

3 new Epic raids!

Feature two new enemy races, Mogu & Mantid

Raid Finder for all raids, Normal & Heroic difficulties

World raid bosses return! (More info at the Raid Panel)


Questing

Increased focus on max level content
Multiple hubs

Incentives for dungeons/raiders to do outdoor/daily stuff

More quest choices, less linear

No flying until max level

Faction improvements - more fun, less grindy.


PvP

New battlegrounds
Stranglethorn Diamond Mines - Payload

Valley of Power - Murderball

Azshara Crater - DOTA

New Arena
Tol'vir Proving Grounds


STV Diamond Mine

Goblin mine below northern STV

Payload style gameplay
Escort mine cars to depot

Multiple tracks

First to X resources wins


Valley of Power

Located in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms

Murderball style gameplay
Holding the object earns points

Multiple point zones

Object does damage to holder

Damage increases over time


Tol'vir Proving Grounds

Located in Uldum

Simple layout based on Nagrand arena

Sense of place in the world


Achievements

Account Level Achievements!

Allows achievements to be shared among all characters on the same Battle.net account!

Create new achievements that require multiple characters to complete!


Major Class Changes

Resilience - changed to a base stat

Ranged Weapons

Warlocks
Shamans
Druids

Other classes coming soon


Ranged Weapons

Hunter Minimum range - Gone!

Hunter melee weapon - Gone!

Relics/Ranged slots - Gone!

Rogue & Warriors will throw their weapons for ranged attacks

Wands become main hand weapons


Warlocks

Unique resources for every spec

Affliction - Soul Shards

Demonology - Demonic Fury

Destruction - Infernal Embers


Shaman

Buff Totems - Gone!

All totems are utility
Earthgrab totem - roots

Repulsion totem - repels

Bulwark totem - absorbs


Druids

Always felt like they had 4 specs

Now they do!
Feral - cat (melee DPS)

Guardian - bear (tanking)

Some overlap between the two for versatility

All druids can still go cat or bear form


All Classes

Spell books cleaned up

Rotations improved

Automatically learn spells - no visiting trainers

Several new spells

Specs more developed

Talent trees should be FUN


Screenshots from the panel coming soon!

Posted from WoW Vault

Will believe it when I see it.

 

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NOOOWWWW they release the monk class.. *sigh*

 

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Pet Battles

PvE & PvP battles
Turn based combat
Simple combat system
Fight with a team of 3 pets
Queuing system

Pokemon! (So says my nephew)

 

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It will be a disaster, just reading that seems like they are already planning to screw up talents.

 

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I honestly thought this was a joke.

Even after reading the changes.

 

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I don't know if I completely understand what they have in mind this time, but the talent trees are a lot of the reason I quit WoW. I really, really like building my character and tweaking/trying new builds. RIFT has a lot of this, and the talent system in that game is sweet imho.

 

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This.


This stuff overall just sounds retarded.

 

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And so starts another whole round of balancing.....


You guys prepared for the flood of FoTM monk classes with overdone Jack Black references?


PS:

It's a Turtle!


/smackhead

 

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Rift has one of the best Character systems in a game that i've seen..

To bad World PVP didn't pan out...

 

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