Sorry for the lack of posting lately. Between Theramore, the pre-expansion lull in gameplay, and some real life stuff, I've gotten back in the game. Right now, my hunter main, Hecubah, is in the wonderful "35% to max level" limbo, but I couldn't be happier about it. There is so much to see and do in Mists of Pandaria, and I'm saddened that I haven't had the time to screenshot it all. Also, I barely played the beta, since I didn't want to ruin the experience of seeing this beautiful land for myself for the very first time, so if this is a rehash of anything that was posted by others months ago in a much more eloquent manner, I apologize.
First of all, the quests. Oh my god, the quests. The intro for Alliance side was, for lack of better words, INTENSE. It starts with a brief cinematic of Varian Wrynn losing it when he finds out his son is missing after being attacked by the Horde. He orders an elite strike force of SI:7 agents and you to board the Skyfire and try and locate Anduin at the place he was last seen, a mysterious continent to the south. As a player, you fly to Pandaria and from the Skyfire, board a Gyrocopter to gun down Horde forces, blow up their ships, then play Paratrooper and parachute to the ground to engage in ground assault. All in all, it felt a bit like the Call of Duty franchise to me, but since I like putting myself in my character's head while I play, it felt even more intense than any first person shooter I've ever played. For Hecubah, she HAD to find Anduin, regardless of the cost. A little payback for the Theramore incident is just the icing on the mission cake. So I ran around and decimated the Horde forces, still feeling that rage I felt from the loss of Theramore, until our Admiral ordered us to open fire on Horde troops surrendering to us, trying to swim to safety after we blew up their ships. From there, the player loses all control and a brief cutscene happens where Alliance forces slaughter the Horde troops attempting to survive. Then our ground commander, an SI:7 operative, is possessed by something and starts transforming into a nasty beastie when all of a sudden, Taran-zhu, the leader of the Shadow-Pan Monastary, arrives to exorcise him. This Pandaren Monk is no-nonsense. He won't have outsiders on his land, and he won't take any part in our war against the Horde. Then he makes us clean up the mess we made, telling us that our negative emotions have led to the reemergence of the Sha, big bad beasties who are the physical manifestations of all our negative emotions. And we have to kill the ones who have taken up residence in the Horde camp we had trashed.
Later into the quest cycle in the Jade Forest, when the Sha of Doubt emerged during an Alliance/Horde
conflict at the Temple of the Jade Serpent and corrupted the land
surrounding Yu'lon's destroyed shrine, I actually cried. This beautiful,
kind August Celestial would be forced to put her rebirth on hold in her
advanced age because our factions couldn't stop fighting like a pair of
petulant children. After finding that jade to complete her shrine to
facilitate her rebirth, I felt a sense of pride, knowing I had helped
these people and a power as close to a deity that we would find on this
continent. To see that destroyed by my own allies because they just had to spilll Horde blood was heart-wrenching,
This is what really stuck with me, regarding this expansion. Instead of the "Big Bad" we must kill to save the world, it's OUR fault that this is happening to the world and WE are the "Big Bad," or at least our hate, fear, anger, and doubt are. There are only a handful of "faction only" zones in the entire continent; Paw-Don Village (Alliance starting area), a few Jinyu villages, an Alliance base camp in Kun-Lai Summit, and the Shrine of the Seven Stars. Every other camp, village, or city is neutral, meaning Horde and Alliance can mingle. Does this mean we'll all join hands around a campfire singing Kumbayah? Probably not, but if we, as two separate factions, can work on shedding our negative emotions and hate for each other, then perhaps we'll have the combined might for the day we will eventually take down Sargeras himself.
Then I quested in the Valley of the Four Winds. The tone of the game lightened, and in this simple farming province I felt like I was at home (and I'm not talking about all the dead beasts left behind for me to farm their delicious skins for my leatherworking). The entire zone has such a peaceful feel to it. Perhaps it's because I'm a country girl who has grown up surrounded by farmland, but I like the slow pace that life seems to take there compared to Stormwind. If you haven't had the pleasure of visiting Halfhill, the zone's central city, I really suggest you check it out. Not only are all the cooking specialization trainers there, but there's also your personal farm! The quests to start building your farm are a wonderful homage to the Harvest Moon series of games by Nintendo, and I swear the elders telling off poor Farmer Yoon are taken word for word from the start of that game. Hecubah is becoming quite the carrot farmer, although I'll probably start growing scallions soon enough for the agility feasts. Plus the Valley (re)introduces us to the best series of NPCs in the game; Chen Stormstout, his niece Li Li, and Mudmug the homebrewer. The quests tie in with what is, in my opinion, one of the best dungeons I've encountered in the game. The Stormstout Brewery was the most fun dungeon I've ever run, and it was the first dungeon I ran in MoP. Where else do you get to ride kegs of beer into drunken Hozen, beat Virmin with a giant Donkey Kong hammer, or fight beer elementals and fly with carbonation bubbles?
Kun-Lai was next according to my map, and while the zone was dark, it had its lighthearted moments (yak wash, anyone?). My most memorable moment in Kun-Lai were the quests leading up to the opening of the Celestial Gate to the Vale of Eternal Blossoms. Xuen, the White Tiger Celestial, forced us to confront our inner demons to cleanse us of them and prove ourselves worthy of opening the gates. The opening ceremony itself was beautiful, even with the Sha of Anger spawning in the zone and shouting some VERY nasty things over Yu'lon and Xuen's speech.
The Towlong Steppes were a dark place as well, and the Dread Wastes are darker still. I kind of breezed through the quests in Towlong due to the negativity and darkness and I've yet to complete the Dread Wastes quests with the Klaxxi, but the overall feel of those zones just makes me want to permanently reset my hearth to Halfhill and stay there. The quests in the Dread Wastes, where Chang attempts to find more of the Stormstout clan, had me in tears again, when he found one cousin killed by the Sha-corrupted Mantid and another entombed in amber. I stopped for the night on the questline in the wood sprite village. It seemed like a good stopping point. I mean, they're wood sprites. What could be sad about them?
As a lore nerd, I love the little shrines Blizzard has put into the game on Pandaria with scrolls of lore on them. Plus there's wonderful achievements for finding all the scrolls of a specific kind, and even more wonderful quest rewards for finding all the scrolls in a set - Lore cutscenes narrated by Lorewalker Cho! I give Blizzard props again for finding an amazing voice actor for Lorewalker Cho, Jim Cummings. He also voices Shen-zin Su, the turtle carrying the Wandering Isle on his back (although he might be better known as the current voice actor for Winnie the Pooh and Tigger). This makes me wish that something like this could be implemented on the other continents in the game. From what I saw on youtube, the rewards are beautiful and give tons of background information on everything about Pandaria. I can't wait to find all the shrines and see these cutscenes first hand.
Now, as far as professions, my hunter is my skinner/leatherworker, and I have been enjoying the way that the professions were redesigned in MoP. I found that not only do I only need two types of leather for all of the patterns I've learned so far, they provide double skill-ups when they're red! It was so fast and so easy! The only hard part was finding my leatherworking trainer, who was way out at the Grummle Base Camp in Kun-Lai. What I learned from him carried me to about 590-ish, then I spent one hard-earned Spirit of Harmony to buy one of the pvp patterns in the Temple of the Seven Stars, which pushed me over to 600. My skinning leveled so much faster than my leatherworking, mostly due to the fact that everyone was killing things and leaving their beautiful looted corpses behind for me to skin. And who am I to turn down a free skin? And now the mobs you skin drop Plump Intestines, something similar to the Strangely Bloated Stomach from the Cata days. Only instead of Motes of Harmony, these drop gold and the occasional and oddly valuable gray items. It's like getting paid to farm for those precious skins without sacrificing any to the Auction House! Cooking is also completely redesigned from what it once was. It's been broken up into different "ways" that provide different benefits to stats. As a hunter, I'm working on the Way of the Wok, which provides agility bonuses, but I'm learning them all for my other toons, since Hecubah has the highest level in cooking out of all my toons.
What sort of blog post would this be if I didn't talk about the new hunter pets that are available to us hunters in MoP? I have yet to come across any of the rare challenge-tames, although I did find one's prints while questing in Towlong Steppes. I am actually using my Beast Mastery offspec now, since BM is apparently the best spec for hunters as of right now. Plus, you know, PETS! GLORIOUS PETS! I tamed a few tigers in the Jade Forest, and I have to say my Skarr is quite happy to have a pretty jade kitty lady friend now. Then I ventured out and tamed a Porcupine, aptly named Porcuswine (mega props and an e-cookie if you get that reference). This little guy, I swear. While farming skins in the Towlong Steppes, I would AoE a pack of Mushan that like roaming around the Shadow-Pan base camp out there, and little Porky would take them all down with relative ease. We only died once doing this, and that's because I misfired and hit a turtle, then one of the Mushan Bulls came up and aggroed on us before I had a chance to pop off a Last Stand and Mend Pet on Porky. You'd never think of a hunter being able to successfully AoE down mob packs, but Lynx Rush, Dire Beast, and Stampede, along with liberal use of traps and multishot, make it a breeze. Then I ventured into Mogu'shan Palace with my girlfriend with the intent to tame a Quilen. It took a couple attempts, but in the end, it was so worth it! Quilen are exotics that only Beast Mastery hunters can tame, and after seeing what the Quilen can do, I'm not surprised. They are the only pet I know of that comes with a battle rez ability. I am excited for this. So far, my Quilen is nameless, but I think I'll call him Chowder if no one else can think up a good name for him. I don't know why, but he just looks like a Chowder to me.
I know the leveling experience won't be horribly different for my Shaman, but I do look forward to going through those zones again. I think this expac has so much more in terms of replay value with alt leveling than Cata did, and it's quickly becoming my favorite.
