Chen Stormsnout presents exciting new Mists of Pandaria information to the press at Blizzard Headquarters.
Last Wednesday, I was lucky enough to attend a press conference hosted by Chen Stormsout (I think that was his name) in which he discussed some new information about the upcoming expansion. We weren’t supposed to reveal any information until Monday, but I’m a loner Dottie, a rebel.
I’m certain that Blizzard will be triangulating on my position very shortly… perhaps even as I type these words. Hopefully I can spread this information to as many people as possible before the assholes at Blizz take away my right to freedom of speech.
The Lore
-The story of the expansion will start with the pandaren arriving in Orgrimmar. The head panda, named Dirty Pete, will challenge Garrosh to a duel in which the winner will gain control of Orgrimmar. Baine will attempt to get revenge by putting poison on Dirty Pete’s bullets but will then feel foolish when he realizes that the bullets would kill Garrosh regardless. Anyways, Dirty Pete wins and he becomes leader of the Horde.
-Simultaneously, Dirty Pete’s cohort, Calamity Anne, arrives in whatever the Alliance’s main city is and she does some stuff to take over there too. Alliance stuff is pretty boring so I fell asleep here, but I know she has a gunfight with somebody.
-Dirty Pete and Calamity Anne turn both cities into saloons and the Alliance and Horde freely travel between the two cities in order to sate their appetites for booze and gambling. Both sides fall so far into their downward spirals and when they’re all drunk and asleep at night, the rest of the pandaren ride in and steal all of their belongings and take them back to Pandaria. They also kidnap Jaina and that one girl who’s pregnant with Thrall’s baby.
-Players must travel to the mysterious island of Pandaria to retrieve all of their faction’s loot as well as to rescue Jaina and the pregnant one all while thwarting the nefarious plots of Dirty Pete and Calamity Anne. Pandaria will have a very Western feel.
Concept art which is probably from Blizzard that I found by googling "cowboy panda."
Gameplay
-Players will have the opportunity to experience some really new and unique types of gameplay.
-At level 87, they will be able to gain an Apprentice that travels alongside the player and will also gain levels in order to lead to perks for the player. This apprentice will carry your spare horseshoes, clean your musket, and cook your beans when you sit down at the end of a long day to rest around the campfire. This will lead to buffs like faster mounted speed, reduced durability loss, and increased duration of food buffs.
-In order to gain access to mounts in Pandaria, players will first have to complete a special Stampede Challenge in which bulls are rampaging through a town. Players will have to halt and tame one of the bulls and will then be able to mount in Pandaria.
-In order to make the game feel more “western” all classes will be renamed. There will be Gunfighers, Ruffians, Roustabouts, Hobos, Floozies, Injuns, Outlaws, Renegades, Vaqueros, and Paladins.
-At level 90, players will gain access to Dusty Air Flying which will allow them to fly through the zones of Pandaria.
-Players will be able to participate in exciting gunfight duels with NPCs or other players. If you ever played Kirby’s Super Star, there was a part where you had to press SHOOT right when it was time to shoot and if you did it too early then you lost. It’s basically exactly like that. Also you can eat the other player and steal all of their class abilities.
total DSL
Dungeons and Raids
-The first dungeon players will encounter is Sheriff Hickock’s Jail in which players will first meet and free an NPC named Willy the Kid. This is a young pandaren who supports the Horde and Alliance and will also occasionally appear through dungeons to aid the players.
-In a future patch, they’re planning for Willy the Kid to start his own settlement which will be a daily quest hub full of outlaws and ne’er-do-wells. Completing these daily quests will give characters access to several new panchos which will be ideal for transmogrification.
-They toyed with the idea of making Willy the Kid a kangaroo but then realized that the joke was kinda lame and that kangaroos didn’t really fit into the game.
-The final raid of the expansion will feature a fight in which you are riding on the back of a train and you have to detonate bombs in order to knock cars off of the engine, ultimately weakening the train down to just one single car.
-Players will engage Dirty Pete and Calamity Anne as they race a train towards the tied up Jaina and pregnant orc. It’s gonna be so badass you don’t even know.
It'll probably be something like this.
Other Stuff
-Cross Faction Raiding was just a stupid April Fool’s Day joke and Blizzard is tired of people requesting it.
-The game will be linked through your Battle.net account to both Starcraft II and Diablo III. When you play one of the games, you will gain a buff to one of the other games. The longer you play one game, the better the buff. So for example, if you play Diablo for four hours, you’ll get a buff to your Warcraft character like 5% stats for 1 hour (or something similar, numbers not final yet).
-Yes, there’s gonna be a hella ton of sombreros for you to wear.
-RP servers will not have access to Pandaria as there’s just way too much potential to make the saloons really terrible.
-The game is releasing with this Tuesday’s patch. Blizzard realized that hardcore raiders will take time off to ensure that they can be the best players and have the most time to raid. By using the element of surprise, Blizzard ensured that all players are on a relatively even playing field.
Have fun!
Min-Maxing in action. (Yet another picture I shamelessly stole from the internet).
boozekin 