So I've finally managed to get in the Mists of Pandaria Beta, I've played through the starting area for the Pandaren, and I'm happy to say the starting quests have been great. As previously announced by blizzard, you start out on the back of a turtle, the area is called the Wandering Isles, where Pandaren monks train, and you make your way around the island receiving various lessons from the inhabitants.
Pandaren Character Creation screen
Check out the screen-shots, but beware of minor spoilers in the starting quest chain plot.
Pandaren Starting area
A nice little travel quest that leads you into another area on the Wandering Isles
some nice scenery as you move along to your next objective in MoP:Beta
Some background story on what's been happening to the Pandaren over the years
Nearing the end of the quest chain
"If you know what I mean"
for the first time - A view of the turtle that carries the Pandaren Island
for the first time - A view of the turtle that carries the Pandaren Island
for the first time - A view of the turtle that carries the Pandaren Island
More Mists of Pandaria Screenshots after the break.
I've been playing some MoP beta and perhaps the most annoying part despite the awesomeness of finally getting into Mists of Pandaria, is the crowds of people around quest objects that make it impossible to interact with them: so I was given a hint by another player of a way to avoid that using a macro that makes the crowds of players disappear for a second so you can click the object - in this case click the Training Bell for a quest. So here's how you do it. Just make a macro with the following text. The quest is called The Lesson of Dry Fur.
/console baseMiP 0;
/console baseMiP 1;
Then as soon as you press the macro the players will disappear for about a second. That is your chance to click the Training Bell so right-click spam it. You can click not just the bell itself but its foundation, so zoom out the camera a bit and click the stone slab under the Training Bell.
How to click the Training Bell in Mists of Pandaria
As you can see I've just managed to complete that quest.
Hope this helps for those of you who may be stuck on the quests, there's another one in the very beginning of the Pandaren quests, called The Lesson of the Burning Scroll, where you have to click a scroll that's similarly surrounded by a bunch of players at all times making it impossible to see let alone interact with the item. Just use the same trick and you're good to go.
Here's a video I made of the macro in action. Sorry for the bad quality but you can actually see the effect on other players.
As you may know it is Open Beta Weekend for Diablo 3 right now, so anyone who wants to try the game out can head onto battle.net and download the client to try out the game. If you've had any doubts so far about purchasing the game now may be a good time to test it out and see if you like what Blizzard has done with the franchise.
Personally, after having playing the beta a month or so ago, I liked what I saw. The art style is genuine Diablo universe, there's been a nice mash up of the classes, and the spell sets are simplified, yet still seem to be interesting enough to play. The main focus is once again on getting the items you need through various sources like monster drops or chests, but this time there's the third option of crafting your own items through the Blacksmith's workshop, where you can disenchant (or as it's called 'salvage') items for the materials they give and then use those materials to buy items from that particular NPC. You can also upgrade the workshop for a price to get access to better items.
One other difference is the health orbs that pop up every now and again and somewhat relieve the need to stack hundreds of potions at a time. At the same time those orbs pop randomly from enemies and more frequently from bosses, so you can't rely solely on them to be safe in the game.
Lastly the main selling factor for me is the game Lore. It was a dark and enticing story from the beginning, with the first Diablo game, and then with Diablo 2's brilliantly choreographed cinematics and extensive travelling, each Act bringing you to an entirely new world in the game. Since the Beta is actually limited to lvl 13 which pretty much covers 90 minutes of gameplay or the first quest chain in Act 1, you won't be seeing much of that until May the 15th when Diablo 3 is officially released. But for a taster this weekend can help you make up your mind weather you actually want the game or not.
You read it right - Fallout is now available for free download on the GOG website. Good Old Games is a generally a great place to get old titles, that you wouldn't normally find in stores anymore and they're available for a token price - mostly around 5-10$.
And here's a list of all the free stuff you get with the game.
- Fallout Manual
- HD wallpapers
- a refference card
- The Fallout Bible
- The Soundtrack
- Vault Boy avatars and various artwork from the game
So if you ever needed an excuse to play this brilliant classic title, that also happens to be one of my favourite games ever - here's a link to their site, where you can download the full game: http://www.gog.com/gamecard/fallout
Keep in mind that the offer is only available for 48 hours, but you can add the game to your account now and then download and play it whenever you like!
This just in, apparently the World of Warcraft pandaren in Mists of Pandaria have no shame at all. This comes as a surprise as even the worgen had a underwear for the females and shorts for the males, but this time, Blizzard has gone for a more down with nature look for whatever reason. To be honest when I was shown the screenshot bellow, I thought at first that it might be a mod or something... but no. November-December 2012, everyone... that and Pokemon, ugh, I mean pet battles.
Here's a video from The Yogcast featuring the appropriate reaction when seeing a pandaren with no gear on for the first time.
In other news, some more info has came out around the pet battles. There's going to be a queue system much like the dungeon finder, but apparently you won't be able to see whom you're fighting so as to not turn the battles into a sort of name-and-shame. At least that's what I understand. Now for me that's a bit of a let-down, I wouldn't honestly see a pet battle as a situation where I'd be gravely ashamed if I lost a battle, or more so if someone spammed my name in trade chat announcing their victory.
As I've mentioned before there's going to be random pets roaming around that you can catch, we're yet to see a pokeballs system involved in any way, so far it seems that to catch the wild pets you'll just have to defeat them. There's also going to be pet trainers around Azeroth, much like the dojo masters in Pokemon. And there's going to be a Pokedex-like journal where you'd get a list of all the pets you've gotten so far and also some info on where to find particular wild pets. As with fishing schools, pets may appear in an area only at a certain time of day, or a certain season, or twice on the night of Pirate's Day on a leap year, or something outrageous like that. Blizzard has stated that they don't want the pet collection to be something you're done with after 2-3 months of grinding, and they have a track record of keeping exclusive items exclusive within reason, so expect some insanely difficult to catch purple-grade pets alongside the usual trash. Me, I'm still trying to catch that dreaded turtle mount and no Pandaren snapping-turtle mount (to be a part of the Faction mounts) is going to replace that.
