A mixed post!

I thought I'd start this month's posts with a beta one, particularly since there have been lots of new stuff added to it since the latest patch. Pet battles and all that stuff. I found out the beta post would have been way more text than screenshots, so this'll be a very mixed post. I meant to post it days ago already, actually, but things have come up.
I know July wasn't a very active month posting-wise, compared to the previous two. It's because I haven't been very inspired about WoW, and lots of unfortunate events have taken place. I'm definitely not going to quit playing WoW or anything, I'm just taking a silent break while maintaining all guild things as usual.

Part V of the story of Vlad is probably one of the things that will be out pretty soon, followed by part VI, which is intended to be the last part of the story. However, it will not be the last part of Vlad's story altogether - I've began to really like him as I've progressed with the story, so he'll be heard from.

Beta things start here, so spoiler warning.

Alright, let's get to Pandaria things. It's been a while since I've been to the beta. The first thing I noticed was a new launcher. I liked the old one better, because it was wooden. There was also a Pandaria loading screen, which I thought I screenshot, but didn't.

With my beta-shaman Nicasia I spawned extremely close to the newly introduced farming place in Valley of the Four Winds. What people mistakenly call the Farmville of World of Warcraft is actually much closer to the Harvest Moon of World of Warcraft with the Best Friends system and all. It is indeed a new minigame that lets the player take care of their own farm: plant and harvest crops, earn seeds and other rewards, build relationship with the various NPCs around the ranch, get gifts from them and take care of various issues around the farm. It's related to the Tillers faction.

I'm not sure whether I like this myself or not, but the most wonderful thing about the minigames is YOU DO NOT HAVE TO DO THEM IF YOU DON'T WANT TO. I wish everyone understood this. Plus it's in Pandaria, and a Pandaren thing. It's not like it's going to be a part of Stormwind City's dailies. Just don't adventure into Pandaria if it makes you sick. Let the Pandaren live their lives, and live yours somewhere else. Or consider it a holiday in China, with some Chinese tourists elsewhere in the world.

As most of World of Warcraft's players are casual ones - those that want to log on every now and then and do something, minigames like these are very understandable. They add to the casual player's to-do list, which before Pandaria included mainly questing, dailies and some dungeoning, perhaps PvP. I won't get into all the things I hate about the raid finder, but it's also one of those things for the casual players.

See that libram? It didn't show as I inspected the items, so it's a special thing. I have no idea where or how one can get it, but I think it's awesome! And that paladin PvP set, too, is one if my favorites paladin sets so far. To me it has a Judgement-like feel to it. To avoid confusion, the malevolent set was transmogged into the dreadful one, hence the inspection looks different.


I found a capturable pet in the Valley of the Four Winds, but I couldn't battle it, because I was stuck in combat for some silly reason that I couldn't figure out.

At times it is and has been very difficult to get through these last months of Cataclysm. I'm pretty sure that when September hits, though, we'll be very close to the pre-MoP events. And because of that, I recommend everyone to visit the good old Theramore Isle while they still can.

Here are some more screenshots of unimportant things.

I had my first Panda greenie drop!

I like this helmet in a twisted way.

PvP shield - trollish voodoo stuff.

Shiny paladin.

A very cute worm!

Recent beta discoveries

Please don't proceed if you want no spoilers of Mists of Pandaria.

I find myself spending more and more time in the beta, because a) I'm jaded with Cataclysm and want Mists of Pandaria, b) when I feel lonely on real WoW, I go to beta, and vice versa. I do hope the beta posts aren't getting boring. I try to add something fresh every time!

As stated here, the Jade Forest is currently offline and all characters who enter the zone are teleported away from 'no man's land'. That was the zone I have explored the least in the whole Pandaria, but apparently it will get some improvements and changes. Let us hope they'll be good. I have seen lots of comments about disconnecting questlines. I am personally not leveling on the beta, because I know I'd get fond of the character. Also, I don't want to see too much. I want the questlines to be all new and exciting when I first do them with Nicasia. I really want to do something else for a change, but I must resist the temptation of leveling.

A while ago I streamed the fight animations of human and blood elf paladins to a friend, who thought they looked awesome - that made me hopeful that I'll like the human one, too. If you don't have Mists of Pandaria beta and you'd like to see something, let me know. It can be arranged via livestream.

The following discoveries consist of a few separate visits to the beta. Two of them were together with Lanfranco. (I didn't ask his permission to mention character name here! I hope he doesn't have anything against it. He's also the handsome paladin on the background image.)

I have very little idea what's going on in the first three shots.

Wands are a new type of main-hand?

Glyph of Foul Menagerie.

Glyph of the Geist.

Glyph of Horn of Winter. I am so getting this - looove snow and frosty things. HoW now lasts 5 minutes instead of 2 or 3.

Corpse go boom.

<3

A rare!

A world boss, Galleon.

Something wrong with the chair.

Aaawww!

Stormstout Brewery.

Stormstout Brewery.

Capturing a lightning on a screenshot is just as difficult as it is on a picture.

I don't want to kill her, I want to help her!

Last but definitely not least, there's a story of me logging in one day. I had logged out on this rocket mount, so I also logged in on it. And what did I see? I saw a whole new UI and an action bar with two abilities on it: Rocket Radio and Shoot. None of this would appear if I just mounted the rocket normally - I had to log on it to get it. And yes, I'm swapping between prepositions, because I don't know which one I should use.

It's awesome!

Mists of Pandaria beta randomness

SPOILUR ALUURRRT! Even moar Pandaria stuffs!

Good day to you!

I'm at the point of being really jaded with the Cataclysm content. I'm not looking forward to the weekly Dragon Soul run, but I'd rather level to 90, even though that means losing all the epics I've worked hard for. I didn't feel this way when Cataclysm came out, but I hoped that it would still be WotLK for another year at least. I feel so restless! I keep thinking of alts and what I could do to keep myself interested in the current state of the game. Blizzard really should have added some new content in the last patch of Cataclysm, Ruby Sanctum style. WotLK is still my favorite expansion overall, it was just simply made for me.

Once again, I've found Mists of Pandaria beta a good place to sink my time into. I have been doing some beta exploration. This time, however, it doesn't really make a complete story, so it goes under the random category. I visited Scholomance, but couldn't get past the Lilian Voss fight, because I bugged it. I only used judgement to damage her, to ensure I wouldn't one-shot the encounter. I experienced all three phases and everything went normally, but it still bugged and Lilian's invulnerable soul just kept following me around and punching me.

The ice dealt 50,000 damage every... second, I assume.

The spellbook and the paladin trainer confused me, not to mention Jukurtti the beta paladin, a little.

How do you train me?

Poor Simsaario's gear was all red (both intellect and agility sets!) from his rough journey to the Vale of Eternal Blossoms. Yet I dragged the druid for another adventure.

Saari.

Asd.

Asd II.

2,500g without any reputation.

I like that chest piece! I hope there will be a way to obtain one.

When I entered the area above, I saw pandaren running around a yellow grassy spot. They faded away very quickly. Perhaps it's a phased place. The war serpents in the shot did the same thing as the pandaren. I just love how the one on the sky moved, so peaceful, as if it was just taking a swim in the air.

Now this must be a raid, it looks so badass. Some level 90 mobs, some elite ones, surrounded it. The entrance said nothing when I tried to run in.

A closer look at the Sha of Anger. I pulled him just to try it. He one shot me, then disappeared and spawned in a different location. /tar Sha of Anger worked from afar. He appears to be a world boss.

A level 90 monk's equipment.

I bet that name is going to change!

Aaww!

I want a face scarf thing like that.

What the...?

I actually had something in common with those things. I could very much relate to their spellcast 'Consume Sprite'. It's my favorite lemonade.

Now I've been to every zone in Pandaria. Kun-Lai Summit and Valley of the Four Winds are definitely my favorites based on looks. Mmmm.