So, the Mists of Pandaria beta is underway, and, with no NDA, the information is flowing fast and free.
I was delighted by the new Druid forms and spell effects posted by Lissanna at Restokin. I want both the Orca glyph and the Stag glyph! I don’t want the Astral Form glyph, though — one of the reasons Kerisa went Balance is that I wanted to be a big fat feathery Moonkin!
I’ve looked at the new armor sets, both on MMO Champion and the Wowhead blog. The quest reward sets for all armor types look pretty cool. I’m glad we’ll be able to be stylish while we’re leveling! The Challenge Mode Druid set is nifty, the Shaman set is bizarre, and the Hunter set is awesome. Ketura needs to get her tail in gear and finish leveling to 85 before Mists launches, because I’m going to want to run Challenge modes with her for sure!
I’ve looked at the information about new Professions materials and recipes at Wowhead.
I’ve looked at the new Warlock pets on WoW Insider.
But I didn’t look at the creature/bestiary/spirits/gods/mounts or objects models at Wowhead — I want those to be mostly surprises, novel new things, when I play Mists myself. The glimpses I get from the MoP screenshots of the day will be sufficient.
I haven’t looked at the Monk animations — it’s enough to hear that others think they’re pretty cool.
And I absolutely don’t want to read about quests, storylines, lore, and the Pandaren starting experience. I already feel badly spoiled enough by Blizz revealing at the press event that the Alliance “White Pawn” storyline is about Anduin Wrynn. I want to be able to discover the story fresh and new by myself!
I’m torn between wanting to gorge myself on every scrap of information I can and wanting to wait til I can actually play it properly come live.
It’s the same dilemma I face every birthday, sneak a look at my presents before hand or ignore them til the actual day.
It is kind of like waiting for Christmas or one’s birthday, isn’t it?
I think it would have been more fun for Blizz to have told us, “The Alliance is going to have this really cool storyline where you have to find and help someone called ‘the White Pawn’.”, and then left us to guess who the White Pawn really is — thereby allowing someone supa clever like Rades to accurately predict that it would be Anduin Wrynn.
I am torn. I really want to see everything and create my panda, but another part of me really doesn’t want to spoil the ‘new-ness’ of this game. I want to be surprised at launch, but I also need to figure out what class I want as a main before it comes out and the beta would help. This all just makes my brain hurt!
Indeed! I think I’m a lot more inclined to look at information about Class spells and mechanics than I am anything else, because I want to know how my favorite Classes will work in the new expansion. But I want to remain unspoiled about the story, because the story is one of the big things I play to experience.