Mists of Pandaria Leaks You Won’t Believe (Cause they’re LIES!)

Hello and welcome! I am, of course, the distinguished and honored Professor Gnomey, an acclaimed expert on truthism and internetology at Gnomeregan Gnuniveristy.  Professor Billy could not be here today due to some… uh… legal troubles.  Something about him forging his credentials or some such.  Anyway, I am here to discuss the fabulous and fantastical Mists of Pandaria beta.  Or namely, to address some HORRIBLE rumors being tossed around the ‘Tweetor’.  You seem, some rascally hooligans thought it would be fun to make up things about the new WoW expansion on the internet.  Thus breaking the delicate and carefully maintained balance of everything on the internet being true.  Which it has. Completely.  I trusted every word I read on there until these trouble makers decided to start flat out LYING to the whole world.  But I one upped them all. I took notes. I wrote them aaaaall down.  And now I’m gonna to expose them for the dirty little liars they all are.  These are just some of the lies I saw perpetrated under the extremely deceptive hashtag of #FakeMoPBetaLeaks!

@Vrykerion

• In order to combat perceived Horde bias, Alliance quests will get extra love & have twice as many pop culture references.
• The Horde wins, all players get free faction transfers, Alliance becomes a neutral faction of NPCs
• To make Pandaria easier to traverse without flying, a gnomish train system dubbed ‘The Panda Express’ has been added.
• A level 88 quest hints that the reason we fight Garrosh is he ate Thrall’s cookie that was clearly labeled ‘Do Not Eat’
• Shaman receive a class quest at level 90 that after mastering all four elements will receive the “Thrall State” stance
• In a quest to restablish Varian as a good leader, players will be his ‘wingman’ to help him ‘score’ at a Pandaren bar.
• To correct the ‘indignity’ of some classes wearing “skirts” or “dresses”, now all class sets have skirts or dresses!
• The Mogu are NOT related to the Mogwai.
• Morfeeus, a new goblin NPC added to the start zone, will remind goblins that they do NOT know Kung Fu.
• Players will face off against the elusive Warriors of Virtue in a new dungeon and learn a lesson about peer-pressure.
• To foster camaraderie among the Alliance, King Varian will now address all NPCs and players as “bro” regardless of gender.
• To match the Asian theme and tone of the expansion, item levels will be renamed ‘power level’
• Complete combat system overhauled designed around card games confirmed. Spells and abilities replaced with trading cards.
• In order to promote players to get out in the world, Warlock summoning spells will now also kill the caster and clickers
• Female armor does not contain any chain mail or plate bikinis. All pants are ass-less though.
• Mists will introduce a new PvE stat “NotSuck” that will boost all damage and healing in Dungeon & Raid Finder groups.
• In memorial of Theramore, Goth Jaina builds the new Linkon Park.
• Worgen Druids will receive exclusive out-of-combat ‘Human Form’.
• Several Lorekeeper NPCs added to world to remind players that monks are not ninjas, and China is not the same as Japan.
• Demonology Warlocks will be tanks.
• New Legendary Revealed! First Shield Legendary! In order to make sure it’s rare, it will be +Agility.
• Hidden across Pandaria are 7 magical orbs that, if gathered, will summon a dragon and grant your class a buff.
• Pandaren start zone quests include “Wax the Car” and “Paint the Fence”
• The origins of the Sha revealed! They are what happens when you leave Pandaren ice cream out in the sun too long.
• Hunters can tame anything for a variable length depending on the level of their new “Training” skill, even players!
• In a Horde specific scenario, players will face the Horde’s ancient and deadliest foe: BEES. And the Alliance will have a parallel scenario where they face their long time enemy: POOR PEOPLE.
• Tirion Fordring confirmed as faction leader for the Pandaren.
• The Argent Crusade will have a presence in Heroic Scholo. They don’t actually do anything, but they are standing there.
• Along with raising and maintaining a farm, players will also have to defend their land by launching birds at felboars.
• With Monks now in game, Paladins will be losing their tank and healing specs in favor of new abilities that make sparkles.
• Warlocks are getting a glyph that gives them a taunt, Mages will be receiving a new healing AND tanking spec.
• Players will receive a shocking twist at level 90 when a quest line reveals that a pandaren is just 3 gnomes in a suit.

@San_Lear

• The expansion ends with a tearful public service announcement from Garrosh on the dangers of steroid abuse.
• Thrall is forced by Aggra to move into the Cleft of Shadows after being caught trying to “get his Proudmoore on.”
• “Chow Yun Fat-Free” is a BOE cooking recipe.
• Everyone is thrown for a loop when the real villain of Pandaria is revealed to be Shepard from Mass Effect 3.
• The “Harrison Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Item” questline doesn’t go over as well as hoped.
• Druids are given animal forms of the rest of the classes. The Donkey Death Knight is scrapped as “too depressing.”
• Accused of Horde bias, the band “Level 90 Elite Tauren Chieftain” renames itself “Level 100 Uber Human Dude.”
• Battlegrounds get sponsors, such as “Alterac Valley, brought to you by McDonalds.” The winner gets a McSword or McShield.
• Alementals abilities are datamined. Beer Goggles: +85 inflation to ego. Debuff: Waking up the next morning.
• Players will discover the hard way that the Pandaren do, in fact, have a Kung Fu grip.
• Tirion gives one of Arthas’ twins to a moisture farmer to raise in Tanaris.
• Blizzard begins the “Pandaren, at least they’re not Ewoks” ad campaign.
• The real reason the Forsaken destroyed Southshore is retconned as the cancellation of the Alliance’s “Jersey Southshore.”

@Druidis4fite

• Hidden Continent of Pandaria was under Crusader’s Coliseum all this time.
• Warlock taunt only works on non-boss level mobs and mages
• Hidden continent of Panderia was inside you all along
• Stormwind Library adds several progressive volumes about Orientalism.

Other Awesome People

• New Race added. Trolls! no really please will someone play one of these, We’re bored of Blood elves – @DanRyyu
• Large styled belts are now limited to one per server, players can only challenge for these belts AT WRESTLEMAINA! – @DanRyyu
• All PvP players who refuse to fight near the objective will be permabanned after three BGs. – @CosmicLaurel
• Tier 14 Monk Armor revealed to be a yellow tracksuit with black striping. – @WalksTweets
• Monks surprisingly cannot use the /flirt or /hug commands and cannot enter Goldshire due to vows of chastity.  – @WalksTweets
• Completing 1000 Pandaren cooking dailies will reward the player with a pair of legendary chopsticks – @RogueDarren
• Arcane mages get 3rd DPS ability, makes arcane rotation 33% more difficult – @Leodartbok
• New Death Kinght ability: Furry of Frostmourne – 3 sec cast, turns your enemies into Pandas. – @Leodartbok
• Aggra is carrying Velen’s love child – @Atanae
• The Aspects are re-granted their original powers after eating the magical Sensu beans from the Pandaren. – @Katana_Angel
• Garrosh is discovered to be Thrall’s evil clone, created by the Royal Apothecary Society to destroy the horde from within. – @Katana_Angel
• Everyone can eat and drink at the same time. If you’re a Pandaren, you can eat, drink, and brew beer at the same time. – @WoWCynwise
• Just discovered! In MoP, BM Hunters get 2 min CD Bestial Xform – change into a twin of their active pet for 15 secs! – @BigBearButt
• Pet Battle System only way to earn Trinkets. – @Melofedge
• Genn Greymane gets rabies, bites and infects Jaina Proudmoore, and then sends players on a poop quest in Lordaeron. – @Druidleaves
• Pandaran cooking profession now include a recipe for Sweetfire Chicken sponsored by Panda Express, home of the flying wok. – @KneeDough

((A huge thank you to all the awesome folks that joined in the fun on twitter.  I love to see what people come up with.  To those who aren’t already, I would highly recommend following all these amazing tweeps.  They are an amazingly fun bunch!))

Presenting the Iron Man…

So after posting the rules and guidelines for the Ironman Challenge, I opened up a poll to decide what race and class I should play for this.  Declaring that I couldn’t trust myself to make it too easy or too hard, I figured my loyal and always appreciated readers should decide what I should play and what they would read about.

The poll was set to go until Saturday, but seeing as how we got 28 votes already and the Warchief Elections ran a better part of a month and only got like 110 votes, I’m gonna say this was about all we were going to get.  Especially after votes were turned into a trickle of once every4-5 hours after this afternoon’s rush of about 10 votes.  I decided to end the poll early and sent the call out on twitter (if you are upset by this and didn’t hear about, well…  maybe you should follow me on twitter. 😛 ) And after all was said and done, I am happy to present to you the reader voted on winner of the Ironman Toon poll:

He is Ironkerion (get it?) an Undead Warlock.  I’m a bit shocked that one came out on top.  I figured people would pick a hard class for me to do this with (okay, the runner up was warrior. But warlock just barely beat it.  Okay fine there’s an uproar about it, I can switch.)  So a pet class it is.  I’m actually a bit intrigued, I haven’t played a warlock since early WotLK, and that toon was mostly leveled during Burning Crusade (My first max level toon actually).  So this is semi nostalgic for me.  He’s currently level 5, dressed in the all white gear you can find off of the Deathknell cloth armor vendor, and just setting off into the great big world.

I really don’t expect much a difference from levels 5-10 anyway.  I seem to recall pre-Cata there wasn’t an abundance of green gear to be had in the 1-10 areas (heck, I remember everyone going to Ghostlands because that’s where you got the “best” 10-20 gear compared to Silverpine and the Barrens.)

In case you want to follow along or see if I’m around to say hi or anything, Ironkerion is on the horde side (duh) of the Zangarmarsh realm – US.  So all you folks in <It Came From The Blog> better say hello. 😉  He’s currently my only toon on that realm, so it’s definitely a “no financial aid” situation.  My imp is named Grobham or something like that.  It seems oddly fitting.  I too enjoy grob and ham.  Often with a side of hathuun and rice.  Expect many a joke about demon names folks.  This is what you voted for.

Speaking of votes, here is a quick breakdown of how it all turned out:

RACE: Forsaken: 7 votes. Gnome: 5 votes. Tauren: 4 votes. Night Elf, Dwarf, Orc and Goblin: 2 votes. Human, Draenei, Worgen, Blood Elf: 1 vote. Troll: 0 votes.

CLASS: Warlock: 6 votes. Warrior: 5 votes. Shaman: 4 votes. Priest and Mage: 3 votes. Druid, Paladin and Hunter: 2 votes. Rogue: 1 vote.

I was kinda rooting for gnome myself, but what the hey, I got like 3 gnomes alts and only 1 undead alt already.  Plus I get cannibalize out of this, so there’s a perk.  I’ll keep ya posted on the progress of old Ironkerion here, and anyone you out there daring enough to try this whole thing out for yourself – Here’s the rules, and please keep me and Psynister happily updated on your progress as we do with ours. 😀

LET THE IRONMAN BEGIN-ETH!

 (Like that -eth suffix? Makes it more medievally in my opinion. Which in metal terms makes it instantly like 3-4 times more bad ass.)

The WoW Ironman Challenge

Ironman is clearly a Paladin. A Chaotic Neutral Paladin. But a Paladin nonetheless.

WoW is total EZ Mode now!

…How many times have we heard that statement?  How many times must we listen to how the World of Warcraft is no longer and will never be “hardcore” ever again.  Personally I’m tired of the argument myself.  Call me old-fashioned, but I’m nearly thirty so I’m entitled to my first old man rant now, dangit.  Back in my day (which considering people still do it, I guess that means…  Now?) if a game wasn’t hard enough, you didn’t complain on the forums. You MADE the game harder: time trials, pacifist clerics, and need we forget Final Fantasy white mage soloing?

This line of thinking sparked a single focused thought: “How far could you get in WoW without using  green or better items and not spending talent points?”  I was actually surprised when the whole thing started to build into a full-blown discussion between several people, including Psynister. Each contributing ideas of how to flesh out this concept.

The idea became to evolve and take form in what Psynister coined, “The WoW Ironman Challenge.”  The rules are simple:

1. Use only white/grey items.

2. No spending talent points.  No specialization at level 10. (Regular skill training is fine.)

2. No Primary or Secondary Professions other than First Aid.

3. No means of XP boosting (No Recruit-A-Friend, No Guild, and obviously no Heirlooms)

4. No consumable bonuses (food, potions, elixirs, etc) – Rogue Poisons are Okay.

5. No enchants.

6. No Groups. (Since clarification was requested: That means no dungeons, no Dungeon Finder, no battlegrounds, no anything that puts you in a group and no grouping up with people to quest or anything.)

7. No Death Knights.

8. No Glyphs

That only leaves the matter of what race and what class.  Naturally, one would choose the path of least resistance (maybe a troll hunter or something) or perhaps stretch to find the most difficult combination possible (Gnome warrior?) but instead I’ve decided to let you, the readers, decide who I will play in this contest of chutzpah.

POLLS ARE CLOSED!

In the case of a Class/Race incompatibility, preference will go to the class and the race will be the one with the most votes that can take that class.  The polls will close on Saturday afternoon (12pm PST) Thursday Night (9pm PST) (EDIT: I changed the time because 1. I think we got most of the votes we were gonna get based on last years Warchief Election, and 2. I really really REALLY want to get started on this project), so make your voice heard.  Will you make me suffer through utter brutality?  Will you let me slip down easy street?  Is there a class you really want to see this done with?  This is your chance.

I also want to make it clear that this is not a race.  I for one only play WoW some of the time.  I do have a job, and a life (and by life I mean many other video games to play), so I’m not going to barrel through this and pull my hair out.  This is simply a challenge mode to see how far this will go.  Will I make it to 85?  Will it become impossible to kill something by level 20? We will see, and you can expect to see updates of progress here on the Land of Odd as well.If you want to take the challenge yourself I encourage you to do so! Feel free to keep me updated with your own progress as I’m updating mine to you! 😀

UPDATE: In further discussion, I realize some details got left out. So here’s some extra details:  Yes, rogues can use poisons. They are a class specific thing.  No, you can’t use glyphs. 😛