THIS! IS! BETA!

I’m totally not writing this post just because I finally came up with a good beta pun.

Totally.

All the way down:

Several notable changes have come upon the Mists of Pandaria beta in recent weeks, and one of the most important is the announcement of the Pandaren mount.

Early sources had stated that the cloud serpent (see: Asian dragon) was the “Pandaren mount of choice,” leading some, including myself, to report it as the Pandaren racial mount, but this has since proven untrue. Cloud serpents are in fact rewards for a reputation grind in the style of Netherwing.

But now, we have learned the identity of the true Pandaren racial mount: the dragon turtle.

I can’t speak for anyone else, but I think this is an awesome mount. I mean, if the image of a giant drunken panda warrior charging into battle atop a huge, badass snapping turtle doesn’t fill your heart with glee, what will?

It’s actually got good grounding in Warcraft lore, too. Dragon turtles have appeared in the Burning Crusade and Warcraft III as allies of the Naga, and in Warcraft II, the Goblins attached cockpits and rocket launchers to giant sea turtles and used them as submarines.

Giving the pandas a voice:

Recent builds have also added voice acting to the playable Pandaren males. They’re about what I expected, and although I haven’t heard all their emotes yet, I’m satisfied so far. I particularly like the /charge emotes. “Let’s brew some trouble!”

And then there’s this:

I have absolutely no clue what this emote is for, but it made me laugh pretty hard.

Classes:

I haven’t been following the class changes too religiously, but I know rogues are a bit less broken than before but still pretty underwhelming, and a few other things have caught my interest.

One is the removal of judgments of the pure from holy paladins. I don’t mind the removal on its own, since JotP was never a terribly exciting mechanic and holy paladin mana regen is pretty over-powered.

I’m hoping it will be replaced by something better, though.One of the things that attracted me to the spec was active mana management, and I don’t want to lose that. I still miss judging on cooldown for mana. Plus, not wanting to judge as a paladin is all kinds of wrong.

Warlocks have gotten some further improvements. Demonology isn’t burning through demonic fury so fast, which is nice, and affliction’s mana costs have been reduced, rendering the spec playable again.

Destruction has also had some nice tweaks. With proper use of backdraft, chaos bolt is down to a two second cast, which is much better than the brutal four seconds it was at before.

Also, the verdant spheres glyph now functions for destro as well as affliction. My dream of playing a blood mage shall at last come to pass!

Breath of the Black Prince:

It seems Wrathion, the Black Prince and star of the Fangs of the Father legendary chain, still has a role play to in the story. While the content with him has not been fully implemented, he seems to have a vested interest in the future of Pandaria. I haven’t read too closely to avoid spoilers, but it also seems he may be involved in another legendary quest chain.

Part of this chain includes a legendary item called the Breath of the Black Prince, which theoretically boosts the power of any item. Could this at last be a legendary for any class or spec? An item to turn any piece of gear legendary? Or is just a part of a chain to obtain a specific legendary?

My feelings on Wrathion’s involvement are somewhat mixed. He’s a great character, and I’m glad to see he’s sticking around, but I fear this may be another case of awesome lore being inaccessible to all but a few. Hopefully the new legendary chain will come with as many concessions to lore hounds as Fangs of the Father did.

Today, most of the Blizzard fan base is firing up Diablo III and renewing the conflict with the Burning Hells, and I’ll soon join them, but first, I’d like to squeeze in one more Warcraft post before I become too distracted by zombie-slaying.

A warlock’s journey:

I’m not someone who views leveling as a speed bump on the way to endgame. For me, it’s half the fun of the game, and it provides a key way to grow attached to a character. Although I’m not really an RPer, I do tend to create rudimentary personalities for my toons, and leveling is where these personae develop.

As the leveling journey for one of my characters has just come to an end, I thought it might be interesting to chronicle her path to 85.

In the beginning…

I started a warlock as an experiment. I always loved the flavour and backstory of the class, but I found pets made questing (my preferred way to level) too easy, so I’d never leveled one far. But then, I got the idea to see what it would be like to level through questing without pets.* And so the grand experiment began.

*(Full disclosure: I still used pets for soloing group quests, dungeons and PvP, and on the rare occasions I grew very bored with a quest and just wanted it over.)

This helped establish her personality early on. I thought of her as someone who despises demons, and uses their powers only in the hopes of being better able to destroy them.

I made her a Blood Elf, of course, and decided to level through their native zones instead of skipping over to the Undead areas as I usually do.

I regret this. As much as I love Blood Elf storylines, I hate Burning Crusade quest design more. I still say Deatholme is a great way to end the zone, but it ain’t worth it.

Onward to Kalimdor:

Fleeing Burning Crusade quest mechanics, I moved onto Ashenvale. It’s not that fun as Horde — yet another Cata zone that paints the faction as the sort of people who kick kittens for fun.

After that came the Stonetalon Mountains, another “proud” moment for the Horde. At least its story was well-told, and it offered some of the most intense and emotional story-telling of Cataclysm, even if it still forces you to play as a war criminal. Even warlocks have limits. Well, mine does, anyway.

Then came Desolace, which was surprisingly enjoyable. I furthered my character’s persona as someone who enjoys tormenting the tormentors by enslaving all the demon mobs and forcing them to kill their comrades.

Later, I went to Thousand Needles, whose quests are ridiculous but very fun. This was followed by Tanaris, whose quests are unremarkable but whose soundtrack is second to none.

Beyond the Dark Portal:

Most of my leveling between then and level sixty took place via dungeons and PvP, but I did complete the Swamp of Sorrows storyline. By the way, the idea that the Alliance doesn’t win any battles in Cataclysm? Not really grounded in reality.

I then moved on to dreaded Outland. I’d leveled through the continent entirely through dungeons on my shaman and paladin, so I actually decided to brave the quests this time, mostly in Terokkar Forest. I like the ambiance there, if not the quests.

I also did the unthinkable and delayed going to Northrend to spend more time in Netherstorm. I always had a soft spot for that zone — partly due to how surreal it is and partly due to its importance to Blood Elf lore.

By this time, I was starting to think of my warlock as a kind of spiritual successor to my mage, also a Blood Elf. As he’d spent a great deal of time in Netherstorm, I thought it appropriate that my warlock follow in his footsteps.

This lasted until I got to the point where most quests required groups, at which point I continued my tradition of giving up in frustration and fleeing to Northrend.

The Roof of the World:

Burnt out from leveling other alts, I spent little time in the Howling Fjord or the Borean Tundra. But then came Dragonblight, and Northrend sank its icy claws into me once again.

I really can’t overstate how much I love Northrend.The story blows everything else from WoW out of the water, the environments are the perfect mix of beauty and intimidation, and the mythology buff in me eats up all the Norse influences. Playing through it on a Blood Elf just adds even more poignancy.

I completed virtually all the quests for Dragonblight and Grizzly Hills, two favourite zones.

I didn’t realize I’d be leveling another alt so soon, so I’d recently done a thorough play-through of both Icecrown and the Storm Peaks on my shaman. As a result, I felt a bit burnt out on these zones when my warlock came to them, even though they are probably my favourite zones out of the entire game.

I did, however, do a couple short chains in the Storm Peaks, and I spent enough time in Icecrown to complete the main storyline related to the various gates, as well as the Crusader Bridenbrad chain, which I loved even before I knew the story behind it.

I also made sure to complete all three wings of the Frozen Halls. Still the best dungeons ever, if you ask me.

The final stretch:

I leveled primarily through Hyjal and Uldum the rest of the way. I love Hyjal — it’s beautiful, it has great music, and its story can stand with the best of zones. Uldum is just the post-Hyjal Cataclysm zone I was least sick of.

On the eve (literally — the night before) of hitting 85, I did Icecrown Citadel and got my Kingslayer title. For a quasi-RPer like me, this is an important thing for a Blood Elf character to do, and it carries a certain sense of catharsis. Salama ashal’anore.

At last, my warlock has reached 85. Leveling is always fun for me, but I enjoyed leveling her more than most. It’s an engaging class, avoiding pets made things much more perilous and exciting, and her personality really came to life for me.

I’ve come to see her as a kind of demon hunter — not in the Illidan sense, but simply in the sense that she hunts demons and other monsters. Her dark powers are the result of a “fight fire with fire” philosophy.

I now move ahead to the gear grind, Dragon Soul, and eventually Pandaria.

But first, Diablo.