Holiday in Sunday

It was no real surprise to anyone that Blizzard announced their newest expansion to the world’s most popular online game, World of Warcraft, during the BlizzCon opening ceremony Friday morning. What might have been a surprise to some (at least those that don’t obsessively track Blizzard’s patent filings) was the expansion itself. Pandas? Just what the hell is going on here?!

But the biggest surprise was yet to come: Mists of Pandaria was so far along in production that Blizzard actually had the game in playable form on the showroom floor. The brief glimpse into the new expansion offered a feel for just what the WoW team was going for this time around, and after putting some time into it, I will admit that I can see what Blizzard is going for here, pandas or no pandas.

Hit the break to find out what Pandaria has in store.

The BlizzCon demo allowed access to the Pandaren,complete with the race’s entire starting zone. It also granted access to the new eleventh class being added with the expansion: the monk. My new black-and-white brawler having been created, I was whisked away to live the peaceful life with my panda brethren. The idyllic landscape I found myself in was actually an island resting on the back of an enormous turtle, lost to time somewhere in the seas above the Abyssal Maw.

Immediately, Mists of Pandaria hits you with a far different visual aesthetic to anything Blizzard has ever done before. Gone are the sweeping medieval-fantasy landscapes and the broken, scarred lands of Cataclysm. Instead, the expansion offers a bright, cool color scheme that presents a far more relaxed atmosphere.

The environments themselves are distinctly unique as well. Everything has – appropriately enough – an entirely Eastern flair to it. Unique buildings brimming with Asian features and decorated with scrolls and elaborate braziers, enormous multi-layer temples that stretch into the sky, and gigantic tiers of rice fields all dot the landscape, granting Pandaria its own visual identity.

The same richness of visual design extends to the characters you interact with as well. More than any other expansion, Blizzard has found itself in a position where it isn’t necessarily tied down to a great deal of existing lore, which has given them the freedom to really experiment with their creative design. This is evident with the relatively easygoing nature of the Panderen people, who seem just as likely to construct a shrine to elemental spirits as they are a brewery. They animate incredibly well, full of lots of subtle motions that really show off their personality – though I can’t help but feel like this is only going to further the discrepancy between the newer racial models and the old, aging original characters. Creativity is also is on display in the pleasantly rich new enemy designs, from an insectoid race far removed from what we’ve come to expect in the silithid to the vermlings, a race of feral, overgrown rabbit-people with a penchant for screeching incoherently.

The overall feel of the Pandaren starter zone is a lot more relaxed and non-threatening than, say, the dark and brooding violence of the worgen zone (or the unbridled stupidity of the goblin zone) from Cataclysm. There isn’t any real immediate threat that you’re bracing to deal with: no invading otherworldly army, no undead demigod to deal with, no earth-shattering dragon attacking. Instead, the focus is on the experience and exploration, elements that have arguably been lost in World of Warcraft over the last few years.

Perhaps part of this balanced and harmonious feel to the Pandarens stems from the fact that this is the first WoW race not inherently linked to either the Alliance or Horde. A Pandaren character starts out neutral, owing allegiance to neither of Azeroth’s two warring factions, and it isn’t until the end of the starting area that a Pandaren must choose to swear himself to either King Varian or Warchef Garrosh. It’s similar to how Death Knight characters start – allied only to other starter Death Knights until the opening scenario completes.

But regardless of how you feel about pandas within your game, there is no denying the cool factor provided by the game’s new monk class. Blizzard is trying some radically new ideas with this class, and based on the limited time spent playing the class, they’re definitely on the right track. Monks are a hybrid class like druids and paladins in that they can fulfill all of the game’s roles: damage, tanking and healing. They do so while wearing leather armor and arming themselves primarily with fist weapons and staves.

But despite carrying around a weapon, monks don’t actually swing it in the traditional sense. Unlike all other classes, monks have no auto-attack function. This means that the only way to deal damage is through the use of abilities, with no “white swing” damage to speak of. This essentially makes them feel like something of a “melee caster,” using all number of special abilities while right in the enemy’s face.

Monks manage two resources: chi and force. Chi is very similar to rogue energy or hunter focus – its a quick-charging ability used to power basic attacks. In this case, chi lets you use Jab, a simple attack that does little damage but builds both light and dark force, represented by a series of orbs at the bottom of the screen. These accumulated force levels can be spent to power a number of monk special attacks, and knowing when to launch the right special and managing how much force you’ve accumulated make up the bulk of the monk’s gameplay.

The monk’s specials make up the bulk of its damage and carry a number of unique situational properties. Tiger Palm takes a single light force and deals bonus damage if a target has higher than half health. Blackout Kick takes two dark force and delivers a powerful roundhouse that refunds part of its cost if it kills the target. And most awesomely, Spinning Crane Kick takes two of each type of force, but launches into a flying “tatsumaki” hurricane kick straight out of Street Fighter, letting you sweep around an area and repeatedly smash multiple targets.

In fact, the spinning kick isn’t the only thing that feels inspired by the venerable fighting franchise. The entirety of the monk’s mechanics feel like they were built with fighting games in mind. The linking together of jabs into special moves strategically so as to maximize the use of the force meters will definitely appeal to those who are fans of brawlers, and the more dynamic style of play will be a welcome change of pace to those who prefer a bit more engagement than turning on attack and running through static rotation.

Let’s be honest: it’s easy to be skeptical about Blizzard’s newest expansion. It’s such a far removed idea from the grand concepts behind their latest efforts that it can certainly come off as out of place. But after spending some time exploring a rich and vibrant location, immersing myself in a world so refreshingly different from what I’ve been used to, and experiencing some legitimate fun and solid mechanics in the monk, I have to admit that I’m a believer. This might not be an expansion that is going to wow any new subscribers into the fold – and I doubt I’ll be race changing to a Pandaren anytime soon – but with the enormous wealth of content on the table and the prospect of a continent just as rich as the one I spent time engrossing myself in, I can’t help but be excited to venture into the mists myself… whenever the hell Blizzard decides to release the game, that is.

source http://geek.pikimal.com