MoP : My Casual Review

Reading through some of the release notes on Mists of Panderia, I think Blizzard is really pushing to involve the Casual players. The main evidence I see is their work on expanding the end-game content that is available to players.

Scenarios: These scenarios are ranging from 3 people (i.e. close friends) to 25 people (nice pug size). Raid fail anyone? The timing fits nicely with new parents, 10 - 30 minutes, short enough in case the kids wake-up. The immediate-ness of them, i.e. defend Goldshire, makes them sound more 'important' than a simply group quest. I think this will have the advantage of not feeling like a 'daily', but still provide something for those that want the extra credit/points.  Note, I personally hate doing dailies.

Challenge-dungeons: Now, this one has an interesting twist. Complete a dungeon in a certain way and be rewarded things like gear, pets, mounts and achievements. Ok, but the cool twist is it will change in complexity as your average groups gear score improves. Or, you will always run this dungeon in the same level gear, no matter what. For a casual player, who isn't a gear hound, this could be great. You won't be vote-kicked from a dungeon simply because your gear stinks. If you have the skills, you'll be good.

Pet Battle System: Because we all want to play Pokemon, I have "captured" 108 pets! This will give the casual player one extra thing they can do in their down time; level up their (non) combat pets. One thing Wowhead mentions is the capability to capture new pets so that you can level them up. (I want a bomb-throwing mokey pet (that loots)!) With now 108 vanity pets, I am curious which will be the strongest ones to start with? If I can capture critters and tame them as pets, will there be animals that I can grab? How about go out to Elwynn and grab a Cow?

In my best announcers voice: "Are you ready to rubble?? Appearing in the left corner, the pet every raider has met, don't kill him if you want to get, the cat of KT, Mr Bigglesworth. In the right corner, the pet for pvp, he loves the horde, the black cat of BS, Underfoot."

Stronger, better, faster minions!

shivan!

Revised Talent Tree: Oh this is going to be fun. Gone are the class distinctions. "I've played ____ type warlock since Vanilla".  I am now going to be a Affl-emo-struction lock, or is it Demo-struct-liction, or Destro-lict-ology. In addition, I look forward to having SUPER versions of each of my minions! Didn't they promise boy/girl warlock minion models?  So is the Succubus going to turn into a Shivan? 


Personally, I am looking forward to Mists of Pandas.