WoW Insider’s on a Daily Quest to bring you interesting, informative, and entertaining WoW-related links from around the blogosphere.

You’re welcome for the Bangles earworm. It’s Monday and … well, everyone is still talking about pandas here and there. It’s a hot-button topic, apparently! Today we’ve got a few more reactions from around the blogosphere regarding the new expansion — and pandas, of course.

• Tree Heals Go Woosh discusses both sides of the reactions in a Zen-filled panda post.
• Cynwise’s Field Notes talks about the potential for seriousness in the upcoming expansion.
• Blessing of Kings ponders the potentials of Pandaren and hopes for understated humor.

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Is there a story out there we ought to link or a blog we should be following? Just leave us a comment, and you may see it here tomorrow! Be sure to check out our WoW Resources Guide for more WoW-related sites.

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Filed under: The Daily Quest

The Daily Quest: It’s just another panda Monday originally appeared on WoW Insider on Mon, 31 Oct 2011 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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As the story goes, the fall is a light raiding season for Bullworth. Feeling a little strapped for cash, he agrees to house-sit a spooky mansion. No dialogue is spoken in this video, which is an interesting departure from the normally dialogue-driven plots Bullworth favors. I think the final result works fairly well, although the plot feels a little choppy. A little more exposition might have served this piece well.

Ultimately, I continue to enjoy the sense of fun and adventure that Bullworth brings to his video. I look forward to what comes next.

Filed under: WoW Moviewatch

WoW Moviewatch: It’s the Great Pumpkin, Bullworth! originally appeared on WoW Insider on Mon, 31 Oct 2011 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the AOL guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider’s pages.

WoW has survived for almost seven years now, and like Darwin predicted, it did so by adapting. I remember my first experience with this; Blizzard integrated the addon DoubleWide into the standard UI in patch 3.2. As someone who’d only ever played console games, the thought that developers would add changes to the main game after the fact was simply mind-boggling. And I began to wonder: What else could WoW add? What else has it added? To Google I went.

As it turned out, WoW had added a lot. What drew my attention was the most recent addition: death knights. The new kid on the block, they were an oddity due to their unique resources and mechanics, like runes, diseases, Death Grip, and Raise Ally. They were just as resilient as paladins, while not as defensively oriented — a bit like necromancers, but not really like them. Even the Warcraft RPG’s runemaster could be seen in them. There was nothing like the death knight.

However, I constantly jump between games. After a while, I went and found other MMOs to play. MapleStory, Guild Wars, DDO — the one true constant was the class selection. Warrior, wizard, rogue, archer … WoW had a version of every class, and every game had a version of WoW’s classes. And then I remembered death knights and realized I was mistaken.

There are many classes that aren’t represented in WoW’s ranks. The one that springs most readily to my mind is the mesmer, a class from Guild Wars that specializes in spell interrupting, delaying, and reflecting, punishing their opponents for action or inaction, and directly manipulating their opponents’ resources. Or maybe the fan-created chronomancer is more to your taste? Or maybe the bard?

If you could pick any class, which one would you want to bring to WoW, and how would it play?

Filed under: Breakfast Topics, Guest Posts

Breakfast Topic: What class would you bring to WoW? originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 30 Oct 2011 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Greetings, intrepid adventurers! Amanda is AFK, so I’ll be at the helm of this here vessel today!

It’s the first Sunday after the earth-shattering (wait, wasn’t that the last expansion?) convention, BlizzCon. To those who went — I hope you had the time of your life. Or at least year. To those who couldn’t make it — I hope to see you all in the future, and I hope you enjoyed the plethora of news and goodies that WoW Insider provided.

Time to sit back, shake off that jet lag, and enjoy the nectar of the creative community: comics!

• GU Comics Convincing,The Pick Up, No Contest, and Every Time.
• LFG #507 and #508
• Arena-Inside Bohemien Blasphemy and Forever a Gnome
• Teh Gladiators Help Us, Princess!
• NPC Make it Work, Gristle or Tricks, and Poop or Treats (these are all Halloween related, if you couldn’t tell).
• The Daily Blink Talent Revamp Roundup #1, and Talent Revamp Roundup #2.
• The Black Dragons Chronicles is still down while the site gets rebuilt. Oh, boy!
• Beyond the Tree Such a Shore
• Away from Reality Happy Panda Dance (yikes!) and The Last Laugh.
• What’s Shakin’ Page 56
• Sara & Kleeyo Unifying Event
• Lorgrokni’s Travels Stocking Up and Planning a Strategy.
• Guilded Age
• Safe Passage

Filed under: Sunday Morning Funnies

Sunday Morning Funnies: Post-BlizzCon afterglow originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 30 Oct 2011 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Every Sunday, Chase Christian invites you to discuss the finer side of the paladin class: the holy specialization. Feel free to email me with any questions you want answered, like why paladins are so awesome.

Back in the day, the paladin and shaman classes were exclusive to the Alliance and the Horde, respectively. The two classes were designed to be polar opposites, highlighting the differences between the factions. Paladins were designed to be defensive melee hybrids with tanking as one of their talent trees and no true ranged build. Shaman, of course, were offensive ranged hybrids with a caster DPS option. Because of this original bifurcated design, paladins have inherited several traits and abilities that have caused us to be typecast as the melee healers.

While the truth is that holy paladins don’t need to stay in melee range to get the job done, the ideal has always persisted that paladins should be getting down and dirty with their foes. The gap between that dream and reality hasn’t been a serious issue for us, but Mists of Pandaria might change that. The new mistweaver healing spec for the upcoming monk class has been described as a unique healer that relies on melee attacks to do their job efficiently. With another healer moving into our melee territory, do we have any reason to be jealous?

Continue reading The Light and How to Swing It: Dissecting the melee healer myth

Filed under: Paladin, (Paladin) The Light and How to Swing It

The Light and How to Swing It: Dissecting the melee healer myth originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 30 Oct 2011 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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At BlizzCon 2011, druids received the groundbreaking news that we were changing to a four-specialization model. With this news, plus the new talents that were revealed, obviously large changes to the spec are planned. With today’s column, I’d like to look at the talents that were revealed during Blizzcon, and make some first guesses as to what players will be looking for. Of course, the standard disclaimer applies: this is pre-alpha stuff, so I won’t be commenting on numbers specifically, just the design choices. Feel free to follow along on the Wowhead MoP talent calculator. Onward!

Tier 1: Movement

• Feline Swiftness: Increases your movement speed by 10% and by an additional 20% while in Cat Form.
• Displacer Beast (Instant, 3 min cooldown): Teleports the Druid up to 20 yards in a random direction, purging all periodic damage effects and providing stealth for 10 sec. Attacking or taking damage cancels this effect. Using this ability activates Cat Form.
• Tireless Pursuit (Instant, 3 min cooldown): Removes all roots and snares, and increases movement speed by 70% while in Cat Form for 15 sec. Does not break prowling. Using this ability activates Cat Form.

I’m happy that movement choices come first. At level 15, you spend a LOT of time walking from place to place, so any movement talents are welcome.

Feline Swiftness is likely your default choice, replacing Feral Swiftness. The vast majority of your playtime is spent moving your character from place to place, after all, so let’s get there faster! Let’s face it: the stationary tank-and-spank model is mostly dead, so being able to move faster is a key part of good DPS. Not to mention, it’s always annoyed me when playing my resto off-spec that I didn’t go faster in cat form, so I’m glad I’ll be able to pick this up there as well.

Now, I think this choice is a pretty good example of the “optimal, but…” design. The other choices are clearly more intended for PvP, but they could very well be useful for survival on encountersthat feature large periodic damage effects or roots/snares. Displacer Beast is interesting if the Charge->Ravage mechanic stays in (my guess is it does) but the random component will make it confusing to use, so it will likely be only useful as an escape in PvP. Finally, my guess would be that Tireless Pursuit heralds the removal of Stampeding Roar, or possibly Dash.

Continue reading Shifting Perspectives: A first look at Mists of Pandaria talents for feral druids

Filed under: (Druid) Shifting Perspectives

Shifting Perspectives: A first look at Mists of Pandaria talents for feral druids originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 30 Oct 2011 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You’re playing the game, you’re fighting the bosses, you know the how — but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft.

I have to be honest here — while I love the Q&A aspect of the Lore and Story Q&A panel, I was really hoping we’d see some sort of lore panel devoted to Mists of Pandaria this year. That said — hey guys, how about those Pandaren? For those thinking that Pandaria is going to be the and all and be all of this expansion or that Pandaria sounds like something that could be potentially boring, I would suggest that you wait patiently here. We didn’t get a lore panel dedicated to Mists, and therefore we don’t know all there is to know yet.

However, the Lore and Story Q&A panel this year did deliver some interesting tidbits of information, even if there really weren’t a lot of Pandaren-centric questions to be had. I wouldn’t be annoyed by this if I were you — after all, those asking questions had no idea Pandaria even existed until 24 hours before the panel, so formulating questions for the upcoming expansion would be a little premature, to say the very least. That said, in between all the questions we did manage to weasel out a few chunks of Pandaren lore, as well as some other interesting info.

Continue reading Know Your Lore: Lore and Story Q&A highlights

Filed under: Lore, Know your Lore

Know Your Lore: Lore and Story Q&A highlights originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 30 Oct 2011 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players. In World of Warcraft, that player is you! Each week, Anne Stickney brings you All the World’s a Stage with helpful hints, tips and tricks on the art of roleplay in WoW.

If you played WoW at all during Wrath of the Lich King or spent any time at all in Dalaran, you already know of the Kirin Tor — but they’ve been around far, far longer than one expansion. The Kirin Tor are an elite sect of powerful mages, and Dalaran is their city-state. A kingdom of sorts, all to its own, Dalaran’s been around for thousands of years. The Kirin Tor are strictly a neutral organization, adamantly unwilling to choose one faction over the other. Both Alliance and Horde are welcome in Dalaran, but fighting is not allowed, the city being just as neutral as the citizens that live within its walls.

In order to be a member of the Kirin Tor, you must be a mage. Non-mages can gain reputation and favor with the Kirin Tor, but they are not actually a member of the organization itself; membership is strictly reserved for mages. According to the RPG source guides, the Kirin Tor was originally made up of 120 members — however, since the RPG source guides aren’t “real” canon, they’re just sort of canon-ish, you can easily call your mage a member of the Kirin Tor if you’d like to.

The Kirin Tor saw a lot of action in Wrath, but they’ve been relatively quiet in Cataclysm, as the focus has shifted from the relocated capital city of the magi to the catastrophic events down south. This does not, however, mean that there isn’t anything for a member of the Kirin Tor to think about these days.

Continue reading All the World’s A Stage: Plot points for members of the Kirin Tor

Filed under: All the World’s a Stage (Roleplaying)

All the World’s A Stage: Plot points for members of the Kirin Tor originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 30 Oct 2011 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Today’s answers are short, but it doesn’t mean that I don’t love you. It just means that the questions didn’t require long answers, and also that someone thought it’d be really funny to post the same comment half a dozen times on different accounts, each comment acquiring half a page of replies saying variations of “shut up already.” Nice work by all involved.

Above is the first single from Justice’s new album, Audio. Video. Disco.

Yous95 asked:

Who are the Mogu, and have they been around in lore even before MoP?

They’re the old masters of the Pandaren, and no, they have not been around in lore prior to this expansion announcement. The most important thing you need to know about the Mogu is that they look like Foo Dogs, and that makes them awesome.

Continue reading The Queue: Civilization

Filed under: The Queue

The Queue: Civilization originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 30 Oct 2011 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Brewmaster Gingermuffin of Death By Snoo Snoo on Kil’jaeden (US-A) was all prepared to pose for a heroic portrait that she had commissioned a local scribe to paint for her at great expense. She had her Argent Tournament mount, her banners, and even her disturbingly chipper and parentless little squire boy all ready to go. But an errant trick-or-treating session ruined her picture. Now she’ll have to hang up this nonsensical painting of a valiant bat in her hallway. Hey, it’s still better than the goblin pineapple wallpaper.

Filed under: Around Azeroth

Around Azeroth: Na na na na na na na na Batman! originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 30 Oct 2011 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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