Blizzard's Mists of Pandaria Expansion Now Available
You can now play with pandas -- or rather Pandarians -- in World of Warcraft.
Late Monday night Blizzard announced the launch of Mists of Pandaria, the fourth expansion pack for its popular MMORPG, World of Warcraft. It's now available in the U.S., Canada, Europe, Russia, Southeast Asia, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, Argentina, Chile, and Brazil. The expansion is expected to be available in South Korea and the regions of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau on September 27, and then launch in mainland China on October 2.
"Mists of Pandaria takes players back to the roots of World of Warcraft -- exploration, discovery, and the epic conflict between the Alliance and the Horde," said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. "It also contains the widest variety of content that we've ever added in an expansion, and we're excited to be able to share it with players around the world this week in our first truly global launch."
World of Warcraft fans can grab Mists of Pandaria in digital format directly from Blizzard's website for $39.99 USD, or purchase a physical copy on DVD-ROM (Windows XP/Windows Vista/Windows 7 and Macintosh) for $39.99 USD in local retail stores as well.
Also up for grabs is a Digital Deluxe version costing $59.99 which can be purchased through Blizzard, or as an activation code from retailers. This package will include the digital version of the expansion pack, and the digital items offered in the physical retail-based Collector's Edition.
"Players who purchase the standard edition digitally or at retail will have the option to upgrade to the Digital Deluxe version at any time (for as long as the standalone Digital Deluxe version remains available) for an additional $20 USD," Blizzard said.
As for the physical retail Collector's Edition, it costs $79.99 USD and includes:
* Game Disc
* World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria behind-the-scenes DVD and Blu-ray two-disc set including over an hour of developer interviews and commentary
* The World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria Collector's Edition soundtrack CD
* The Art of Mists of Pandaria, a 208-page hardback tome including never-before-seen artwork from the development process
* A special-edition World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria mouse pad featuring Chen Stormstout, the legendary pandaren brewmaster
* World of Warcraft Imperial Quilen flying mount and Lucky Quilen Cub pet, StarCraft II Battle.net portraits, and Diablo III banner sigil and accent
Mists of Pandaria has received a Teen rating from the ESRB. In addition to the English version, Mists of Pandaria is available fully localized into Latin American Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, French, German, European Spanish, Russian, Korean, traditional Chinese, simplified Chinese, and for the first time with a World of Warcraft expansion launch, Italian. Perfecto!
Still, it's better than watching TV. All my shows are done for the season.
And neither is WoW anymore!
It isn't?
Oh okay.
If I could downvote you goons more than once, I would.
On topic:
My hour or so of MOP was fairly enjoyable. I'm somewhat fired up to get geared up and attempt time runs and some of the other new features. The clusters of people are a bit annoying, but that always thins out and is just what happens with new content. I'd rather see too many people than none at all, right?
Considering how much WoW sucks when you jump back in mid-patch/mid-expansion for any reason and I still feel rather indifferent to MoP, my WoW days are probably over... don't feel like putting up with "must know 11 out of 10" bosses BS again.
I can't wait till the next xpac: Attack on Monster Island. The final boss will be Godzilla.
Oh and don't forget MoP adds WoW Pokemon.
The New TV season just started bro ^.^
And the new Anime season starts next week.
There's almost 15 good shows to follow this fall =)
What about useless positive comments that completely ignore the real problems Blizzard has with WoW?
Let's see, want to know why the Horde attack Theramore? Well, you won't experience it in game, you have to read the novel. Sort of reminiscent of how they never explained Varian's return in game, though they promised to, but you had to read about it in the comics.
And in this day and age of lawsuits for patent and copyright infringement, wonder how long Nintendo will take to sue over the incredibly Pokemon like pet battles.
Problem Blizzard has is Burning Crusade was the only expansion that ever gained subscribers at launch. Wrath stayed stagnant until that xpac launched in China in summer 2010, and was quickly rejected there. Cataclysm cost WoW 25% of it's subscriber base. If neither Arthas or Neltharion, two of Warcraft's most popular lore characters, can't grow WoW, something that started off as an April Fool's day joke sure isn't. And for those who will inevitably scream that Pandarens were in lore first, here is an article where Samwise, who created the panda drawing for his daughter originally, talks about how indeed they started in Warcraft as a joke.
http://wow.joystiq.com/2010/10/03/know-your-lore-the-pandaren/
Except pandarens were around before kung fu panda existed. Check out Warcraft 3.