My adventures in Pandaria so far (with spoilers)
First of all, I have to say I’m still at level 85. Not because I haven’t been playing much but because there’s just so much shit to do.
The first thing I did as soon as I logged in on Tuesday was getting my Paladin to Jade Forest. It was cool and all but 5 minutes later I was leveling my Pandaren Monk, as I think most of you have done too.
This is the part where I scream my first “holy throbbing penises from heaven, Blizzard!”. The questline is simply amazing. I’m speechless. I took my time to read every single text and every single dialog. By the time Master Shang Xi passes away, I was already in tears. The spirits, the balloon flight, the first contact with the Horde and the Alliance, saving Shen-zin Su. Everything was made so carefully it flows almost like a poem.
Also, did you notice Aysa wears blue and Ji wears red? It was right on our faces!
After my Pandaren reached level 12 and made the most important decision of his life, I went back to my Paladin. I spoke to a certain NPC and got my Companions ready to fight. The next 2 days were non stop Pokémon action.
My second wave of inappropriate words of amusement comes here. Blizzard, did you read my fucking mind? Deep inside, part of my heart always wanted a Pokémon MMO. I used to talk to my friends about how I would design a game like this. How the fights would be and how you would be able to capture the creatures and all that nice stuff.
Then comes Blizzard and implements all that I always dreamed of inside World of Warcraft. Holy. Shit. The companions, their stats, their rarity, the battles, the songs, the Gym Leaders. Yes, in my mind, those quests where you have to defeat one trainer in each map are the equivalent to fighting the Gym Leaders in Pokémon. In fact, I think that was the idea.
I simply can’t stop capturing and training companions.
I have quested in Jade Forest today and it’s no less perfect than the rest of the expansion has been. Of course, my whole party got stuck during an event inside my first dungeon run. We had to logout and leave the dungeon so the game would go back to normal. But considering the whole day they took to apply the BC/WotLK patch back then, I say this is the smoothest transition into an expansion so far.
With that said, I think I’ve never been so addicted to WoW since the Vanilla and Burning Crusade times. They got me again. And I still didn’t even check my professions.
PS: replacing your epics with green quest rewards is quite painful.
