I know that this is the StarCraft blog and all, but I’m sorry. This morning, I have to type about World of WarCraft. If I could take back the blog title, I would. I’d call it: Maul’s Blizzard’s Bitch Blog.

After finally leveling my druid to 90, I thought I’d seen all of the new game content. I mean, okay, maybe there are some raids and pvp stuff that I’m missing. But from my past play, I know that most of the new stuff is in the new dungeons and leveling. At least for the way I play it is. But you have to admit, everything about this new version of WoW is simply better.

The daily quests work together better. You now get to daily quest grind for your mounts. Some may say that this isn’t quite as good as previous versions. I would compare the new system to the old, WotLK days. The achievements I had to endure to fly on a Red Proto Drake! But I kind of like the idea that you can now choose a faction, grind out the rep, and get the reward. It wasn’t very fun to have to find just the right party composition to interrupt for More Rabi.

Or, what I like the best is how they’ve improved Archaeology. Formally, this was the worst profession ever. The most grind for the least reward. Now, you can level your arch. while doing daily quests. I’d always felt somewhat like a jackass for having leveled all of the secondary professions on my toons. In hindsight it felt like a waste of time. But now, in Mists of Pandaria, I can actually level them all in a way that feels meaningful, while doing other things in the game.

Currently, I’m grinding out the last bar of rep for the Cloud Serpent Riders. I’m butchering that name, for sure. But the point is, I level fishing, first aid and arch. while getting rep for them. It’s wonderful! And to think I went into this expansion, giving all of my cloth to my Warlock Tailor because “Everyone knows first aid is simply a cloth sink.”

But what’s really great is that the game doesn’t simply end and go to daily quests once you hit the level cap. The content continues! How pleasantly surprised I was to see more cutscenes and quests involved in level 90, end game content. Bravo, Blizzard.

For some reason, it pleases me to no end that they’ve finally added a way to water walk, to fish out in the middle of open water, without the hassle. All of my toons have a stack of pots of water walking on them -- pots that don’t work! Oh, blizzard knows they don’t work. If I have one complaint, it’s that they didn’t fix the pots -- they simply added something better, knowing that I would grind to the new thing anyway.

Even the way the game handles alts is great. The way toons share mounts and achievements now makes total sense. Before, you could hop on an alt, and the players around you would have no idea what your skill level was. They wouldn’t be able to pick up on the subtle clues -- like the fact that you’d earned a red proto drake, to assess your skill level. Now they can.

The one point where they seem to have lost the thread is with the pets. Now, even without ever having played a game of pokemon in my life, it’s obvious what game they’re copying. But where they’ve lost the thread is, you can’t fight against players everywhere. The absolute, best place to fight would be in a raid, while everyone is waiting on some guy to arrive. Not being able to pet battle in the one situation where you really do need to dick around completely misses the mark for me. Patch, please!
I once heard a Blizzard executive say ‘I hope we can continue to meet and exceed your expectations.’ Well, Blizzard, this time, I can certainly say that you have. Thanks for making my most played game of all time even better.