Posts tagged Shared Topic

I wasn’t planning on doing this week’s Shard Topic as it’s obvious that I’ve been playing if you look at the majority of my posts over the last four months.

Are you playing the MoP Beta? Why or why not? How much time are you spending there vs. the “live” servers.

Suggested by Frinka.

When I first heard about Pandaria, I admit I was very excited by the whole Asian theme but this is coming from a Western mentality living in Australia for all of my life. When you look at the recent loss of subscribers, you only have to look at their geographical location to see that I wouldn’t hold my breath for those subscribers coming back any time soon.

Logging into the beta for the first time, I was excited by all the lush landscapes, the new races and yes I did quest, at least through the first zone. Certain places were buggy and you would get a free auto-hearth back to the starting zone if you ventured into an area which was closed. But all-in-all, this was happening amidst all the Guild drama that was happening at the time so it was the perfect escape for me – albeit a few days late.

The responsibilities of a beta tester I take quite seriously. I want to be able to test the content since that’s our primary directive but I also didn’t want to get burnt out by the quests and storylines, so the quests leading into the next area in the Valley of the Four Winds, I kind of left alone after the first day. I am quite excited about the farming stuff and all the new cooking dailies, etc. but I will take that as it comes on live.

As you know, I’ve also been doing a lot of Pet Battles, documenting the system itself, initial quests, pet trainer chains and even the Wild Pets for each zone. The Wild Pet series is by far the most popular for those who don’t necessarily want to be spoilt by beta content but as one reader said, it helps them plan come live.

I’ve also had fun searching for and killing some of the new Champions in the zones. I look forward to when they add the vanity items back, whether it be on the beta or not.

I do like to know ‘what’s what’ in some respect, like gaining access to the Vale of Eternal Blossoms, just to make things faster in the long run. I haven’t done an extensive amount of testing with my talents but I have enjoyed some of the new changes in Disc and Shadow. All the dungeons I tried (the first four) are all very short, a number of bosses with hardly any trash. Which is why I’m not level 90 yet, although that may change soon. Flying will be nice for a start :)

Some people have stated how much they enjoy my beta posts whether it be on Twitter, facebook or the blog itself. I do love to share what I find but quite often it’s so I can look back over the information myself – a reference of sorts – as it helps me out as well as you guys. I’m just glad to be able to make the journey with you all come live.

By the way, I may be deleting all my Image Galleries of Pandaria when the beta is kaput so if you haven’t checked them out yet, do so before they’re gone. That should at least free up some of the space I’ll be needing for future posts.