I suppose it's a bit late to talk about my initial impressions of Mists of Pandaria seeing as we're nearly two weeks into the expansion, and considering my main is already at level 90 and I've already maxed all my professions except cooking and fishing, I've gone well below the shiny new surface layer and am pretty well immersed in the game by this point. I have not, sadly, done much in the way of scenarios and dungeon running, the reasons being that one, holy crap there's so much to do, and two, real life has been a very harsh mistress this past week (ever tried going without water in your house? Not pretty, and I'm not just talking about the smell.) and has made solo questing far more appealing than dealing with random people. This unfortunately means that, gear wise, the people I'm running with are usually better geared and my DPS has been a little less than what I'd like to see, but then again, I haven't run after doing some upgrades and getting some enchants so I expect to see some improvement.
That being said, holy crap! What an amazing expansion!
Now, I'm not qualified to speak on how Mists opening week compares to, say, Wrath of the Lich King or Cataclysm. I'm a relative noob seeing as I only started playing in February 2011, a couple of months after Cataclysm's launch. However, I feel I can speak on at least the lore a bit and how different questing is between this new expansion and Cataclysm. Even so, from the impressions I gather from other players who've been in the game longer than me, it seems everyone has been mostly in agreement that, if nothing else, Mists is better than Cataclysm and possibly the best expansion so far. (I'm holding out on that because I still think there was a lot to love about the lore of Wrath, but it's close.)
I leveled from 85-90 solely via questing, which I probably won't do with my other alts, particularly my shaman as I'll be in a greater rush to get her to 90 and raid healing ready, but for my gal Folami, I was pretty content to experience the game as deeply as I could, and I'm so glad I did take this approach. There is just so much to love about Mists and about the questing. From a lore perspective, there's so much, but at the core you're always reminded in subtle (and not so subtle) ways that you are an intruder in this new land, a stranger whose actions--good or ill--have consequences for an entire land and people. That feeling matches the lore, and you're made to feel like an active participant in the story, rather than in Cataclysm where you did a good chunk of the work, but the real heavy lifting was still up to the major NPCs. Here, you get to see how your actions multiply and alter the landscape around you, and you get to see both the best and worst of your respective faction (and feel separate from it).
Speaking of factions, for all my complaints of how the Theramore scenario was handled and the truly unfair portrayal of the Horde as this bloodthirsty monolith, I thoroughly enjoyed how the events at the Jade Serpent statue played out. We saw, almost like an outsider looking in, how both sides have fault in the ongoing war between Horde and Alliance, and how both of them immediately recruit two relatively peaceful races into their war and enlist them in their fight in order to claim this new land for themselves rather than recognizing it already belongs to someone else, several someones in fact. You're allowed to remain apart from that, and you're allowed to act independently of your faction, which possibly comes as a great relief to some role-players like myself, or even just strictly PvE players who hated how the story was going.
There are some criticisms to be had, of course, and I'll get to one part of the story that really stuck in my craw in another post, but throughout the entire questing, I never lost sense of the overall story and my part (as the player) in trying to, if not repair, then at least minimize the damage my fellow outsiders are doing. One thing I didn't see a lot of is talk or reaction to Theramore. I suppose it makes sense being that Pandaria is, almost literally, worlds away from Theramore, but I've yet to see much fall out resulting from it. I suspect that will come with time and future patches, particularly in regards to Garrosh Hellscream (good riddance), and honestly I'd rather have it not mentioned at all rather than brought up while in Pandaria as a sort of, "Oh yeah? Well just remember what your Horde did in Theramore before you criticize the Alliance for what we're doing here!"
So, yeah, so far I'm impressed as hell, and I'm not alone. Let's hope we keep this momentum through the next few patches and raids. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some dungeons to run and some gear to get.
