Mist of Pandaria the first 5 days

First impression….. It's BIG.  I mean really big.  I'm currently level 88 and have only gone through 2 Questing Zones and the very start of a third.  Those being of course Jade Forest, Valley of the Four Winds and Krasarang Wilds.  So with only 2 level's left and 4.75 Zones still to cover I can safely say that it's big.  Certainly as far as questing goes. 

It's big in other ways also.  The sheer amount of things to do is impressive.  Even before the end game there are Pet Battles, and I have planted my first crops, cooking has also taken on a new mini game of sorts with the Way of the XXX, having to level each of the 5 Sub cooking profession separately and yet joined, leading to hunting out a variety of different food from different sources, and of course there are the standard 5 Man dungeons.  At end game there will be the standard daily quests and Heroics and Raids, but also scenarios and challenge mode dungeons, as well as all the above.  Having spent the summer playing SWTOR where all you could do at end game was jump on the gear treadmill I have to say I'm very pleased.

The 2 instances I've done with the guild have been pretty easy, but they are only normals and each only taking around 15 Minutes to complete means that they are easy to jump in and out of.  It does mean that levelling only though instances will get tired very quickly.  That's OK though because as I have already mentioned there are plenty of quests to get your teeth in to of varying quality.  Some epic story arcs and some additional Optional 'find me 5 hooves of the hooverbeast'  or similar.  So you can dip into them or not as you heart desires.  Being OCD like myself my poor warrior will be completing them all.  Speaking of completionism this brings me onto my next topic.

Gotta catch them all!  The Pet Battle system is again another way for you to be in game and playing with your guild mates with out having to be grinding through dungeons raids and quests, this is similar to mining in eve online, which is essentially an AFK sport, but it does mean that you can sit there and chat to you Guild (corp) Mates.  Personally I knew I'd be a sucker for it having prior to the expansion managed to get unique 150 pets and the celestial dragon that goes with it…… completionist you see currently my journal tells me I have 361 pets although they are not all unique. Pet battles is not flawless, I'd like to be able to team up with another player for instance, for some 2v2 or more action,  but I'm sure they will develop it over time and it's a very entertaining way whiling away a few minutes or hours if you prefer,.  I'm sure I'll loose hours to it.

First personal impressions out of the way lets get down to the guild business.  As I write this on Sunday morning we have 5 level 90's Gratz to them.  Special mention to Sledgehammer who blasted through and got to 90 in 48 Hours or less to become our guild first level 90.  All our dungeon challenges are complete for the week and I'm sure Scenario's and challenge mode dungeons will follow as people get in to the level 90 content more.  Above all there is a nice buzz around the guild with people hooking up and enjoying the game together again. 

I still don't think anyone reads the Guild Message of the day and people are still not following the guild on Twitter, but you know one thing at a time.  Recruitment has taken a bit of a dive but I'm not surprised by that particularly, again once everyone is 90 I'm sure people will start getting their heads into what they where they want to be, and we already have a raid team outlined.  Having said that I did manage to cajole and old friend from TBC days to join us, we spent many hours doing in Shattered Halls runs together back in the day for the Champion of the Naaru Title, so it's good to have him in the fold and right now I can't understand why he hasn't been before. 

Update on the guild pub.  I'm thinking so far that the Lazy Turnip in Valley of the Four Winds has got to be a shoe in, the music in there is crazy, and even has some beds upstairs for us to fall in to after having too many Pandarian Beers!  So if your down that way on hellfire pop in and you may see a drunk Worgan propping up the bar (beacause you can't stit on the stools!)