Tech and Talk > Gaming > World of Warcraft > [MoP] Some Blue Posts...

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Warlock (Forums)
Warlocks and Green Fire
Green "fel" fire for warlocks, like they've been asking for since... forever?

It is our hope to introduce a quest which will allow warlocks to unlock the use of green fire. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Druid (Forums)
Moonkin Form Model Update
I think they deserve a revamp, though, same as cats and bears got.
Well, we agree. And this is why an improved moonkin model is indeed in the schedule. But alas I have no due date to announce. In the meantime, we hope the various new cool shape-shift glyphs will provide a little distraction while the moonkin model gets the loving it needs. We hope the Glyph of Stars will help you here.

Scarlet Monastery and Scholomance
Wouldn't it instead be more logical to do something about dungeons people NOT love so much? Why try fixing things which already are working fine and people already love?
That's a fair point. But just because we're revamping the big player favourites, doesn't mean that we won't be looking around and seeing what else we might want to revamp.

So, what's this about Lillian Voss as a boss fight in Scholomance, eh? In Mists of Pandaria, we finally catch up with Lillian Voss. For those who didn't play through the Forsaken starting experience, Lillian Voss was brought back to life by Sylvanas, but despite this she refused to become part of the Forsaken.

After trying to re-connect with her still living father, those players with keen eyes might have noticed her handiwork in Western Plaguelands. As a non-aligned "free agent," Lillian has some surprising hidden talents. In Mists of Pandaria she's still confused about her situation. Still broiling with internal conflict, despising what she has become.

Now she has a new and grander mission in mind and it revolves around Scholomance and Darkmaster Gandling in particular. She wants to ensure that like herself, no others shall be raised from death and subjugated. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Mists of Pandaria Graphical Upgrades
There are actually quite a lot of graphic engine improvements in Mists of Pandaria, however for the most part they are subtle. For example, improved shadowing, blending and enhancements to the fog effect.

Amongst the large list of information we hope to share with you is included a list of the new graphic engine improvements with some before and after screenshots to highlight what each one brings to the game.

Each one might be subtle but as a whole they bring an improved visual appearance to the game. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

The Zandalari in Mists of Pandaira
Thousands of years ago, when the Zandalari and the Mogu boasted the most powerful empires in Azeroth, the Zandalari were actually allied with the Mogu. So when the Pandaren revolted against the Mogu, of course the Zandalari displayed their allegiance to their Mogu friends by attacking the embryonic Pandaren empire. Overcoming this threat was to be one of the Pandaren empire's first tests of strength.

After the passing of so many thousands of years, after the mists had covered Pandaria for so long — keeping ancient threats like the Zandalari at bay — Pandaren children have now come to see the mythological Zandalari somewhat like our children see bogeymen. Scary enough to ensure compliance with the instructions and requests of parents, but at the end of the day, not the kind of threat you ever really see with your own eyes and in your own backyard... right?

The misty shrouds that the last Pandaren Emperor used to protect Pandaria from the demonic jeopardy that threatened Azeroth have done a particularly good job, for no troll has been seen in Pandaria for over 10,000 years. No wonder the Zandalari seem like nothing more than freakish figures of fiction to many Pandaren.

Imagine the Pandaren's surprise when the mists collapse and Pandaria's lush forests and cloud-ringed mountains are once more threatened by the ancient Zandalari menace that they had come to see as nothing more than scary savages in some superstitious stories.After the mists collapse, of course after 10,000 years the Zandalari are intensely curious about Pandaria, even more so perhaps than the Horde and Alliance are. But is there more to their interest than pure curiosity?

So, just like the Alliance and Horde, they send out their forces to Pandaria. But it would appear they have it in mind to re-connect with their ancient allies, the Mogu. It seems they want to help them retake the land away from the Pandaren and once again bring it under Mogu rule. How very kind of them!

But is their mission to re-establish Mogu rule really so altruistic as that? They seem so desperate to acquire Pandaren territory. What exactly could be their motive, if it isn't just to help out their ancient Mogu allies?

To find out more, we will need to wait a little while longer so we can head towards Kun-Lai Summit and unravel the secrets that are there to be discovered. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

LFR -loot system
We're working on getting a new Coffee with the Devs (aka Dev Watercooler) out, which will explain the new system in a very clear and precise way.

I don't want to post everything that'll be explained in that article, however essentially for Raid Finder it's currently intended to be like this: the boss will die, the game decides who wins loot. There'll be no rolling or passing.

How Exactly Do We "Demand" Item Squish?
The way you “demand” an item squish is by testing, talking and sharing your constructive feedback with us here. We realize that there are players on both sides of the fence on this issue and we want to be able to evaluate the comfort level for moving forward with the possibility before we actually do anything more (should we feel it’s necessary.) Essentially, we want players to start expecting it rather than fearing it. While we stand 100% behind the new talent changes, we also recognize that they may be a bit controversial. We thought it would make sense to first have everyone try out the new talent model for the expansion before we tried doing any item squishes. We don’t want a returning player to not only have to relearn their class because of these big talent changes, but also to have to get used to doing lower damage. That’s a lot of change to take in at once. As we mentioned, we had the squish all in and working, but seeing those small numbers felt odd to us – and we knew exactly what to expect. For a player not knowing what to expect, it might feel downright alien and not very “ WoW like” which is not a good experience with which to welcome a player to a new expansion. We know that veterans are ready and willing to take on whatever gets thrown their way, but for others, we don’t want to completely overwhelm them if we can avoid it.

As we said in the original blog, we don’t want anyone to reject the idea of an item squish solely because they enjoy soloing old content. There are other solutions to that problem, if in fact it becomes a problem.

The primary motivation behind an item squish is to make the numbers more readable for players. It would have almost no balance implications. There are however some programming implications. It’s easy to get bogged down into technical details quickly, but many of the numbers in WoW have a cap of two billion. There are cases where we already have gotten close to that cap, with which many of you are probably already familiar. We already had to do some work in Cataclysm to increase the gold cap (because gold is stored in the game as copper). We have already had some bosses, such as Flame Leviathan, with health of over one billion. We have already had fights in the game where players could hit the threat cap. All of these problems have solutions, but they aren’t free solutions, and focusing programmer time on fixing them means less time for other features. We think we will be fine for Mists of Pandaria, but we are going to have to consider those solutions soon after. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

...essentially for Raid Finder it's currently intended to be like this: the boss will die, the game decides who wins loot. There'll be no rolling or passing.

What about the game decides "these 5 people will get loot", but it will likely happen that the winner doesn't even need the piece that boss drops, that loot goes to waste while other 20 people just /cry a bit..

You didn't have to beat "him", you had to beat the dice.

I'm content to just have an equal shot at it, and if I get it, I get it.