by David Piner on Oct 28, 2011
The Blizzard Live World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria Q&A is now over and we’re still analyzing the data. One of the biggest themes the Q&A brought up was that MoP will introduce two separate faction hubs in Pandaria. Unlike previous expansions where we’ve had sprawling metropolises guarded with the soothing sounds of A’dal or Dalaran with strict laws or even Cataclysm with neutral peace keepers, this time we’re going to be getting two complete towns, one for each side.
That isn’t the start of it. These towns are going to be sparsely defended to promote world PvP. So while a single player may not breach the town gates, an organized group may be able to wreak havoc. On top of that, these central faction based hubs will not contain all of the necessary NPCs. These NPCs will be spread across Pandaria to promote travel, much like in the days of TBC and, to a lesser extent, WotLK.
It goes a bit deeper than that, this rule also applies to things like scenarios and outposts. If we all remember the days harking back to TBC, most questing centers were easily assailable. It looks as if we’re going to be returning back to those glory days and for some this may come as good news for others, maybe not so much.
To discuss a topic we need to have a quick history lesson. The first and most important thing that we need to remember is the previous expansions.
Returning back to vanilla we had four strongholds, one for each race, and each of these strongholds were abandoned except for Ironforge and Orgrimmar. These towns were the center to everything and easily assailable by Rogues (who had a penchant for taking the Auctioneers out).
In TBC we were given large scaling quest outposts that that served as each zone’s primary questing hub. Shattrath City stood gloriously in the middle of all of this as a sanctuary, fueled by A’Dal’s song, which served as the primary “idling” spot for most players that were busy in Outland. You had to travel leagues in order to get certain items (like Nagrand for auction gear). Yet, you had to return back home to do auctions and visit trainers (to respec).
Dalaran is now a ghost town, but it once stood as the central hub for both factions.
In WotLK the trend continued again with large faction specific quest hubs. This time Dalaran was the flying mobile sanctuary and there the faction hubs were cordoned off to give a sense of coming war. Again, all players filtered through this massive city and were capable of doing almost everything except for auctions and training (which, through patches, was actually implemented).
In Cataclysm the trend sifted back to vanilla, with players hoarding into Stormwind and Orgrimmar as their primary faction hubs since the Cataclysm zones were scattered and war was afoot. There was no large sanctuary zone and it looks to be that MoP will continue this trend.
The proposed new faction hubs will be rather bare, having lax security (to promote World PvP), the bare necessities (trainers, auction house, etc.), and returning back to the days of TBC, many of the vendors will be scattered throughout the world to promote travel. This both adds some cool dynamic gameplay and adds a host of issues.
The first major issue is PvP servers. With security in these zones being relaxed and the one-shot guards being toned back, we’re going to see a lot of assaults on players attempting to go on about their business. Blizzard assured us in the Q&A that Rogues sneaking in and backstabbing you while doing auctions may be rare, but if that Rogue assembled a group to lead a siege then you won’t be safe anywhere.
Continue on to the next page to read more about ganking in Mists of Pandaria!
Not to mention the possibility that many of the questing hubs will split apart, unlike Cataclysm where the neutral quest givers dole out all of the quests. These hubs containing just standard guards will be easy pickings for small groups of large players, much like it used to be. This is great because it makes the game a lot more exciting, adventurous, and wild but also annoying because we return to the inability to afk anywhere but the major cities.
It’s not as if it isn’t like that already in many spots in Azeroth. Horde and Alliance like to camp the quest hubs in Hellfire Peninsula to deprive new Death Knights with their beloved questing zones. So hopefully Blizzard will find the right balance between “FOR THE HORDE!” random world slayings and some jerk standing at the guy you need to hand your bear butts too /laughing at you as he kills him every time he spawns.
Another thing we are looking at here is the return back to the idea that we need to explore the world. In Cataclysm we were given direct portals to rather large maps that contained our explorations. We soon forgot much of them, focusing only on Hyjal for the majority of the expansion. With older expansions we often got to see more of the world, much of it prettier (especially in TBC) than just, well, Hyjal.
This has its benefits. First, we get to do something in a day. Each piece of gear feels a lot more epic when you have to travel for a few minutes to pick it up, thinking about it the entire way there. Then there is the whole making the world active thing. You know, keeping people moving around vs. keeping them all in one spot.
On the other hand, many will see this as a huge step back. Why should we busy ourselves with traveling when we can simply sit in one place and walk in circles for half the game and raid the other half? Walking to scenarios may result in ganking if everyone has to sit in the same spot together to wait on the queue. That’s not a lot of fun.
And with all of this, what about population imbalance? Servers that are 10:1 Horde:Alliance or vice-versa will not be fun for the underdogs.
Blizzard is going to need to put a lot of thought into while crafting the new area of “Southrend” Pandaria. While it sounds good and whimsical during the chat, it could easily turn into a hotfix disaster and another spree of whiny posts across the forum on why Blizzard is out to get everyone again.
What do you think? Should NPCs walk to you to bring the gear or should everyone walk uphill both ways and complete an obstacle course in order to purchase their new tier. Leave your comments below!