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World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria beta 'very close'

Blizzard says testing period for upcoming expansion is imminent, all can opt in, but "primary focus" will be adding Annual Pass holders.

115 Comments

Beta testing for World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria will begin shortly, Blizzard has announced. The developer launched a beta opt-in FAQ late last night for the upcoming expansion, filling gamers in on the trial's details.

Gamers can opt in to the beta for Mists of Pandaria today and hope for the best.
Gamers can opt in to the beta for Mists of Pandaria today and hope for the best.

Players interested in participating in the Mists of Pandaria beta can opt in today via their Battle.net accounts. Blizzard did not say when the beta will begin, but noted that players chosen for the trial will be alerted via email.

Players will not be forced to sign a nondisclosure agreement to participate in the Mists of Pandaria beta period. The developer made clear that Mists of Pandaria is an in-development product, and anything gamers encounter in the trial is not necessarily representative of the final product.

Blizzard did not say how many gamers it plans to invite to the Mists of Pandaria beta test, but did say its "primary focus" will be making sure all WOW Annual Pass holders are granted access to the trial period. Announced in October 2011, the WOW Annual Pass rewards gamers who make a 12-month commitment to WOW with a free copy of Diablo III, among other items.

Mists of Pandaria is WOW's fourth expansion. It follows The Burning Crusade (2007), Wrath of the Lich King (2008), and Cataclysm (2010). The add-on is set on the new continent of Pandaria and focuses on the Pandaren as well as the monk player class. The expansion pack, which does not have a release date, will also increase the player level cap to 90.

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tavoselu1999

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il caut de vreo doua luni da tot nul gasesc

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vadagar1

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@Evilbunz well i guess it will be pretty hard for them to pick up where they "ended" the warcraft world... cause they pretty much killed off all the cool bad guys :P maybe they should make something totally new... anyways I still think wow's age is starting to show and honestly the most fun I had in it was leveling up with my friend, but once we hit "end" content we just felt bored :P, the game became too easy and grind-y.

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DuaneDog

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WoW suffers i think from the issue of PvP and dungeons advancing your experience at a pretty rapid level... but then when you get back in the real world you quests are all green or worse grey and either you deal with lame snore fest easy game play; and/or inevitably stumble to figure out what quest thread you should pick up. I think Blizzard has failed by focusing on expansion rather than improving core gameplay experience. The professions are weak and have never seen any real attention. The economy feels stagnant. WoW still cool by me...could be so much better.

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nonlinear314

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There is nothing Blizzard can due to lure back this retired Hand of A'dal.

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Evilbunz

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@vadagar1 Warcraft 4..... the end of console gaming. everyone and their grannies played warcraft 1 2 or 3. Shame they turned it into an mmo

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vadagar1

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my advice bliz.... focus on diablo 3 and SC2 and start making warcraft4.....

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RavageCobra

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@moviequest14 Back before even The Burning Crusade was announced, Blizzard announced as an April Fools' Joke that you can play as the Pandaren. So Pandaren came WAAAY before Kung-Fu Panda did.

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pH347m3

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Jesus Christ, guys, all I said was "Not interested". I liked BC and WOTLK, but I stopped playing at Cataclysm. I didn't go on some rant about how I thought the game sucked.

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Frosty192

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Oh boy pandas how freaking cute! STUPID. I remember Warcraft being brutal and violent this is just a kids game now.

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thingta42

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@-Unreal- I have, i played wow since before the burning crusade and stopped playing round about the time they announced Tauren paladins. And it went downhill for me ever since, i spent too many nights just standing in stormwind not knowing what to do. That never happened once in rift because i always found something to do.

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James00715

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@MaddogQ80 None of them are legit. They are all private servers. Nintendo has already issued takedown orders on previous attempts. Nintendo will eventually get around to shutting down the current Pokemon MMOs in beta.

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-Unreal-

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@thingta42 "All warcraft is about is levelign to max level as soon as possible and raiding. Theres nothing to do inbetween things. One of the reasons why i loved rift so much, i could level up just by doing rift invasions or pvp battlegrounds, or dungeons or questing." You've obviously never played WoW. With the obvious exception of rift invasions (since it's not Rift, it's WoW) you can do all of those to level. Plus the quests in Cata were way better than Rift's.

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-Unreal-

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@fredwv WoW's dev team is big. They've been working on content constantly throughout the game's lifespan, so no, they're not rushing it out.

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-Unreal-

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@pH347m3 Judging by all your forum posts, you're only interested in Playstation games. This game isn't on Playstation, so why post something as pointless as "not interested"? Oh, because you're a troll. So many haters that can't afford to play WoW or are bads and have to throw some hate around. Bads.

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sune_Gem

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A trial of a beta? Now that's just strange...

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GriffinBalls

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@nurnberg You play any game for 1000 hours, its gonna get a bit stale, lol

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moviequest14

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@oromashu : It's not a matter of which came first or who ripped off who (if at all) anyways,that wasn't my point.My point is that that entire plot (literal kung-fu pandas) is good for a slightly far-fetched animated comedy movie.You can't expect a smooth transition when you take an idea (whether first or not) that is wildly popular for it's almost unrealisticness and farfetched idea and put it into a serious (not extremely serious but Warcraft Serious) mold.

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MechaNapoleon

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It's funny, a game that has humanoid cows, squid-goats from Mars, talking walruses, and singing flowers is now all the sudden childish for adding pandas to the mix (somethin in the dorky lore long before Kung-Fu Panda was ever thought of).

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Ringx55

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It's more than close, it's live :lol:

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PetJel

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-Panda's were in WC3 -There is barely any footage from the new dungeons, new skills, class, story and quests. People that say they hate MoP solely based on the new characters are short sighted. It will be a matter of time before you get used to seeing them around, just like Draenei, Bloodelves, Goblins and Worgen.

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blackace

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People are still playing this game? It was fun for 2 years, but I had to move on. Two years was enough and I found there was other games, places, people and things to live for besides WoW. I wonder if Diablo 3 will pull players off of WoW for a few months?

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MikeLirette

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@pH347m3 If you aren't interested, STOP POSTING on these topics.

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darkvaper

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@polterdice the game survives because its no more a game for fun .. its a phenomenal game to enjoy and spend more time on it ! not to mention that wow sound tracks are super amazing and worth listening . the game has a lot of spirit and elements that most mmos lack .

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darkvaper

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@wexorian lol , btw i am not against the game am with it .i meant how haters react to each and every expansion ! take it easy man !!

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Vendettaaaa

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combat system and character Graphics are outdated.. its sad but ture

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Vendettaaaa

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before Cata wow was my life.after that its just wasting money and more than that wasting time..

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townsforever

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Ohay guys! Pandas were is Warcraft first! BUT I find it odd that they never mentioned bringing them to WOW until after Kung-Fu Panda.

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King-gamer

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I'll give it a try I guess.... Until Guild Wars 2 with their no sub model releases.

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FatmanAB

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WoW >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> swtor Get Over it People .... comparing wow to swtor is like comparing pokemon to beyblade ...... competition is over long time ago

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cyberarmy

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The pandaren started as a creation of lead artist Samwise Didier and an April Fool's joke, but they got a massive response from Warcraft fans. << LINK REMOVED >>

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Darnasian

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Are people that stupid? Pandarens have been in the Warcraft lore for centuries and were even a hero class in Warcraft 3...

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dashawnthl

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I'll Pass!!

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wexorian

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Stop whining who left wow it was their choice But we know that 9-10 million from 10.5 million player will get pandaria Like PPL still buyng Cod it will sell too so Nobody cares ooo kungfu panda etc comments becuase Pandas were in warcraft 3.

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polterdice

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@darkvaper neat! WoW is like SNL; was good in the past, sucks in the present, and its future doesn't seem too promising yet somehow it survives...

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wexorian

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Why ppl Are sayng Kungfu panda? Pandas were in wc3 2003 year kungfu panda 2007 year relase date So we see who stole idea.

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wexorian

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@darkvaper and your profile icon is deathwing, stop complain none foeces you to buy Mop, I play wow and gona get mop because there is no Other Good enough MMO with Cool story pve and pvp system.

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wexorian

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[This message was deleted at the request of the original poster]

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Incantos

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Post made at approx. 9 PM PDT: << LINK REMOVED >>

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Erebus

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If only this really were an April fools joke. That's alright, add support for my Guitar Hero controller or no sale. You hearing me Blizzard?

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RPG_Fan_I_Am

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I hear when you reach lvl 100 in WoW systems crash, and worlds end.

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greek5

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Why dont they at least add the two headed ogres from the original wacraft 2 as playable characters, that would be pretty cool.

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Gears_0f_L0ve

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World of Warcraft: Kung-Fu Panda expansion

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Gigawattblade

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According to this article, Garrosh Hellscream will be MoP's big villain, and that his raid will take place in Orgrimmar... In other words, Horde players attack their own city. << LINK REMOVED >>

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Gigawattblade

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[This message was deleted at the request of the original poster]

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hampton2003

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my hopes for a hots Q4 2012 release are dwindling.

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Link3301

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@moviequest14 I'm guessing you haven't played Warcraft III have you? Pandarens existed long before Kung Fu Panda. They were originally created by one of Blizzard's artists. They then decided to use them as an April fools joke for a new playable race in Warcraft III. In Warcraft III's expansion, they made an appearance in both the single player and multiplayer.

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Ryyder1295

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They should fix some of the character textures along with this.

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SephirothIsKing

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Who cares about MoP? Happy to see D3 is finally coming out and hopefully we can get HotS soon.

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oromashu

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@moviequest14 So? It really doesn't matter which one came first or not. I'm sure twenty years ago someone came up with the idea somewhere and it took until now before the ideas became realized. You know what's cool though? How different the two ideas are. Ideas are amazing aren't they? I seriously doubt it matters which came first or second.

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qweasd54

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when is the Toy Story expansion coming out?

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