The day has arrived, my friends. The pre-Mists of Pandaria patch for World of Warcraft lands today, and it’s a doozy. For some of you who left the game sometime in the past, these changes may be big enough to pull you back into the fold. Some of these changes may piss you off. Some of them want to abuse you. Some of them want to be abused.
- Account-wide Achievements, Pets, and Mounts – Got that uber-rare pet or mount on one character, but you’ve long since moved to a new main character? Fret not! Now, nearly all of your pets and mounts will carry over to all of your characters automagically! Your achievements carry over as well, not to mention your achievement progress on certain incremental achievements as well.
- Class Overhaul – All classes are going through a complete overhaul, having their spells and talents completely redone. Talents themselves now more closely resemble Diablo 3, where you are given a few points to spend on a few choices, rather than a mass of points for a massively spread-out set of trees. Is it the sign of things to come in the MMO biz, a way of opening up a simpler interface that appeals to a broader audience? Or is it an oversimplification that pulls away from the core base that made WoW successful in the first place?
- AOE Looting – THANK THE MAKER. If you’ve killed 5 enemies and their unlooted corpses lay strewn before you, simply click one and you will automatically loot all of them. Thank you, The Old Republic!
- No More Head Enchants – Removing this significantly drops the amount of grinding needing for endgame play, as you will no longer be required to grind for a particular faction in order to earn their arcanum.
- All Races Available – Don’t have Cataclysm but want to start with a new goblin or worgen? Have no fear, Blizzard is opening up the races so that you are not required to purchase an expansion to gain access to them. Pandaren are not available yet, but they will go live for non-MoP-owners on the MoP release date.
And this is but a taste. Get the official 5.0.4 patch notes here, but beware that even these are not complete. There are a lot more specific changes to be found, especially pertaining to individual classes, so look for these to be detailed by Blizzard later today. If you’re really impatient to find out, our friends over at WoW Insider have you covered with the specific class changes that were listed on the PTR.
