MoP Beta Files: Archaeology Changes & More

I just got an email last night from Greeneggs with some new goodies he found from Archaeology. Apparently he started visiting dig sites in Pandaria and took some screenshots for us! And apparently he was able to dig at one site nine times before it was tapped out, which let him collect enough fragments for two artifacts. So it sounds like some much needed tweaks have been made to the digging process :)

Here is a map of Pandaria with the dig sites showing:

This is an image of what the Pandaren fragment looks like:

Here you can see the Pandaren page in the Archaeology book:

And this is a pic of the Detail page for a Pandaren object:

And just for fun, we got an extra screenshot of Greeneggs flying over Pandaria on a very delicate-looking contraption:

MoP Beta Files: Cooking Tidbits

Just wanted to share part of a Blue post from Wryxian that went out this morning in response to a Cooking question:

"Oooh, a cooking thread! Quelle surprise! *mock gasp*

I actually don't have the answers for you on that. However, in place of them I do have some more information that might be of interest.

So you might have heard for Cooking in Mists of Pandaria we will have specializations. At the moment we're looking at around 5 branches of cooking, for example: broiling, steaming...etc.

Each of these specializations will focus on a particular stat. So let's say the Steaming specialization allows you to create Agility food. A rogue would find that very interesting, and would probably want to max that one out first. At which point, said rogue would be able to create Agility buff feasts for groups. Cool, huh?

But worry not, once you max out in one specialization, you can then work on the other specializations. :)"

I'm looking forward to this idea of Cooking specializations, that seems like fun. It also seems like it might encourage more folks to get involved with Cooking since they'll be able to increase their food buff by doing so. What I'm most curious about is whether this would potentially change the dynamic of the buff feast such that players will expect to bring each variety to raids to access all of the different boosted buffs. That's definitely something I plan to check out once I get into the Beta :)

MoP Beta Files: Enchanting

Today we have the Enchanting trainer recipes from the Beta, thanks to our handy helper Greeneggs! This appears to be all of the recipes currently listed on the trainer, although again the progression is rough. It still gives us an idea of where in the chain a recipe may be, although I expect them to be spread more evenly for release.

525 Skill:

550 Skill:



575 Skill:



600 Skill:



The number of recipes seems a little bit light to me, there are only 30 new trainer recipes compared with 37 in Cataclysm. The two main holes are in the cloak and bracer enchantments. Currently we have five different cloak enchants (not counting vendor recipes), but in MoP only three cloak recipes are available from the trainer. For bracers we currently have six enchants from the trainer, in MoP there are only four. There is also no new +STAM enchant for boots, which would leave +Mastery as the boot enchant for tanks.

Granted, this isn't taking into account any vendor/faction/drop recipes that may turn up. Still, I think it would be good for trainer recipes to have the bases covered in terms of level-up enchantments. The bracer enchants are workable, there is one for each class type (STR, AGI, INT, Dodge). The cloak recipes are a bit skimpy though, only Intellect, AC and +Hit are available. Hopefully we'll see a few more recipes added to this list in the near future.

Gotta say, I love some of the names on the weapon enchants! Dancing Steel... Flowing River. Awesome!

MoP Beta Files: First Aid

Last night I also received some screenshots from the First Aid trainers in the Beta. You can see in this first image that Zen Master First Aid requires level 75 to learn and can be picked up at 500 skill:

The first bandage can also be learned at 500 skill - the Windwool Bandage. This bandage heals a whopping 54k health! I can definitely see where the item squish motivation was coming from :) Strangely the bandage requires level 85 to use, odd when we can unlock it at 75. This is the sort of discrepancy we can expect to be tweaked during Beta:



Then we run into another potential hurdle - the next bandage recipe isn't available until 550 skill. Not unheard of, the Wrath and Cataclysm bandages had the same spread. But I think gaps like that certainly challenge our ability to power level First Aid, I guess we'll see a continuation of that:



You'll also note some interesting language in this tooltip. When we cap out First Aid, the materials for this bandage will be reduced. That would also seem to support the idea that we want leveling First Aid to be more of a challenge. Also, check out the healing numbers. You could heal some classes to full HP with this bad boy!

*** UPDATE ***

I just received an email this evening from Jr. Reporter Greeneggs with this screenshot:

It would appear that the old Cataclysm bandages will be granting TWO skill points for those who haven't capped First Aid yet. Nice!

MoP Beta Files: Mining

Our intrepid Beta reporter, Greeneggs of Doomhammer, was kind enough to send out some additional screenshots from the Mining trainers late yesterday. We now know that the next level of profession skill is called "Zen Master"! You can also see the current leveling requirements for MoP Mining in this image:



It looks like we'll need a level 80 toon with 500 Mining skill. The trainer prices may be adjusted, I wouldn't assume this is final. In this next images you can see that our low level ore will be Ghost Iron, which we can smelt at 515:

Things get a little weird at the top though, it looks like our uncommon ore will be Trillium, but with a twist. In the tooltip you'll see that we smelt Trillium by mixing a black and a white trillium ore:

Which for me leaves two questions - is there an intermediate ore (such as Elementium) that we're not seeing yet? And, how exactly do you collect black/white trillium? Is it a random spawn from any trillium vein or are there black veins and white veins? It's definitely interesting and not something we've seen before :)

Alchemy Recipes from the MoP Beta

This is our first look at new Alchemy recipes from the trainers on the Beta server. You can see from the skill level requirements that all the recipes are basically clumped into four groups. Likely this is not the way they will remain, but it gives us a rough idea of the intended progression.

We can make some interesting observations - the flask recipes only use 4 herbs and a "golden lotus". This is pretty light for flasks, depending on what a golden lotus is. Perhaps we are abandoning the volatile/eternal plan? Muddying the waters a bit is the "Potion of Plunder" recipe which uses 3 golden lotus as the only herb. Still possible that we're talking about an elemental component, but maybe the lotus is making a comeback? Also note that the gem transmute recipes are using an item called "Spirit of Harmony". Traditionally this material should be collected via Herbalism since the gems are not, but the name doesn't match up well with our lotus. So there's definitely room for speculation :)

Panda Info is Rolling In!

First, I apologize for being so quiet this week during all the Beta hubbub. I picked up a nasty head cold that decided to go rogue and infect my sinuses, so I've been pretty out of it. I've managed to keep up with the news via my iPad, but have not been functional enough to actually do much else.

On the plus side, I received a lovely email from Greeneggs of Doomhammer offering to send goodies our way from the MoP Beta! He was kind enough to put together a bunch of screenshots with some Alchemy and Cooking recipes from the trainers. Based on what I've seen so far, I would say that professions are currently in a pretty rough state. They are using recycled icons and the leveling progression hasn't been worked out yet. The good news is that they have new recipes with names and descriptions, and that tells us a lot!

As a teaser, I thought I'd share a couple of the more interesting items with you:

If there are other readers already in the Beta who would like to contribute, feel free to submit your information to 'kaliope at crafterstome dot com'. You are also welcome to guest post if you prefer :)

Stay tuned for more to come!

Farms!

That is all ;)

Ok, I suppose that is pretty skimpy. Not seeing anything else specific to professions (unless you count vague references to new glyphs). There is a lot of text to read through, so I may have missed something.

Feel free to discuss!

Faction Rewind: Cenarion Circle in the Cataclysm

Why would I care about my reputation with Cenarion Circle? Most players probably don't. But if you are a Leatherworker, I propose that you do. Anyone who's been following The Mogfather is probably familiar with his transmog lists. He's got a pretty solid track record of identifying attractive items that players seek out. Well, the Cenarion Circle sells four recipes for look-a-like gear that ranks pretty highly on the Mogfather scale. I'm talking about the Sandstalker and Spitfire mini-sets.

Flashback to Economy in SWG

My husband sent me this interesting article written by a "goblin" style player from Star Wars: Galaxies. Since it's a slow news week (month, quarter) I thought I'd share it :) I was struck by how much of this sounded familiar within the context of our game, a handful of years later. Regardless of the game, clearly the techniques for creating and building markets are often similar. Check it out for yourselves:

How I Helped Destroy Star Wars Galaxies

Enjoy!