About Mists of Pandaria

If you've been anywhere near me over the past two days, you would have heard me talking about the big press conference Blizzard held, regarding the new World of Warcraft expansion.
Why?
Because this is the biggest information dump we've had since last years Blizzcon! Seriously, there's probably five or six, maybe ten pages of raw information to sort through when you get it all!
So in the interest of convenience, I've compiled some of the more awesome things together in to a list, with my thoughts on why they're here and how they'll change the game, which I like to call...

Lists of Pandaria.

Professions: There was very little concerning Professions at the press conference, however I have found information on the official site that Inscription - a profession long looked down upon - will be crafting Staffs and Wands!
Archaeology also gets a bit of a boost, with the ability to find items while digging that will transport you to different dig sites, getting more artifacts per site and I'm sure plenty of new and awesome rare artifacts to find.
Cooking will receive a few nice thing as well, including different cooking branches (like Transmutation, Potions and Flask mastery for Alchemy, but with food?) and new dailies. This will most likely link in to the farmers market in The Valley of the Four Winds that allows you to...

Create your own farm: Yes. You saw that. You read it right. Something that people have been asking for since the games inception will almost be coming true.
This isn't quite a new feature, it will work in the same way as the tree in the Molten Front dailies. As you help farmers at the market in VotFW, you will gain access to your own plot of land, be able to plant things in it (herb nodes, cooking ingredients and possibly pets are a few of the talked about options) and watch it grow! You'll have animals, an apple farm and golly knows what else to add as you go along, and all this will probably be expanded upon in future patches.

Killing things: We all know the main point of a new expansion: New stuff to kill. This expansion will be just the same. Sure, we have soft and cuddly Pandaren who like their peaceful ways, but are we Pandaren?
No, no we are not. We kill things and steal their stuff.
There are going to be 9 heroic level dungeons upon release, including heroic modes of Scarlet Monastery and Scholomance, which you will be able to run using the LFD tool as per normal.
But then when you've finished with those, you can go in to the Challenge Mode dungeons. These ones are just the same as the ones you've been running with your friends and guildies, but you LOSE all your fancy gear that makes you better. Everyones gear is rolled back to a certain point, then you have to finish the dungeon as fast as possible. The better your time, the better your reward.
What are these rewards? How about a freaking sweet, one of a kind mount if you complete all Challenge Mode dungeons with a gold star, and their subsequent achievements? How about a new title? How about exclusive Transmogrification sets that do special things when you complete the set?!
And let's not forget the raids...

Regicide: The final raid in Mists of Pandaria is going to be against Garrosh Hellscream, leader of the Horde and all-round nice guy.
Sort of?
Over the course of the expansion, we see Pandaria going from a lush, verdant, untouched land, to one spoiled by the atrocities of war. Both factions are going to be doing things they aren't proud of, and this will culminate with both factions - for one reason or another - wanting to remove Garrosh from his position as Warchief.
Who will step up and take the mantle? We don't know yet, but I would love to see Vol'Jin get his turn in the spotlight. He says in the Troll starting zone that he wants to kill Garrosh, so I imagine we'll be seeing a bit of him in the coming patches.

Gain reputation: Instead of just a bar on the bottom of your screen, reputation is going to be something important now. You can gain tokens to trade in for Valor points, you can get gear, you can get transmog gear, pets, mounts, the possibility to roll on a bosses loot table more than once a week. Yes, again, you read that correctly. You will be able to get tokens that, when in LFR or any regular raid, allow you to loot a boss, and come back later that week to loot him again.
It's going to be a long journey from Friendly to Exalted, but it seems like it will be more worth it than ever before.

Is there more stuff I could be including in all of this? Yeah, definitely. But this is the stuff I'm most excited about, the stuff we didn't get to see at Blizzcon. Like how there's now seven new zones, up from five. Did I forget to mention that? Oh well.
There's also PVP changes, talent changes, outdoor Scenario type challenges and many, many more things.
Those I'll save for a different blog though, I think we've had enough awesome for today.
But tell me, what are you most excited about for the new expansion?