Mists of Pandaria Press Event "Highlights"

Now that I've abandoned progression raiding for the rest of Cataclysm, I'm becoming increasingly excited for Mists, and the bundle of news that came out with the NDA lift of last week's press event is making pandas look pretty badass. Being a vanilla baby who was at one point obsessed with a particular staff with an infamous drop rate, I was the most interested in the revamp of Scholomance into a level 90 heroic. I'm looking forward to spending many more hours of my life in what was my favorite instance in classic WoW, working my way through room after room of different types of undead and defeating unique mini-bosses for coveted blues. Plus, there will be new items for which I can get reacquainted with my old buddy Darkmaster Gandling, like an upgraded Headmaster's Charge that I can mog... to my original Headmaster's Charge. >:)

Despite everyone's glee that MoP's end-boss will be Garrosh and we can finally kick his self-important ass, I'm actually disappointed. It's not because I ever particularly liked him; I was just as surprised as everyone else when the peace-loving and earth-hugging Thrall appointed as Warchief some douchebag that insults the player first thing after s/he steps into Northrend. But then I spent the entire expansion doing exactly what Blizz asked me to do: give him the benefit of the doubt that he's grown older and wiser and is no longer the immature asshole with daddy issues who once accidentally killed the Horde racial leader that never bothered anybody. What the fuck happened to all that, Blizz? What am I supposed to think now?

I might seem a little hard to please with the way I'm waffling about Garrosh, but remember in Harry Potter when everyone originally thought that Snape was evil? And for the next six books, Harry had Hermione reminding him that Dumbledore said Snape was good and that he had to trust in his word? And then, at the end, it turned out that that Dumbledore was right all along and the reader made the correct choice in having faith in Snape for all that time? It felt so. relieving.

Well, yea. The end of Mists is going to be the exact opposite of that.

-Avia.