World of Warcraft®

So, seeing as that I have not been on in quite some time the curiosity has become unbearable. I have been settling my thirst for gaming with simple console games but still I yearn for an open world such as WoW but no game can ever deliver without my mind resorting to the infamous, "It's no World of Warcraft, but it's alright."

I was wondering, and hoping that a few reliable sources could answer, how has the game changed in or against your favor since August of last year?

Do you like new changes? What and why do you like them?

Do you dislike them? What and why?

Please do not criticize others for their likes and dislikes and do not turn this into a debate. This is just my honest curiosity and I want first hand accounts of experiences thus far with the new expansion and systems implemented.

As nobody has replied in nearly an hour I'll throw something out there.

For me a lot of the new features are about half and half. I adore most of pandaria including the fact that they went back to making you actually get around on foot instead of just fly right off the bat and miss all the work they put into the areas. They've found ways to cram a ton of lore and interesting little tidbits into a tinyish space with a few minor hiccups and annoyances but then again not everything will be perfect.

Some of the things I royally disliked was tying the gear to the rep but on the flip side I can also see why they did it as it seems like the game was gravitating towards minimal work for maximum reward. Makes it where you actually EARN the gear you get instead of just stumbling through a few heroics or LFRs then pick up your gear at the end.

The looking for raid system of loot and the world bosses was a good change as well as far as I'm concerned. Allows everyone an equally fair chance at getting loot assuming the boss they down has something for them.

Dailies...sooooo many dailies and factions and yeah. Way overwhelming when you first hit 90 even if two of the factions are stalled until you hit revered with the lotus. Good and bad as it generates a ton of gold but is severely time consuming.

Something huntery specific also that I sadly haven't had much of a chance to tinker with is putting in yet more hunter rares with unique skins and special mechanics to find them. While they can be a pita and a bit time consuming it falls back on the once you get them you actually feel like you earned them bit. There's also the upcoming Dinomancy to get some rather awesome Dino skins >>

Questing wise...while it's kind of sad to be back to the one starting zone thing they at least make it not quite so linear in the zone itself even if you are force-fed through the zones in a sort of squiggly line.

That's...about all i've really poked at off the top of my head that sticks out >> just my random opinions on stuff. I'll probably think of other things later but felt like at least putting something in here.

Just a random thing I love, many of the new rare spawns drop cool tinkers and objects that you can mess with, like an item that turns you into Mr. Smite. And there is also treasures, such as a Ghostly Pandaren Fisherman, that spawns every X amount of hours, that gives you an item that will allow you to sometimes catch two fish at a time.

Changes/new things that I like:

When first leveling in Pandaria, you're restricted to ground mounts. As I'm not a fan of flying mounts in the first place, I find this welcome. There's more of an explorer feel.

The quests are much, much better than in Cataclysm. Although the zones are still pretty streamlined, it's less straight-arrow than it was in Cataclysm, a little more like how it was in Wrath I guess. There are less groan-worthy, blunt pop culture references and more focus on lore.
Zone quest lines connect in a coherent manner so Pandaria truly feels like one, giant adventure with a couple side adventures, rather than everything feeling unrelated.

The zone design feels like more thought was put into it and more finishing touches were placed.

Looking For Raid is still good if you, like me, simply don't have the time/aren't interested in normal raiding. Loot is set up so that people don't roll on all the loot that drops from the boss but instead it's like everyone has a private roll on things they can use and you have, say, a 25% chance of winning. By doing dailies, you can get lesser charms of fortune and once you have 90 of those you can turn them in for 3 elder charms of fortune, allowing you to have an extra roll for loot. If you don't win loot, you get gold.
I do wish the loot drop chance was a little higher but it's bearable.

World bosses, such as the Sha of Anger and Galleon, are fun and pretty easy. Seeing them spawn gives a tingle of excitement and makes the world feel more alive.

You can do farming on Sunsong Ranch to grow some ingredients for cooking; the farming is fun for the most part, though too many wild plants can get annoying.

Heroic dungeons are easier to jump into than they were in Cataclysm and the mechanics are more forgiving of mistakes.

Pet battles are okay. Uhh... I'm more neutral on this actually but I don't dislike it, so I guess it fits in the "like" category. It's nice that one can boost their collection number of pets more easily by just capturing wild ones.

The simplified talent system is fine by me. I feel like no matter what the talents will be cookie cutter, so might as well have it the way it is now.

Pandaren are an enjoyable race - the animations are very fluid and the females weren't screwed over in the design area (*coughs and stares at female worgen*).

Rare spawns are fun to hunt and kill. Like the blood elf said, a lot of 'em drop neat stuff. Who doesn't like neat stuff?

Changes/new things that I don't like:

Too many dailies. First, I don't like dailies and never have, not in any previous renditions of the game so I'm prematurely set to hate these, too. That said, if you try to do all the rep dailies once you hit 90 I think you really could get burnt out on the game after like, four days.
The old daily cap of 25 per day is gone. Interesting it's removed, considering what they said about why they kept it in the past. Oh well.
But! You don't need to get these reputations to exalted. It certainly helps, though.

Cooking feels much more time consuming than in past expansions. You pick a Way (or all the Ways, if you want) to learn and then level up the remainder of your cooking through that. Once you get further into learning a Way, you have to make Banquets to continue which require a lot of ingredients.

Scenarios rub me the wrong way. They're not long so much as tedious and a little too easy, honestly. The rewards are a steal for what you're doing though.
Feels kinda like... just a boring quest chain in which you have to have three other people do with you. Eh.

Monk class also rubs me the wrong way. I don't like the system and couldn't level one too far up. I feel like there are enough classes in the game and they shouldn't have made another. It's been a while since I played my monk though, so I can't offer any specific examples of why I dislike the gameplay of it.
However... if one does like the monk, at least you're open to the base three roles (tank, healer, damage dealer [melee]) so you can switch around freely.

Something that bothers me that's unrelated to design decision:

The silence in dungeons, raids, and scenarios is stronger than ever. Most people don't greet, say thanks, make quirky comments, small jokes, compliments, or anything anymore. Such a shame.

A closing note: I quit several times during Cataclysm due to being unhappy with the content and player attitudes I came across and missed virtually the entire second half of the expansion, only logging in briefly to look at the new dungeons and whatnot. Pandaria is a much, much better product and you may very well share that opinion.

I appreciate the honesty and descriptive accounts given by you guys. It's nice to hear from the actual players how they feel about what they are experiencing.