Welcome to Azeroth United, a weekly podcast about World of Warcraft.

My name is Denethar, and I am your host.

Welcome, everyone.

Thank you so much for joining us.

It's Monday night in Azeroth, and we've got a great show lined up for you.

We're going to be talking about the re -release of Mists of Pandaria as we jump into Mists of Pandaria Classic that is going live on servers today, actually.

So by the time you listen to this, it will already be live, but it hasn't happened as of...

Right now.

So we're going to be going through all of that and what's coming with Mists of Pandaria, what features we can expect.

And we're going to do a little bit of a dive into the lore of Mists of Pandaria or the Isle of Pandaria, really, and talk about that.

So I hope you enjoy.

And yeah, that'll be the show for us.

We have a little bit of news and some things to go over.

Before I do get into the news, I wanted to talk about the...

so last week in in wow we did the uh scarab lord we finished the scarab lord grind we got four scarab lords so uh the adept scholars society has four scarab lords um and uh we really enjoyed running the running through bug tunnels for days and days but um no seriously it was a lot of fun we had a great time with the guild um i was able to participate in some of it uh a lot of people were were able to jump in here and there but the one thing that i will say and we'll get into this a little bit the news is that blizzard just really scuffed the rollout of of encourage and the gates and the war effort and all of that so uh we'll talk about that a little bit in uh in the news segment but um suffice to say we're all really thrilled that we are able to represent our server dream site us with four scarab lords near as we could tell we're the only guild with four um there were several guilds with multiples but um But yeah, we had our four buck boys and they were riding around on their mounts last night.

It was a lot of fun.

So congratulations on your Scarab Lord.

Yeah.

Aside from that, mostly just getting ready for AQs was the week.

I did some Maradon runs for the Nature Resist gear.

I found out I can solo Razor Lash.

I didn't know that.

I mean, I'm trying as I'm going through.

I'm like, oh, I wonder if I can solo this.

Oh, apparently I can.

Razor Lash.

So I did that a few times.

I did a few more Noxian runs.

Didn't get anything good from him.

I'm trying to get a second trinket.

And yeah, farming Larval Acid for my Sandstalker set.

So yeah, it's 150 nature resist is a lot.

I mean, I got it.

It's just, it's annoying.

So yeah, there you go.

We also did AQ20 last night after the gong was rung.

So a group of us ran in there, finished up at about 2 .30 in the morning.

I had to wake up at 5 a .m.

So that was perfect.

I got a good two and a half hours of sleep.

So awesome.

Thank you to everyone on the AQ20 run last night.

That was a lot of fun.

I got the belt from Osirian, which is...

Uh, since I haven't gotten the dragon stalker belt, that's pretty much the best belt I'm going to get, uh, until then.

So, uh, that'll hold me over for a while.

Um, yeah, and that's, and that's pretty much it.

That's, that's what, what's what I did last week.

Uh, not a lot of variety.

I did do, um, some more, uh, transmog runs.

I've given up on trying to do mount runs.

I'm just trying to complete transmog sets at this point.

Uh, I was going to really like, I'm going to try so hard to get invincible.

And I was like, honestly, I don't really care.

i don't um i said something to uh willie from the thralls balls podcast on twitter about that and i was i'm gonna get it because he was saying that he didn't want to have it sullied by the fact that he got it during the the collector's bounty and i was like i don't care i'm gonna i'm gonna run it until i get it and now here i am not getting it so willie you are right it doesn't feel the same uh yeah so anyway that's uh that's what we got there um So, yeah, aside from that, just chilling in game.

You know, I hadn't finished watching the Rings of Power.

So my wife and I are both big Tolkien fans.

So we watched the Rings of Power.

And I know a lot of people kind of criticized that show.

I really enjoyed it.

So I spent, you know, a good chunk of my game time was actually spent with the wife, you know, because I was trying to balance the, hey, I'm spending hours sitting in a cave in syllabus.

And hey, I'm going to spend some time with you and we're going to watch some TV and whatnot.

So I did enjoy that show.

So if you haven't checked out The Rings of Power, if you're a Tolkien fan at all, I would recommend it.

It's not as good as the Lord of the Rings movies.

But it's better than The Hobbit.

I'd put it in between the two.

So anyway, that's all I got there.

All right.

Next up, before I go any further, I wanted to introduce a new segment.

So we're going to be doing a.

a kind of overview of the in honor of mr pandaria classic launching we're going to do an overview of the pet battle system so i'm going to talk about my favorite battle pets we're going to go into some details on all the different types of pets what their abilities are how they all work and all so hear me mortals tremble before dimensius the all devour upon my return I will consume your planet and corrupt its world soul.

But before I do, I'd like to clear up some misconceptions about me.

There are many people who keep comparing me to Galactus because of the Fantastic Four movie coming out.

And I'd just like to say I am nothing like Galactus.

He's a copycat.

I was the original before time began.

I was consuming world souls.

Galactus is a cheap knockoff.

He needs to use a spaceship.

How lame is that?

Yes, we both have heralds that are female and have no shoes on so you can see their toes.

But honestly, he's nothing like me.

The Silver Surfer is lame, and honestly, she betrays him in the comic books.

Or at least the Norenrad version of the comic books.

He betrays Galactus, so I'm assuming this Silver Surfer will as well.

Zalatath would never betray me.

So remember, I'm nothing like Galactus, and I will consume your world and corrupt your world, Saul.

Be ready, mortals.

So there you go.

That's the battle pet system in a nutshell.

I hope you enjoyed that.

It's a segment I've really been wanting to do for a long time.

I really love the pet battle.

All right, let's jump into the news.

It's time for the news.

In Blizzard news, so Blizzard has announced that the Gamescom video game conference where they're going to be doing the reveal for Midnight, this is actually going to happen on opening night.

So that's going to be August 19th, 8 p .m.

Cologne, Germany time, which I don't even know what time zone that is, but it's 8 p .m., which is 2 p .m.

Eastern Standard Time, which is 11 a .m.

Pacific Time.

So if you're in the States, somewhere between 11 and 2 is going to be the opening ceremonies.

I don't know how much of that is going to be Blizzard.

They could be at the end.

They could be somewhere in the middle.

Who knows?

They will be somewhere during that opening ceremonies, though.

And then Gamescom itself will run from the 20th of August through the 24th.

Like I said before, I will be on vacation during the entirety of Gamescom.

So I'll try and catch what I can.

But, you know, I'll be busy fishing and trying to catch crabs in Maryland and Virginia.

you know, uh, video games, important, relaxing and having a good time also important.

So, uh, right.

So yeah, check out gamescom.

If you, uh, I think it's just gamescom .com, uh, for the link, I'll put the link in the show notes if you can't find it, but just search for gamescom 2025 and it'll, it'll come up.

Um, and I'm sure their YouTube.

we'll have something, or at least Blizzard will broadcast it.

Somewhere it'll be available on YouTube and you'll be able to watch it.

Or you can check out your favorite streamer.

I'm sure a bunch of streamers will be doing a live stream of the event as well.

That's probably what I'll end up doing.

I'll just pick a streamer and watch that.

So yeah, there you go.

That's Gamescom 2025, the reveal of World of Warcraft Midnight, the new expansion.

What that is going to entail.

I don't know if we're going to get a release date.

That's a possibility.

I feel like that's a little bit of a stretch.

Maybe they'll give us a release window.

Like, oh, it's going to happen before March 31st, 2026 or something along those lines.

I can see them doing something like that.

I can't see them saying it's going to launch on exactly this day because there's still a lot to do.

But a release window, I think, is likely given where things are.

And especially after all the layoffs, I'm sure that things have just been chaotic at Blizzard.

So there you go.

All right.

Let's talk about the, so in Classic Anniversary, as I mentioned before, the Gates of Ankaraj have been opened on, I think on every realm or at least the majority of them.

Here's what happened.

So Blizzard.

First off, they scuffed the whole thing with Blackwing Lair.

So as I mentioned last week, guilds ran Blackwing Lair early thinking, oh, we're going to get a jump start on clearing Blackwing Lair.

And then as soon as the gates open, we'll run in and kill Broodlord Lashlayer and get his head.

That didn't happen because once you spawn Blackwing Lair or any raid instance, the loot becomes determined at that point in time.

When you've spawned that instance, the mob just, if the quest is not available, the mob will not spawn with the quest item.

So Blizzard, in deference to some of these streamer guilds and some of the speedrunning guilds, they decided to go ahead and give us an extra two lockouts on Blackwing Lair.

So that was Friday night and Saturday night.

So two, or I guess Friday morning and Saturday morning.

So that reset.

What ended up happening was if you logged on, so if you logged on Friday, you were able to run Blackwing Lair again after the reset.

Saturday morning, it reset again, but then it ended at, I think it was like 4 p .m.

on Saturday.

So if you logged on after 4 p .m., you didn't get the second reset.

So some people only got one reset.

That's what happened to my raid group.

I only got one reset extra, which is still more than I would have gotten otherwise.

So I'm not complaining.

And I did get my crossbow and shoulders from Chromagus, so that was cool.

But still, it was a little weird.

I didn't love the execution of it.

And Blizzard's communications have been a little sparse on Classic, which is expected, because they're getting ready for the launch of Mists of Pandaria Classic.

So that's fine.

All right.

So then some of the realms started reporting that the gates were just opened.

The war effort just ended.

There was no supplies traveling.

The war effort just ended, and the gates to Ankaraj were open, and you could one in.

Now, Blizzard quickly jumped in and fixed that.

But at that point, I think everything became scuffed because, at least on our server, on DreamScythe, the war effort ended less than 24 hours early.

So it wasn't like, oh, it ended a day early.

So the gates opened last night at 10 p .m.

They were supposed to open Monday at 9 .20 p .m.

So instead, they opened at Sunday at 10 p .m.

I don't know why.

That's what happens.

These are all Eastern times, by the way, in case you're like, it didn't open at 10.

Yeah, so that was weird.

And so thankfully, we were able to jump on.

We got our scarebloards.

That would have sucked if we hadn't known, and somebody would have found out, and we would have all jumped on.

But anyway, that's not the point.

There were guilds who were trying to finish Scarab Lord and they thought they had an extra day.

And it turns out they didn't.

And that was really rough.

There were guilds that, like our guild, we were trying to get four Scarab Lords.

Maybe they had one, but they were trying to get the second one or whatever.

You couldn't get all your people online.

People wanted to go farm rep because that first day of the 10 -hour war, the rep there is fantastic.

It was just a lot of things that didn't work out right.

And no communications from Blizzard at all.

None.

We didn't see anything.

People just figured it out based on what was going on.

Anyway, the whole thing was messed up.

And some people were speculating, oh, it's because of Season of Discovery.

Or, oh, it's because of this or because of that.

I don't know why.

And it doesn't really matter why.

I feel like Blizzard, if they're going to give us this experience.

and say, here, we're going to create these servers for you.

That's great.

Do it right, please.

Don't make us guess.

Don't make it complicated.

Don't screw things up.

You know how the war effort's going to go.

Program it in.

Don't mess everything up.

Just give us the experience that we're paying for, basically, is what I'm saying.

And I understand people make mistakes.

There are problems.

I get it.

I'm not sitting here saying, oh, Blizzard, you should...

I understand mistakes happen.

It's just frustrating from a player standpoint that we are expecting a certain level of professionalism from Blizzard, and it doesn't seem like we're getting it.

At the very least, give us a communication.

Make a blue post.

Post something on the Discord, on the forums, on something.

Reddit.

I don't care.

Just say something somewhere.

Twitter.

blue sky anywhere i don't care just say something please blizzard this lack of communication is not acceptable as far as i'm concerned so all right uh okay in before we get to miss pandaria classic it's one other thing i wanted to mention um so the collector's bounty and the greedy emissary events are both going to end at the end of this week so this will be the final week that you'll be able to do any of the greedy emissary things so if you have not gotten in arius's charger if you have not gotten any of the uh diablo themed recolors of the tier 2 hd sets that came out i mean some of them look cool most of them look meh um i i got the death knight one that was the only one i really cared about um and that's really the only thing to spend your currency on so if you're getting your currency and you're like what do i spend this on just that that's it just those sets so um Once you've gotten your mounts, if you don't want any of the sets, it's pretty much done.

So, yeah, that's going to end on Tuesday the 28th or the 29th.

It's Tuesday the 29th.

Sorry.

Tuesday the 29th with reset.

It'll go away.

Same thing with the collector's bounties.

If you have not farmed your transmog, if you have not farmed your mounts, you're not farmed whatever it is that you're trying to farm.

That will also end on Tuesday, the 29th with reset.

So do it while you can.

This is your last chance to farm all of these wonderful, fun things in World of Warcraft.

Go get your pixels, kids.

All right.

Man, I love the collector's bounty event.

I'm really hoping that Blizzard does more with this.

I talked about this a couple of weeks ago, but I truly believe that they need to have some way of reintegrating this back into the game.

Maybe not with every expansion all at once.

Maybe whenever something has Time Walking, that expansion gets the Collector's Bounty.

So if you go run the old raids not in Time Walking, you get that extra bonus.

You get the chance for the mount.

I think that would be really cool.

I think Blizzard should do that.

That way it keeps it relevant, but it's not constant.

It's not every expansion.

It's just the one.

So yeah, okay.

So you only get to farm Invincible when Wrath of the Lich King is up.

Okay, big deal.

Go do it every six months or whatever it is.

So that's just my thought.

All right.

There you go.

Let's talk about Mists of Pandaria Classic.

So this one is a little weird.

So here's the thing with Mists of Pandaria.

As an expansion, it gave us a lot of features, right?

We had so many things that we were able to do in Mists of Pandaria that were new and different and exciting.

When we're doing it again, and when we did remix, we didn't get all of the systems.

It was just the story.

It was just the ones.

It was just the loot.

Because we're doing the classic version of this, it's going to be everything that came from 2012.

So first off, we're going to go to level 90.

Okay, that's the basics.

We're going to level 90.

That's the new level cap.

They did this weird...

With Cataclysm and Mists of Pandaria, where it was five levels.

I don't know why after Mists of Pandaria, when we did Borderlands of Draenor, we went back to ten levels.

I don't know.

Five levels.

Maybe there wasn't enough content in Cataclysm, so they felt like ten levels would have been too much for the...

I don't know.

Regardless, we're going to level 90, so that's the new level cap.

we're going to get the new talents.

So if you're playing right now, you already have the new talents because it's in the pre -patch.

So the new talents are in the game right now.

If you're not familiar, this is the talents that we had as of Shadowlands, the talent system where you pick from the three rows or three items per row.

And then I think it was at least in Mists of Pandaria, there were six rows and then it grew from there.

This was the new talent system.

Blizzard realized that players were having a hard time choosing their talents on these massive talent trees after Wrath of the Lich King.

So in Cataclysm, they changed it to be smaller and kind of shrink everything down.

But then they still realized that players didn't really care about these extra talents.

They just wanted the big ticket items.

So they said, fine, what if we just give people the big ticket items?

And honestly, I think this talent system is better than what we have now in Dragonflight or The War Within.

The ones we got in Dragonflight that we're using in The War Within, I think what we have now is subpar compared to what we had in Miss Pandaria through Shadowlands.

I just do.

Honestly, I would go back to that.

Yes, it was frustrating sometimes because you're like, man, I wish I could pick two of these talents.

And maybe there's a way to do it a little bit better.

But I still feel like having just picking the big ticket items, even if it's a...

you know, something that you're like, well, I don't have to worry about pushing this button.

But at the very least, give us some options.

Give us some ways to choose our talents so we don't have to go through all these things.

I can't figure out what half these talents are in The War Within.

I don't know.

I'll pick talent and I'll be like, I think this one's good.

And then I'll look on Icy Veins or Wowhead and everyone says, never pick that talent.

And I'm like, but why?

Why should I never pick that talent?

No one ever says why.

It's frustrating.

Anyway, I like the Mists of Pandaria era talent trees, and I wish that we would go back to something like that.

Maybe not exactly that, but something similar I think would be cool.

So we got the new talent trees.

Reforging is going to be a big thing in Mists of Pandaria.

I think it went away in Warlords.

I can't remember if we had it in Warlords or not.

But yeah, you can reforge your gear.

You can change out your stats.

That's all really cool.

Fun times.

Basically, you're just going to do whatever it says on the guide on Wowhead or Icy Veins, and that's fine.

The big things that are coming with the launch of Mr.

Pandaria Classic today.

We got the new ones.

So we've got the Pandaria.

I have so much trouble saying this.

Pandaria.

As a one.

So we have the Jade Forest.

The Valley of the Four Winds.

The Crastering Wilds.

Kunlai Summit.

Town Long Steps.

The Dread Wastes.

And the Vale of Eternal Blossoms.

The Vale of Eternal Blossoms is where the two capital cities are located.

So those are our hubs.

And we're going to spend a lot of time there.

Zooming around.

And waiting for our queues to pop.

Because that's basically what Mr.

Pandaria was.

It was a lot of queues that you had to wait for.

you'd fly around and maybe you were urbing or mining, but for the most part, you were just sitting there waiting for whether it was your dungeon queue or your raid finder queue, whatever.

Interestingly enough, Blizzard has decided not to do raid finder this time around.

So previously when Mists of Pandaria launched back in 2012, that was the big thing is there was raid finder or looking for raid and they're not going to do it this time, or at least not yet.

So when the Mogushan Vaults launches on July 31st, there will be no Raid Finder.

I give them until Siege of Argrimmar, until they relent and they give us the Raid Finder.

That's just my prediction.

All right, the new dungeons that we're going to get in Miss Pandaria Classic are the Stormstout Brewery, Temple of the Jade Serpent, Shadowpan Monastery, Mogushan Palace, Gate of the Setting Sun, and Siege of Nizao Temple.

We're also going to get two other dungeons, or three, I guess, realistically, which is the Scarlet Halls, Scarlet Monastery.

They're going to split Scarlet Monastery into two separate, two actual separate dungeons instead of just being two separate wings.

And the final one is going to be Scholomance.

These are going to be appropriate level for the normal version, but for Heroic, they're going to be for level 90.

And they're going to drop item level 463 loot.

uh yeah so there you go that's the dungeons that are coming in as i mentioned the mogushan vaults raid will be launching on july 31st no word yet on when the heart of fear or terrace of endless springs raid will drop but those are also part of the phase one raids And speaking of phases, we don't know how Blizzard is going to do the phases this time around.

So if you played Mists of Pandaria, you might remember that.

So in patch 5 .0, I think it was like 5 .0 .4 or something, we got the raids, the three raids that I mentioned, the dungeons and some scenarios.

In patch 5 .1, we didn't get a new raid, but we did get new scenarios.

In patch 5 .2, that was the Throne of Thunders.

We got a new quest hub.

We got a new raid, no new dungeon.

And then 5 .3, we got, again, no new raid, but we got more scenarios.

And then 5 .4 was the Siege of Orgrimmar.

So they had these weird, and I guess by modern WoW standards, those would be like a .5 or a .7 patch because they contained quests and scenarios, but really no more content than that.

So it's possible that Blizzard could have this rollout in five phases.

It's possible that they could have this rollout in three phases.

I don't know.

We're going to have to see.

More than likely what will happen is we'll get each of those patches without raids.

We'll just be a shorter phase.

Phase one will last a month or two, and then we'll get phase two, which will include the quests and the scenarios.

And then phase three, several months later, we'll get, and that'll be the Throne of Thunder.

So we'll see.

Blizzard hasn't said what the timeline is going to look like.

We do know that it's going to be compressed compared to the original.

I'm suspecting that Mr.

Pandaria Classic will probably run about 18 months, all told.

I know Blizzard does not want us sitting in Siege of Orgrimmar for a year.

So whatever happens, six months at the absolute max, probably four months would be better procedure or argument because people just don't want to do that anymore.

They're like, OK, let's get on to the next thing, which in this case is Warlords of Draenor.

So I don't know.

Anyway, I'm getting off topic.

But yeah, you know, to me, this is the next step in what the heck is going on with Classic because everybody wants to know what are we doing?

Warlords of Draenor is next.

And we got the survey that was like, hey, are you interested in Warlords of Draenor?

And probably everyone was like, yeah, just because I want Legion.

But so I'll say yes, but really, I just want Legion.

And even Legion, I think a lot of people are going to go into Legion Classic and be like, oh, I thought this was supposed to be the best expansion ever.

This kind of sucks.

Because in the beginning, it does.

You're grinding artifact power.

You're doing world quests.

You had to log on.

or you were behind because you're then your artifact weapon wasn't, wasn't leveled up enough.

And you just, you couldn't play your off spec leveling alts was a pain.

The beginning of Legion was actually kind of after that initial euphoria of I'm going to get my artifact weapon quest.

I'm going to go to my class order hall.

I'm going to get my artifact weapon.

That was cool.

That was like some of the coolest class fantasy and game fantasy that we've ever had in WoW.

After that, it settled down and it sucked for months.

So hopefully they have it better this time around, but I guess we'll see.

I guess we'll see what ends up happening in the next couple of years as we progress through Classic.

Anyway, like I said, I'm getting off topic.

Let's get back to...

uh what's coming in mr pandaria so the scenarios and i'm not going to read all the scenarios because there's a lot of them and honestly it's not gonna really make sense what what they are unless you've done them already uh if you did the scenarios in mr pandaria remix you might remember them um yeah we're gonna get some scenarios with launch more with phase two more with phase four um And that'll be that.

So the scenarios are for up to three, or I think it is three people.

It's not up to three.

It's for three people.

You can enter a queue.

You can enter it by yourself, or you can go with two other friends, and it will just put you into the scenario, just like a dungeon.

I don't think there's a way to enter the scenario in the open world.

I think you have to go through the queue.

And that's one of the things I was saying.

You're just sitting around waiting for queues all the time.

Mr.

Pandaria, it was like Mr.

Queuecraft.

It was...

There were so many cues that you had to wait for.

Anyway, so you're going to go do the scenarios.

They're good for some things.

You can get some gear.

You can get some items.

There was a couple of scenarios you had to do to progress the storyline.

But for the most part, honestly, the scenarios...

They were kind of meh.

And I think that's why Blizzard didn't really do them in any expansion after Mists of Pandaria.

It was a one and done.

What they did was they took the technology that they used to create the scenarios and implement those into quest lines.

So, you know, when you're doing a quest and all of a sudden it'll pop up scenario one of 11 completed.

That's where that comes from.

It comes from Mists of Pandaria.

It comes from the scenarios that we did.

that quite honestly were not very fun it was like hey you can go do this thing and you don't need a healer in a tank yeah but it's easier if you have a healer in a tank so what the hell anyway scenarios were kind of a bust and that's fine so uh scenario that's another thing that's coming in mr pandaria classic um i don't know uh the if you remember and i'll throw this in here the sun song ranch was a quest line that you could complete in the, it wasn't the Crastering Wilds.

It was, oh gosh, what one was it in?

It was in the Valley of the Four Winds.

So you go to the Valley of the Four Winds, there's a quest there.

There's an old farmer who he can't take care of.

His land is full of weeds and you have to go help him clean it up, which is cool.

And it's very nice to help him.

But eventually he's like, you know what?

I don't want to farm anymore.

I hate farming.

Why don't you take over the farm for me?

Which we happily do.

Because what you can do is you can plant herbs or plant different things and it would grow food.

You can grow herbs.

You can grow mines.

You can grow all sorts of things.

I think you can even grow leather there.

I don't remember.

Anyway, it's great for farming.

And it was the precursor to the garrison where you can get all that stuff pretty easily.

in the garrison.

People remember Sunsong Ranch a lot more fondly because it was almost like a side quest.

It was like, oh, here's this cute little thing that we can do.

And it's fun.

It didn't really add a whole bunch of friction to the gameplay.

You could do it or not.

Whereas your garrison, it was like, that was your gameplay.

This was what you were doing.

And so it felt a lot more compulsory and restrictive, I think, in Warlords of Draenor.

Anyway.

Uh, Sunsong Ranch is a really cool thing that we're going to get to do.

I really enjoy the Valley of the Four Winds.

It's one of my favorite ones.

Um, I, I really like all of the ones in Mississippi area, but, uh, Valley of the Four Winds by far, I think that one and Town Long Steps are my two favorite ones.

Anyway.

Uh, so yeah, Sunsong Ranch.

Um, we're also going to be able to do challenge mode dungeon.

So, um, first of all, there's a proving ground.

So you had to do the proving grounds to enter.

It was Proving Grounds.

Let's skip that.

Okay.

Next up is the challenge mode dungeon.

So the challenge mode dungeons were a system that they put in.

So you would run the dungeons and your goal was to complete it in a certain time.

There was no kill counter like in Mythic Plus.

There was no affixes or anything like that.

It was just how fast can you get through the dungeon?

So you would skip as many mobs as you can.

Your goal was to just get to the end as quickly as possible.

This was the beginning of Mythic Plus.

So if you're ever like, well, where did Mythic Plus come from?

This right here created Mythic Plus.

So the idea of trying to beat the timer, right?

And then Warlords of Draenor added Mythic Dungeons.

And then in Legion, we got Mythic Plus.

So it was a stepping stone.

But the challenge modes was the beginning of it.

The challenge mode armor sets are very fondly remembered and or hated.

They're fondly remembered by the people who have them and they're hated by the people who do not because you cannot get them anymore because it's impossible to run those dungeons at level because we're obviously higher level now or we're not higher level.

It was level 90 and we were level 80 now.

Anyway, the point is we're not in Mr.

Pandaria anymore.

So you can't run the challenge mode dungeons.

you can't get that gear and the people who got it are very proud of it because it was hard to get and the people who didn't are salty about it it's just like the mage tower all over again where people are salty because they didn't get the mage tower artifact appearances it's the same thing so um yeah it's it's whatever i i'm not worried about the um I'm not worried about it.

It's fine.

I don't care about the challenge mode gear.

I mean, some of it's really cool, but I'm not somebody who has this FOMO of, man, I wish I had.

No, I don't care.

Even the artifact appearances is like, okay, so I don't have that big whoop.

Most of them I don't even like anyway, so it's not a big deal to me.

And finally, in Mists of Pandaria Classic, we're going to get two new battlegrounds, which is the Silver Shard Mines and the Temple of Katmogu.

You hear me talking about the Temple of Katmogu all the time because two of the PvP brawls use that particular battleground.

It's a good one because it's small and the goals are really simple and it creates a lot of PvP.

There are some battlegrounds where I feel like there's less PvP.

It's more about racing the resources or whatever.

Temple of Katmogu, there's a ton of PvP.

I really liked one.

Silver Shard Mines is the opposite.

That was probably one of my most hated Battlegrounds.

It's so frustrating.

I hate that one so much.

So anyway, those are the two new Battlegrounds.

As people who have listened to this podcast a long time might know, I don't really like PvP.

I don't do PvP.

I don't talk about PvP a whole bunch because to me, that's not something I'm interested in.

But yeah, it's coming with the...

the expansion so there you go new battlegrounds in miss pandaria classic and that's about it um we can already make our pandaren we can already make monks um we already have the theramore scenario that was available during the pre -patch period um so you see in the pet battles um as i talked about earlier pet battles uh so those all came with the pre -patch this is just the stuff that's coming out today or yesterday as you're listening to this.

So I hope you enjoy Mists of Pandaria Classic, the second or third time around, if you count the remix.

It's, to me, one of my favorite expansions, not just because, oh, the gameplay was so good, because it really was.

All the classes felt good.

All the gameplay felt good.

I really enjoyed every class that I played.

I enjoyed the environment that we were in.

Pandaria itself is.

Just flying around there.

I loved it so much.

When I first saw Mists of Pandaria, I think it was BlizzCon 2011, I was so disappointed.

I thought, this looks so stupid and cartoony and kiddy.

It's like a kiddy version of WoW.

But once I got it, because I was like, all right, well, this is WoW, so I'm going to play it because I'm playing WoW.

This is what I do.

And so I started playing it, and I was like, man, I love this.

This is great.

And the storyline actually took, I think, a lot.

darker turn than anyone was expecting, uh, with the whole garage thing.

Um, so yeah, that was, uh, that was a lot of fun.

So anyway, Mr.

Pandaria classic will be available, uh, as of, uh, 3 PM Pacific time.

Um, it is currently 4 30 PM, uh, Eastern time.

So it'd be about an hour and a half, uh, from where I'm sitting, uh, till Mr.

Pandaria classic comes out.

So there you go.

And that's what's coming.

And so we'll get into the lore a little bit when I do the main topic of the week.

I don't have a whole lot that I want to go over there.

I just, more than anything, I'm kind of trying a new idea of a lore -based segment.

I want to do more lore topics.

I'm fascinated by the lore of World of Warcraft.

And while this isn't Live Laugh Lore podcast, or there's a couple of other lore -based WoW podcasts.

Or a WoW YouTube channel that does lore like Noble or someone else.

You know, I want to do my own thing.

And so I'm going to do it my way.

And so hopefully enjoy it.

All right, before we get into all that, let's talk about what's going on this week in World of Warcraft.

Okay, this is the War Within, Season 2, Week 21.

Only two weeks left, kids.

So this week and next week, and then it's done.

And there's no mid...

midweek or kind of post -season week, Blizzard is launching Season 3 on August 5th.

We won't be able to do Mythic Plus yet, but you will be able to do the Heroic Dungeons of Season 3 and the Mythic Dungeons, at least six of them, for Season 3.

So there's only two weeks left for Season 2.

So if you have not completed your Season 2 goals, whatever your IO score that you're looking for, you're trying to get AOTC, whatever it is, Make sure you do it in the next two weeks because all that will go away starting on August 5th.

All right.

The Mythic Plus affixes for the week are Pulsar, the plus four affixes.

Orbs spawn around players and orbit them at a fixed distance.

Other players must soak the orbs.

I really like this one.

This one's super easy.

And then the plus seven affix is Tyrannical.

You know it.

You hate it.

You hate to see it.

Tyrannical bosses have 25 % more health and deal 15 % more damage.

Pulsar and Tyrannical are your affixes for the week.

Yeah, that's fine.

Whatever.

I am going to be doing some Mythic Plus this season, season three.

I've just got to kind of build myself up to it because, you know, it's a little intimidating if you don't have a group and you haven't been doing it a whole bunch.

Every time I go into Mythic Plus, I feel like I've got to relearn how to do it.

But I do want to get in there and do some Mythic Plus.

I still want to do...

uh all of the stuff that i'm doing on anniversary but you know i i do play both versions of the game simultaneously so it'll be a little bit of all right i'm gonna jump over do some mythic plus all right i'm gonna go jump over and run aq20 i'm gonna you know run a strat live group uh and now i'm gonna run over and do do the raid on on um the mana forge omega raid or whatever so all right The bonus event this week is the classic time -walking event.

So this is the one that was released with the 20th anniversary celebration last year.

You're going to get the sign of the past.

Classic reputation gains from combat and quest increased by 50%.

You'll pick up the quest and original path through time from Archidist for Thrun and Dornigal to defeat five time -walking dungeons, and you'll be rewarded with a hero track raid item.

The dungeons are the Deadmines, Zulfurak, Dire Maul West, Dire Maul East, Stratholme Main Gate and Stratholme Service Entrance.

So if you enjoy those dungeons, great.

I don't particularly enjoy classic time walking, but that's what we're doing this week.

If you have not gotten your mount for the Turbulent Timeways, you have two more weeks.

So this week and the next week will be Battle for Azeroth again, and then that'll be that.

So hopefully you've done enough to be able to get your time walking mounts.

I guess we'll see.

So, yeah, Classic Time Walking to me is like doing a shittier version of playing Classic.

Because the dungeons are too easy to be challenging, but too hard to be easy.

So, I don't know.

It's just weird.

It's like in a weird spot.

Yeah, so that's what's going on over there.

The PvP Brawl for the week is Comp Stomp.

Jump into a Wrathy Basin for a head -to -head battle against AI opponents.

Yeah, this one's pretty easy.

You just run in there and you kill the slightly less capable AI opponents.

They're harder than you might think, but they're easier than playing against other players, so you should be able to steamroll them pretty quickly.

When you one in, you'll get the quest Something Different to win a PvP brawl, and you'll be rewarded with Conquest, Honor, and Marks of Honor.

And finally, on Tuesday, July 22nd, all day, The auction house dance party will be taking place.

The main auction houses in Orgrimmar and Stormwind have been cleaned out and turned into dance parties for the day.

Crowd on in and show some faction pride.

Yeah, this is always really fun.

I like to go.

The wife and I actually did, I think it was last time this showed up, we picked out special transmogs like we were going clubbing.

We went and we danced in the auction house dance party and there was like three other people in there.

But still, we had fun picking out our mostly picking out the trans.

But it was a good time.

Yeah, this was fun.

You know, you run in there for five seconds.

There's no auctions.

So if you're doing serious auction business, find someone with a Brutasaur or go to Iron Forge or Thunder Bluff or something.

Or Dornagal, honestly.

You can just do it in Dornagal.

All right.

That's it for this week in World of Warcraft.

Not a lot going on this week.

This is kind of like the, at least in modern WoW, it's the calm before the storm.

Because you've got two more weeks before the patch hits.

And then all hell will break loose.

Or all void will break loose.

However you want to.

However you want to approach that.

And then obviously in Classic, we've got Mists of Pandaria Classic launching today.

And the Gates of Ankaraj just opened in Classic Anniversary.

So a lot's happening, but no real news.

It's just stuff that we've been talking about.

No events going on, no news, just kind of chilling, at least in modern WoW.

All right, let's move on to the main topic of the week.

Like I said, so I'm trying to do like a lore read type thing.

We'll see how it works.

If people like it, great.

If not, it's fine.

You know, not every...

idea that i have is going to be a good one and sometimes i have ideas it's like well um it sounded good in my head but then when i actually did it it didn't work so i will say i don't want to shoot myself in the foot and um uh cut myself short i do enjoy doing this sort of thing and i know a lot of people enjoy the lore so if you enjoy this great um this particular uh segment i'm also going to just cut this out of the podcast and create a YouTube video for this as well.

So it'll be included in the podcast episode.

But if you want to just check this out on your own, you can also check out the YouTube video.

I'll put a, well, I don't know if I'll put a link in the show notes.

Anyway, it'll be on the Azeroth United YouTube channel.

So if you want to subscribe to the YouTube channel and check that out, it'll be there in a day or two.

So anyway, that's what's going on.

Let's move on to the main topic of the week.

It's time for the main topic of the week.

Okay, so like I said, I've been wanting to try this and to me the lore of Mists of Pandaria is one of the more interesting ones because it's all new.

Everything is new and kind of unique to Mists of Pandaria and special for what's going on.

Now the thing is...

some of the lore is is tangentially related but it can stand alone on its own as this is just the lore from mrs pandaria um because the island was was isolated for so long because there's so much uh with that so um i just want to kind of dive in and do a little bit of talking about the the different races of pandaria and uh their histories and and kind of how everything comes together and bring us to uh today where the alliance and the horde are going to descend on the isle of pandaria and what that means for the residents there so hope you enjoy pandaria a land wrapped in mist shaped by titans and shadowed by ancient empires its story is one of contrast of harmony and domination of peace and war today we uncover the interconnected histories of three of its most iconic peoples the noble pandaran the brutal mogu, and the ravenous mantid.

Their tales stretch back over 15 ,000 years, with roots in titan creation, elemental balance, and an unending hunger.

Long before the rise of Stormwind, before the Sundering split the world, Pandaria was already old.

Its mountains, rivers, and valleys were not carved by nature alone.

The Mogu, a race of titan -forged, were created during the ordering of Azeroth.

Born of stone by the Forge of Wills and awakened by High Keeper Ra, they were laborers of the titans, shaping the land, carving the rivers, and battling the corruption of the old gods.

To the south, in the land's wild expanses, another ancient race stirred, the Mantid.

Insectoid and cunning, they were the children of the old god Y'shaarj.

thriving in the wastes beyond the mountains.

While the Mogu sought order, the Mantid embodied chaos, guided by a hive mind, the Empress, and a connection to their now -dead old god.

Amidst these titanic forces, the Pandaren, peace -loving, curious, and wise, their origins remain shrouded in mystery, but they were among the first mortal races to call Pandaria home.

They lived in balance with nature, forming sacred ties with the August Celestials, the four wild gods, Chi -Chi, Tzu -En, Ni -Zao, and Yu -Lan.

But the harmony of the land would not last.

The Moog's golden age unraveled with the coming of the curse of flesh.

No longer stone, they became mortal.

They could bleed, age, and die.

And with mortality came ambition, pride, rage.

Once unified in purpose, the Mogu fractured into warring clans during the era known as the Age of a Hundred Kings.

Amid this chaos rose a singular figure, Lei Shen.

Born the son of a warlord, he claimed his power from the forbidden depths of a thundering mountain.

What he found there remains unknown, but when he emerged, he wielded the power of storms.

Lei Shen crowned himself the Thunder King.

Under Lei Shen, the Mogu Empire was reborn, brutal, efficient, and vast.

Using their newfound mastery of necromancy and sorcery, the Mogu enslaved the races of Pandaria, including the Pandaren.

Art was burned, language was forbidden, their leaders were executed, and a brutal caste system was codified in stone.

and to defend his empire from external threats leshen began the construction of the serpent's shrine a titanic wall meant to keep the mantid swarm at bay the mantid unlike the other mortal races were not made they evolved in the shadow of y'shaarj even after the old god was slain by the titans his lingering essence the shah continued to whisper to the mantid their loyalty to the dead old god endured every 100 years the mantid launched the great swarm a terrifying invasion driven by instinct and high of logic but this is no mindless assault to the mantid it is a trial by fire the weaker called the strong rise their civilization values cunning and strength above all to protect the heart of pandaria leshen fortified the serpent's spine Its construction cost countless lives.

Entire generations of Pandaran died building it.

But still, it held.

And behind the wall, Pandaria simmered.

For centuries, the Pandaran lived under Mogu rule, forbidden from reading, writing, or arming themselves.

Their culture was reduced to oral tradition and whispered tales.

The only hope came from the monks.

brewmasters, healers, and storytellers who preserved the spirit of their people.

Then at last, the empire began to crack.

The Pandaren seized their moment.

Lacking weapons, they trained their bodies instead, mastering chi, a spiritual energy that flowed through all things.

The revolution was not clean.

It was a desperate bloody affair.

But it worked.

12 ,000 years ago, the Pandaren overthrew the Mogu and founded a new empire.

It wasn't built on conquest, but on balance, nature, and learning.

For the first time, Pandaria was truly theirs.

But peace had never lasted forever.

One hundred years later, the Zandalari trolls, ancient allies of the Mogu, launched an invasion to restore Mogu rule.

They brought with them flying bat riders and war beasts.

At first, the Pandaren had no answer.

until a young girl named Zheng took to the skies atop a cloud serpent.

Her actions burst the order of the cloud serpent, and with their help, the tide turned, the trolls were repelled, and the Mogu clans scattered.

Yet beyond the serpent's spine, the mantid watched.

They had noticed the fall of the Mogu, the rise of the Pandaren, and the absence of the storms that once kept them at bay.

Their own empire, ruled by the Empress and her Klaxi advisors, remained patient, awaiting the next swarm.

As the Burning Legion descended on Azeroth during the War of the Ancients, Emperor Shaohao, the last Pandaren ruler, foresaw the doom approaching.

He made a deal with fate, and in doing so, shrouded Pandaria in a mystical mist, sealing it away for 10 ,000 years.

The outside world forgot Pandaria, and Pandaria, forgot the outside world.

The mantid remained restless behind the wall.

The mogu faded further into myth.

The pandaren turned inward, developing arts, philosophy, and martial tradition.

But curiosity would stir again.

Eight hundred years before the first war, a bold pandaren named Lu Lang sailed atop the great sea turtle named Shenzhen Su, forming the Wandering Isle.

A floating colony of Pandaren adventurers, this spirit of exploration would one day change the world.

Today, after the cataclysm that shook the world, the mists that have cloaked Pandaria for 10 ,000 years have vanished.

Suddenly, a lost continent emerged in the middle of a war -torn world.

Alliance and Horde fleets stumbled upon it, bringing their conflict to its untouched shores.

For the Pandaren, the sudden lifting of the mists was a moment of profound disruption after ten thousand years of peaceful seclusion their homeland was unexpectedly revealed to a world at war as alliance and horde fleets crashed upon pandaria's pristine shores the pandaran watched with growing alarm as foreign armies brought their conflict with them staining the land with blood and anger the shadow pan guardians of pandaria's balance sensed the ancient dangers beginning to stir particularly the Sha, manifestations of negative emotions that fed on the chaos now seeping into the continent.

The Mogu, long dormant and fractured, began quietly reawakening, testing the boundaries of their forgotten empire as they observed the intrusion of outsiders.

United by Zin, the weapon master, they struck out to reclaim their empire.

With help from the Zandalari trolls, they besieged the Vale of Eternal Blossoms, hoping to awaken old powers and reforge their destiny.

In the west, the Mantid have also stirred again.

Their empress, driven mad by the whispers of the Shah, declared an early swarm, one meant not to test, but to consume.

The Klaxi, loyal to the old ways, betrayed her.

For the first time, Mantid joined with outsiders to protect their future from their own madness.

As the mists part once more, players will return to a land teetering on the edge of discovery and destruction.

The drums of war echo through jade forests, ancient empires stir from their slumber, and forgotten evils begin to rise.

As you fight to restore balance alongside the Pandaren, uncover the buried secrets of the Mogu and confront the looming threat of the Mantid Swarm.

Mists of Pandaria Classic invites you to experience one of Azeroth's most visually stunning and emotionally rich expansions all over again.

A new journey begins, full of timeless mysteries, heroic trials, and their eternal question, will you find harmony or unleash chaos?

All right, that's going to wrap up our episode for this week.

Thank you so much for listening and for watching.

I really do appreciate it.

It is always a pleasure and a privilege for me to get on this microphone and speak to you.

If you're enjoying the podcast and you would like to help us out a little bit, you could consider giving us a five -star rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

That really helps out our distribution.

So if you are inclined to do so, I'd be very grateful.

If you are watching this on YouTube, you can help us out by giving us a like, comment, and a subscribe.

That'll help feed the algorithm.

It's been...

The YouTube game is fascinating to me how fickle it is.

But anyway, if you want to get a hold of me directly, you can send me a message on Twitter.

I'm at Denithar on that platform.

You can also hit me up on Blue Sky.

I do check that occasionally as well.

I'm at Denithar on that platform as well.

You can also occasionally catch me streaming on Twitch or YouTube.

I am at Denithar01 on both of those platforms.

So you can check that out.

I don't do a whole lot of streaming, but...

yeah it's it's something i do occasionally like to do um i once once upon a time i thought i was going to be a streamer and then um it's too much it's too much work for me you've got to be on camera for so long it's just it's so much work i can't it's no thank you that's not for me so uh yeah so if you want to get hold of me uh on any of those um through any of those methods.

We'll have all of the information in the show notes as well.

You can also check out our link tree, which is AzerothUnitedPod .com.

It's got the link to our Discord.

It's got a link to our Patreon and a couple of other things on there.

So speaking of our Patreon, that's the final way that you can help us out if you are enjoying the show.

We have several different tiers of patrons from a free tier to our top tier, which is the Friend of the Show patrons.

And I'd like to thank our Friend of the Show patrons right now.

So thank you to Judge Omni, Stug Life, Thielen, Leo and gray beard.

Thank you all so much.

You definitely helped make as Roth United possible.

We got a few reviews from Apple podcasts or ratings from our podcast.

We didn't get any new reviews.

So if you leave a review, even if it's something short and simple, I will read it at the end of the podcast in this segment here.

So if you'd like me to say something funny, or if you'd like me to say something, whatever, I'm happy to do so just to, you know, keep, keep it relatively clean.

You know, this isn't a G rated show, but it's certainly.

So I do not endeavor to make it an R -rated show.

So let's try and keep it PG -13 if we can.

All right.

And I think that's going to wrap up our show for today.

So once again, thank you so much for listening.

I really do appreciate it.

It means the world to me to know that people are enjoying the show.

So thank you.

Uh, and remember to be good to each other out there because everybody that you talk to everybody that you meet, that's a real life person and they have real feelings and real values and, and it's okay to be different and it's okay to disagree, but we're all playing a video game.

And so as far as I'm concerned, everybody out there, I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt and, uh, just smile and nod and, and say, how you doing?

Um, you're gonna have a good time.

You know, if you continually prove yourself to be a jerk though, I'll, I'll let you know.

But, uh, In the beginning, everybody has my trust.

So just be nice and smile and just be good to each other.

It doesn't take much to be a nice person.

So, all right.

Take care.

I love you all.

And I'll see you in Azeroth.