What I Hope to Learn From the Mists Press Tour

Posted by Aleithia at 8:00 AM

If you didn't know, there's a "plethora of information" being released on Monday about the newest Warcraft expansion, Mists of Pandaria. I thought it would be good to share some of what I'm hoping to learn from the press tour. I'm not sure all of these things will be covered, but I'd like to know:

• More Information on Stat Changes
  We already know a little about the stat changes coming in Mists. These changes will affect Jewelcrafting and Enchanting in big ways. We know expertise is going to become more desirable for Melee and Hunters, which means more options for selling red gems and hybrids with Expertise. We also know resilience is going away and being replaced with PVP Offense and PVP Defense. What will happen to our existing resilience gems? Will there be new gems for these stats? Will colors be affected like the move from yellow to blue for Hit gems from Wrath to Cataclysm?
• Realm Population Balancing
  Blizzard Community Manager Zarhym said they're working on a solution to low-population realms. I'm wondering if there is a plan in place to seamlessly merge some lower-population servers into super-servers. We already have our server name appended in dungeons, why not in the real world? These super-servers would see immediate improvements and changes in their economies. It would bring wild fluctuations in prices as a new normal is determined, but new competition as well as clients. 
• Profession Plans
  I'm not expecting any new professions. But how will they treat our existing ones? Will there be gating for recipes similar to the Twilight Highlands vendors that we saw in Cataclysm? What about daily quests for all of the professions? Will we continue to use the Chaos Orb pattern from Cataclysm, where they are untradeable at first?
• Economy Improvements
  What new gold sinks are being added to the game to fight inflation? Are there any major improvements coming to the aging Auction House interface? Was the Winged Guardian Cub a success and can we see more BoE Pet Store options?

These are just a few of the things I'd like to know. My hunch is that we'll see the Beta released shortly after the press event, possibly even on Monday when the information starts flowing, though it's more likely to happen a week or two later after the initial surge in publicity that the event will generate. It doesn't make much sense to open the floodgates of information from fan sites, only to overshadow it with the release of the Beta.

What are you hoping to see and hear on Monday?