What's there to say? As you've probably heard by now, Blizzard has officially announced its World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria expansion pack, the company's long-standing meme of pandas and panda people becoming concrete as you'll be able to create an anthropomorphic Pandaren warrior to train and send out into the world to join either the Horde or Alliance factions as they see fit.

Train your own Pandaren monk warrior in the World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria expansion pack.

The expansion, which incorporates an ancient Asian feel in its look and art style, will also allow players to use the long-awaited Monk class, thereby crafting the martial arts-based melee warrior of their choice. Other major additions and changes include the following:

- Scenario Queue Finder: Like the Dungeon Finder seen in current versions of World of Warcraft, the scenario finder will allow users to find scenarios to jump into, thus alleviating the time spent looking for others to play with.

- Increased Level Cap: Once again, Blizzard has offered additional levels to work towards, this time raising the level cap from 85 to 90 and offering new spells, talents and rewards along the way. Developers also stated that there will be additional incentives for dungeon and raid players to push them to do more everyday quests and that there will be more quest choices in the process.

- Challenge Mode: Essentially, these are time trial dungeons wherein a player's equipment is scaled down and normalized. Long story short, everyone's on a more equal footing here and skill will become more important that gear as players vie for valor points.

Send your pets into the fray to battle for honor, glory, upgrades and experience points with the forthcoming World of Warcraft Pet Battle System.

- Pet Battle System: Perhaps taking a cue from Pokemon, Blizzard is working on a pet battle system in which players will be able to collect, level and battle each other's pets. The mode will be accessible to all players, work with almost every pet and new pets can be located, tamed, named and sent into battle. A Pet Journal feature will allow players to managed their pets, pets will also be tradable via the in-game auction house and the pets will be available on an account-wide basis (meaning that if one of your characters has located a dozen pets, these can be shared with another character you may have on a different server). The battles themselves will be turn-based combat, players will fight with a team of three pets at any given time and Master Abilities will be available for your pets. At this point, Blizzard has yet to say if any specific rewards will come out of the Pet Battle system (such as your character receiving a small stamina boost for a given period of time, etc.), but there are bragging rights to be considered and that goes a long way to making something entertaining…

- Dungeons: The Mists of Pandaria expansion will feature nine new dungeons, six of these being located across Pandaria itself. The game will also feature heroic updates on classic dungeons, making an old dungeon that much more challenging and fun even if you conquered it years ago.

- Raids: The expansion will feature three new epic raids as well as two new enemy races (the morgue and the manta) as well as a brand new Raid Finder capable of finding both normal and heroic raids to play on.

- No Flying Until Max Level: This comes in the wake of a fair amount of feedback and Blizzard took them up on it. If you're not max level and have a flying mount, this could go the way of the dodo and it'll be something you'll have to earn after the Mists of Pandaria pack is released.

- Achievements: Following the expansion, the game will feature account-wide achievements, thereby allowing all of your characters to share in the achievements you've earned and the bonuses they offer.

Other Changes Following the Mists of Pandaria Expansion

You can also look forward to the following changes in the new World of Warcraft expansion:

- Resilience will be improved per level.

- The Hunter weapon's minimum range is gone, thereby allowing your ranged weapon to be used at close distances if needed.

- The Hunter melee weapon is gone, making your ranged weapon your sole weapon.

- The Relic system, which Blizzard employees cited was never widely used, will be removed from the game.

- Rogue and Warrior characters will be able to throw their melee weapons for ranged attacks.

- Wands can become melee weapons.

- Characters will automatically learn new spells upon reaching a new level.

- The talent tree is being modified to be easier and less cumbersome to use.

- Every race with the exception of the Goblins and the Worgen will be able to create a Monk character. When asked, developers cited that this was to allow players to become more accustomed to these races, as they were still the newest in the World of Warcraft catalog.

- As of now, the Monk will not be able to use ranged weapons. Instead, the character will use fist-based weapons, melee weapons and can serve any role within a party that's needed (tank, healer, etc.)

- The Pandaren race will have a Crowd Control ability that can put enemies to sleep as well as receive an ample number of boosts from food and drink. The race will also feature an Inner Peace bonus, allowing your resting bonus to last longer.

- Players taking on the role of a Pandaren character will begin the game on the Wandering Isle, train up to level 10 and can then choose to be part of either the Horde or the Alliance faction. From a graphical perspective, there will be no change to the character's appearance depending on the faction they choose, though their armor will appear different depending on their choice.

World of Warcraft Annual Pass

The World of Warcraft Annual Pass: now chock-full of goodies for a limited time.

In other news, at one of the most well-received moments of the BlizzCon 2011 keynote, Blizzard Entertainment has announced the creation of the World of Warcraft annual pass, available for a limited time, which allows players to sign up for a 12 month subscription (payable in a lump sum or in monthly installments charged to your credit or debit card). Since rewards are important, the company also stated that participants will reveive a free copy of Diablo III once it goes on sale, access to the Mists of Pandaria expansion pack beta test, and the exclusive Tyreal's Charger mount.

To participate, users must be 18 or older, have a valid credit card, and have registered a full version of World of Warcraft on or before October 18, 2011.

Upon signing up, users will be able to download and play Diablo III as soon as it's available and once you complete the one-year term, it's yours to keep, even if you cancel your subscription. Tyrael's Charger will be available with Patch 4.3, and beta access will go live with the beta launch.

In the event that the user purchases the Diablo III Collector's Edition once it becomes available, they can add the Collector's Edition license key to their Battle.net account associated with your existing World of Warcraft Annual Pass promotion and receive all of the benefits associated with the Collector's Edition, plus receive four months of World of Warcraft game time which is eligible towards their 12-month subscription commitment.