Mists of Pandaria is fast approaching, while most players are getting distracted by Blizzard’s long-awaited release of Diablo 3 earlier this summer. Blizzard is still hard at work on its fourth World of Warcraft expansion.

Many exciting features are expected in MoP, including the addition of the first dual-faction race, the Pandarian. We will also see the first full-featured class, the Monk. While the Death Knight was released in the second WoW expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, it was always treated as the Black Sheep as it could only play from level 55 to max level. The Monk will be able to heal, tank, and do massive DPS while conducting quests, exploring dungeons, and raiding end-game content.

Other features that players hope to include are the Challenge mode dungeons, where specific objectives are set aside, the character’s equipment is normalized from being a factor, and players can team up and compete to complete the objective. High scores will be recorded and achievements will be awarded to players who do a good job.

Along with 5 new levels comes an entirely new continent, Mists of Pandaria. At least 5 new zones, almost a dozen dungeons, new battlegrounds, at least one new arena, and 3 new raids.

All of this is dwarfed in the eyes of some by the promise of completely redesigning the current talent system and replacing it with a much simpler version. This new version offers players the ability to choose between 3 talents every 15 levels. At level 15, for example, the warlock will be able to choose between Dark Regeneration (50% self-healing), Soul Leach (passive healing in case of damage) and Harvest Life (similar to the current Drain Life).

The current talent system is a mess of dozens of talents in each tree, where players are forced to select their tree at level 10 and are not allowed to deviate from it until they put 31 points in that tree. Some talents can earn multiple points and other talents depend on the above. The current system has many problems, no doubt, that will be addressed by the next super simple system.

Each of the 11 classes (including the next Monk) will have a total of 18 talents, in 6 groups. This will make customizing your character much easier and hopefully more enjoyable. Stay tuned for more information on the talent system as Mists of Pandaria development progresses.