Let's Talk MoP Beta

[Bolty]

Both. You choose at the end of the Pandaren starting zone the faction you belong to.

They present it quite well, too. The Pandaren starting area will quickly have you interacting with two distinct NPCs. One of them dresses primarily in blue, and teaches serenity and meditation to find solutions to problems. The other dresses primarily in red, and teaches the benefits of decisive action to quickly resolve a situation.

Both run into problems: the blue NPC takes too long to decide on a proper course of action, leading to strife. The red NPC dives in too quickly and makes a poor decision as a result. The color scheme and attitude are very easily recognizable as Alliance vs. Horde, and eventually after many quests with the two of them, you will pick one or the other. The faction you pick will have that aligned NPC escort you to your faction home city to get started post level 10-ish. It's pretty well done, although missing cutscenes and such still that will improve the flow of the transition.

I'd like to see lorewise how they can explain why Alliance Pandaren cannot understand Horde Pandaren. They are given separate languages in the game for obvious reasons. So while Dwarves may have the language "Dwarven," Pandaren will have "Horde Pandaren" or somesuch.