Mists of Pandaria

[Ingmar]

A race of anthropomorphic pandas living on some lost continent is somehow less serious, or more ridiculous, than goat men from outer space crashing to earth?   I can't fathom why gamers, and players of WoW in particular, aren't taken seriously.  

No, the whole game has gone from semi-serious with a joking side, to 4chan meme-a-thon retartedness. Oh, look! The game has murlocs! Therefore every NPC should make a fucking fart joke. 

Rose-colored glasses, dude. I wielded a rolling pin for a few levels at vanilla release, my mage friends all had radar dishes on their hats, and the hardest fight in Stratholme was a ghostly mailman that made Karl Malone jokes. WoW has *always* been silly.

Defias questline. Onyxia attunement quest. The Paladin mount quest. WoW wasn't always silly all the time.

And it won't be in this expansion either. There will be grim OMG serious bullshit just like always.

[Evildrider]

If Kung Fu Panda had never have been released, I think 95% of the Panda hate would disappear.

[Sjofn]

Rose-colored glasses, dude. I wielded a rolling pin for a few levels at vanilla release, my mage friends all had radar dishes on their hats, and the hardest fight in Stratholme was a ghostly mailman that made Karl Malone jokes. WoW has *always* been silly.

He Malowned us so many times. :(

[Margalis]

If Kung Fu Panda had never have been released, I think 95% of the Panda hate would disappear.

Blizz is now in a spot similar to what Mythic was in when everyone was complaining that Warhammer looked too much like WoW.

[Sjofn]

Haha, true. KARMA, BLIZZARD.


(Warhammer's dwarves were awesomer looking :( )

[SurfD]

Cow men, regular bear men, hyena men, wolf men, all fine... but pandas? YOU GO TOO FAR, BLIZZARD.  

To be honest my "this is ridiculous" response would be lessened if there was anything that actually sounded interesting about this expansion. Or if the pandas had some kind of long entrenched place in the game world outside of an April Fools joke and a seasonal event about beer.

And an entire RPG style bonus campaign in WC3 with a Pandaran hero character who also had a quest that the horde in the Barrens could do back in vanilla / TBC.

Sure, they dont have a hugeass wack of existing lore, but then again, the Space Goats aren't exactly far behind.  When the Draenei were first introduced as playable characters, there was very practical lore for them at the time.  At the time they were released, you probably could have written the entire lore for the Draenei race on a napkin, and still had space left over to wipe your mouth without smudging the notes.  Blizzard retconned a bit of them, and then took the ball and ran with it, fleshing out backstory and improving the richness of the world.  I dont see why they cant do the same with the pandaran.

[Ingmar]

Let's also remember (as they've finally admitted publically) that Pandaren were originally supposed to be the Alliance race in TBC. It just isn't the case that they're only just now deciding to descend into wackiness. This isn't "oh, now different people are in charge and we get silly stuff."

[sinij]

If Kung Fu Panda had never have been released, I think 95% of the Panda hate would disappear.

Now imagine if Nagas were all Little Mermaids, murlocks were all Nemos? I don't think WoW would feel the same. This is how Pandarian(sp?) race is seen by majority of people.

[Ingmar]

by majority of people.

Your theory seems at odds with Blizzard's statement that the #1 request they see from surveys, etc., is playable Pandaren.

[Sheepherder]

OK now make them all gnomes, or goblins.

It's still not the same.  There is nothing a panda can do to not look like it wants to cuddle you to death.  It could be smeared in baby gore and you'd still want to give it a hug and talk it through it's issues.

[Rokal]

by majority of people.

Your theory seems at odds with Blizzard's statement that the #1 request they see from surveys, etc., is playable Pandaren.

Same situation as always: people that have something to complain about go to forums, everyone that is happy just keeps on playing. Playable Pandaren is the feature I'm looking forward to most in MoP.

[luckton]

Ah, you're missing the newest one:


Because we need breasts on ALL THE THINGS 

[Sjofn]

 

[Merusk]

I..

Wha...

Ugh.

I don't even want to think about what kind of milk would come out of those.

[Miasma]

Hey, you don't like what you don't like. I mean, I still hate the stupid motorcylces. I just find the reactions staggeringly illogical here.

Probably because whether or not you like talking pandas in a fantasy game isn't based on logic but people's perceptions, opinions, desires and the whole "beauty - eye - beholder" thing?

Let's also remember (as they've finally admitted publically) that Pandaren were originally supposed to be the Alliance race in TBC. It just isn't the case that they're only just now deciding to descend into wackiness. This isn't "oh, now different people are in charge and we get silly stuff."

All this means is that they have flirted with a terrible decision in the past as well.  They went with the still absurd (but less so) space ships in a fantasy game thing which was rightfully made fun of at the time and has been derided ever since.  But that was just lollore, it wasn't a feature that was put in your face the whole time like pandas running around.

Your theory seems at odds with Blizzard's statement that the #1 request they see from surveys, etc., is playable Pandaren.

There are millions of people who play WoW so you are always going to have thousands of people asking for a wide range of terrible ideas. Should they all be pandered to (almost a horrible pun)? Free for all PvP, permadeath and vanilla servers all have vocal proponents despite being just awful.  I would love to see them do a straight up "are you for, indifferent or against pandas" poll but that will never happen.

[kaid]

Well, any new race at this point is going to have a hard time competing with people's established mains, unless it has some kind of tremendously overpowered racial or something that makes people change their existing main INTO it.

So what hideously overpowered racial do Worgen have that they outnumber Dranei? The 1% crit, the lack of a mount or the cool shapeshift feature?

Two things 1) they are not space goats. 2) the movement speed buff is pretty sexy in pvp to get out of dodge especially for classes who do not have anything comprable to it.

[Merusk]

Achievement Unlocked
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<Comment Necromancy>

[kaid]

So I guess Monks are like melee casters in that if they don't push a button, they get no damage?  I certainly hope they have some attacks that either don't use that 'chi energy' or generates it, which I guess would make them feel sort of like melee Hunters?

With no auto-attack, they pretty much would have to have a "build energy" attack, I would think.

Yup thats exactly how it works from what I was seeing. They have a default resource CHI that they can use to power either Jab or roll.

You use chi to jab and jab gives you 1 light power 1 dark power. Some skills use dark power some use light some use both. Having it generate two different types of power helps to keep you from having a lot of dead spots as you likely will be alternating between them and then using the powers that utilize both to fire off your big attacks.

They did not get into to much of the panda healing but one power they did discuss was a jade serpent idol power where you can drop jade serpent idols and when you do damage everybody near those idols gets healed.

[kaid]

How the fuck am I supposed to choose between bladestorm, shockwave, and fucking avatar? That is without a doubt the hardest choice the talent system has EVER offered me.

Oh yes some of the classes there are some seriously hard choices in talents with what they were showing there. The warriors at a few of the talent levels are head scratchers as to which power I would want more. DPS warriors with shockwave would be pretty sick in the I will aoe stun you then cleave fuck you into non existence but to do so you give up avatar.

[Ratman_tf]

by majority of people.

Your theory seems at odds with Blizzard's statement that the #1 request they see from surveys, etc., is playable Pandaren.

Those guys are idiots. I want to be a dragon vampire cyborg.

[Simond]

And you know MoP will be silly all the time, because...?

[Morfiend]

And you know MoP will be silly all the time, because...?

You will understand if you substitute nerd rage for logic.

[Lakov_Sanite]

aside from the fact they are pandas, none of the info shown so far has been even remotely silly.  Unless panda always = silly but I don't think that's true.

I see a lot of people, specifically those raving about SWTOR harping on the pandas as their "this is why wow sucks" argument but it's sort of a losing battle. People who enjoy wow as it is, most likely don't give two shits about pandas. 

A better and more valid argument would be the adding of the poke and the mons to the game.

[Ingmar]

Which of course they just stole from Guild Wars anyway.

[Mrbloodworth]

So does this mean this wont be a joke anymore?

[Lantyssa]

Wrong kind of pandas.  This'll be stupid.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Wrong kind of pandas.  This'll be stupid.

You think there won't be a red fur variant color?

[Ratman_tf]

And you know MoP will be silly all the time, because...?

I've played WoW.

Part of why I quit is because I played the goblin starting area, and the jokes got old after the first 5 minutes. In thinking on it further, I wouldn't say it's pandas or pokemons or anything specific like that. It's that Blizzard has, in general, lost their sense of humor.

[Nevermore]

I have no problem with the pandas, though I probably wouldn't make one myself.  I like the screenshots of Pandaria itself, which is no surprise since it's just Cantha through a WoW lens.

No, the deal breaker for me is I'm just sick and tired of yet another complete redefinition of my characters.  Aside from splitting feral in two, I'm not even pissed off at anything specific about the latest change.  It's just fatigue from having to endure it over and over and over again.  If it had just been the new content without them fucking around with my characters yet again, I'd have been fine with the expansion.  Hell, don't change the level cap or add any new abilities.  I'd have been fine with that.

[Pantastic]

So they're going to give us 9 dungeons instead of 7, but the dungeons will be 1/2 as long as the current ones?  

Most of the current dungeons don't have that many interesting mechanics, they just have a ton of trash that took a lot of time when the dungeons were current. For example Grim Batol had a ton of brutal trash that you had to grind through, but only 4 actual bosses. Cut the trash down by 60% and you have as much good gameplay in the dungeon but only spend half as long in there.

[Fordel]

I have no problem with the pandas, though I probably wouldn't make one myself.  I like the screenshots of Pandaria itself, which is no surprise since it's just Cantha through a WoW lens.

No, the deal breaker for me is I'm just sick and tired of yet another complete redefinition of my characters.  Aside from splitting feral in two, I'm not even pissed off at anything specific about the latest change.  It's just fatigue from having to endure it over and over and over again.  If it had just been the new content without them fucking around with my characters yet again, I'd have been fine with the expansion.  Hell, don't change the level cap or add any new abilities.  I'd have been fine with that.

There near total lack of changes DURING Cata is what drove me away, they didn't fuck with characters ENOUGH for my taste.

[Sjofn]

Yeah, part of the issue in Cataclysm at cap for a lot of my friends (it seemed like, anyway) was how long the dungeons could be, and they were long because of filler, for the most part.

EDIT: Fordel, I was TALKING HERE.

[Fordel]

Go back to being old in the SWTOR thread! 

[Morfiend]

Yeah, part of the issue in Cataclysm at cap for a lot of my friends (it seemed like, anyway) was how long the dungeons could be, and they were long because of filler, for the most part.

I hate how long the heroic dungeons are in Cata. Give me back the 10 to 20 minute dungeons of Wrath any day. If I want to run for longer, I can just do two of them.

[Ingmar]

I've always (mostly) liked the big changes expansion to expansion class-wise, it keeps it more interesting for me.