World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria
 

Yeah I know only about 2 or 3 people on here play WoW and you probably know about this already, but what the hell, I'll make a topic about it anyway.

Yesterday Blizzard announced what the new expansion will be:

http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/game/mists-of-pandaria/

And have confirmed that there will be one "new" playable race (anthropomorphic pandas) that can be on either of the two factions, a new class (Monk), an entire new continent based on Asia, new level cap and a new talent tree.

Of course, half of the WoW community is made up of whiny children who don't appreciate any form of creativity, or idiots with no life who take this game more seriously than they should, so they're doing what they do best and are complaining about it as if Blizzard were taking away their right to live or something, which I'm finding funny to read through the chat channels. :) Although I hope they vote with their feet and leave the rest of the more content parts of the player base alone.

Those who have been keeping an eye on the lore would know that Pandaren have been in Warcraft since III (see Chen Stormstout), and there isn't a lot else Blizzard can do with Warcraft's storyline without introducing entirely new things, so this doesn't come as a surprise really.

Any new content is good, I hope they make the game more fun to play in the new expansion, and I am interested to know about the new talent tree changes - Perhaps they're entirely replacing the game mechanics again like they did a year ago with Cata. I'm also interested to see how the new Monk class will differ from the Priest class.

I've been wanting to play WOW for ages now but I never got round to it. If I was going to get into it I would only play it for Free. Unless paying for it was really worth it.

I could give you a free ten day trial if you want?

The game and the first expansion are also completely free too.

You can still play for free up to level 20 right?

The old system was that you got a ten day trial, couldn't level past 20 and couldn't obtain more than 1 gold. The new system got rid of the two conditions.

I assure you if you play for a couple of hours a night, you'll be far past 20 after ten days. I know this isn't a fair comparison because I knew what I was doing and I have too much free time, but when I last came back to WoW I got to level 63 in ten days.

I have the ten day trial and I enjoy it. I don't know much about the lore really but it all sounds really interesting. When I get enough money, I'll start paying. If you want my opinion Wariopunk, I think it's worth paying for but only if you enjoy the trial.
I'll be upgrading to the full version after a couple of months of work.

I love when a game's own fanbase complains about something already in the series.-_-

Uh?

Pandaria being in warcraft. it's not new, yet people get up in arms over it. Now if they brought back blackthorn and put pandaria in, that'd be effed up. lol

Find me a fanbase that is completely happy with the direction of their franchise.

Start at Star Wars and work your way up.

I know of none. Shoulda seen me when Gundam Seed came out. ugh. and star wars...oh God I laughed and laughed...as soon as ewoks brought down the empire, it was on a downward slope.

I don't play WoW, but I must say this does look a little bit stupid. The kung-fu pandas make it look almost like a kiddies game. What is the general opinion amongst the fan base?

Lol all I ever used the 10 day trial for was for a free copy of WoW to use with private servers, and then you could get the expansion downloaders from Blizzard itself too if the private server needed them to play.

Haven't tried it recently but it worked with Cataclysm so who knows.

Most seem happy to have new content to look forward to on the horizon and, like me, it doesn't come as a surprise to them either since the idea of Pandarens has been floating around since 2003.

It's only the noisy few who are opposed to it - From what I've seen by briefly reading through the forums yesterday, they're currently one huge flame war, but there are more people who are defending the expansion than those who are whining about it - It just happens that the whiners are a lot noisier. I'll bet half of them will buy it anyway though. :P

The same as any fanbase. Like the boycott on L4D2...And it's sales were better anyway. It's always the noisy few and never the content majority.

I originally thought it was a joke. Now that people are telling me it's real, I'm sorta curious. I don't see how a new class could be introduced; every class now is already a combination of others, it seems, especially with Blizzards' homogenisation of the buff system (Druid Mark equals Paladin's Kings, all the shaman totems are equal to buffs from other classes (with the exception of talent-specific totems (triple nesting mo' plunger)))

WoW would have gone stale for me already if I had tried PvP before now, so I'm glad there's at least some new content coming out. It'd be interesting to see how this plays out in terms of keeping interest.

I would so watch that.

I will never get back into this game. I was amazed at how quickly and completely the game does consume your life, to the point where I would check my auctions the moment I woke up. I let it take up too much of my time, and finally decided that if I can get to level 60 and get a mount, then I'd gauge whether it was worth keeping.

Well, by the time I got to level 60 and I was eligible for a mount, I realized I needed like 3 gold or some shit to buy one. So I would have to grind for another few days just to rack up enough gold for a fucking Kodu or whatever they were called.

Concluded that it wasn't worth it. I closed my account and moved on to smaller games.

Shannon is a WoW nerd. I however, couldn't care less. Especially about the lore.

Several male friends of mine have recently met very nice, attractive women who also happen to be into WoW pretty deep. OANST was the first, and now the anomaly spreads.

Seriously, I thought WoW just kind of petered out after I stopped working ata store when Lich King was released.

Apparently its rate of new people joining has slowed for the first time in years or something.

Wow, Blizzard. Wow. Milk the cow more. I urge you.

I used to love this game.

Blizzard is my least favourite big name developer. I can't sense a whiff of originality from a damn thing they've done.

I absolutely love pretty much everything they've done other than what World of Warcraft has become. There are far worse big name developers out there right now, such as modern Rareware.

What exactly has World of Warcraft become?

Perspective, please. Microtransactions for vanity items are not the end of the world.

I just feel they're really copping out true fun and entertainment for an easy, entry-level product that anyone can play. Kind of like what Activision has done with Call of Duty; simplify the game to the point of boredom.

Having played the game from 2006 - 2009 (on and off), I can safely say the game is not nearly as true inspired and creative as it once was.

I'm not saying it's a bad game, just not what it could've been.

Having played the game from 2007 to 2011 I can safely say you're dead wrong.

'Copping out on true fun and entertainment? Are you fucking kidding me? How hard are your nostalgia goggles strapped on? The game has gotten infinitely better written and far more playable with each and every expansion.

Was collecting twenty bear hides really all that fun? Or that aged gorilla sinew?

No way man. Fuck Vanilla WoW's stupid grind grind grind ethos. That's not difficulty. That's frustration.

You might be right in that respect, but I feel like the community factor that I loved about this game practically disappeared with cross-server dungeons and battlegrounds. I may have my nostalgia goggles strapped on pretty damn hard, but I just miss the old community.

Yeah, I'll drink to that.

For all the frustration one of the big things I missed about TBC is that when you did a heroic dungeon, you truly felt in a group. There was none of this not talking to one another or kicking because of low item level. You stuck with your group because it was going to be the only chance you got that day to get the daily reward.

That I miss.