Can't speak for anyone else, but my derision is less about Kung Fu Panda than it is about Blizzard forsaking Warcraft's own unique identity in order to emulate someone else. For example, you might like Star Trek, and you might like NCIS, but would you really like to see Star Trek give up the space ships and become a crime drama?
We have a voodoo culture (which, admittedly, I hate), space travelers, a medieval fantasy culture, a steampunk culture, a hyper-advance magipunk culture, and more. How do Chinese Pandas not fit in with Space Goats, cow people, and Werewolves?
if done well, sure. (we've seen the trek franchise have problems when it comes to ship based shows and some would say the best of the franchise was a show about a space station) is MoP a reaction to ToR? if i had to guess i'd say no. if anything the WoW guys will check out ToR and take what works and add it to WoW (if applicable).
That's really not true, not any less than it ever has been. There have always been chain quests. You don't have to go sequentially through each zone (other than some of the starter 1-20 zones). Each zone is divided into hubs, but you don't have to complete one hub to move to the next one and pick up a different set of quests any more often now than ever. I've got 10,000 completed quests in my main's statistics, I'm a Loremaster and I've got four 85s, so I know my questing. They are more linear, and they don't have you bouncing back and fourth between EK and Kalimdor like they used to. To be honest, I'm glad. There were times it would take me an hour or two of play time to do nothing but travel to hand in a few quests. It helped to make the world feel big, but it was a bit of a drag at the same time. The quests in the new zones actually flow perfectly if you're a first character without BoA heirloom items and the guild experience boost, but I admit that if you do it's easy to fly right through a zone before you've seen half of it. In the end, there was nothing in the old days that rivalled the brilliance that is now Silverpine, Stonetalon, or Eastern Kingdoms as far as questing goes. So many of the zones are just so fun now.
Plus its completely wrong. Pandaren have been in warcraft lore for years now, longer than any panda movie has been around.
Well, unless the expansion does a LOT more than add the Pandaren, their zone, and the Monk class, it's doubtful I'll bother. This smells sorta like a shark what's been jumped, methinks.
level 90, new talent system, new companion pet combat system, and a whole new continent to explore, where you cant fly till lvl 90. Which will make it ... fun, again.
They're adding Pokemon combat, how can you pass that up? Forgive me if I am remembering wrong, but didn't they announce one year as an "April Fool's" that Panderia was going to be the next expansion? Just goes to show how the game culture has changed. From joke they would never do to serious expansion. Are there players out there who don't have at least 4 level 85's? Join the club.
All my 85s have the firelands mount too... =p I just did the year long subscription, got Diablo 3 free, as well as a mount in WOW for all toons, present and future.
I wasn't bragging. I know people with ten 85s who avoid quests like the plague and level through dungeons and BGs, who don't pay attention to the lore, or haven't completed a full quest zone since Burning Crusade. I'd say I've probably spent more time actually getting into being a "questing completionist" than most people with multiple 85s, sure.
The Pandaren were an April Fools joke the Blizzard put up on their site as a race for WC3, not WoW. They got so much positive feedback that they actually put them into the game in the expansion. Then they nearly introduced them as a Horde race in the Burning Crusade but they went with Blood Elves instead. For years people have been asking for the Pandaren. If you look at forum threads surrounding the Pandaren Monk companion pet there are thousands of people wondering when Blizzard will introduce Pandas into WoW as a playable or NPC race. Now Blizzard puts them into the game as an anchor race for a new expansion, and a minority get pissed off because "Blizzard is trying to appeal to six year old Kung Fu Panda fans" or "Trying to win the Chinese market because they know WoW is dead". This expansion looks like it has so much content to offer, I think people who aren't at least curious enough to stick around to see how it plays out are going to miss out. If people want to quit, that's fine too, but if they think they are going to get a substantially superior and unique MMORPG experience out of SWTOR I think they're going to be in for a bit of a surprise. I think raiding in 5.0 is going to be absolutely magnificent as far as the content execution goes. SWTOR and Bioware will definitely be playing catch up in that area for a long time.
Yeah, I was always more interested in leveling through zones to see the content, especially when much of it changed with cata. Taken on it's own, pandarens aren't too bad, but when you throw in the pokemon battles and total revamp of the character mechanics things don't look good to me. It's interesting you mention SW:tor. I've played in 2 of the beta weekends now. Once the pandera expac comes out you'll have to play SW:TOR to get more of a "classic WoW" experience than you'll get in WoW. And if you like questing through zones for the story, then SW:TOR will blow you away compared to WoW. It's much more involving. From the moment the game starts you feel like the central character in a good book. It rocks.
And if you don't like Star Wars? I will stick with WoW. [edit] I know some people are into different gaming experiences...and with MMOs it can get boring...but I am OK with WoW cause I haven't taken full advantage of what it has too offer yet...I am interested in Diablo III as well...but could care less about any Star Wars game.
Well yeah, not liking Star Wars to begin with would be a problem, but not a reflection on the quality of the game.
Having never played any of the Diablo's, Im looking forward to getting the free D3. Ill actually give it a chance.
With every new MMO that comes out people make that prediction. So far it hasn't happened. WOW still has the highest sub base. I think TOR's subscribers will be made up of KOTOR, Bioware and Star Wars fans. Blizzard is already working on an MMO called Titan. I don't have any idea what that game is about, but their focus as far as new game development goes will be that. I agree WOW should have more options such as better character creation and a form of player housing. Since these things have been asked for ever since the game came into existence, I doubt they will happen. I don't know why, but there it is.
^ Titan is supposed to be an MMO-FPS, or so I've read. So not really a WoW-replacement. Re: Mists of Pandaria I'm optimistic about it. Some things I read from the Blizzcon coverage that resonated with me: A) A stronger focus on fun. Cataclysm on the whole is not a very fun expansion (in my opinion) and was certainly not all that fun on release with the harder-than-necessary Heroic dungeons being the main problem. B) Multiple paths to advancement. Valor points from dailies. Raid finder for easy version raids. The time has passed when I wanted to commit to a raid schedule but I'd still like to see the content. C) New huge continent with no flying till 90 (yay), loved this in Wrath. D) Melee healer. Healing is my favorite spec and playstyle and an all-new way of healing is very exciting. One thing I'm not sure about but I hope they fixed is that heroics should not be so dang long as they were in Cata. 2 hours is too long. Anyway, I will definitely be checking it out.