So it has been a little over 2 months since Blizzcon and for the fourth time a new expansion for World of Warcraft is on the way! Mists of Pandaria is to be set in a mystical land called Pandaria and with it brings a whole plethora of new and exciting content such as a new continent, level cap raised to 90, challenge modes in dungeons which is essentially timed runs the new class monk which is an unarmed utility class like the druid and paladin and ofcoarse... the Pandaren as a race... Now this blog entry is not about explaining all the new content that is to come or how excited I am for the new expansion, this blog post is about the community outcry and how it is effecting the MMO giant Blizzard in sales and subscriptions.
So anyone who plays WoW and keeps up to date on it at all knows about this expansion but there is a lot of controversy over the new race because people are saying “Well pandas... really? What is WoW to become nothing but a ridiculous amount of Kung Fu Panda jokes for another 2 years while we wait for the next expansion pack?” well it is people who think like that which starts that sort of thing first of all. The truth of the matter is Pandarens have been around long before the movie starring Jack Black ever came out so if we really think about it Kung Fu Panda technically stole from Blizzard but that is neither here nor there... In fact the outcry is understandable, many people play Warcraft because the story is rather extensive and gripping and with each expansion it expands the lore and let's face the music the Warcraft has been nothing but a dark fantasy throughout it's history starting with the war between the Orcs and the Humans and progressing through the warcraft series such as purging Stratholme of undead and such. And let's look at the World of Warcraft expansions that have come and gone shall we?
First off we had Burning Crusade arguably the best expansion Blizzard ever released because it was different from the way vanilla used to be played but at the same time oddly similar and with the main plot being to stop the Burning Legion and Illidan from entering Azeroth and ruling it. The land was bleak, dark and shattered giving the players a sense of not only desolation on an entirely new planet but also one of great loss and sacrifice from the ones who were there before, and on top of that a vibrant and distant history of what was once Draenor.
Two years later Wrath of the Lich King was released ushering in an entirely new continent on our own planet to explore but this time we of the Horde and the Alliance took the fight to the icy shores fighting off the undead and marching on Icecrown Citadel to ultimately face the Lich King the former prince of Lordaeron and stop him from unleashing his undead army across Azeroth while meeting the Dragonflights and their leader Alexstrasza.
Not long after the war against the Lich King ended the true end came when Deathwing the Aspect of Death shattered Azeroth from it's very core shaking the elements into unrest and plotting not to take over the world but destroy it in the end; quite possibly the most dark of all the story lines having had the world shattered and red and blue fighting for dominance and resources in an otherwise destroyed world while trying to somehow work together to bring down the big cheese himself: Deathwing.
Currently patch 4.3 is out and Deathwing faces our blades in the final showdown of one of the best and most cinematic boss fights blizzard has ever conceived and that to most players is epic and truly a great experience to be apart of something like that... But this however leads us to the main subject here which is Mists of Pandaria and it's fighting force of Jackie Chan pandas. In the past as you can see the story has been dark so how are players reacting to this rather drastic change of heart? Well you can go on Youtube and look up the announcement trailer for the expansion and the like/dislike bar is about at the middle, and having spoken with players in the game itself about how they feel the situation is about the same. You see people are seeing this as simply just an expansion about Pandas but that is not what it is about there is so much more to the expansion then that and if you have any faith in Blizzards ability to build great lore then you would knows this. You see you have the Sha which is like hatred and evil manifested into creatures that are looking to destroy Pandaria and being the good citizens of Azeroth that we are we cannot allow that sort of thing now can we? Amongst the Pandariens there are factions which is neat to see. You have the pandas of the north, south, west and east all with different signs they run their life by such as the Shado-pan who are pretty much ninja pandas which is pretty bad ass in my personal opinion. Having listened to the creative team behind Blizzard speak about Mists of Pandaria lore wise at Blizzcon it is apparent to me that this is not just some sham to make little children and over protective parents feel better about what they or their kids are playing this truly is a Blizzard expansion! They are putting a great effort into it making a rich and vibrant culture for this otherwise mysterious race of beings who deal with their own problems and as a player you can see the way they live and why they would not want to involve themselves with the rest of the world that is in the midst of great chaos, it ties in with the shattering and how that effected even the shores of Pandaria... In the end of the day it all ties in lore wise Pandaria is like all the other expansions just another addition to the ever changing World... of Warcraft. However despite Blizzard having explained this to people time and time again people as we know don't always listen so what does this mean for the mega giant? Well not much really... There is a 5% (so far) loss of subscriptions which is still a fair amount considering that is about 600k subscribers that they have lost but it will not effect the game from what I have heard or seen. Blizzard has outright said they intend to keep WoW running for many years to come (hopefully with a bit of a graphics update as it's age is beginning to show.) and this content may be lighter than what has happened before but it is a good change of pace and not having an antagonist which has not been done since way back in vanilla is a strange but refreshing feeling because personally as an roleplayer I get tired of hearing about “We'll bring Deathwing down, we're right on his doorstep.” every time I walk into an RP hotspot.
For the record much of this was just my honest opinion on the entire situation and you may or may not agree and I may have left some stuff out and in truth I am not even a Blizzard fanboy I just happen to really love the MMO they have put out and I have a ton of fun on their like millions of other people. But what I am really trying to get to here is people seem to judge much faster than they should I mean there are complaints about WoW becoming too casual and blizzard is not balancing it enough for the hardcore MMO fans but maybe that is the direction they are looking to take to appeal to a much broader audience and like any MMO there are those who love it and those who hate it no matter what they do! They could move a rock in Blasted Lands 5 feet to the left and someone somewhere would complain about it... “I was world pvping and that rock wasn't their so I could line of sight the mage...” or something along those lines... End of the day I urge both casual and longterm players to just wait and see what Blizzard gives us and play it before you make any rash decisions on weather you will like it or not. The idea may not be appealing but who knows when you finally get your hands on it you might enjoy it.
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