Review: World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria (video)

In this video (with transcript) we review the newest expansion to World of Warcraft, titled Mists of Pandaria. This is the fourth expansion to Blizzard's successful MMORPG, and while the quality of the content remains high, it's becoming increasingly apparent that they're basing it on a game that's been under development for over a decade. On top of that, the MMORPG genre itself is evolving, and though World of Warcraft remains a juggernaut of the industry, juggernauts are tougher to steer, and less adaptable to players' changing demands. The question for the success of an MMORPG expansion isn't simply "does it entertain?" It is: "does it entertain, and for how long?" Mists of Pandaria succeeds on the first count — it refreshes the gameplay, dangles new carrots in front of the players, and brings much-needed improvements to older systems. But keeping players engaged for a long time will be much more difficult. Hit the link below to watch/read our review.

Comments

Well... Sorta

[Sycraft-fu]

It -is- a joke, Blizzard's joke in fact. Back in the early days of WoW they did an April Fools joke, saying that you'd be able to order food from Panderan Express (a play on the real company Panda Express) in game with the /panda command. More info: http://www.wowwiki.com/Pandaren_Xpress.

It was a joke at the expense of Sony, who really had implemented a /pizza command in Everquest 2 that would call up Pizza Hut's web page so you could order pizza.

However apparently Blizzard is completely fucking out of ideas, and forgot it was a joke, and so now kung-fu pandas are part of WoW.

Re:Is this supposed to be humorous?

[Anguirel]

It was a joke at first, sure, but a popular one, and made a long time ago for Warcraft 3: http://classic.battle.net/war3/pandaren/

And then, despite that being a joke, they actually did add the Pandaren to Warcraft 3 - The Frozen Throne, just not as a full race. The bonus campaign "The Founding of Durotar" includes the Brewmaster Hero unit Chen Stormstout (one of the major NPCs in MoP). Earlier, you may have seen a quest in the Barrens for Chen's Empty Keg (a reference to this). They've hinted at adding in the Pandaren race for years (and nearly did so for Burning Crusade), and have included them in other elements of the game, such as the Pen&Paper RPG books and the Trading Card Game.

Point being... They've been in the lore for Warcraft long before there was a World of Warcraft. Their inclusion was neither unexpected by those that had been following the game, nor even a major break in lore (like, for example, the Draenei were). Death Knights as playable characters make less sense than Pandaren in the game, and they seemed to be accepted just fine. The Pandas will be accepted just as well by anyone that enjoys the game in general.