In retrospect MoP was a really really good expansion

[beanman12345]

MoP was great. That overwhelming feeling when you hit 100 with the amount of stuff to do. Hell I also never complained about the dailies, because as I said, stuff to do when i logged in. It took me well over month, before I leveled my first alt. In WoD, There was nothing to do, so I had 4 100's by the end of week 2. 5.3 was terrible, but every expac has had at least 1 shit patch.

[glycerethe]

When you look at WoD, even burnt toasts taste good.

[Ticj]

MoP still remains my favorite expansion, and I've been playing since BC.

Granted, I thought Panda's were completely dumb, but content wise it was really good.

[SL1200]

I fell out of love with wow because of Mop, it'll never be the same as it was. I'll never love this game like that again. Mop ruined it.

[Deleted]

I loved the orcs and goblin tech. Sadly they dropped it after SoO and we never saw it again.

[Onoros]

I agree. One of the good expansions for sure.

[Jerichofr]

Loved MoP, followed closely by Wrath. (The two times that the game was closest to perfect.)

The worst two were TBC & WoD. (The two times that the game was closest to garbage.)

[Deleted]

That's what I've been saying since MoP came out, the hate came mostly from immature shits who thought they were too cool for pandas and people who though TBC was a good expansion. HAH!

[Deleted]

I think a lot of people overlooked it as a result of "stupid pandas" but perhaps that was just my anecdotal friend group.

The "stupid pandas" people are basicly the ones ruining the game for everyone else.

They will complain about anything scewing actual good feedback.

They are the reason we got WoD

[nekobaka]

Good yes. Personally MoP was not "really really good" as someone who stopped raiding and still enjoyed running dungeons. Late MoP also ended up gutting many rewards from non-raiders. I think WotLK was far better and would also rate launch Cata to have personally been a better experience.

[Todesbote]

So the usual cycle is completed yet again:
1. Pre expansion hype ("OMG I'm so sick of <insert previous expansion A> this is the worst time in WoW. Guys remember how good Vanilla was?")
2. New expansion B hits ("With <insert upcoming expansion B> WoW will be great again!")
3. People slowly start hating the expansion ("The Problem with <insert current expansion B> is...")
4. People think the current expansion is the worst ever ("I quit 3 months ago, look at the numbers WoW is dying.")
5. The next expansion is announced ("I hope they won't make the same mistakes as <insert current expansion B> again..")
6. pre Expansion hype
7. New expansion C hits
8. People slowly start hating the expansion
9. "Guys remember expansion B? It was really great. Honestly we didn't know how good we had it."

Its so predictable. Happens every expansion. The reason: rose-tinted glasses / nostalgia. You tend to remember the positive experiences you had when thinking about past expansion - you're forgetting the problems.

In this case I think what you're forgetting about MoP is the 14 months of SoO with only Timeless Isle and nothing else to do...

I agree MoP raiding was great (Throne of Thunder) but then again so was Cata (loved Firelands). At least in Cata & MoP we had good content outside of raids - think of the progressing daily quest hub in the Firelands & Isle of Thunder. Maybe it's just me but I liked the feeling of progressing a zone through daily quests. It gave me something new to look forward to each week outside of raiding. The lack of things like that is my biggest disappointment with WoD. The leveling was great, the raids were great. The Garrison had many problems but it was at least something to progress and spend time on for the first 2-3 months. The Garrison campaign was a great idea but it felt way too short and way too removed from the rest of the game. Don't even get me started on Tanaan which for me is the absolute low point of outdoor content.

[Kathranis]

Mists of Pandaria was my favorite of all the expansions. Objectively, it had the best storytelling and up to that point the best quest mechanics, best music, best voice acting, best art direction, best cinematics, etc.

And there was just a shitload of content to do at max level. Tons of world content, all the different are rares, the farm, the reputations, etc.; so much content that people complained there was too much content.

It also had solid content patches, which were released at a solid pace -- perhaps a bit too fast. I think they could have delayed each patch by a month or two and we'd have just gotten even more polished patch content and SoO would have only been like 8 months instead 14. But still, Isle of Thunder and the Timeless Isle both worked out really well, they were places I could just hang out and mess around in even after I'd finished my dailies or whatever, thanks to all the little events and rare spawns. Landfall also had a really excellent quest chain, probably my favorite implementation of daily quests in the game thus far.

It also synched up for me in ways that the previous expansions really didn't. I had the time to play, people to play with, and the content required a commitment level that I was perfectly capable of keeping up with without getting burned out. It's the only expansion where I've maxed out all my reputations, did all the quests, got fully geared, etc. I even fully completed the Brawler's Guild, and of course there was the green fire questline.


It was just excellent all around. It succeeded for all the reasons Warlords failed, and I hope they learned that lesson going into Legion.

[Super Kami Dende]

Nothing to do with Retrospect, I loved it while it was current.

[tankbug]

MoP had some very good things, like the Timeless Isle, ToT and SoO. Other things were not so good, like the races up there, both enemies and allies. Never could get into the lore, and the music is my least favorite of all expansions/original game.

[Volardelis]

My only issue with MoP was not so much the amount of dailies, it was the rewards that were gated behind the dailies. Having raid quality gear behind reps that at the start, was gated by another rep was a very poor design.

Although the SoO drought was disappointing, I had more fun in SoO then HFC. Mainly because of the different settings, lore interacting with boss mechanics (main example is the intermission phases on Garrosh, the 3 locations were attacked by the every 3 emotions that was controlling him back in BC until Thrall slapped him around [Fear: Terrace, Despair: Temple of the red crane, Doubt: Temple of the jade serpent)

"See the visions of the fear, despair and doubt as I have"

Also Paragons of the Klaxxi and Pac-man: Sha edition [mythic sha of pride]. I always love how Kil'ruk is the last Paragon to come down, considering he was the first we freed. That foreshadowing though from launch with them though. Blackfuse was amazing, one of my favorite fights, and poor Nazgrim. He was a true orc, bounded by honor, even though that ended up being his downfall.

It is a shame that WoD took away some of the good things about MoP, mainly the amount of end game world content. You never know what you had until it is taken away from you.

I don't hold patch 5.3 against MoP, as it was mainly blizzards fault for not planning ahead with the development leading up from Garrosh and the Divine bell to him reviving the Heart of Y'shaarj, but also Vol'jins near death experience and his rebellion.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

For me it is a lot less about retrospect. MoP was a pretty good expansion with a few flaws that hurt it. But they weren't game breakers and the biggest one was kind of out of the expansions hands and more just slow as development. A lot of people just hated it because of panda or the Asian theme but these things really aren't how or what I would judge an expansion from. Not to mention I didn't have a real problem with the Asian side of things and panda is in my mind just a race that happened to live there. Felt good, for me, to have a different style in WoW.

Below is my opinionated list of what was good and bad!

Goods:
-A world people went out in, explored, and experienced.
-A few good daily zones (yes to many, liked the cooking area and how you built the farm)
-Raids were really pretty good. ToT and SoO in particular.
-Patch content was the utter bomb. 3 new islands created. One zone reshaped on the coast.
-World bosses felt really, really, really fucking good in MoP.

Bads:
-Despite outstanding patches they lacked new 5 mans. Devastating.
-To few 5 mans in at the start. Really Blizzards attempt to pivot away from 5 mans fail started here.
-Dailies were WELL over used at the start and gated to much. Should have spread them out.
-SoO 14 month thing, which again, isn't its fault but really fucking sucked.
-PVP was very meh.

Now when I personally look at what was good and bad it really means different things to me than it might to others. For example "PVP was very meh" isn't that impactful (again, for me) because I only PVP on the side for fun once in a while. I also really don't pin SoO being 14 months on MoP itself but more on the developers aiming stupidly high on yearly expansions and failing. The over use of dailies was kind of a grind at start and that hurt me from time to time but, in the end I always had a reason to log in and go out into the world to make my money and reputations. Really when it comes to my bad list, to me personally again, the only one that really sucked was the pivot away from 5 mans at the start of the expansion and lack of newer 5 mans with what were honestly amazing patches aside from that.

[Deleted]

I clearly remember that after finishing Jade Forest I realized "Man, this is the best expansion so far". I just loved the aesthetic, music and storytelling. Further zones did nothing to change that... It simply felt like WoW found its soul again during MoP. If there were an official vote for a legacy server, I would definitely vote MoP

[Phurox]

Maybe it was a great expansion, but MoP and WoD were the two expansions where my playtime really went down.

I did manage to max level some toons, but the asian theme killed it for me. I'm not into JRPG and all of that, I prefer western games (alot of hate incoming). So even though MoP maybe was great, the style and atmosphere just killed it for me.

[Kolvarg]

Honestly, we didn't know how good we had it. I think it definitely sits only slightly below WoTLK as far as my favorite expansions go.

Same, and I pretty much thought that way ever since I was playing it.

The main reason I still liked WotLK more was lore and setting, and that's mainly because it had so much already done by Warcraft III. And WotLK will always have a special place in my heart if anything for being the expansion I truly embraced WoW and started meeting and playing with people, and started doing endgame with a guild.

I didn't really follow through all of MoP, only re-started playing late into it (some 4 months after 5.4 released or so), but I got to see most of it's content and indeed I think it was a very good and solid expansion, with lots and varied things to do, and despite some of the silly/light-hearted tone, it's probably some of the best wow-exclsuive (non Warcraft RTS based) lore and world-building they've created so far, especially how it all ends up tightly connecting to the Warcraft universe despite being so different and fresh.

[Eroginous]

Honestly, we didn't know how good we had it. I think it definitely sits only slightly below WoTLK as far as my favorite expansions go.

It's my favorite expansion because Blizzard drank a ton of 'fukitol' and made the expansion they wanted to, despite all the naysayers and people who hated the idea of 'pandas.' It was a marvelous experience (even if we had to deal with shitty elements of poor end game development), one that easily ranks in my top 10 video game experiences. It was a new atmosphere, added new flavor to everything from the world to the monk class. I honestly don't think we'll get another expansion as good as MoP again. Is it a bad argument that the originality of MoP is what made it good and originality is what sets it apart from the rest of the drivel we've gotten thus far?