Why Do So Many People Say MoP is Their 2nd Worst Expansion?

[Deleted]

No one is a fan of chinese martial arts theme?

*sadface*

[Kathranis]

Was shit expansion and pandas almost killed this game. Who the fuck wants to fight ants and rabbits...

Totally, Legion is way better. Love all the quests to kill cows and rats.

[Otimus]

Lore wise, and displaying said lore, MoP was the best expansion since Wrath, though Legion is starting to dethrone it somewhat in that respect.

Also, it has filled to the brim with content. That's always a plus.

Most people blanket hate it because of the theme or pandas.

[Kallisto]

This is it. I don't know what is so damn confusing to people. It is not just the stupid pandas you MoP fanboys. MoP was childish period blank. Did you people even play MoP? Are we talking about the same game...how in the hell can anybody not agree that it is childish?!

Because the main themes of MOP are

War
Slavery
Genocide
Invasion
Old Gods
Destruction of a continents main water source.

How are any of those childish? Did you play MOP at all?

[Traveler Voltin]

Chew your food before swallowing.

what are you talking about now?

[bledgor]

Corrected that for you, Pandaria was just as bad as WoD was. The raids were shitty, the content outside of it was borderline boring..can go on and on for days.

MoP raids shit? Okay someone OBVIOUSLY didn't raid and is speaking out of their ass.

MoP had so much, amazing raids, the pet tournament (was actually really enjoyable), Timeless Isle (towards the end I disliked it but early on it was quite enjoyable, but that is also because SoO lasted too long), can't comment on the pvp but the story was fresh and enjoyable, and it looked a lot at the consequences of our actions something we basically ignore in Vanilla/TBC/Wrath.

Like I said earlier MoP was equal to Wrath in my eyes, and wrath had the benefit of my being in the best guild I have ever been in to boots it.

[Deleted]

It's actually a combination of factors, so, in no order:

- the initial announcement, the general audience of WoW played WoW to be heroes fighting dragons and the undead and you come presenting the world of the pandaren, a race of peaceful panda bears... the initial focus was put wrong, it should have been on the silithid devouring cultures, the sha, and now the Alliance and Horde finding this land and how they will fight for survival.

-the first two zones - here we get Jade Forest and the plains, except the ending of both zones they are extremely peaceful zones, sure you fight some things here and there but it mostly feels like you're just there... and those guys don't really need you, but, on the contrary, you're creating issues. You're not the hero, you're not even the villan, you're just someone creating mischief and annoyances then fixing them when you're scolded by the pandaren, Taran Zhu in particular. Considering the first few zones make the impression, the impression overall was bad.
Sure, this toned down on later zones and patches, but initial impression was kept.

- the dungeons, again, especially the starting ones are somewhat too humorous or relate to problems you created. the Brewery, too funny and gets old after a few runs. The Temple of Jade Serpent is due to you being there.

- neither side got a happy ending - the Alliance was beat left and right and eventually won the war, they took Orgrimmar and... that's it. They gained nothing, they didn't sack it, they didn't get reparations, even their wins of Horde leaving Ashenvale and Gilneas AND DALARAN are just talked about but never seen actively. The Horde won left and right but then lost because their leader turned on them and then led a ragtag group with the Alliance they fought to attack their own capital. Nobody ended happy.

-story - very stereotypical, something like a Hollywood funny of the Asian culture. It was jam packed with funny references and jokes and then you're blamed of everything. It just left a bad taste.
And another point here, the morale point, it's talked about how you should make peace and be friendly and etc... but you go back to fighting both eachother and others. The whole ending makes no sense. And due to it, Garrosh lived. And WoD happened, leading to a showcase of how the point was wrong.

[DrStiglit]

I think its mostly because of the pandas..

I only like BC better because that is when I started. But objectively I believe:

Wrath
MoP
BC
Cata
WoD

And Cata really wasn't that bad. WoD was the only one that kept me away for most of the xpac..

[AzazeltheRuthless]

MoP raids shit? Okay someone OBVIOUSLY didn't raid and is speaking out of their ass.

MoP had so much, amazing raids, the pet tournament (was actually really enjoyable), Timeless Isle (towards the end I disliked it but early on it was quite enjoyable, but that is also because SoO lasted too long), can't comment on the pvp but the story was fresh and enjoyable, and it looked a lot at the consequences of our actions something we basically ignore in Vanilla/TBC/Wrath.

Like I said earlier MoP was equal to Wrath in my eyes, and wrath had the benefit of my being in the best guild I have ever been in to boots it.

MoP doesn't deserve to be on the top end but more middle of the road. I do agree it was better than Cata and WoD.

Definitely are correct on the raiding, it's raids were' way better than anything Cata or WoD offered. Cata only had Firelands going for it. ToT, SoO, HoF, and most of the raid in MoP were pretty decent. SoO only became an issue because it lasted for 15 months.

I do think TBC, Wrath, and Vanilla were all much better than MoP.

[Otimus]

MoP raids shit? Okay someone OBVIOUSLY didn't raid and is speaking out of their ass.

MoP had so much, amazing raids, the pet tournament (was actually really enjoyable), Timeless Isle (towards the end I disliked it but early on it was quite enjoyable, but that is also because SoO lasted too long), can't comment on the pvp but the story was fresh and enjoyable, and it looked a lot at the consequences of our actions something we basically ignore in Vanilla/TBC/Wrath.

Like I said earlier MoP was equal to Wrath in my eyes, and wrath had the benefit of my being in the best guild I have ever been in to boots it.

Not only were they amazing, but there was a lot of them, a WHOLE lot of them, and they were all unique in their visuals except for SoO, which was sort of unique in and of itself for being a raid on a major faction capital. NOT ONLY THAT, but the tiers were, like... chock full of bosses. Scenarios, while people didn't seem to care for them, and they're now gone, were a brilliant idea I wish would get re-looked at, as there's mega-potential there, and the ones it had were all mostly good, and every faction had a unique and long story that got told as you advanced. They were all basically on the level of Suramar, in their storytelling, and there was a lot of them. AND they patched the game a fair bit to add even more shit.

About the only content that was meh were the dungeons, but that's mostly the fault of them never adding more and it being easy to outgear them.

[AzazeltheRuthless]

It's actually a combination of factors, so, in no order:

- the initial announcement, the general audience of WoW played WoW to be heroes fighting dragons and the undead and you come presenting the world of the pandaren, a race of peaceful panda bears... the initial focus was put wrong, it should have been on the silithid devouring cultures, the sha, and now the Alliance and Horde finding this land and how they will fight for survival.

-the first two zones - here we get Jade Forest and the plains, except the ending of both zones they are extremely peaceful zones, sure you fight some things here and there but it mostly feels like you're just there... and those guys don't really need you, but, on the contrary, you're creating issues. You're not the hero, you're not even the villan, you're just someone creating mischief and annoyances then fixing them when you're scolded by the pandaren, Taran Zhu in particular. Considering the first few zones make the impression, the impression overall was bad.
Sure, this toned down on later zones and patches, but initial impression was kept.

- the dungeons, again, especially the starting ones are somewhat too humorous or relate to problems you created. the Brewery, too funny and gets old after a few runs. The Temple of Jade Serpent is due to you being there.

- neither side got a happy ending - the Alliance was beat left and right and eventually won the war, they took Orgrimmar and... that's it. They gained nothing, they didn't sack it, they didn't get reparations, even their wins of Horde leaving Ashenvale and Gilneas AND DALARAN are just talked about but never seen actively. The Horde won left and right but then lost because their leader turned on them and then led a ragtag group with the Alliance they fought to attack their own capital. Nobody ended happy.

-story - very stereotypical, something like a Hollywood funny of the Asian culture. It was jam packed with funny references and jokes and then you're blamed of everything. It just left a bad taste.
And another point here, the morale point, it's talked about how you should make peace and be friendly and etc... but you go back to fighting both eachother and others. The whole ending makes no sense. And due to it, Garrosh lived. And WoD happened, leading to a showcase of how the point was wrong.

You missed the whole point of the expansion then. Mists of Pandaria is about the horrors of war that is inflicted on a third party. Horde and Alliance are the villains in the story as they destroy that peaceful nation for their own means. Alliance didn't win the war, nobody won, that's the point of the story. In the end war brings no victor.

[Stormspellz]

As you said, it's personal preference. They didn't like Mists for whatever reason, and liked the other expansions better. It's okay to have opinions, right? (Even if they don't match your own)?

its more to do with derp pandas because...pandas?

[Deleted]

The expansion was pretty good, it's the theme that people didn't like.

[Deleted]

It isnt just pandas - there is also kung fu and chinese architecture what doesnt belong to wow feel.

[Flaks]

Because they either didn't play or don't remember Cata.

For me pve/theme wise even dragon soul was better than anything mop offered. And firelands was the most fun I'd had since isle of quel danas. That said, mop was by far and away the best expansion in terms of content. Like not even wotlk or tbc come close. It's just pushing a single race down our throats as the theme behind an expansion that ended up ACTUALLY being about the sha and an old god just completely turned me right the hell off and the rest of it just couldn't make up for than one thing for me.

[Skayaq]

Because of how it shat all over 5-man dungeons, which in all the previous expansions had been my primary venue even in wrath after I killed the Lich king I still did dungeons, in MoP however they simple weren't remotely interesting, and the only one I did more than once was Jade Temple to see if I could solo it on hc. Add to that the excessive amount of dailies, which aside from the Krasarang ones weren't fun either, and two of the worst raid tiers (though admittedly ToT was great) imo, and it's hard to have it ranked better than 2nd worst.

[Saverem]

I think it was great in terms of visuals. It had some of the best looking zones in the game. Jade Forest is still one of my all time favorite places to fly around.

However, execution was shit. Having to do those 5 static dailies to build rep felt extremely repetitive. The lore was shit (Sha in general), they should have put less emphasis on Sha and more on the Old God behind it. Pandaren were OK, I like their lore, but the design of those fluffy bears was pretty bad. PvP was bad, it offered nothing new. Raiding was boring as well, final boss of the expansion was a triggered emo Orc with the heart of a dead Old God...

With all that said, MoP is my personal WORST expansion of the lot. If I had to rank them now, it would be:

WotLK > TBC/Legion > WoD > Cata > MoP

Legion has a good chance of overtaking TBC if they keep going in this direction though. Thoroughly enjoying it.

[Deleted]

Pandas didn't make sense. The theme was extremely hypocritical and the story reflected that. Content? I don't know I couldn't play it more than a week on release cause pandas

Soo was good though

[Deleted]

You missed the whole point of the expansion then. Mists of Pandaria is about the horrors of war that is inflicted on a third party. Horde and Alliance are the villains in the story as they destroy that peaceful nation for their own means. Alliance didn't win the war, nobody won, that's the point of the story. In the end war brings no victor.

Well, guess what, I wasn't the only one that missed the point and, in fact, Blizzard themselves seem to have done it since they restarted the faction war with no strong reason.

Oh, and by the way, let's take the ending too into consideration:
"Lorewalker Cho says: Dear Emperor. It is done. The darkness that you once struggled against has been purged from Pandaria - forever.
Lorewalker Cho says: But the cost... such a terrible cost.
Emperor Shaohao says: Do not despair the damage that was done here.
Emperor Shaohao says: You triumphed over the darkness I had locked away.
Emperor Shaohao says: You have shown Pandaria the power of a true hero.
Emperor Shaohao says: But the question still remains... why do we fight?
Emperor Shaohao says: I trust you have learned: to fight out of fear or anger is to fight a war that never ends.
Emperor Shaohao says: Face your fears. Calm your hatreds.
Emperor Shaohao says: find peace within yourself, so that you may share it with the world around you.
Emperor Shaohao says: These are the greatest treasures in life.
Emperor Shaohao says: Surely they... are worth fighting for.
Lorewalker Cho says: Thank you... emperor. Thank you."

Lorewalker Cho says:
"What you have achieved today will shape the face of Pandaria for thousands of years to come.

Thank you, hero. The Lorewalkers shall pass your story down from generation to generation."

So... the pandaren are cheering on us for destroying their home!
Sure, it was a terrible cost, but who cares, they can now use their negative emotions without fear of the sha, what a great thing, to be able to hate one another and depressed and angry and... hold on a second, this doesn't sound like such a great thing. but the pandaren cheer on us for this?

But we can claim that we learned something from MoP... except we did not, we're fighting again, and exactly due to anger and fear. Due to fear we fought even in WoD in Ashran, fear that the other side will get some titan relic. And now we fight due to anger.

What have we learned from WoD? That those preaching the end of wars are meaningless. In fact, due to such characters we even had WoD. In the end, was it not Varian that spared Garrosh to show mercy thanks to what he learned from his son? Was it not Anduin that let Garrosh live when he would have died otherwise? Was it not the paragons that said they would have spared him no matter what? Yes, and due to them countless died in WoD.
We also learned that it doesn't matter that war destroyed the pandaren home. In the end, they cheered on us at the end. That's what I understood. And since so many were saying Pandaria was like a holliday from the usual end of the world, many people didn't learn anything alongside me as well.

I guess that deep message you and others understood got drowned in hollywood stereotypes and bad jokes for us. And that's why I disliked MoP (except Dread Wastes and Kasarang, those zones were quite interesting, but not everyone will get to either as you need about 2 zones and a half now to get to 90)

[Deleted]

MoP was the best expansion for me (i started in TbC). The atmosphere, story, characters were awesome mainly Taran zhu.