The Verdict on MoP

[CJack14dt]

I quit WoW before MoP simply because it just seemed like the series was going in too goofy a direction for me. I laughed at myself because I had quit WoW a few times before and I always ended up coming back. But here I am, and still I've not had any urge to experience Panda-land. I'm actually very surprised. I'm curious to hear from the players out there that were on the "this expansion is going to suck" bandwagon and ended up playing anyway. What surprised you guys? What's keeping you there? How did this expansion end up being worth it to you?

[lordsphinx]

I can honestly say that I was hesitant for Kungfupanda and Pokemon in WoW, but decided to give it a shot anyway. I am so glad that I did… Now, I can only speak from a progression raiding point of view (because frankly that’s the thing I enjoy most about the game anyway) but for raiding this xpac easily rivals WotLK or earlier raid releases. The instances are fun and intriguing, the storyline is solid, and the difficulty is just right to make you want to “get back in there”. The only negative I can bring up is a rather long journey from fresh 90 to current tier raiding, but for most that is just par for the course. If you are expecting to powerlevel to 90 and be raiding T15 in a week, then you are in for a surprise. This is in stark contrast to T13 where a fresh 85 could hold his own in DS after only a week or so of “catch-up”.

I’ve been playing WoW since the initial beta release, and I can honestly say this is probably the best expansion they have released (maybe second to WotLK)

[-Superman-]

From a casual standpoint, I love the new content and the new landscapes. Pandaria is quickly becoming a new favorite place for me. As for the new race and new class... I am not a fan. I don't particularly care for the pandas and the monk class, while ok to try, was just not my thing. Don't let that stop you from trying, but I got one to 80 and just was not really digging it.

[mickybrighteyes]

Overall it seems about the same as previous expansions. Play to level cap and then start gearing up. Some new ways to jump into raiding/pvp but outside the raiding/pvp it doesn't seem all that different.


Pandaria is beautiful, but I couldn't stick with it after getting into dailies and rep grinding.

[Deleted]

imbalanced pvp..

Ranged is favored over melee at any time..

Pretty much; Cataclysm all over again.

[Deleted]

In my opinion, it's not the best expansion we have had so far. It is of course better than Cataclysm, but not by much. Mists of Pandaria have been really, really boring for me, and I have jumped off the game many, many, many more times than I did with the previous expansions. I can't say I'm that impressed with what Blizzard can do with this game anymore, it feels like they reached the peak with what they can do with an old game.

Of course, it is a feat in itself and 'somewhat' impressive with what they managed to do with an old engine like this, but with Mists of Pandaria, nah, not so much.

[Yig]

I've played for 8 years, the longest I've quit was about 8 months before TBC came out on my first burn out.

Overall I'd say this is the best expansion Blizzard has done, and they've done an exceptional job of cramming this expansion full of content and things to do and they're really surprising me with how fast they are rolling out the new patches. I have never felt more involved with the game for so long, even when I am only logging in a few times a week. If I felt like it, there is more stuff to do now in game than ever in the past. I wouldn't call Pandaria goofy or childish, it's more like one of Blizzard's tranquil relaxing zones, only an entire continent of places like that. Zones like Nagrand or Grizzly Hills, just lush magical places. You can really tell Blizzard's dev's were getting painted into a corner doing the same stuff every expansion basically and they got a chance to blow the cobwebs out of their brains and stretch their creative muscles more, it seems much more inspired than Cataclysm, it practically oozes from the seams how much fun they were having when making this expansion compared to what seemed like status quo in Cata.

[Shinrael]

It annoys me how people keep calling it Panda-land. It has a name and its called Pandaria. Being ironic in this situation is rather disturbing to me.

OT: Yes, it is a very good expansion. I cannot compare it with other expansions because every expac has its own feel.

Vanilla was all about exploring for me. TBC was pretty much "omfg gold and red items and weapons. shiny shiny sunwell stuff" for me. I also loved the 2 races. In wotlk.....my main and favourite class + the only spec I liked - fire - had an awesome knock back ( Blast Wave ). Cata.....was cata. mainly cool mounts and weapons models.

But Pandaria.....The weapon and armor models aren't my favourite but they are definetely unique and exciting to obtain. The mounts are cool. The land......my god. Back during MoP beta a lot of Asian things happened to me.

I watch Japanese animes, I play a game with asian feel to it...and so on. I suddenly found myself feeling at peace when playing in the Wandering Isle as a Pandaren. 'specially a monk. I am also sort of a roleplayer and ye....you can imagine. About raiding...I'd be raiding if I could. But considering my 01 fps during boss fights I have no choice.

Cheers

[LocNess]

It is one of their better expansions, easily rivaling BC and WotLK by the end if they don't screw 5.3 and 5.4 up. Story is great, Pandaria is fun. Dailies are a pain, and raiding is hard to get into (like they said earlier, it is somewhat of a grind, not like Cata where one day of grinding and you were ready for DS), however the raiding is extremely fun and the boss fights are put together well. The talent system seems iffy at first, but works well for what it is intended to do. It is a good expansion, and a lot better than Cata.

[Raediance]

Im enjoying it way more than Cataclysm. and after 5.3, after taking a break from dailies since 5.2, I feel invigorated to do the new dailies. I still need the original Shado-Pan, Shieldwall, Black Prince and the new Kirin Tor rep. Ill hit 72 exalted reps after I get those 4.

The the guy Below me

Nope, its just a solid 6 years of playing casually. :P No vacations from my wow job here! I just love doing stupid shit.

[ihyln]

The few quality of life changes did not outweigh the terrible dailies, gating system, lack of dungeons, terrible pvp, and boring raids. I would say it's as bad as cata initially. So at least there is room for improvement. If only they didn't attempt to "fix" what wasn't broken. One can dream when Ghostcrawler gets fired

---------- Post added 2013-03-18 at 04:34 PM ----------

Im enjoying it way more than Cataclysm. and after 5.3, after taking a break from dailies since 5.2, I feel invigorated to do the new dailies. I still need the original Shado-Pan, Shieldwall, Black Prince and the new Kirin Tor rep. Ill hit 72 exalted reps after I get those 4.

Don't get mad but it sounds like you just took a vacation from your wow job with your wording lol

[pld]

I remember thinking "Panda-land" looked ridiculous back before the game came out. I told my friends who still played repeatedly that I would not come back.

Here I am almost half a year later and I've found MoP to be pretty fun. Leveling up was a pain, but I've done it a few times and it's definitely manageable. The daily/rep grind at first was a bit excessive but at this point in the expansion, it's not as necessary as before and Blizzard has helped ease the pain. PvP isn't perfectly balanced, but it's not as bad as previous seasons. There are fewer "cookie cutter" comps and I've seen a lot more variation in the 2s and 3s bracket. I've really enjoyed the raids thus far. Most of them were at a good level of challenging and rewarded groups that focused on coordination in addition to skill. Some feel that the fights are overly complicated for the sake of being complicated, but I feel like if they were dumbed down...it wouldn't be as satisfying.

[Ytlayol]

I read a lot about how much better and full of content this expac was, so my hopes were high coming back into the game. I enjoyed the new talent trees and streamlining the important skills to each spec. Then I hit Pandaland, the asian theme doesn't do much for me at all - I cringed every time i hear the pandas talk. Its so out of place IMO.

Went to jade forest and was hoping for a questing experience to blow out everything else out of the water, after the first two quest hubs I was severely disappointed on how they played out. Since I paid for the expac and 1 month of subscription i decided to at least get level 90.

Once hitting 90, i was really disappointed on how the gearing process is. RNG based with reputation blocks. Pretty irritating.

So here's what I can do while at 90:

Repetitive dailies to get rep
Once a day scenario/heroic to get rep
LFR once a week for gold and rng chance at loot
Downgraded version of pokemon
WaitingInQue Club

I read about how unbalanced the pvp is in this expac, and I gave it a shot. Being CCd or global isnt fun nor relaxing.

Pretty meh expac so far, at least last expansion had interesting lore.

[Bathory]

Loved it. It definitely seems detached, but in a good way. It's that hidden area situated inside the world we know as Azeroth, but that we've never seen. Everything is really, really well done. Dailies can be a pain, but I love the lore/storyline so far. If there was another route to take besides dailies to tell a story, I'd take it, but I, personally, can't think of one besides gated content.

[Mortal Strike]

I'd tell you what I think of this expansion, but I don't really have the time. I'm too busy doing the now-required dailies.

[Nexsa]

I like it. The Pandas turned out cool, and Sha were a nice change. The only thing bothering me is the dalies and the happy bright theme on everything. Over all I rate it 8/10

[TheDangerZone]

In overall terms, it has been my favorite expansion. The pandaria questing experience has been the most involving one even when mostly it veers off the Alliance/Horde conflict; the pandaren lore has been incredibly well developed (Though I get the feeling it will be like "one off" in relation to overall lore, what would pandaren do on the coming conflicts?)

[Okacz]

Pros:

1) Immerse, exploreable new world with tons of hidden quests, rares and items to find
2) Great raids and overall PvE, giving both a challange to hardcore players and fun to casuals
3) Class balance in PvE not seen in WoW until now
4) Great graphics
5) Questing made non-linear
6) Bonus activities, such as scenarios/daily quests/pet battles, making the game fun to play even outside of your typical raiding/arena day
7) New patches coming very quickly, not leaving players burned out by the same content

Cons:

1) PvP does not seem as balanced as PvE
2) Cross-Realm Zones, which have lots of pros, but their drawbacks usually hides them
3) Low quality of Heroic Dungeons in terms of challange and overall fun
4) World exploration showed into the players, with such changes as putting PvP vendors miles away from any point on the map or the removal of HGWT
5) Lore feeling too cheesy and childish sometimes

Overall, I guess it's one of the best expansions. Like it definitely more than Cata, but not sure if more then WotLK.

[Vargas]

MoP is probably the best expansion Blizzard has put out, along with Wrath.

[KCguy]

Mandatory or not, there are too many dailies. I also find the dungeons to be incredibly boring as well. They need to fix the loot system. Being able to roll on gear you don't use is stupid. You get people ninjaing stuff all the time and it's very frustrating.I believe Blizzard's reason is that it would take too much work to fix. Fair enough, but they shouldn't have done that in the first place. It's mainly why I switched to scenerios. Many are boring as well, but most are very fast and while the gear isn't always better, there's a high chance of getting something which includes heroic ilvl gear and even 476 gear from the bag you get. I love the raids and the environment and music is again, top notch. It's a fantastic expansion, blows Cata out of the water and is right up there with Wrath of the Lich King. JMO.