Originally Posted by
aerosyne
Yes, because it was. Do you even remember the opening cutscenes before either of the races make landfall on the continent of Pandaria? It's Garrosh and Varian complaining about the Horde/Alliance making further progress in the war than the team they're on, and that if they don't secure some part of the new land, they'll be doomed. Granted, Varian's is also about his son being lost on the isle, but that's not the focal point of the cutscenes.
Claiming the expansion is about solely Pandaren and pandas is like the new idiots being just that about the whole WoD time-travel debacle, or like saying Wrath wasn't about the history of a prominent lore figure and his backstory and influence, it was about death knights. If you honestly believe this, you aren't even borderline retarded, you are and you need to stop trying so hard. Watching some of this shit is like listening to Alex Jones 'connect the dots' on anything he's involved in; it's depressing, pathetic and worrying that the human race can spend so much time being so incredibly stupid.
The FUCK are you talking about? It was made very clear from the start of the expansion that the Pandaren not only didn't want us there, but had no choice but to be complacent drunks; you're lack of comprehension of the story is nothing short of amazing. It's spelled out that the Pandaren are so jovial and peaceful because, if they aren't and go back to fighting like they used to, the Sha (the old god) will feed on that negative energy and grow stronger.
If you think people didn't like the expansion because of the variant directions, the art style or just the general lore, fine. But don't waste your time and everyone else's by positing something that can be disproved in a five-second span.
The reason it felt 'diverse' is because there were bright colors, it was a unified continent and because each zone was themed well. People constantly overlook the fact that BC was solely themed on the Burning Legion with absolutely no unified plot from the get-go; it's simply believed that the plot was always existent because they injected one into it in patch 2.4 . It also feels better because people aren't looking at this kind of shit objectively from every angle; they let their emotions and their experiences drive their entire reasoning, and I really shouldn't have to explain why that is awful.
In Wrath, Cata and Mists, the zones were designed to have unified stories running through them and focus less on visual theming to build excitement. The problem with this is that the average video gamer now doesn't give a shit about that, and would much rather have the visual theming because the average gamer doesn't want to be 'bothered' with story; the average game simply wants action and visuals. That's fine, but that's not what WoW has been about, ever.
Also, since I don't believe it was brought up, Pandaren were requested from the start of Classic and were anticipated to be put in BC along with Ogres and were to be originally thought of as the 'Alliance' race. It's been a heavily discussed topic from the game's inception, and there have been numerous outside references and a couple of in-game references. While I don't disagree that they could have been discussed at more regular intervals in and out of the game, complaining that they were 'never referenced' is a waste of breath. If anything, Mists was HEAVILY overdue, as more players wanted Pandaren than Arthas, who is a far more prominent lore figure (and far more important) than Chen.