Originally Posted by
mvallas
Incoming obligatory "They were in Warcraft 3" and "There's a barrel in Ratchet that's Chen's" gobbledygook...
But you are right OP... having had the Pandaren spotted about earlier would've been smarter. Only thing though is that, well, the whole point of the Pandaren was that they were formerly a quiet secretive race far away.
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FRAK!!! Somebody already beat me to it! You must've posted while I was typing... >_<
EDIT: and, no, they're obviously not enough. I doubt the majority of WoW players ever played WC3... let alone saw Chen. And words on a quest does not say "THIS GUY IS A UNIQUE PANDA-LIKE RACE" written on it. Chen could've been the name of a goblin for all the player's knowledge...