Verdict finally in: MoP is substantially worse than previous expansions

[Deleted]

And yet, nothing in Pandaria is directly named after Chinese historical or mythical figures or locations. Again, it's Mists of Pandaria, not Age of China.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaohao
http://www.wowpedia.org/Emperor_Shaohao

[Zephre]

IGN and Gamespot? Hahahahahaha

These two companies only give EA high ratings, it always helps when you put useless idiots like Jessica Chobot who can't voice act for shit in your games and toss a couple of thousand $ there way. As for metacritic? First thing that comes to mind is not sure if trolling or serious. Honestly who takes metacritic seriously? I bet if some game called " Nazi extermination death camp " showed up the trolls over there would rate it 10/10.

[Deleted]

The patches after MoP would have to be pretty lacking and bad to be worse than Cataclysm. You cannot truly rate how good an expansion is until you have played through all the patches, and reviews only count what is there at the start of the expansion.

[Thage]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaohao
http://www.wowpedia.org/Emperor_Shaohao

I stand corrected on an individual scale. Sound the alarms, Blizz is abandoning their Western audience!

Mm, maybe that was laying it on a bit too thick. All the same, I hardly feel whatshisface's bit is accurate, because Northrend lore 'borrowed' plenty of Aesir names (Thorim, Loken, and Sif are all blatantly taken from Thor, Loki, and Sif) for NPCs that were actually active in Northrend when we stopped by.

[Dblbaconator]

Haha, "respected people." Remember, these are the same "actual CRITIC"s who gave TOR 9s and 10s across the board, and we all know how that turned out.

I don't know why anyone listens to gaming journalism anymore. Paid reviews are everywhere (see the gift bundles of hundreds of dollars worth of TOR-branded gear that reviewers were sent for their reviews), along with threats from the publishers (reviewers were told that if they wanted to get a copy of ME3 early to review, they HAD to give TOR a glowing review). With no big game getting below an 8 anymore, it's obvious that these "actual CRITIC"s are in bed with the publishers, and have been for years. Hell, one of them went on Twitter this past week and basically confirmed as much (I forget if he got fired or he quit, but it was still very interesting to read).

Furthermore, I don't even know why we go off of a numeric rating scale for video games anyway. Much like it's silly to rate movies on a scale of 1 to 10 (or books or TV shows or any other entertainment medium), it's inane to believe that these gaming "journalists" can come up with an arbitrary scale to determine exactly how a game falls in line with others, and that this same scale will apply to every single person who plays video games ever. It's a subjective thing, so don't treat reviews like they're objective fact.

Metacritic is even worse about this, as it distills complex reviews into a simple average of review scores, and doesn't even take into account publications who DON'T decide to rate video games on a numeric scale. All you get is a meaningless number derived from meaningless numbers.

This gets even worse when applied to MMOs, as reviews only take into account a very small part of the game. Hell, most reviews of MMOs only delve into the first few levels of the game which, not coincidentally, are usually the most polished part of a new MMO. Reviewers play the first few levels, are stunned by the quality, and slap on a 9. If only they had played further, they'd notice a distinct drop in quality somewhere in the middle of the leveling process. The overall quality of an MMO can only be determined months after its launch, after its community has stabilized and every aspect of the game can be studied. Reviews of TOR from December of last year don't mention the laughably easy endgame PVE content, just as reviews of GW2 from a month ago fail to mention that there's practically nothing to do once you finish leveling but optional grinding (don't give me the excuse of "but they don't NEED people to stick around, there's no subscription!" MMOs need a playerbase to survive because players drive all manner of aspects of the game; if you can't find people to play with, what's the point of playing?). This is because reviewers have to push out their reviews as quickly as possible, so they only scratch the surface of the game and pump out another 9/10.

Pointing out just how meaningless the numbers are, look at the metascore for Cata. 90/100, wow! Must have been great, right? Yet the sentiment from the playerbase after it ended was that it was by far the worst in terms of content. Compare that to Mists, where I've heard a lot of praise for just how much content is already there, and with the first patch already out on the PTR just two weeks after launch.

The point I'm trying to make is that you can't just look at a review score (or worse, an average of review scores) and declare that an expansion is "substantially worse," especially when these reviews are from critics who have been out and out confirmed to be in league with publishers. Cata got high reviews after a fairly successful expansion, just as Mists is getting lower reviews (but still high, since when is 8/10 bad? oh right, ever since a game getting any less than 9/10 meant it was shit) after a fairly lackluster expansion. It couldn't be that previous experiences are tinging reviewers' words, right? Couldn't be that Cata burned out a lot of longtime WoW players, and these same people who are writing reviews are basing their reviews off of their bad memories?

Stop treating gaming journalism as the end-all-be-all answer to the quality of a game. The only person who can judge that for you is you.

[Huehuecoyotl]

There's a lot of mixed feelings about Cata.

absolutely. on the one hand i couldnt wait for it to finish. on the other hand, i wished it had never started. like you say, mixed feelings.

[TJ]

"MoP sucks, Cata was the best" ;D;D

[LuminousAether]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaohao
http://www.wowpedia.org/Emperor_Shaohao

Only one example? Wrath had Loki (Loken), Thor (Thorim), Sif (Sif), Odin (Hodir), Freya (Freya), Valkyrie (Val'kyr), etc.

Wrath was just as Norse based as MoP is China based. No idea why people are so racist against Chinese. There's a lot of rich mythology to be mined in China. If Blizzard had a Vedic themed expansion, how upset would people be?

[alba007]

And yet, nothing in Pandaria is directly named after Chinese historical or mythical figures or locations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaohao
http://www.wowpedia.org/Emperor_Shaohao

What's that got to do with the price of a cup of joe in DC?
Now please, tell me where there is a location in China or Chinese myth called Pandaria.

I see now, you had no idea about the obvious and worldwide known pride of China that is their native Panda bears. Sorry my bad!
Quote from Wikipedia: "While the dragon has often served as China's national emblem, internationally the panda appears at least as commonly. As such, it is becoming widely used within China in international contexts, for example the five Fuwa mascots of the Beijing Olympics."

Here is the link. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panda

Pandaria is the country of Pandaren race who are basically panda bears. I thought everybody was aware of this.

[Deleted]

I stand corrected on an individual scale. Sound the alarms, Blizz is abandoning their Western audience!

Mm, maybe that was laying it on a bit too thick. All the same, I hardly feel whatshisface's bit is accurate, because Northrend lore 'borrowed' plenty of Aesir names (Thorim, Loken, and Sif are all blatantly taken from Thor, Loki, and Sif) for NPCs that were actually active in Northrend when we stopped by.

It really is heavily based on asia. There's a chinese wall across the whole continent.
But WoW took stuff from all kinds of cultures.

[Decagon]

I get the impression from most of the lower reviews that they haven't actually played more than 1 class past level 86.

[Duravian]

What's that got to do with the price of a cup of joe in DC?
Fascinating, because MoP isn't named Catered to China. WHODATHUNKIT!
And yet, nothing in Pandaria is directly named after Chinese historical or mythical figures or locations. Again, it's Mists of Pandaria, not Age of China.
Icecrown was Frozen Mordor, whose entire center was a gigantic Vrykul village, and up north off the coast was a Vrykul settlement. Titan lore in Northrend was basically Aesir lore (and you know what the Aesir are? Norse gods!). Howling Fjord was all Vrykul lore. Storm peaks? Aesir lore. Sholozar? Packed to the gills with Aesir lore.

The Norse mythology took up the entirety of the B-plot up until Ulduar, it wasn't until after that that the story focus went back to the Scourge and the factions.

Also, the expansion is named after the landmass Pandaria, which has been in the lore for years via the WoW RPG. This isn't something they just drummed up out of nowhere. Now please, tell me where there is a location in China or Chinese myth called Pandaria.

When I think of Wrath, I see undead and sometimes Titans, while the Norse stuff is a nice bit of architecture in Howling fjord and present in certain places. Now, when I think of MoP, I think China. And only China.

[Thage]

I see now, you had no idea about the obvious and worldwide known pride of China that is their native Panda bears. Sorry my bad!
Quote from Wikipedia: "While the dragon has often served as China's national emblem, internationally the panda appears at least as commonly. As such, it is becoming widely used within China in international contexts, for example the five Fuwa mascots of the Beijing Olympics."

Here is the link. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panda

Pandaria is the country of Pandaren race who are basically panda bears. I thought everybody was aware of this.

Still a hell of a reach. Blizzard puts in the one race that regularly fuckin' dominated in polls here and on the o-boards asking what race players wanted next (and has done so since TBC, when I became active on the o-boards), the race that cause the WC3 b.net forums to explode with threads begging for the April Fools' joke regarding Pandaren being the 5th race to come true, and they set the expansion in their homeland to put the faction war in stark relief...

...

And because they're pandaren you want to claim that it's a blatant subscriber grab on the Chinese player base, despite the fact that most of the requests for pandaren, from Blizz's own collective mouth, came from Western gamers on these forums, the o-boards, and even direct requests at Blizzcons? And good job on ignoring the other points I'd made--I guess pointing out that a gigantic chunk of Northrend was facelifted from Norse mythology right down to NPC names and settlement names wasn't convenient for your argument that this expansion is totally different from Wrath, amirite?

[alba007]

Only one example? Wrath had Loki (Loken), Thor (Thorim), Sif (Sif), Odin (Hodir), Freya (Freya), Valkyrie (Val'kyr), etc.

Wrath was just as Norse based as MoP is China based. No idea why people are so racist against Chinese. There's a lot of rich mythology to be mined in China. If Blizzard had a Vedic themed expansion, how upset would people be?

This has nothing to do about being racist against Chinese. If you load the game from top to bottom with panda bears and Chinese culture around every corner looking at you, it means you are trying to cater to that market. There is nothing wrong with a company trying to cater to a very big market. But everybody does not have to like it.

What is annoying is this weird effort by some players trying to deny as if pandas have nothing to do with China and Chinese culture is not all around this expansion, as if the fact that there were Norse gods in a previous expansion somehow makes it so that the existence of overwhelming Chinese theme in this expansion somehow actually non-existent. Totally weird reaction.

It is what it is. You may be fine with it, and others may not like it. And some people may want to criticize it.

[Deleted]

Only one example? Wrath had Loki (Loken), Thor (Thorim), Sif (Sif), Odin (Hodir), Freya (Freya), Valkyrie (Val'kyr), etc.

Wrath was just as Norse based as MoP is China based. No idea why people are so racist against Chinese. There's a lot of rich mythology to be mined in China. If Blizzard had a Vedic themed expansion, how upset would people be?

No I have lots of examples.

All of the Pandaren have names from asian languages, mostly chinese.
The Pandaren practice Kung Fu. Their outfit looks chinese, Some of the customization options for beards make you think of chinese kung fu masters.
They have celestial beings they worship. A crane, a tiger, a yak and a cloud serpent.

I mean it's all over the place, you must've noticed it.

The theme is obviously asia, so what is your argument.

[Thage]

When I think of Wrath, I see undead and sometimes Titans, while the Norse stuff is a nice bit of architecture in Howling fjord and present in certain places. Now, when I think of MoP, I think China. And only China.

Almost all the Titan lore in Wrath was lifted right out of Norse mythology, right down to the names and personalities.

---------- Post added 2012-10-13 at 05:43 PM ----------

This has nothing to do about being racist against Chinese. If you load the game from top to bottom with panda bears and Chinese culture around every corner looking at you, it means you are trying to cater to that market. There is nothing wrong with a company trying to cater to a very big market. But everybody does not have to like it.

People are taking umbrage because X does not mean Y. They're doing more to cater this game to what Western fans have been asking for for years than what the Chinese MMO market shows it wants--they want games like Perfect World and AION, which excel in that market beyond WoW, but that direction would be the game's death knell in the Western market after Cataclysm.

You're drawing a false conclusion and ignoring evidence to the contrary while you work backwards from that conclusion to form a faulty hypothesis.

[Duravian]

Almost all the Titan lore in Wrath was lifted right out of Norse mythology, right down to the names and personalities.

Right, but nobody thinks of that. We see China much easier than we see Norse.

[Flaks]

Right, but nobody thinks of that. We see China much easier than we see Norse.

The Nordic lore is subtle. The Chinese lore is not.

Thorim, Sif, Loken, YOGG-SARON? And that wasn't even the main point of the expansion. It was Arthas as the Lich King. Original? No. Memorable and executed in a unique way? Hell yes.

All of the previous expansion lore also tied in amazingly well to everything most Warcraft fans were already aware of. MoP has new and "unique" lore that so far has only tied into the overarching story in passing.

So far the only interesting lore I've seen in MoP involves the Klaxxi and Wrathion. The Horde vs. Alliance fighting is literally no different that Cataclysm so far and still fails to tie into something major unlike Cataclysm. So what I'm saying is, lorewise and questingwise MoP is weaker than Cataclysm; which is saying a lot.

[Vladar]

Of course its the worst, no new mecanics except pokemon. Only 5 level cap increase and no redesign of lvl 1-60. On top of that no big boss at then end we just get pandas. Monk class is boring and so is the new panda race. How can it not be the worst expansion. Blizzard isnt trying anymore just there to make more money off a game that is in decline.

[evilman]

Sorry but the sec i read that your facts are from Metacritics i started laughing.

The way they calculate their numbers is just hilarious but that can be said for most review numbers seeing the crappy buggy games they tend to give a 90 etc.

Review scores are mostly about advertisement anyway. Give them a bag of money to advertise one of your games and you wil get a 90.