MoP is one giant satire comedy with a poor theme and dry humor all around

[Gheld]

You're cherrypicking Garrisons to try and attack my argument. Won't work. I'm saying some things that we respect in lore will be trounced by gameplay. I'll give an example.

Dalaran staying in Northrend land and nowhere else to be found despite the fact it technically was going to attack Orgrimmar. So really gameplay took over and lore had to take a backseat for a bit. Yes there are different teams but they have to work in the same line(Cooperative). Another example, we all know the Holy Light hates demons and undead.

Undead players aren't always critted. Lore has to take a backseat for gameplay. It sucks but really this would be abused like hell in PVP for obvious reasons(QQ). That and being in Cata Azeroth and entering Outland before Cata Azeroth happened(WORLD CONSISTENCY). It's not a good thing but that is the reality of it. Is it beyond criticism? No I don't think so. What with people being able to see Pre Theramore Bombing with that one NPC. I'd like to think it's possible to keep the world consistent.


But I am getting off topic. This isn't a gameplay>Lore thread. It's mostly about the criticism of MoP being one giant satire comedy with a poor theme and dry humor.

Consistency of world =/= storyline. I don't see anybody worth the weight of their flesh complaining about "OMG EXERCISM WON'T CRIT UNDEAD PLAYERS EVEN THOUGH THEY ARE UNDEAD."

In fact, certain spells working X way against the undead is a gameplay mechanic. So that's a gameplay mechanic trumping a different game play mechanic for the sake of pvp balancing. Unless it's written in one of the novels that "The Hunters humanoid tracking ability also shows undead players". Otherwise the way certain spells interact with certain creature types isn't a part of the lore.

And the point is that every time somebody points out the obvious reasons why MoP's storyline failed at life, people devolve into a "Gameplay > Lore" fanboy chant.

And then the Zandalari role was laughable. Seriously. They need to stop including the Zandalari unless they are going to move that plot arc forward. It has gone nowhere. "We be restorin' the old empire mon, now fight some giant trolls and dinosaurs"

All of the tie-ins to the "central plot" of WoW felt like they were added as an afterthought to quell the complaining about derailing the storyline. And even then "Mogu = titan constructs that were corrupted. LOL" Titans built shit, and shit got corrupted. Again, absolutely no plot progression on that arc. They just reiterated it, like with the Zandalari.

The silithi... I mean nerub... I mean mantid, bug men worship old god, let's beat up corrupted bug men. The fact that Y'Shaarj was dead and his heart was in a box and that Garrosh could steal the heart and use it as a weapon... very very minor plot progression. But then we make the heart stop beating and he escapes and makes new orc models on alternate past but not past because it's not a time travel expansion Draenor. And somehow on the concept art they managed to make the Warlords look all cute and cuddly.

Vanilla introduced the story arcs, TBC through Cata advanced them. MoP stagnated them in favor of introducing a new story arc, despite the fact that the Legion and Aszhara story arcs haven't even been resolved yet to within any degree of satisfaction. So despite the lame ending for Cata, it at least saw the decimation of the twilight cult.

In fact, any story arc that MoP touched, besides the Garrosh arc, was just a shameless reiteration for the sake of fan service.

[rda]

How does one "trounce" lore for the sake of gameplay?

That's just the most absurd thing I have ever read. Gameplay and lore are handled by two entirely different teams.
"We wanted to add Garrisons to the game, and in order to do that, Garrosh had to escape. Because they both start with the same 4 letters."

Read GC, will you. He kept repeating that gameplay is more important than lore in his twitter, if you find these tweets you will see what he was replying to and get the idea.

Just one example off the top of my head: you remember when in Cata the Horde suddenly pushed the Alliance all over Azeroth and got several places for themselves? Burned Southshore, took / built a couple of new forts and camps in Ashenvale, etc. Guess what was the reason for that sudden push? Maybe the Horde has gotten stronger after LK? Or, say, the Alliance got weaker, because they were hurt by what was going on in Northrend more? Nah, not that. The Horde got their new zones and camps, and the Alliance lost theirs because - wait for it - because of GAMEPLAY REASONS. The devs decided that the Alliance had more zones overall and it was time to balance that. Not lore. Gameplay.

Seriously, you can probably find something like twenty of things like that if you search SoL or even the official forums for an hour.

[Verdugo]

If you got that the pandaren were the central theme of Mists of Pandaria, you didn't pay attention.

You have to excuse them for being confused, reason being that they had pandas continuously shoved in their face.

Dread Wastes was supposed to be a break from that, but no, we get to help panda captain realise how his crew loves him (and there is also a fight with kraken never mentioned before) and, my favourite, another bunch of monochrome brewers trying to get shitfaced.

[Sansnom]

The whole theme behind the pandaren could have been done a lot better. Its killing me. I apologize if my opinion differs from yours to the point where you feel the need to angrily disagree with me and bash me.

Or maybe it is you who is angry and disagree with those who enjoy MoP and wants to bash them for not agreeing with you? You are pretty much just trolling.

[Tychus]

You have to excuse them for being confused, reason being that they had pandas continuously shoved in their face.

Strange that there were Pandaren populating Pandaria. I wonder if there will be a lot of Draenei on Draenor? This is all so bizarre.

[The Madgod]

There was so much more going on in Pandaria than martial arts adept anthropomorphic pandas, but they factored into the plot every step of the way. No matter what you intended to do, it would in some way or another involve martial arts adept anthropomorphic pandas. And you can call people shallow all you want for "not liking pandas" but pandas aren't badass. They could have been badass, but Blizzard failed horribly at making them badass. Instead they were martial arts movie cliches. An entire continent full of Mr. and Mrs. Miyagi.

Because they live there?

And the shado-pan are pretty badass.

They also completely failed at framing Chinese mythology. Cuddly Shaolin and terracotta roofs. Boom. China. Can we have some money now? Game play wise MoP offered a fair bit, but story wise it had very little depth. And to those who go around reciting "Gameplay before story, lol" why the fuck can't you have both? I've been playing video games since the 1980s, and I have played a ton of games that offered both gameplay and storyline. It's just a sad copout by the developers for piss poor story writing.

I wasn't aware that using something as a base for something else required to properly convey the original base.

Mists of Pandaria has shown far more depth than any expansion before it as far as story is concerned. There are no arguments otherwise. TBC barely had a coherent story for the expansion and classic WoW didn't have one at all. Wrath had some depth but it was largely in the background lore. General story was rather disjointed. Cataclysm suffered from similar problems as Wrath but at a lower level of quality.

Mists of Pandaria was THE first expansion to tie-in an older bit of lore from the expansion as a part of the story without blatently saying "yeah this is happening." It went into how life worked moreso than any expansion before and contrasted that with what we were doing to that continent. We had the world actually change along with the story. We saw more inner-faction politics than ever before. We saw characters actually DO stuff. We actually had characters that meant something throughout the story, rather than the more largely used 'one-and-done' method of previous expansions. Closest we got to that was with Thrall in Cataclysm and Arthas in Wrath. By and large, once a character was used in a zone or patch, they didn't reappear for a long while, if at all. In Mists, we've had multiple characters pop up again and again APPROPRIATELY.

Both of these are true and ignored by most MoP-diehard supporters. Lorewalker cho showing up on about half the boss fights and adding NOTHING but a comical panda appearance.

Dunno about you but by and large... he's not that comical. He's rather gentle, but I wouldn't say that being lighthearted is the same as being comedic.

Plus, he's in... two raids. And only a part of the second one. He also has a good reason to be in both, if you paid attention to what he is.

You have to excuse them for being confused, reason being that they had pandas continuously shoved in their face.

Dread Wastes was supposed to be a break from that, but no, we get to help panda captain realise how his crew loves him (and there is also a fight with kraken never mentioned before) and, my favourite, another bunch of monochrome brewers trying to get shitfaced.

Yeah I wouldn't say that you're getting pandaren shoved in your face when they live there.

What we see:

Jade Forest: Some pandaren, largely about the Horde and Alliance's initial conflicts and introducing the player to the land and its people (including the jinyu and hozen).
Valley of Four Winds: Pandaren. No real argument here otherwise. However it is again showing what life's like. That's not inherently a bad thing.
Kun-lai Summit: You're there to get the pandaren on your side of the war and to do other random crap. Most disjointed of the zones.
Townlong Steppes: Big focus is the mantid and yaungol with the shado-pan as a way to move the story along.
Dread Wastes: Basically entirely about the mantid and the sha. Even the bits where you find pandaren are ultimately about those.

5.1: Alliance / Horde conflict. Basically no pandaren.
5.2: Thunder King and the Zandalari along with Alliance / Horde conflict. Shado-pan have a minor role.
5.3: Darkspear Rebellion. No pandaren except Chen.
5.4: Siege of Orgrimmar. Yeah again no real pandaren involvement except Lorewalker Cho (who has reason to be there for the part he is) and Taran Zhu, who was left there to die. Timeless Isle's story, if there is any, focuses largely on the Celestials and the yaungol Ordos and his worshipers. There are pandaren there... but that's all they really are. Just... there.

So ultimately only one zone really focuses hard on the pandaren while another focuses on them as a goal. The rest either use them as a way to flesh out the world's background, or as a means of moving the plot forward. A similar pattern is found in the patches, except they have even LESS pandaren involvement.

Unless you define "shoved in your face" as "they were there" then I find it difficult to understand exactly how we had an extreme excess of pandaren, especially when every patch that had them be a part of the story, they were just... there. They weren't at all the focus, they were simply characters on the sideline, or a way to move the plot forward in a healthy and reasonable way. Hell, in the Siege of Orgrimmar, Cho and Zhu were basically an afterthought as far as the narrative was concerned (at least till the end).

[blackblade]

WoW has lost its tone of seriousness and with it, its immersion too.

Mop didn't dedicate half a Zone to Harrison Jones.

Is more srs than cataclysm.

Didn't have any long-winded Brann history lessons either. or 'Tempest keep was merely a setback'.

Additionally, those annoying pop-culture references are significantly more subtle in MoP.

I would counter-argue that because there's less "Haris Pilton" and "Harrison Jones" that there's more WoW in MoP than ever before.

[The High Druid]

You have to excuse them for being confused, reason being that they had pandas continuously shoved in their face.

And yet in Burning Crusade the Draenei and Blood Elves hardly appeared at all. Oh, wait . . . they were in pretty much in every zone, dungeon and raid.

And in Wrath we never met any undead that I can recall.

And the that twilight lot kept a real low profile in Cataclysm.

In case you're missing the point, the format of Mists is no different from the previous expansions. In fact the Pandas have probably shown up less since the raids have focused far more on Mogu, bugs and Orcs.

[Verdugo]

In fact the Pandas have probably shown up less since the raids have focused far more on Mogu, bugs and Orcs.

Figures, they dont appear in places where I would be justified in slaughtering them.

[The Madgod]

Figures, they dont appear in places where I would be justified in slaughtering them.

Thus we come to the crux of your issue.

You hate the pandaren more than anything, for whatever reason. Thus, any sighting of them is too much. For you, anyway.

[Verdugo]

Thus we come to the crux of your issue.

You hate the pandaren more than anything, for whatever reason. Thus, any sighting of them is too much. For you, anyway.

The issue comes from the fact that I have to turn into some kind of asian obsesionist by the end of the questing experience, what with embracing their entire culture. Blizzard is forcing me to like them... and I dont like that.

Thats the difference between every other race and pandas. You have to save them, help them, befriend them, get shitfaced with them, learn kung-fu and so on, it just feels incredibly forced.

[Deleted]

WoW has lost its tone of seriousness and with it, its immersion too.

Yeah right a game with Cows, Space-goats and Pandas cant be taken serious...oh wait! its a game! like it or dont!

[Tychus]

The issue comes from the fact that I have to turn into some kind of asian obsesionist by the end of the questing experience, what with embracing their entire culture.

I guess it's good that Pandaren aren't real, because that almost sounded racist.

[The Madgod]

The issue comes from the fact that I have to turn into some kind of asian obsesionist by the end of the questing experience, what with embracing their entire culture. Blizzard is forcing me to like them... and I dont like that.

No, you don't. Not at all.

You don't have to embrace their culture, you don't have to like it. You simply have to acknowledge that they exist and that their culture exists. Whether you like them or not isn't up to the game. It simply portrays them as a likeable race... because that's what they are. They're a friendly, kind race, who by and large doesn't need to face much adversity due to the fact that they have the Shado-Pan, who make up the grittier portion of their race.

If you're feeling forced to love and embrace everything pandaren because they were featured in an expansion that uses their homeland as a backdrop, you might need to reevaluate something. If anything, what you are saying is telling me that you are uncomfortable with them being perceived as a positive thing because it conflicts with your world view. You dislike them, you outright hate them. You want that validated, but the game isn't doing that.

Thats the difference between every other race and pandas. You have to save them, help them, befriend them, get shitfaced with them, learn kung-fu and so on, it just feels incredibly forced.

Except you have to help and befriend other races too.

I believe you think it's forced... but I think it's simply your bias against the pandaren. Truly. You're forced to help them the same way you were forced to help the taunka, the wolvar, the oracles, the dragons, the broken, the sporregar, the draenei, the naaru, the blood elves, and every other race you help and befriend in every version of the game.

What we do with the pandaren isn't exclusive to them. It's simply the latest iteration of a nine year long pattern.

[Lumocolor]

I disagree with basically everything you just said of MoP, but I see this thread as a flamebait simply because of your last sentence.
And what was the purpose of this rant other than to just put your opinion out there while you could have in any established threads, which you have.

What's the purpose of kim kardashian and miley cyrus posting new pictures of the butts on instagram every day?

That's what the internet is for; 95% useless crap and opinions.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Consistency of world =/= storyline. I don't see anybody worth the weight of their flesh complaining about "OMG EXERCISM WON'T CRIT UNDEAD PLAYERS EVEN THOUGH THEY ARE UNDEAD."

It was an example Gheld. I personally don't care so much but like I said even some minor gameplay things take over and trunce lore.

In fact, certain spells working X way against the undead is a gameplay mechanic. So that's a gameplay mechanic trumping a different game play mechanic for the sake of pvp balancing. Unless it's written in one of the novels that "The Hunters humanoid tracking ability also shows undead players". Otherwise the way certain spells interact with certain creature types isn't a part of the lore.

Because Undead Players are considered humanoids not actually UNDEAD. It's a small gameplay thing over lore. Say Blizzard let that in. Basically Undead Rogues would be pretty hard to find. They could be crit like hell from Holy abilities but hard to track.

And the point is that every time somebody points out the obvious reasons why MoP's storyline failed at life, people devolve into a "Gameplay > Lore" fanboy chant.

I don't really use that argument. I've seen more arguments that people didn't like the story of MoP because they have some very shallow reasons more then *Well Gameplay >Lore*. I never argued it but certain little points in WoW have gameplay trumping lore in general.

And then the Zandalari role was laughable. Seriously. They need to stop including the Zandalari unless they are going to move that plot arc forward. It has gone nowhere. "We be restorin' the old empire mon, now fight some giant trolls and dinosaurs"

Despite your simplification of the motivation of the Zandalari. This was going to come weather you threw a fit or not. It started in Cata and that arc came to Pandaria. The Zanadalari's land Zandalar was really messed up by the Cataclysm. Thus they wanted the land for their own. We got to see some cool Zandalari tech and culture. They brought dinosaurs along with them so what. We haven't had much dinosaur involvement in WoW so why not add that for some fun. Yeah having Trolls in MoP or almost every expansion has become a joke around the forums so again...WHY NOT.

Trolls being involved in Pandaria made perfect sense to me and it worked. They had a massive empire in the distant past so it's perfectly logical for them to be involved. Them and fighting the Mogu with the Thunder King was perfectly acceptable. We needed a small break from the Horde conflict for a bit much like how in Wrath we went after Ulduar and Yogg for a bit instead of the Lich King and for MoP...the Horde/Alliance war.

The silithi... I mean nerub... I mean mantid, bug men worship old god, let's beat up corrupted bug men. The fact that Y'Shaarj was dead and his heart was in a box and that Garrosh could steal the heart and use it as a weapon... very very minor plot progression. But then we make the heart stop beating and he escapes and makes new orc models on alternate past but not past because it's not a time travel expansion Draenor. And somehow on the concept art they managed to make the Warlords look all cute and cuddly.

Again with the simplifications to attack Blizzard and make it seem boring. You do well at that, are you a IGN critic or something? Seriously though the Mantid were big worshippers of Y'Shaarj and the Old Gods back in the old prehistoric age. Their history also tying into Pandaria worked well enough along with the Yaungol and the Mogu. It also makes sense why the Pandaren are so needed to be calm. It also explains why the Shado-Pan are so extreme in their methods. They know their threat is always a constant and perhaps a near eternal one. Heck their beginning Story arc(The Mantid) ends at the Siege when we finish the Paragons once and for all. They did say when their Old god returns(And he did in a way via the Heart) we would be the enemy. Blizzard capitulated on that and firmly ended Mantid/Klaxxi story arc of MoP.

Garrosh got the heart yes but he was always interested in Pandaria's artifacts and he was willing to do what it takes to get it to solidify his vision for his Orcish Horde. It fits him and we all knew he would be up to something, it was just a matter of what. We defeated him and he will be put on trial. His story will not end there. There is no stagnation, because WoW in some ways is an ever continuing story. Some stories finish, some arrise, even some old stories turn into new ones. Yes we get new Orc models but that is firmly gameplay. Garrosh yes did time travel thanks to his Time Traveling friend and meet the warlords of the past. That is the Time Travel yes but we won't be necessarily time traveling.

Interdimension traveling yes. Again with the cute and cuddly. They don't look cuddly, they remind me of a bunch of tyrants and evil looking beings. Like low time monsters. Like they were already somewhat messed up before demon blood got involved. There are many things that can be explored for Warlords if you try and look at it from "What can we get out of this or learn from." It's easy to say "WELL ITS GOING BACK TO WARCRAFT II AND STUFF TEEHEE."

No, I can see many things from this. Just like I saw from MoP and Cataclysm.

Vanilla introduced the story arcs, TBC through Cata advanced them. MoP stagnated them in favor of introducing a new story arc, despite the fact that the Legion and Aszhara story arcs haven't even been resolved yet to within any degree of satisfaction. So despite the lame ending for Cata, it at least saw the decimation of the twilight cult.

Vanilla introduced story arcs yes but it was all over the place and very much difficult to gather, Legion,Old Gods, Alliance and Horde, etc etc. TBC did give us a story arc. Basically Warcraft II nightmares. Orc's facing their former selves and demon masters of sorts. Although it became more about Illidan. For the Draenei it became about seeing their former temporary home torn apart. For the Blood Elves to follow Kael'thas only to realize he betrayed them for a new master. Illidan became the big threat. We saw Khadgar etc etc. A little Nod to the Old Gods(Arrokoa summoning them?).

All of the tie-ins to the "central plot" of WoW felt like they were added as an afterthought to quell the complaining about derailing the storyline. And even then "Mogu = titan constructs that were corrupted. LOL" Titans built shit, and shit got corrupted. Again, absolutely no plot progression on that arc. They just reiterated it, like with the Zandalari.

The Mogu had a similar story yes, Titan Constructs that fell to Old God Involvement. Because they wanted to keep the Old Gods and such in check. They fell to the very enemy they were made to fight against. Due to this failing they became mortal and fell to so much infighting they only knew the thuggish attitude that the Pandaren like to call the Mogu. Is it false? No, it's bloody damn correct. Time and time again the Titan's own creations became flawed. Perhaps the Titans are not so perfect as they seem to be. We've seen this before yes but WoW is known to have recurring themes. Wrath is not immune to this, nor is BC and Vanilla. This Final Titan that got uttered is also something that has to wait but then we don't have all of the story yet.


Nothing stagnated, we just went for the Alliance and Horde conflict and combined that with the mystery that is Pandaria. It's really a lot more massive and complex you give it credit for. You just dumb it down to make it easier to attack so it looks bad enough.

In fact, any story arc that MoP touched, besides the Garrosh arc, was just a shameless reiteration for the sake of fan service.

There's always going to be something for fan service but it's a more disservice to say there is no massive story at works here that is more complex than a simple good vs evil.


All in all. Your criticisms desperately try to have merit but they fall backwards because you can't even criticize correctly and are too focused on hating things and dumbing them down. Literally what you do is cast the spell "STUPIFY" from Harry Potter and they look bad.

You don't have the high ground.

[Louis CK]

What's the purpose of kim kardashian and miley cyrus posting new pictures of the butts on instagram every day?

That's what the internet is for; 95% useless crap and opinions.

When did Miley Cyrus get an ass?

[Gheld]

All in all. Your criticisms desperately try to have merit but they fall backwards because you can't even criticize correctly and are too focused on hating things and dumbing them down. Literally what you do is cast the spell "STUPIFY" from Harry Potter and they look bad.

You don't have the high ground.

I only made one criticism that matters: I unsubbed. The rest is just au jus.

I've been a part of the "Warcraft Universe" since the very beginning. So I'm still inclined to participate in discussions about what's cool and what's uncool in the Warcraft Universe. And Pandaria wasn't cool. And flagrant fanboys talking down to me every time I point out that OMG Blizzard isn't perfect, and neither is WoW, pretty much seals the deal with me having unsubbed now.

[Tychus]

And flagrant fanboys talking down to me every time I point out that OMG Blizzard isn't perfect, and neither is WoW

Wat. So, this is how things basically went, super abridged version:

You: Wow sux, pandas be goofy
Him: Wow's been goofy
You: BLIZZARD ISN'T PERFECT, WOW ISN'T PERFECT, STUPID FANBOY

[Deleted]

Apply that logic to every race's army that isn't human, so I don't know what you expected really?

Sure, because an army of Orcs makes just as much sense as an army of "Ookin' in the Dookers" monkeys? Please...
Even the quest dialogue when assembling and arming the monkey army make it sound like a stupid decision.

Blizzard today has lost the fine line of adding fun things without spoiling the lore too much. Nowadays everything is added only under the notion of "would this be cool?" And someone probably thought a monkey army would be cool and fun. Nothing more to it.