Is it impossible to dislike pandaria constructively without "YOU HATE PANDAS" bs?

[Nachturnal]

This. I remember the SoO cutscene where Taran Zhu has just been impaled on Garrosh's sword and he dumps the Heart into the water. And you watch Taran Zhu watch this beautiful butterfly fly by his face before burning away to nothing in void magic. Tragic.

- - - Updated - - -



I always liked him. A true neutral who calls out both sides for being the dicks they are. He warned the pandaren in both starting areas to keep clear of these outsiders or they'd regret it. He warned the Celestials not to let them into the Vale. And he was right. Hmm. Come to think of it. Did he ever meet Garrosh before the vale thing? I know Anduin was there.

That's what was so great about the story of MoP! Up until Mists, the Horde and Alliance were fighting each other non-stop with no outside of opinions. Then the Pandaren are introduced and thrust into this war they had no choice but to be a part of because of the faction's blind hate for one another. It offered an outside perspective of just what kind damage the faction conflict has and the lengths both were willing to go in the name of conquest and victory. The Pandaren were victims of the Horde and Alliance's pride and malice.

Well myself I loved MoP not solely because of Pandas.

I loved the story narrative..., the new mobs (the insectoids for example, their psychology and voice acting, and their dailies), the farm (I loved my vegetables), the zones (lost in the jade forest..., or in the territory of the Lion), the Isle of Thunder, how the rares were handled...(they could kill you)

So I guess we can love or hate MoP, and it may have nothing to do with pandas..^^

The Klaxxi! Man, I looooooved the voice acting of the Klaxxi and the Paragons! A mix of eerie and malicious. Heart of Fear and the Paragons in Siege of Ogrimmar were scenes where I made sure to listen in to the dialogue and sounds.

[Wheeler]

I don't really have a lot of criticism for MoP as an expansion because I had a lot of fun during it, lots of good memories. However that scenario A Little Patience can go fuck itself. 40 years old man can't be more experienced than 10.000 years old elf who fought in the most apocalyptic conflict in history.

Oh and the ending. Jaina should've 100% gotten the kill, fuck Taran Zhu and his whole "we all suffered from his atrocities" BS.

In all seriousness - Scenarios are a great constructive criticism of MoP. They were terrible in every way, shape and form. They were promptly removed for a reason.

I think the legendary cloak quest was another solid criticism of it, too. It's when I see people saying the classes played badly that I start to don my battle armor and pitchfork.

[Aleax]

The Klaxxi! Man, I looooooved the voice acting of the Klaxxi and the Paragons! A mix of eerie and malicious. Heart of Fear and the Paragons in Siege of Ogrimmar were scenes where I made sure to listen in to the dialogue and sounds.

Yes the Klaxxi^^ Not everybody play only for the competitive side of WoW^^

[Cyanu]

i find pandas adorable

that said i didn't really like MoP overall for a number of reasons, like:

1)the aesthetics were way too cartoonish, for example the Stormsnout Brewery instance was almost like they were designed for 10 year old children

2)the overall class design while definately better than what we have now had gone too deep into homogenization, all specs had pretty much everything, which imo makes the classes feel bland

3)the story felt more like about regaining what we lost rather than making steps forward and an entire expansion is a bit too much for this, that said garrosh had it's moments, i mean did anything happen in this entire expansion other than us getting rid of Garrosh?

4)content drought was pretty bad (not as bad as WoD though)

5)all the pacifist teachings it was supposed to pass to the horde/alliance felt a bit out of place for a game that's been humans vs orcs since it's inception, the fact that they didn't carry forward also made them feel even more insignificant

6)i could also add that some specs were pretty terrible at PvP and such, but that happens every expansion so MoP is not to blame

overall i'd say that while pandaria would be a really cool major patch it didn't really warrant an entire expansion, being in 'China' for 2 years is a very long time and it got me a bit fatigued personally in terms of aesthetics, music, accents etc (still love pands though)

ps: Wotlk is overrated, it was awesome at it's time but highly problematic for today's significantly higher standards, that said WoD is still the worst expansion and Legion (imo) the best

[Kyriani]

I didn't "hate" MoP, but I hated a lot of the changes it made to the game such as:

1) Making dungeons worthless (which carried over into WoD), thankfully that was rectified in Legion

2) The removal of rep tabards

3) Removing the daily cap and then making rep only obtainable through dailies and locking key things behind those reps... heck even other reps were locked behind rep >_< and you couldn't spend your valor points without rep either.

4) The talent revamp. I liked the old talent trees. And while they may have been truncated in Cataclysm, I still liked them more than the MoP revamp which we're still stuck with today.

5) Rune of Power - I hated this talent as much as I could hate any aspect of the game in MoP. And while I still wish it removed from the game just because my animosity still lingers, thankfully the talent is not necessarily the most optimal one anymore and I don't have to feel bad for not taking it.

I liked Pandaria as a setting. And while I never had any desire to play one, I didn't mind Pandaren as a race. My issues with MoP were entirely systemic and design based.

[ThatsOurEric]

Honestly? I think it's mostly because the West has always had a general disinterest towards Eastern
culture.

Oh sure, when it comes to certain aspects of Asian culture (martial-arts entertainment), as well
as other products or media (anime, video games), the West eats it up. And for a time, they were
all the craze.

But the culture itself? Nope. It's way too different, both aesthetically and philosophically.

So because MoP had strong ties to Eastern culture, in it's art, music, etc., it turned off a lot of
players, I suspect, for those reasons alone.

[This One Time At Bandcamp]

The year-long content-draught at the end of the expansion was quite insane.

It was my favorite expansion, but SoO lasted way too long.
Also, I wasnt a big fan of Timeless Isle - though the catchup in gear was nice.

[Pakheth]

Honestly? I think it's mostly because the West has always had a general disinterest towards Eastern
culture.

Oh sure, when it comes to certain aspects of Asian culture (martial-arts entertainment), as well
as other products or media (anime, video games), the West eats it up. And for a time, they were
all the craze.

But the culture itself? Nope. It's way too different, both aesthetically and philosophically.

So because MoP had strong ties to Eastern culture, in it's art, music, etc., it turned off a lot of
players, I suspect, for those reasons alone.

I think this might also be a difference between Europe and the US. Europe has always had a fascination for the East in form of Japonism and Chinese inspiration in fashion and art. It also helps that it was countries like Netherlands, Sweden and Portugal who were one of the biggest importers of Asian porcelain and artwork. A lot of people in Europe grew up with Chinese inspired porcelain on the table for example. This might not be the case for the US however and I feel the US has had more focus on stuff like ninjas and martial art. Not to mention the strained relationship with Chinese immigrants and Japanese POV's in its history.
I have yet to meet any EU wow player that didn't play MoP due to its theme, though I have met several who didn't play it due to the pandas sadly.
It's an interesting subject for sure that I feel is actually quite complicated.

[Exacto]

I remember not showering for 3 days while leveling my toons for MoP. It was super alt friendly. Wonderful expac

[Michael Jackson]

So this part was your "constructive reasoning" for not liking MoP?
You spend most of your post ranting about pandas and people not being able to discuss your constructive reasons, then provide none.

This forum has pretty high noise to signal ratio. You just provided a thread full of noise. Maybe focus on the signal?

I personally found Throne of Thunder a fun raid. Lots of good bosses and mechanics.

you didn't read shit of what I typed, I didn't rant about pandas once in that post
you criticize me for lacking constructive reasoning yet you reply with the same thing, only opposite
great job, you convinced me, pandaria was amazing

[RoKPaNda]

Honestly who cares if you don't like pandas or pandaria? Pandaren are one of my favorite races in WoW. It's probably Orcs and then Pandaren. I've had maybe two people make a derogatory comment about my Pandaren alts over the years because they just couldn't help themselves. I mean I personally think trolls look like shit but I've never felt the need to tell a troll player that.

I criticize the Pandaren all the time when the subject of MOP lore comes up. All expansion long Taran Zhu gave us shit because of the faction war but the Pandarens had no problem using us to settle all their problems including a nice genocide against the mogu. They taught us to hate the mogu, look at Brann's comments in the cloak questline when you encounter that one mogu survivor. The Pandaren are a bunch of hypocrites. Early MoP itemization for my class was complete and total shit. See? It's okay to criticize MoP *AND* Pandaren. Why wouldn't it be?

[Heavens Night]

When pandaria was announced and launched, there was a lot of hate from a lot of people because of the pandaren race.
Some of it was because they're pandas and goofy, other was more constructive.

Many years however, it is IMPOSSIBLE to have arguments against pandaria, no matter if they even mention the pandaren or not, without some shitface reply about "yeah just another panda hater thread".

You could literally criticize Seige of Orgrimmar, and at some point someone would come in with a "yeah it's just another thinly veiled thread from a panda hater".

Like do you really not feel embarassed and retarded to dismiss any and all arguments, no matter how well written and expalined, just because you really fucking love pandaren and you're afraid that maybe someone will logically show you that something about THE EXPANSION AS A WHOLE is dumb? And GOD FORBID, that maybe SOMETHING about the pandaren is dumb or poorly written and executed as well?

Like what the fuck is so sacrosaint about this expansion that gets people so embarrasingly defensive about it?
I LOVED WOTLK, yet I'm also one of the first to criticize its weak points, especially its ending.

Yeah, believe it or not, not all of us found Throne of Thunder a fun raid, except maybe one or 2 bosses. Not the lore, not the art, not the mechanics.
OMG YOU DIDN'T LIKE THRONE OF THUNDER, YOU'RE JUST A PANDA HATER! WHAT? TOT WAS ABOUT MOGU AND TROLLS AND A TITAN REFERENCE? YOU FUCKING PANDA HATER OMG!

Ofc it is possible. Everybody has different opinions on the various expansions, and disliking MoP is no more valid or invalid than liking or disliking any of the others.

Personally I liked MoP and really didn't like WotLK. But that's cool and I can for sure understand the reasons some didn't like MoP.

[Kallor]

MoP is probably the expansion I hated leveling in the most (despite the aesthetically pleasing zones), WoD, despite being a really bad expansion really improved upon how they presented the story while leveling.

Overall I rate it as not the worst, but not the best either. Certainly better than Cata and WoD though, that's for sure.

--

And yes, having a race in the game or not is just aesthetics. It doesn't affect the actual gameplay. That's why all those allied races additions mean so little to me, and why I can't believe people are so hyped about them. It's not particularily great content, because not much story/gameplay is added to the game with them.

[Eazy]

I didn't like playable pandas. I didn't like exagerrated asian theme. PvP armor/weapons looked like random things you could find on the scrap-heap. I didn't like the idea of BIS weapons with special gems(that dagger didn't drop for me at all) from the first raid tier. Didn't like new talent trees, it destroyed the progression feeling each level. PvP was meh.
The idea of Sha, spawns/parts of the strongest Old God, being dark/bad emotions was stupid for me.

ToT and SoO were fine. The SoO took too long, but it was fine as a raid.

I never understood the "panda hate" to be honest. How can you hate panda-like race when there already were gnomes and tauren. And now we have Vulpera.

Because it was joke race. Even blizzard employes think that, their made panda language to be written like "omnom nomnom omnomnom". Anyway, Pandaren hero from Wc3 was made to be an april fools joke, but players really liked it(me too), so they decided that they'll add it.

[manypillars]

There's something to be said for a game in which you have little choice in how you progress through it not just because no real choices are given but also because the game went on rails the expansion before, eliminating what little control you had, and then berates you for being the problem in the world (of Warcraft). There were also unfortunate issues where the dev's desire to control what you did when and create the illusion of a bustling world overrode the story's progression/logic resulting in stupid gates that only went away when they wanted to funnel you into a new location in order to maintain the illusion.

[valax]

so you wanted the heavily asian inspired race to be in a boston theme or something?
where the fuck did you want an ASIAN THEMED race to live in?

something more warcrafty tbh , jinyu architecture doesn't look chinese at all , still it's a native race of pandaria?

[Ielenia]

>Disliking expansion "because it offers weird,

Every expansion offers something someone considers "weird".

out of place, aesthetic

The game has roman aesthetics, scottish aesthetics, british aesthetics, native-american aesthetics... why would an asian aesthetic be "out of place"? Because you say so?

offers immersion-breaking race

The draenei are a retcon-ed race that came from outer space on a space ship. Do you hold the same opinion toward them?

and also all themes had no place in the game previously and barely make sense in the context of the setting"

Old gods, faction war, exploring new lands, facing new threats... all those themes have had a "place" in the game since day one.

[FelPlague]

something more warcrafty tbh , jinyu architecture doesn't look chinese at all , still it's a native race of pandaria?

I mean they are pretty Asian inspired but whatever.
https://images.app.goo.gl/KCkzb76rRkFFnBRw7

[Beerbill Society]

No you can't cuz Pandaria was actually OK and giving it shit is clearly panda hate

[Mrbleedinggums]

When pandaria was announced and launched, there was a lot of hate from a lot of people because of the pandaren race.
Some of it was because they're pandas and goofy, other was more constructive.

Many years however, it is IMPOSSIBLE to have arguments against pandaria, no matter if they even mention the pandaren or not, without some shitface reply about "yeah just another panda hater thread".

You could literally criticize Seige of Orgrimmar, and at some point someone would come in with a "yeah it's just another thinly veiled thread from a panda hater".

Like do you really not feel embarassed and retarded to dismiss any and all arguments, no matter how well written and expalined, just because you really fucking love pandaren and you're afraid that maybe someone will logically show you that something about THE EXPANSION AS A WHOLE is dumb? And GOD FORBID, that maybe SOMETHING about the pandaren is dumb or poorly written and executed as well?

Like what the fuck is so sacrosaint about this expansion that gets people so embarrasingly defensive about it?
I LOVED WOTLK, yet I'm also one of the first to criticize its weak points, especially its ending.

Yeah, believe it or not, not all of us found Throne of Thunder a fun raid, except maybe one or 2 bosses. Not the lore, not the art, not the mechanics.
OMG YOU DIDN'T LIKE THRONE OF THUNDER, YOU'RE JUST A PANDA HATER! WHAT? TOT WAS ABOUT MOGU AND TROLLS AND A TITAN REFERENCE? YOU FUCKING PANDA HATER OMG!

Consider doing a compliment sandwich.

"I liked X about Y expansion, but I did not care for A or B because of reasons C and D. However, I do think they at least did G decently or built upon H better than expansion J."

For example, I enjoy the social aspect of Classic and I do like how the class identity is there despite me preferring more class homogenization for balance purposes. However, I do not like how simplistic and restrictive the gameplay is when raiding, with primarily focusing on the limited debuff slots. There are also some mechanical and gearing choices that I do wish they would have been able to be at liberty to fix, but a vocal group wanted #NoChanges. I do respect how big the world feels when you're unable to fly or because of how long it takes to level/travel, but I do have some reservations about that as well as I feel a faster gameplay wouldn't sacrifice too much in immersion (like how TBC and WoTLK felt to me when trying to recall my experiences). All in all, I think they did capture both the positives and negatives of Classic WoW though and hopefully they change course by not doing a "#NoChanges" for TBC but focus on improving its weaknesses.

Much better than "I hate Classic, you can only do 16 debuffs on a boss? Rotations are just 1 button or 2 if you're lucky!"