Originally Posted by
D_K_night
If you look at all the races and enemies in the game, they are all a variation of animal-like beings. So why are Pandas suddenly an issue, in a world of Cow People, Wolf People, Rat People, Goat people, Walrus people etc? I'll tell you why. Because they don't look Asian, unlike the Pandas.
No one complained about the Egyptian theme in Cata - that's because the whole Egyptian thing is still thought of as mysterious, the whole Indiana Jones thing(remember, it's a white hero exploring the dark depths of a "unknown", evil, foreign culture). The charismatic white hero versus the evil, mysterious foreigners makes for a great story, and one that's easy for Western, largely white audiences to relate to and enjoy. The Egyptians are the bad guys, and we're the good guys liberating their treasures for the good of our historical needs.
Caucasian vs foreigner - easy to understand, digest, and accepted as the norm.
The Panda as well as the entire Mists of Pandaria expansion hinges on a theme - the Asian theme. Now the players are suddenly able to choose the foreign race - and that's not cool. Look at the Pandarien. They have that Asian look. People who play WoW don't identify with Asian looking things - even if they are animal beings. The Panda itself hails from Asia. Things would be totally different if the Pandarien were not a playable race, but a just an NPC race, and a race which you battle against in raids and dungeons. The whole Asian theme with all those chinese-looking buildings and landscape...it just isn't anything that brings any real appeal to the everyday Caucasian. It's just not mysterious, and doesn't draw the player in. All that clapping at Blizzcon were just token claps for "job well done with artwork" but it didn't reflect the feelings from the players.
We're living in a world where inter-racial marriages and relationships are start to strain the boundaries, but it's still not totally accepted. It's exotic to see your white buddy marry a chinese girl and definitely eyebrow-raising, but it's still seen as an anomaly. The stereotypes will persist(the handsome, smart, well-off white man marrying the exotic Chinese girl). And as long as it remains an anomaly and just a "sometimes" thing - we're fine with it. But more to the point -
I hate to say this, but World of Warcraft is a Western game, made for Western people. There are reasons why Asian characters are never the central character in a Western movie - unless they conform to Asian stereotypes(bad english, always knows kung fu, etc). We all know how Jackie Chan underwent plastic surgery so he doesn't look "too asian" - even though he's the co-lead for all those Rush Hour movies. And even then there has to be the character foil(Chris Tucker, an obnoxious black man - again playing to stereotypes). Bottom line it's just not fully accepted in Western culture. The monk class addition is totally fine(how many of us will think David Carradine when rolling a blood elf monk?)
Personally speaking - I like what Blizzard is trying to do with MoP - but they are doing it too aggressively, for an audience that still associates "Asian" with "gold farmer" and all those WoW clones from Asia, which are already saturated with Pandas or panda-like things. It's best to tone down the whole Asian theme back a bit, remove the ability to be Pandarien, and just leave the Pandariens similar to the quest givers in Uldum. But bringing the Asian theme to the forefront, is completely a mistake. We're just not ready for that.