Why did they feel the need to announce Garrosh as the endboss of MoP from the start?

[Deleted]

Was it because they feared the expansion wouldn't attract enough players if they didn't know who would be the endboss? (No clear endpath in sight)
I would have found it way better if they left it open to speculation or just announced that it might be a surprise who would end up the last obstacle of the expansion.

[Blufossa]

People (mostly Wrathbabies) felt the need to QQ about there being no "box art" end boss for them to prepare for.

Because, you know, there weren't other bosses in other expansions other than the "end boss"...

[GennGreymane]

People (mostly Wrathbabies) felt the need to QQ about there being no "box art" end boss for them to prepare for.

Because, you know, there weren't other bosses in other expansions other than the "end boss"...

what? 10nchars

[Giscoicus]

People (mostly Wrathbabies) felt the need to QQ about there being no "box art" end boss for them to prepare for.

Because, you know, there weren't other bosses in other expansions other than the "end boss"...

WTB box art with Cthun or KT

But yea, people whining they didn't know the surprise at the end, and alliance players continuously separating horde vs alliance story. I still just see STORY. Thrall in Cata was STORY he wasn't even horde affiliated at the time.

[Alyxanna]

Because it was nearing the end of a terrible expansion for Blizzard for business and people were really up in arms about the whole theme of the expansion once it was announced (some still are to this day). So they hoped that making it clear what the end boss was would get people over the latter and give others who might be in doubt a reason to stick around. They wanted to get the word out that at the end it wouldn't be some thing that players had never heard of. It was probably pretty smart.

[Potassiumgluconate]

what? 10nchars

BC = Kael'thas
Wrath = Lich King
Cata= Deathwing

It'd be forgiven if people were confused when an angry panda wasn't the final boss.

[Giscoicus]

what? 10nchars

Vanilla and TBC had dwarves elves and space goats on the boxes. Wrath and Cata had LK and Deathwing. When they released Mists box art people complained that it just showed a panda and nothing more.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

A lot of people thought there was no end boss and that this was a "filler" expansion as a result.

[Giscoicus]

BC = Kael'thas
Wrath = Lich King
Cata= Deathwing

It'd be forgiven if people were confused when an angry panda wasn't the final boss.

Was I really Kael? I thought it was just generic blood elf mischief face, and space goat in background.

[jerkface]

I always assumed it was at least partly due to all the whining over perceived Horde favoritism in Cataclysm. Who knows for sure though.

[stgeorge78]

Blizzard planned to keep it a secret, but Metzen dropped the ball shortly after Blizzcon 2011 at a media event and gave away the final villain.

[Itisamuh]

Probably to keep people like me from getting our hopes up, thinking it would actually be about Horde vs Alliance.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

Blizzard planned to keep it a secret, but Metzen dropped the ball shortly after Blizzcon 2011 at a media event and gave away the final villain.

Nope, he was told to. GC explained that a lot of people were getting confused about the theme of the expansion. Thinking it was just about Pandaren or that it was "childish" when they actually had all this awesome stuff planned out.

[Pisholina]

I always like hearing about something in advance, so it was a pleasant surprise to me.
Dave Kosak, in an interview with Jesse Cox, said that they put the information out there because people thought there would be no lore, just cute panda people. He says Blizzard wanted to show much much they want to develop the lore in Mists of Pandaria.

[Deleted]

Nope, he was told to. GC explained that a lot of people were getting confused about the theme of the expansion. Thinking it was just about Pandaren or that it was "childish" when they actually had all this awesome stuff planned out.

this yeah i remember they gace this reason somewhere in a blue post ?

[hrugner]

For the same reason that Metzen felt it necessary to explain to people that Mists was a real full expansion with important storyline and not some throw away expac. People had no idea why we as players would go visit pandaria and Blizzard felt that explaining a little bit more of why the expansion would be part of the main story would help generate enthusiasm.

[Szemere]

Cause the endless pestering and asking about it would've driven them crazy, and people would likely be "angry" over not having a big bad of some sorts...

Them trying to make it all much less about the big bad, and more about the overall story leading up to it was kinda hard to keep up, hiding who it was for even longer would've only made the focus more and more on the subject, so just throwing it out there without a whole lot of "this is a big deal" around it, like they did, might've been the best course of action to ensure the focus remaining on the actual story at hand.

[Netherspark]

Basically, people got confused and became disdainful because there wasn't an immediately apparent "big focus"....

[Polarthief]

A lot of people thought there was no end boss and that this was a "filler" expansion as a result.

Cataclysm had an end-boss and was basically filler.

As was MoP.

What changed by announcing the end-boss, exactly?

[melodramocracy]

Eh, maybe I wasn't paying attention, but I don't ever recall them saying who the bad guy was right off the bat.

*shrug*

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A lot of people thought there was no end boss and that this was a "filler" expansion as a result.

A lot generally means more than 3.