Why is MOP getting so much praise lately?

[Tikishock]

I think MoP is fine, maybe a bit overrated. I believe one of the main reasons you're seeing a lot of praise for MoP lately is that it is, for many people on this board, when they started playing WoW. Look at the people praising MoP and quite a few of them are using MMO Champ accounts made in 2013 and beyond. People tend to get really attached to the first game in a series they played, same goes for WoW and expansions. MoP may have been a lowpoint for WoW when it comes to subscriptions, however it did attract a...different crowd, to put it in a politically correct way. For the first time WoW had appeal to those who weren't quite as interested in western fantasy.

I know when I started playing WoW the exact same day I signed up for an MMO account (screw you, Thottbot) so people would know when I started playing WoW. This being an official forum of WoW. This makes sense.

[Cyberowl]

I was always a massive fanboy of MoP. The raids, the continent were superb, classes and PvP were fun, CM/dailies and other outdoor stuff and the islands hubs were fun (especially Timeless, even if it was so gimmicky, the PvP was fun with people being outside city hubs) and the story was fresh and decent (up until Garrosh imprisonment). SoO was its weakest link and even that raid was pretty good.

Content wise it is the gold standard of WoW, WotLK just came in a better time with a better community (esp. PvP wise). Outside of Ulduar WotLK was pretty garbage; it had 2/3 decent zones and the wing bosses and LK were good encounters in ICC.

[Veldoranz]

MoP is by far the most overpraised and overrated expansion this game has had. Cata and WoD were both WAY better.

Found the troll

[wysimdnwyg]

Really don't see how you can consider Cata among the best expansions, and WoD wasn't much better.
Cata -
Good:
* Seriously lore heavy if you could follow it.
* Casual friendly, yet still very challenging.
* Better raid difficulty design using normal/heroic modes

Bad:
* Insanely difficult dungeons with way too much trash (see Grim Batol). Guild groups wiped a lot early on, and even a year down the line LFD groups were wiping on normal modes.
* Convoluted and disjointed storylines (each zone was completely independent of the others, so there was no continuity as you moved to the next one) made it hard to track what was going on. The only thing that we really knew was that Deathwing was back and blowing up the world.
* The world revamp took a lot of time away from end game content.
* Cut scenes - many that could not be skipped - were OK the first time through if you enjoy them, but for alts, there were far too many.
* Dragon Soul raid was WAY too long (time-wise) and involved lengthy role play and cut scenes that could not be skipped.
* Zones that made getting around in Legion zones look like a flat plane. (I've been all the way through Vash'jir three times, and I still have no idea where I am or where I'm going. Deepholm isn't much better.)
* Zone phasing that completely removes the ability to see some content (see The Flamewake area in Mt Hyjal).

Overall, Cataclysm ranks near the bottom for many people because it was a bit short on end-game content, the story was too disjointed, and it was, frankly, boring.

MoP -
Good:
* Many, MANY, daily quests (some thought too many) gave players lots to do.
* Patch 5.1 is widely considered one of, if not THE, best patches in the history of WoW.
* As we progressed through the expansion, we got lots of end-game open world content, with Isle of Thunder, Isle of Giants, Timeless Isle.
* Completely new and interesting storyline.
* A legendary that everyone could get, even if it took months of questing and gameplay.

Bad:
* Daily quests felt mandatory with highly sought-after recipes and items locked behind exalted rep (like enchants).
* Too little variety in the daily quests made them monotonous quickly for those trying to run them all every day.
* Patch 5.3 content was limited time, with significant portions disappearing once Siege of Orgrimmar was released.

Overall, MoP is beloved because it had loads of end-game content that, outside of the original dailies, was constantly evolving to keep gameplay engaging. Additionally, the all-new lore was very interesting for a lot of people.

WoD -
Good:
* Leveling was very interesting with an engaging story.
* Dailies in the form of random area completion tasks was a nice change from dailies overload.
* Tanaan Jungle gave us new dailies and fun "rare" encounters. And Kazzak! Who we pugged to kill once a week. (Um.)
* Garrisons offered a new way to spend time, but with little effort.

Bad:
* Garrisons killed gathering professions (well, Herbalism and Mining).
* Garrison missions were boring.
* Three raids for the whole expansion.
* Lack of end-game content meant you went from a fun and engaging story while leveling to, well, sitting around doing nothing once you hit 100.
* Everyone stayed in their garrison, so we never saw each other.
* The storyline took a hard turn from Grom being the bad guy to Gul'dan being the big bad and Grom turned good(?). How? It felt like that was way too abrupt.
* A legendary that everyone got (because the first stage was ridiculously easy), but no one could SEE. What's the point of having a legendary item that no one can tell you have? Previous legendaries stood out. The cloaks had animation. The various weapons were obvious (even the daggers, to some degree). The ring? That does not appear on your character? Yeah, whatever.

Overall, WoD had potential, but a seeming lack of effort with end-game content and a story that felt like we missed a big piece left us wanting more. We spent almost two years running three raids and sitting in our garrisons.

For my personal opinion, the expansions (inc. Vanilla) rate as such: Wrath > Vanilla > Legion > MoP > BC > Cata > WoD

[Vestig3]

Because people hate the previous expansion when playing the current one but love it once that current one is over and love everything from the one before that and repeat.

[Mellows]

At the time I wasn't all that fussed with MoP. I played it all the way through but it wasn't until recently when I levelled an alt did I really notice how beautiful some of the zones are, especially The Jade Forest. From the cherry blossom trees to the pagoda inspired buildings it's bright and cheery. Maybe my opinion is just bias considering the doom and gloom, dark and intimidating zones we've been playing through Legion (I'm looking at you Argus!).

[Nefarious Tea]

MoP is far superior to any expansion after it so far, the only people NOT praising pandaland is the salty kungfu panda commenters.

Class design was godly
Wpvp was very much alive, and even balanced compared to the shitshows of WoD and Legion
Pvp was alive in general
The pve was great, varied, we have scenarios raids dungeons and dailies that switched up constantly, were not tedious at all honestly.

I could go on but yeah.. the lore was actually pretty expansive too. This was the last xpac before Blizz B team, otherwise known as the D3 team, took over and started pruning all of our abilities and implementing their fucktarded dumbass ideas.

What are you on about? World PvP in Mists was no better than it is now in Legion: if you're not wearing full mythic raid gear, you might as well not even be max level. It was the same in Mists.

[chooi]

MoP had too much of what I absolutely dislike:
- a ton of fuckin' daily quests
- even more daily quests
- Farmville
- major no-flying zones
- mediocre raids (overall)
- fluffy Disney-Panda style
- ugly Tier Sets & Weapons
- Pet Battles

Good things were:
- Challenge Modes
- 5.4 class design with high-end gear
- Flex Raid (still dunno why they didn't keep splitting raids in parts below Mythic and once completed)

IMO, MoP was just another mediocre expansion in a series of mediocre expansions since Cataclysm - just with different strengths and weaknesses. I even preferred WoD over MoP because it wasn't forcing me to play stupidly easy and boring daily shit, at least. I just want to raid because that's WoW's huge strength and that's all I'm interested in. I'd rather 'play' some mobile game if I wanted to click through boring errands on a daily basis

[scoobysnacks]

I hated the idea of MoP when it was first announced, but after playing it I think it was one of the best expansions to date.

The art style, story, gameplay and things to do were all top notch. My only criticisms are that SoO lasted much too long, and it led to the horror show that was WoD.

Overall, for me it's almost on a par with WotLK.

[Itisamuh]

No idea. I thought it was garbage then and still do. Easily the worst expansion in my book.

[Anjerith]

This is pretty straightforward; MoP is the point where most people that are playing now started the game. Yes, I know that is a hard thing to absorb.

[Deleted]

WoD took too long to release and all the racists hated on Pandaren. Besides those two points it was pretty much the best. We got a class AND a race, a whole new continent with new lore, a talent system that finally stuck, pet battles (AKA casual content that you can play during the entire leveling experience), development for Lor'Themar finally, and better pvp and class design than any time after.

[Ophenia]

I have tons of alts and I enjoyed them all during MoP. Now I'm switching alt every now and then because I'd love to enjoy them but I cannot any more.
I'm also bored as hell on my main character with his insipid gameplay.

Plus, it was a godlike expansion lorewise, it had gorgeous zones (Jade Forest and pristine Vale of Eternal Blossom are far above everything they could've done since. Big disappointment with WoD Nagrand for example), raids were at their best, and the content was here without being overwhelming.

[barrsftw]

I'll agree with this.
As someone who loves PvP, MoP was pretty much the highlight in WoW's entire lifespan other than WotLK.

Cata was good. Better than WotLK or MoP Imo. Too much of WotLK was terrible for it to be considered good overall. S5/6 were AWFUL. Early MoP was also terrible, though it got pretty good later. I remember Cata being good from the very beginning.

- - - Updated - - -

This is pretty straightforward; MoP is the point where most people that are playing now started the game. Yes, I know that is a hard thing to absorb.

Could be, and you're definitely right if this is true. I'd be curious to actually see the stats on this though if they were available. I do think most people just say "[the expansion when I started playing] is the best."

[Deleted]

This is pretty straightforward; MoP is the point where most people that are playing now started the game. Yes, I know that is a hard thing to absorb.

I think this is true, most MoP starters just have rose tinted glasses. MoP was really not that great back then, most people back then saw it as one of the first filler expansions.

[Kazuchika]

I think this is true, most MoP starters just have rose tinted glasses. MoP was really not that great back then, most people back then saw it as one of the first filler expansions.

imagine actually being around during Cataclysm and having the nerve to call Mists a filler expansion.

[fathom81]

I like that mop started the storyline that ended in legion, and loved the asian inspiration in the lore and art.
It was the only expansion i raided seriously after classic, and i loved it, tho i got bored after garrosh heroic (current mythic) and stopped playing til wod.

[IceMan1763]

I ended Cata with 8 IRL friends playing wow. MOP took that number down to 1. Sure you can argue that MOP had some cool content but soo many people seem to forget that right before Cata was pretty legit until the dragon soul patch. Have you guys forgotten how good BWD,FL and to a lesser extent, BoT was? Every time people diss Cata as the 'casual expansion' they conveniently forget to mention that it had some of the hardest dungeons and pretty challenging raids prior to the nerfs and DS patch. Then those same people praise MOP as the be all end all of expansions. Sure, compared to Dragon Soul Cata and the shitshow that was WOD it was good, but if I remember correctly, people where not happy at the time, everyone was far more salty about the kung fu panda expansion than they are now. Just, for a second, imagine that MOP didn't exist (yet), and after imprisoning Sargeras and defeating a Titan you would get friggin Pandas, idk about you but I would not be too happy.

Cata was casual???? You're 100% right... no one who actually played it would say that. Do they remember all the whining about healers actually having to watch mana and heroic dungeons actually requiring CC, interrupts, and a brain to finish until you outgeared them? Did they try the heroic FL fights or any of the heroic raids with relevant gear when the raids were current?

Cata was NOT casual. Legion is fucking casual. In Legion you can get a BIS item just for having a pulse.

[Sky High]

because it was... good? literally the only criticism I ever see for it falls on "huuuuur there's way to much I have to do!" or "huuur fucking asian panda animu bullshit /pfffffft!"

[Kazuchika]

MoP was horrible at start. The dailies felt quite mandatory. Too much meritocracy.

Also they tried to replace dungeons by scenarios, which didnt work.

Yeah scenarios are so bad were such an utter faillure they haven't totally been used in every expansion since and there totally won't be an entire means of progression based around them in the next expansion or anything.