Why is MOP getting so much praise lately?

[xxcloud417xx]

First half of MoP was daily hell. After ToT released though, expansion picked up some serious steam and was pretty good.

Say what you will about it being "Kung Fu Panda" expansion though. Regardless of you liking it or not, Blizzard did nail the aesthetic. Story was pretty solid too overall. SoO was a bit drawn out, but overall this was up there with Wrath for quantity and quality of content. Especially at the end.

Cata and WoD were the opposite, came out strong, decent initial bit of content and then it fell flat. Cata was around mid Firelands, and WoD around Blackrock Foundry's release. They just had no momentum.

[Toppy]

The overhaul in legion is by far the biggest and most drastic its ever been, unlike any other expansion its from the ground up
Every single WQ is voice acted and so are the majority of the quests. and news flash artifact challenges are not artifact quests they're a seperate thing so how exactly did i repeat myself? Saying that the 10 mins of cinematics in MOP is the same as in Legion is just denial... Did you just say all expansions have raids? Like the layers they have added to them over the years doesn't even matter? Right... I should just ignore you at this point but i've written this out so might aswell post it, hope you're enjoying raidfinder

Debatable, MoP had the talent change which was profound.

Aside from Survival, Outlaw/Combat, and Unholy, I dont recall the Legion specs changing much, whereas the talent change had a huge change for everyone.

[Divinexve]

Because it was the last good xpac

[Queen of Hamsters]

Because idiots are often get smarter when they've had time to think about something for 4 years, especially considering how their minds tend to coat everything in some nostalgia as well.

Others appreciated MoP for what it was, when it was current.

As of Legion, WoD has received praise. As of BfA, I can bet that a ton of the people currently busy singing their tired old songs of how nothing's good in current WoW, will start singing praises to Legion with ever growing intensity.

[Deleted]

I didn't really like it. It was when Blizzard decided goofiness was an okay replacement for epic lore.

[Toppy]

Because a lot of people liked the expansion.

Mists was always a pretty polarised expansion, in terms of player opinions. A lot of people either seemed to love or hate it at the time.


I hear this adage repeated constantly, but I don't think it's true and hasn't been for close to a decade, if it ever was. People's opinions of various expansions are pretty consistent overall. Not necessarily with each other (like the aforementioned polarisation within the community for Mists) but over time. Popular expansions (BC, Wrath) have remained pretty popular, less-liked expansions (Cata, Warlords) have also remained generally unfavourable within the community in hindsight. People said players would praise Cata after Mists released, or praise Warlords during Legion and I don't think either of those happened, nor would I classify Legion as "hated" during its time. There isn't always a community consensus of opinion, but I've not seen any massive flipflopping of opinions towards any expansion except maaaaybe Wrath.

You'll note people mostly just say it in regards to MoP, and when asked to speak up on why they didn't care for MoP you'll either get bullshit or "Lol kungfu panda"

[naabu]

Here's the truth, expansion opinions on the forums follow this cycle
-Phase 1 (Launch and Patch Cycle)
Worst Expansion Ever: Raiding is Dead, PVP is Dead, WoW is DEAD!!!
-Phase 2 (New Expansion)
Most Underrated Expansion Ever: 2nd patch raid tier was challenging, change to PVP was well balanced, class redesigns not bad, cool new mechanics, graphic updates, etc. WoW is DEAD!!!
-Phase 3 (Newer Expansion)
Best Expansion Ever: Game will never be as good as was! WoW is DEAD!!!

I saw it with BC (space goats?! Too weird of an expansion), I saw it with WotLK (PUGS!!!!!!!!), I saw it with Cata (remember when we all HATED Vashj'ir?!), I saw it with MoP (pokemon and kung fu panda?! Fuqdisgame!!)

The exception to this pattern, of course, is WoD. WoD was a failure by ever metric.

[Jastall]

Now? It was always a good expansion, there's no reason not to praise it. It had great raids, a nice stream of content until the end, good stories overall, tons of new lore, good class design, there was a lot of things to love in Pandaria.

Its worst parts were at the beginning with the absurd daily grind, and at the end with the even more absurd content drought, but as a package Mists is easily as good as Legion for me.

Also nostalgia is always a thing. I'm already seeing people who say they liked WoD without any visible irony, which would have been straight up impossible while it was current.

[Daedius]

People suddenly realising that Pandaren are the superior race of them all.

[Talon8669]

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.

Because it was generally a very well rounded expansion that did well more or less with every aspect of the game. WoD for many was shit, Cat had it's issues with the main gripes coming probably with regards to the changes to Azeroth as a whole. Legion had a great start I think for many, however, with that said content continues to drag on and people are probably tired of doing WQs. If you cut out WQs....well there isn't much left to the expansion beyond doing some BGs, running raids (many people tired and burnt out over doing old raids for the changes of ilvl forges) and doing some dungeons. Mythic+ I think have been a huge hit but overall I think people are just burnt out thus Legion just isn't going to be seen currently as a great xpac.

But overall MoP was a pretty solid xpac and I think many give it praise now for just simply being really well rounded and balanced.

[Tziva]

I'm already seeing people who say they liked WoD without any visible irony, which would have been straight up impossible while it was current.

I liked Warlords when it was current, and I'm sure you can find posts of mine from that time stating as much then :P

(I mean, I wouldn't put it as a favourite and it certainly had many problems, but I had fun playing it at the time *shrug*)

[callipygoustp]

Other than pre and early MoP, was MoP ever, on average, not praised? Outside of complaints about pandas and then the faction quests I don't recall people being anything but positive about MoP, in a general sense.

[Jastall]

I liked Warlords when it was current, and I'm sure you can find posts of mine from that time stating as much then :P

(I mean, I wouldn't put it as a favourite and it certainly had many problems, but I had fun playing it at the time *shrug*)

I also don't hate it as much as some, but it's primarily because I raid first and foremost, and raids were the one thing it did really right gameplay wise. But before a few months ago, max, I never saw anyone be anything more than lukewarm about it.

Then again some of that is on the official forums where posters tend to be a lot more emotional and just hate whatever is current and pretend they loved whatever is not current.

[Deleted]

Other than pre and early MoP, was MoP ever, on average, not praised? Outside of complaints about pandas and then the faction quests I don't recall people being anything but positive about MoP, in a general sense.

We must have had very different experiences, general chat on the timeless isle (like one month in) was a cesspool of negativity, while leveling I felt like a hippy, the forums where very angry, youtube videos where negative, like legit everywhere I looked, someone, was complaining, the Isle of Thunder was good though. The only exception was my pvp friend (I guess pvpers in general as well) and the people playing those pet battle things. I generally only raid with my guild, and we didn't like it either, ToT was hyped up to be the next Ulduar by the devs, and we were sorely disappointed with what we got, SOO was fine but got boring pretty quickly, and the rest were OK but nothing that amazing.

[Pebrocks The Warlock]

We must have had very different experiences, general chat on the timeless isle (like one month in) was a cesspool of negativity, while leveling I felt like a hippy, the forums where very angry, youtube videos where negative, like legit everywhere I looked, someone, was complaining, the Isle of Thunder was good though. The only exception was my pvp friend (I guess pvpers in general as well) and the people playing those pet battle things. I generally only raid with my guild, and we didn't like it either, ToT was hyped up to be the next Ulduar by the devs, and we were sorely disappointed with what we got, SOO was fine but got boring pretty quickly, and the rest were OK but nothing that amazing.

Yes we had very different experiences with MoP, my guild and I loved most of it. But it's okay to like different expansions.

[callipygoustp]

We must have had very different experiences, general chat on the timeless isle (like one month in) was a cesspool of negativity, while leveling I felt like a hippy, the forums where very angry, youtube videos where negative, like legit everywhere I looked, someone, was complaining, the Isle of Thunder was good though. The only exception was my pvp friend (I guess pvpers in general as well) and the people playing those pet battle things. I generally only raid with my guild, and we didn't like it either, ToT was hyped up to be the next Ulduar by the devs, and we were sorely disappointed with what we got, SOO was fine but got boring pretty quickly, and the rest were OK but nothing that amazing.

Years of posts on this and other forums tell a completely different story.

[Marmot]

MoP has always been praised, the loud buzzing of angry nerds when it was current has died down to move onto being outraged by something else. You can look back and find a lot of people all round enjoyed the expansion.

[Shakari]

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.

Huge generalisation lol not a clue what you mean by "salty kungfu panda commentaters" but is sounds like your saying "if you don't agree with me then your one of them". Which makes any point your trying to make worthless.

MoP was ok ... very grindy in some area's to the point where the Devs admitted it was and changed things. PvP was reasonable but not as good as previous expansions imo, and WPvP has been practically dead since TBC.

Set number of dungeons not expanded on .. very poor idea and they became a chore quickly. Scenarios where a good idea on paper in reality not very enjoyable after you've done one 5 times or so because more frustrating and again a chore.

PvE was about average for me though I did like SoA none other really sticks out as "I really enjoyed that" or is particulaly memorable.

It was better as an expansion than warlords ... but falls rather flat compared to Legion.

[Deleted]

I also feel like if the expansion wasn't so focused on pandas, it would be much better. Like if the Horde got Mogu, and the Alliance got Pandas (which where originally supposed to be an alliance only race). The story and aesthetic would be more split up, and ,as a result, the expansion would've been much better (at least story wise).

[Toppy]

Huge generalisation lol not a clue what you mean by "salty kungfu panda commentaters" but is sounds like your saying "if you don't agree with me then your one of them". Which makes any point your trying to make worthless.

MoP was ok ... very grindy in some area's to the point where the Devs admitted it was and changed things. PvP was reasonable but not as good as previous expansions imo, and WPvP has been practically dead since TBC.

Set number of dungeons not expanded on .. very poor idea and they became a chore quickly. Scenarios where a good idea on paper in reality not very enjoyable after you've done one 5 times or so because more frustrating and again a chore.

PvE was about average for me though I did like SoA none other really sticks out as "I really enjoyed that" or is particulaly memorable.

It was better as an expansion than warlords ... but falls rather flat compared to Legion.

"Very grindy" itself was BS as people were complaining about a single two week daily quest grind that took 10 minutes a day.

And it was still less grindy that past reps.

For someone going on about generalizations you sure love to go on about them since thats all the rest of what you're going on is. Subjective generalizations.

- - - Updated - - -

I also feel like if the expansion wasn't so focused on pandas, it would be much better. Like if the Horde got Mogu, and the Alliance got Pandas (which where originally supposed to be an alliance only race). The story and aesthetic would be more split up, and ,as a result, the expansion would've been much better (at least story wise).

Which would have made little sense (only alliance getting panda). As much as some people bitch a lot of folk wanted Pandaren and they were most heavily connected to the Horde at the time. Chen helped found Orgrimmar.

Just admit you don't like Pandaren.