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

[Michael Jackson]

Why so aggressive? Let's talk.
So tell me, what's the argument, why was MoP bad? (ignoring likes or dislikes of Pandas).
Give me your constructive reasons. I'll try to give you my constructive reasons (of which parts were bad).

i mean sure i could, but that's not the point of my thread
my point is that too many times, I see like you say constructive criticism about pandaria, and it gets shut down sooner or later by "panda hater hurr durr" comments
in the end why i dislike TOT and why you like TOT will boil down to personal preference, my issue is that it feels like criticising anything in pandaria will get shut down due to the "you hate pandas" argument regardless

[ReVnX]

My one and only reason to dislike MoP was the oriental theme.

[valax]

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

inspired is the key word here.

[Skillslam]

Throne of Thunder >>>>>> Ulduar

[Rootsbum]

I loved the pandarens.

BUT; didnt like the art, the story was booring to me and I hated the lore.

[thilicen]

Well, yes, fuck pandas. But also the zones are boring, the story lines are corny as fuck, the dialog in general is.. ugh.. The art on weapons and armor is horrible (except sha weapons). Raids were fine, SOO was great. The monk class for me is just terrible. Timeless isles was fun for a while, isle of thunder was great, the dino one was horrible. Overall that expansion for me is not much to write home about. The amount of content, can't complain whatsoever. The style of that content however was anything but appealing to me.

[Lothaeryn]

Maybe pandaren would have been received better if they were just a playable race without centering an expansion around them. I often see people go like ‘we had tauren and worgen so why make a big deal about pandaren?’, yet they never got their own expansion and don’t get as much exposure. It doesn’t help that the only thing we knew about the pandaren before MoP was that they were just an easter egg in WC3, where you can unlock a pandaren hero in the blood elf and rexxar campaign as part of an optional quest.

The only thing I have against pandaria is the straight up copying chinese stuff, they didn't have too as , besides the race being pandas, there was never an implication to be asian inspired. It somehow hurts immersion

Pandaren would have been recieved a LOT better if they had actually gone with Samwise Didier's original portrayal of bushido/feudal japanese warriors from a distant land. Thematically, that fit warcraft astoundingly better than the thinly veiled Chinese market pandering that was called MoP. Thats not even to mention the design decisions that marred the launch of MoP.

Anyone who thought Blizzard wasn't padding their bottom line before the Blitzchung ordeal wasn't paying attention to begin with.

[FossilFree]

Pandaria was an average expansion, but the Asian theme (especially art) and Pandaren were the things that carried an otherwise lackluster expansion, not the problems with it.

The issues I had with it were:

1: No big bad. There was no Arthas or Deathwing there from the beginning that we knew we were there to fight, and no build up towards it for suspense. Is it the mantid? The mogu? The sha? Who knows!

2: The devs said at the time that they were trying to bring in a younger audience to keep subs up. This made the expansion feel very G rated most of the time, with the darkest elements going no higher than PG. Definitely not even remotely approaching PG-13. They even added a Pokemon knockoff.

3: Lack of connection to the rest of Azeroth. Literally the only thing that reminded me I was in Azeroth was the Zandalari (maybe yaungol, but they really don't remind me of the tauren other than biology). Why couldn't the dwarves have had a lost kingdom in Pandaria with an Asian artistic spin? Or anything? Go to any other expansion and many of the familiars are seeded-in in some fashion, not MoP though. The mist barrier was a lame excuse. Just because we hadn't gone to Northrend yet in vanilla-TBC doesn't mean we needed a big explanation as to why. The mist explanation for a suddenly available continent that was previously undiscovered was unnecessary, and it prevented a more thorough seeding of familiar Azerothian elements.

4: Deciding to go with a kung fu theme instead of samurai. The original Pandaren drawings were of samurai, not kung fu masters. Retcons are always tacky, especially when they are trying to capitalize on recent pop culture trends/movies.

5: Shoehorned and hamfisted faction conflict that made a faction leader the end boss. Why was the end boss of Pandaria Garrosh? It literally made no sense and ruined the climax to the expansion, plus angered his fans. It felt more like they were trying to start WoD while MoP was still going. Y'shaarj should have been the end boss in its full glory, like what we got with N'zoth in BFA but back then instead. The heart coming to life in horrific fashion, something, anything. Just not purple mutant orcs with no thematic tie to the expansion or the ability to logically be the final boss.

[Shadowferal]

Who didn't like "Story time with Lorewalker Cho?"

[Sansnom]

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

And I wonder why that is the case. Maybe it is a sense of superiority? It is not difficult to have that view given that following the end of WW2, USA was leading the charge of the Western world. Even before then, the industrial revolution propel them forward much faster.

Looking at that time, China was on a downward spiral from internal and external conflict, Korea was in a civil war and Japan was a devastated and a conquered nation. So it probably was not that surprising that the East was nothing more than a curiosity. Interestingly, The Man In High Castle reverse that where Japan culture was seen as superior due its victory over the USA.

[Alkizon]

One of less boring old thread about this all was... here.