What happened to the Pandaren?

[Beloren]

Remember this?



The orc and the human fighting, and then the new guy shows up.. wtf. who is this... MAJOR NEW PLAYER

It kinda felt that Warcraft would now be Orcs, Humans & Pandaren - especially as they were the only race in both factions.


But they just seemed to vanish.. They've played no major role in anything since.. didn't you guys hope for better post MoP development of Pandaren?

[Venziir]

Ji played a role in the BFA novel.

[Oneru]

Blizzard kinda forgot about the Pandaren.

[StationaryHawk]

It kinda felt that Warcraft would now be Orcs, Humans & Pandaren - especially as they were the only race in both factions.

You might be alone in having taken that away from the MoP cinematic.

Mists of Pandaria ended, so pandaren stopped playing a major role. That BFA's last patch took place partially on Pandaria is likely the best you'll get.

[Triceron]

Player backlash is what happened.

[Beloren]

Player backlash is what happened.

how so.. really?

- - - Updated - - -

I'd have expected to at least see Chen Stormstout running through warlords of Draenor and then visiting the broken isles... Pandaren hae a really nice sense of adventure about them.

Chen should be right up there with the others. If you ask me, they are grossly under represented, are they not the only race to haev an ENTIRE continent to themselves in modern wow times?

That's a lot. Definitely faction worthy too.

[Aucald]

how so.. really?

The Pandaren as a general race isn't well-liked or represented by the player base, so they kind of take a backseat when it comes to marquee roles in the lore. Ji had a smallish role in BfA toward its end, as did Aysa.

[Depakote]

The Pandaren as a general race isn't well-liked or represented by the player base, so they kind of take a backseat when it comes to marquee roles in the lore. Ji had a smallish role in BfA toward its end, as did Aysa.

Do you have anything to back that up?

[Skirdus]

It's the same reason you only sparsely see the inclusion of death knights, monks, demon hunters, allied races, etc. in places where they aren't immediately relevant. That's how it's always been

[Aucald]

Do you have anything to back that up?

Which part - that they're not well-liked, or that they had a smallish role in BfA? For the first, most player/race demographics have Pandaren at about a ~2% share, the lowest end of the curve for both Horde and Alliance.

[Terrorthatflapsinthenight]

Personally I am not a fan of their race but Pandaria is a very beautiful and interesting continent and their story should have been developped and used more after MOP, barring the small demonic invasion event that we saw in the Monks class hall storyline in Legion, which was never resolved by the way and we didn't see the rest of the invasion and its consequences for Pandaria and its people.

[Clone]

They are a race based on a joke based on a self insert, being forgotten is where they should be.

[Triceron]

how so.. really?

They weren't popular enough to warrant being featured heavily in the story. The backlash saw to it, with so many people vocally expressing their hatred of Pandarens in Warcraft, for various reasons. It just makes it messier for Blizzard to plan a big Pandaren-heavy plot line without it stirring the hornets nest.

I'd love to see more Pandaren lore, but it's likely not going to happen in any major story arc.

[rayvio]

the follow up on the Pandaren has been, as with most of the new races, awful. during Seige of Orgrimmar we see Asya rescue Ji and talk about returning to the Wandering Isle but this clearly never happens because Ji is happily Horde with no mention of how he was mistreated and do we see him object to Sylvanas taking a similar path that Garrosh did? do we see him have any involvement at all besides standing around? no, of course we don't. and do we have any other important Pandaren characters in either faction besides Ji and Asya? no, all the other important Pandaren are neutral. when war broke out in BFA there was no mention at all of any conflicting feelings amongst the Pandaren, not even Ji and Asya who care deeply for each other despite being on opposing sides in that war
but apart from the Blood Elves and Draenei, the new races are largely neglected in storylines. the Goblin intro storyline of Gallywix unjustly becoming leader because Thrall was still carrying the idiot ball wasn't picked up until late in BFA when everyone suddenly remembers that they don't like him just in time to give you the heritage armour questline. the worgen involvement in the story has been limited to Gen growling now and then. the allied races have had very little involvement since joining their respective factions, being barely acknowledged in Shadowlands so far

[Beloren]

This is what @username993720 has been saying about race stories.. we really need a series to capitalise on some of these extraorindary places and peoples.


I liked his post that went through a bumnch of short series that told the stories of each race from where their warcrat lore starts, to where they are now...

but after that, they could literally haev series based on each race or maybe better for continent

Easter Kingdoms has a series
Night elf Kalimdor and Broken Isles has a series
Northrend, Worgen and undead EK
The sea islands (Zuldazar, lost isles, Kul'tiras) and Naz'jatar has a series
Pandaria has a series
Outland, Argus and Draeneir, with Badlands and Swamp of Sorrows has a series

I think they really need something like that. off course there is some overlap. But there is too much nice stuff that gets wasted/


If blizzard were serious.. they would do something like this now, and launch a series to accompany TBC and the classic restart, and follow each expansion restart with a series that explores a lot more of the peoples and lores involved, overlapping with the game.

[KOUNTERPARTS]

Even up to to the point of "Mists of Pandaria" players were criticizing Blizzard for not putting any shine to their other races. Since WoD and beyond we have seen separate expansions have focus on separate races.

[Powerogue]

A few small moments in BFA and Ji having a bit of a role in Shadows Rising mostly.

I imagine they mostly wanted to stay out of this one after last time.

Pandaren: Ah, after many years, we've finally cleared all the old god corruption from the Valley of Eternal Blossoms. It's never looked better!
Alliance and Horde: Uh, yeah, about that. We may have released another old god.

[Depakote]

Which part - that they're not well-liked, or that they had a smallish role in BfA? For the first, most player/race demographics have Pandaren at about a ~2% share, the lowest end of the curve for both Horde and Alliance.

Not well liked. Find that hard to believe.

[Selastan]

Sadly, it's just Blizzard's writing style. Instead of organically telling a story that evolves from all the pieces on the board, they only use the pieces that matter to the story they want to tell.

[sam86]

easy, kung fu panda popularity dropped and pandas now are more used as a symbol to mock china, so blizz ignoring them to avoid controversy, 1 Blitzchang is enough
and before anyone says 'pandas are in wow pre-kung fu dur dur' remind u that pandaren were presented in wc3 as fit samurai warriors with green eyes, not fat bouncy pandas ripping off the - back then - popular image of pandas + kung fu due to a kindergarden movie
as already mentioned they are least played race, i find it funny that void elves outnumber pandas from both sides and they are 'allied race' introduced pre-bfa only