Was Mists of Pandariz that liked?

[Azerate]

People always whine about the current content the most in WoW, for some reason. Then an expansion after that they start admitting it had good parts, and then an expansion after that it becomes "good old times" and sometimes achieves legendary status. Happened to basically every expansion so far, will probably happen to the current one as well. For MoP specifically, some of the raids are considered the best ever, and world content patches are also highly praised (timeless isle, thunder isle).

And no, MoP was not hated in general. Some idiots were shouting in the beginning about there being Pandas in it - mostly because some people always have sexual connotations with everything and think that if there are playable animals in the game it's supposed to fulfill some sexual fantasy. It's unfathomable to some that people might just want to play Panda or Vulpera for reasons other than sexual arousal.

[MoanaLisa]

Really?

Yeah, really.

Because there was WAY too much of "Pandas turned it into a kid's game" which was a ridiculous thing to say in a game with space goats and giant cows.

So yeah, really. I mean, c'mon. What could be more childish than pointing at the pandas and whining about them?

[Loveliest]

Almost quit in Pandaria because of the dailies at the start amd the 90 coins. But looking back it had the most new things and cool things.
- pet battles
- brawlgar
- proving grounds
- scenarios
- thunder Isles with opening story, key scenario and scaling mobs
- timeless isle with treasure
- giant isle with bone farming
- ToT asa one of the best raids
- as a tank, I had vengeance which was incredibly fun, also i was a super OP paladin
- warforge, bonus rolls introduced
- the farm, our own little place
- raising your cloud serpent from baby to adult (not new per se, but tied to a riding skill and rep
- challange mode with arguably some of the best cosmetics xmogs
Dunno, probably other things, no other expansion added this much new stuff.
We also had flying from the start and nobody had issues with it.

[Pakheth]

I was skeptical too when the expansion theme was unveiled, but after I got into the beta I started to realise how wonderous the world was and how fun the classes were to play. The music also blew my mind and for someone who originally wasn't a fan of the Chinese artstyle Mists really warmed me up to it when done properly.
I will also say that during Mists beta was the last time I felt the Devs actually listened to feedback and made changes in-game accordingly.
It was obvious to me that Pandaria was made with a lot of love, all the little secrets and details added to the world is proof of that.

I didn't feel the dailies were as bad as many complained about but then again I had a lot of time back then. Only ones I didn't like was Golden Lotus and Shado-Pan, the latter due to the followers being buggy af. Golden Lotus in general was hated because it was gatekeeping the other reputations and thankfully Blizzard never did anything similar with factions again.

MoguShan Vaults was a fun intro raid with memorable fights. Having Lorewalker Cho with us telling the tale of the raid was interesting and I wish we got more of it. Haven't heard much bad about this one.
Heart of Fear was not my favourite to say the least and that seems to be the common opinion. Terrace of Endless Spring was a fresh take on the one room boss fights and I heard little complaints about it. Forgettable maybe.
ToT was awe-inspiring and on level with Ulduar for me in terms of scope and grandeur. In general loved.

I liked the farm, still do, Isle of Thunder was a blast, Timeless Isle was really fun and brought the community together with people announcing in chat when spawns popped and tough PvP battles consuming the isle from time to time, not to mention the Ordos raids forming. There was always something to do on the Isle and those who only farmed frogs were honestly in the minority on my server.

The Barrens patch was forgettable and didn't help on the orc fatigue we would later get with both SoO and WoD. Very few even remember this patch.
The Krazarang Landfall patch however was praised for its story progression.

The drought was long yes, but I was one of those who dreaded WoD when it was announced. I found the hypermasculine "rawr orc strong" to be a childish followup and only helped to feed the flimsy ego of people who couldn't see past the "light-hearted" pandas in MoP("Pandas are turning WoW into a kid's game wah wah" -_- ). It was thankfully better than I dreaded but I still quit 3 weeks into WoD so to me that expansion was a failure much grander than for most it seems. I only came back sporadically to make gold and see the raids and newest content in the few patches that were. Horde Garrison can burn in the cold hell of Draenor.

As a raid and guild leader I never had problems finding people in MoP, but the rise of LFR in Cata did create a new type of player that didn't accept one or two wipes on normal raid progression, making guild player retention harder than in previous expansions.

Class gameplay in general was fun and fast paced, most classes were mobile, very similar to Wildstar at the time, making PvP and PvE very dynamic. This was toned down in WoD.
I and many others consider MoP class gameplay to be pinnacle of class gameplay because every class was fun(except poor mages) and they were easy to pick up but hard to master. I played all of my alts because it was fun.

I checked out a MoP server during BfA and was reminded how enormously fun classes like BM hunter was. You had plenty of abilities but they had purpose and had synergy. So I am gonna claim that class gameplay from MoP praise isn't just rose tinted glasses.

I am gonna go out on a branch here and say that MoP was good for those who actually bothered to play it. I've heard plenty of people who skipped it due to prejudice who went back and played it in WoD and realised how wrong they were.

[Archmage Alodi]

The launch was bad and the theme was off putting for some people, but they fixed most of the issues. By 5.2 gameplay was great, at least in PvE, fun classes, great raids.

[Lolites]

while it was current? no
after it already ended? yes

and that is pretty much case with every expansion, while current its worst thing ever, after its over its great expansion...
there are even people praising wod now, that should give you a clue

personaly, i liked pandaria, and wouldnt mind new expansions to be more like it

[Low Hanging Fruit]

MoP had really kick ass raids and the outdoor patch content was pretty cool as well. The throne of thunder island is in particular a good one. Timeless isle is often fondly remembered for myself as well. It just suffered a really rough start with daily overdrive, a terrible 14 month no content drought at the end, and some plenty of people QQed about Pandas. The panda thing was always a bit odd to me. I mean the game has had plenty of cartoony / odd / dumb races since without the outcry. Probably just because it was an ice breaker into them.

[confety]

Story and theme was meh, but the continent was cool, the raids were amazing and the classes were at their peak imo, at least the ones i played.

IMHO.

[C20]

People were more pissed off by the Pandaren. Saying that Chen was an easter egg. (Technically he was since he had no dialogue and wasn't a requirement to complete Rexxar's story)
People were pissed that Blizzard suddenly pulled a whole expansion around them out of nowhere.
"Easy, cheap pandering to China" was also an argument. As Warcraft was mostly Western, European in its fantasy tropes and concepts until then.

This is true. The Pandaren had some minimal lore, but the origin was simply that Samwise thought the idea was cool. For about 15-20 years, there was very little mention of them outside of some art (including the famous Panda on Illidan's glaives in WC RPG). I think there was some fan lore written for them on WoWWiki many years ago, but only a few very limited 'official' pieces that mentioned Chen - official in the sense that they were created by those behind the franchise, rather than part of the lore established in the games.

Then, they decided to use them as an April fools (Panda express takeaway). We thought it was hilarious at the time.

The thing about them is that they would have been suitable for release earlier in the history of the Franchise. We already had some typical fantasy races (Orcs, Elves, Humans, Trolls), and some less common fantasy races (sentient Undead). Personified animals aren't a new idea in fantasy, but introducing them out of fresh air feels like blunt force trauma to what's already established.

It's especially bad when there are races which have the technology to explore the world (Gnomes have a huge number of air machines, the Alliance have been sea-faring since forever and the Horde have been using blimps for a very long time), but they suddenly discover a new land at exactly the same time while fighting which just so happens to have a new race which is willing to work with us instead of yeeting us all back into the ocean. Not only that, but the Alliance and Horde have the tech to communicate their position to other fleets over what equates to thousands of miles, yet we rarely heard of them conveniently discovering islands out of nowhere.

It would have been much better if this race had been reclusive on existing Azeroth, but there'd always been rumours in the in-game texts and NPC conversations about them existing but only being spotted by a few individuals. The 'crazy' townsperson who claimed they saw one take out swarms of enemies. The legendary soldier who fought alongside one when both were pinned down together (accidentally fighting the same enemy), but could only tell the tale without any proof. There's so much more they could have done earlier in the game life. Worst case scenario is that they become a thing of legend that we never see in game, but are something that people hope will someday show themselves.

[Polymorphin]

Class Design was at it's best of all wow. Every class was fun to play.
For many the realisation only set in when wod pruned some of the fun^^

[Osmeric]

MoP focused too much in the first tiers on LFR. It expected casual guilds to do LFR, which didn't really work (why do you need a guild for that?)

Only in the last tier did they get it right with Flex mode. And then in WoD they tuned up difficulty in Normal (what had been Flex) and pissed on the Friends & Family guilds again. It was a totally unforced error, one they keep making again and again. Proper management at Blizzard would find the devs who tend to make this mistake and surgically excise them from the company.

[Greyvax]

Everyone hated it in the beginning (like almost every other xpac) because of pandas and rep gated behind other reps.

but eventually they salvaged the shitshow in the beginning with IoT/ToT, and ultimately Timeless Isle and its awesomeness. SoO was an excellent raid and would be top 5 of all time if it hadn't left a bad taste in our mouth of being 14 months long.

[guisadop]

I liked it. In my opinion the pandas weren't that out of place considering all the other races that wow had at the time. the world building in Pandaria was also really, really good, and the faction war was more intense than BfA. It was also the last expansion before pruning, so most classes had a lot of fun abilities that were removed because fun isn't allowed.

[justandulas]

MOP had great class mechanics, but the story is absolutely F grade material and is part of the reason WoW story is the way it is now

[Kumorii]

People always whine about the current content the most in WoW, for some reason. Then an expansion after that they start admitting it had good parts, and then an expansion after that it becomes "good old times" and sometimes achieves legendary status. Happened to basically every expansion so far, will probably happen to the current one as well. For MoP specifically, some of the raids are considered the best ever, and world content patches are also highly praised (timeless isle, thunder isle).

And no, MoP was not hated in general. Some idiots were shouting in the beginning about there being Pandas in it - mostly because some people always have sexual connotations with everything and think that if there are playable animals in the game it's supposed to fulfill some sexual fantasy. It's unfathomable to some that people might just want to play Panda or Vulpera for reasons other than sexual arousal.

The odd part is that Taurens don't get the same complaints... they are fine, even if they are the exact same thing as the others. Most people voicing that opinion is rarely worth listening to tbh.

[uncl55]

From memory, people hated Panda’s.
The after release, they hated the dailies.

This and thousand times this! Those fucking daylies killed my Guild!

[justandulas]

The odd part is that Taurens don't get the same complaints... they are fine, even if they are the exact same thing as the others. Most people voicing that opinion is rarely worth listening to tbh.

You can't possibly compare taurens, which are monster minotaurs, with vulpera. Vulpera are literally only in the game for the one reason we both know. Minotaurs are a classic staple of any RPG game. You'd have a hard time finding an RPG without a minotaur (which are the taurens).

Panda's don't belong in any game not made in china, and vulpera belong more in ff14 than WoW.

That is a very bad comparison on your part.

Not saying anything negative against the players who play them, but they simply do not belong in the WoW universe. What about ogres? Centaurs? and a dozen other races that ACTUALLY fit into WoW? They should have got the green light before "let's just do fox people for THAT crowd" or "we can appeal to china with pandas!"

It just ain't warcraft material.

[Claritycraft]

mop = best version of "modern" wow imo, followed by legion due to the sheer amount/pacing of content.

[Fabled]

I love/loved MoP, it's probably the expansion I did almost everything in just because it felt fun. Great setting, good story, we didn't have needless borrowed powers or systems outside of legendary grinding, which wasn't horrible, PvP was alright for once from what I remember. Just overall a good time.

[Pebrocks The Warlock]

What could be more childish than pointing at the pandas and whining about them?

I would say still whining about them 10 years later would be a lot more childish. It means they never grew up.