Mists of Pandaria: Your Perspective

[Sacromental]

It was great - Lore was really compelling and connected to the rest of Azeroth with some significant ramifications. Wrathion's whole thing was great. I'm not really a fan of clumping everything together and saying good or bad, but I believe it was an overall success. Talents are great - seems like your choices matter and I like being able to change them per encounter.

The biggest let down was prob being told that Garrosh was the end-boss; didn't really want to skip to the last page before I even had access to the book.

<Rambling Starts>
Suppose I didnt like Scenario's - I mean I get it design-wise, they can use pre-existing Art Assets to deliver some group content that's both a "challenging" and capable of delivering a large amount of story - Sure, I'll buy into it except there isn't one good scenario they are all Blah... could be better. I mean it is a great tool to tell Lore - Thunder Isle solo and Wrathion scenarios - they are fine - but I mean ok ... Let me get this straight you have the tools to deliver better story-telling abilities and compelling game-play and I get that compelling game-play is the number one philisophy as far as design philiosophies that's pretty good. But when you push all expansion... I mean all damn expansion! and suddenly the last patch we see no new scenarios - shit son not even an update to the pre-existing rewards from H Scenarios to make them at least slightly compelling to the gear-hungry player. But what really grinds my gear ... besides completely goofing up Alliance Lore (Blood in Snow ... A Little Patience ...) is tell us whats happening around the Seige of Orgrimar - I mean hello you have a tool that gives you the ability to show us whats happening! You said you already use existing Art Assets - yet not a single new Scenario ... You said that Dalaran was above Bilgewater Harbour bombing it Show Us ... that would have been amazing! Stage 1 Creative Writing "Show don't Tell!". And you can't really say "Oh delvelopment time .. siege of org... NO! your using exsiting Art Assets and instancing it I mean the updates from Cata make the surrounding Zones satisfying for Instance play. I want to see a floating blowing up Dalaran or Tyrande kicking ass in the woods ... infiltrating Org with the Gnomes - fight to reach Org's Gate with Voljinn and Baine. Show us and don't push a feature then abrublty abandon it...
<ramble over>
Synopsis: Scenario's by Blizzard are weird, inconsistant and a contradiction.

That is all. Mop was great.

[SL1200]

Worst expansion yet, and the next one isn't sounding any better.

[Notos]

Objectively speaking, the quality of of the art and mechanics was the best in MoP, simply because of technology improvements on Blizz's end. The raiding has also been enjoyable for me, speaking just about LFR/Flex/Normal, since I quit raiding heroic after Firelands (H Rag burned me out on heroic raiding, that bastard). I was not a huge fan of the theme though, I would have been a lot happier if we had been fighting the Legion and not the Sha...something about them as villains just doesn't interest me.

[Thage]

The Good:
-Pandaren as a playable race
-Questing continues to fine-tune its story-centric approach over random collect quests in a static world
-Inclusion of various new features (Scenarios/H Scenarios, 'friend' reputations, Proving Grounds)
-Raids catering to multiple demographics
-Throne of Thunder
-Siege of Orgrimmar
-Odd-numbered patches providing story advancement through soloable content and small group content
-Legendary rewarding an entire expansion of steady progress
-Monks
-Pandaria and its native species and factions
-Warrior t15 LFR
-Sub gains in the holiday quarter during an end-of-expansion lull, the first since the Year of ICC
-New talent system provides actual choice between cooldowns, passives, and utility abilities per tier, some classes moreso than others

The Bad:
-5.0's over-reliance on dailies and locking Valor gear behind reps behind reps
-No genuine alt-catchups until 5.2 (5.3?) offered double-rep tokens for reputations and 5.3/5.4 offered gear sets in solo content
-LFR felt mandatory for Normal+ players
-Yet another final-tier patch with an overlong life cycle that the content doesn't quite match up to

The Ugly:
-Female pandaren sameface, the second race in a row to do so (after female worgen, of whom overly similar faces are the least of their problems)
-No new dungeons after launch
-Talent revamp could have gone over better, left too many long stretches that didn't feel like real gains in power despite levels being gained
-Valley of the Four Winds, while a personally-enjoyed break between Jade Forest and Kun-Lai focusing on the increasingly-deteriorating situation in Pandaria, had too many quests some players didn't find suitably-epic for a hero of the Alliance/Horde to be engaged in

Overall Grade: A-, Despite some glaring issues, I enjoyed the hell out of this expansion and look forward to seeing the lessons they learned from endgame in MoP and how they apply it to Warlords of Draenor

[Sylreick]

I'm pretty indifferent. It wasn't a great expansion, but it wasn't a total flop either. The content was nice, and questing was good. The problem really lies with class design, it just didn't have that engagement it had in prior expansions.

[Zka]

I didn't play much during MoP. Whenever I played I went for casual content. It was much better than Cata from a casual point of view.

The zones and art are wonderful, but it does REALLY NOT FIT WOW. Pandarens are comical. The whole theme is disillusioning.

Raids: whatever I've seen on LFR is mixed. Maybe we have less dexterity elements than in Cata but they went full retard drifting and punting the character (LeiShi, LeiShen, JiKun, etc). That effect is HORRIBLY DISGUSTING, makes me want to smash the keyboard against the wall and log off screaming in frustration. It's just as bad as vehicle combat in LK. Really, just stop abusing our characters.

Dailies early in the expansion: except for the farm they were unbearable. I hope mass dailies will never ever come back for any reason. I know they were optional, but still most people felt compelled to do them for progression and whatever.

Timeless Isle: kind of a mixed bag. It's good that I could get "geared" after 1 year hiatus without farming shitty LFD and after 90 levels of totally unchallenging leveling I finally met mobs who packed a punch. Otherwise it's a living evidence that exponential gear scaling combined with so many reward tiers leads to fucking huge gear gaps that can only be remedied by literally throwing epics under your feet. Game design failure 10/10. Isle itself isn't bad and it's much more exciting than dailies. Everything is more exciting than dailies.

Pvp: I wasn't ever much into pvp, but I liked the base resilience idea and the free pvp stats on gear.

New talent system: it's good, much easier to balance and use. Of course I'm missing some interesting stuff like arms/prot in the good old days, but that was a clusterfuck to balance.

[quras]

40 year old men will make the same mistake they made when they were 20. Crazy thing about human nature. Shit happens

The trademan making "X" product does not make the same mistakes years later he made when he was young. I'd bet he make little to no mistakes at all 5+ years later at his given trade.

Blizzard has been on WOW for well over 10 years as far as development goes. They should know better by this point.

[-Superman-]

Either accidentally or not often.
People at Blizz have been working on the same game every day for the past 10 years. Long test periods prevent accidents (bugs). It's not like they work on the game once and leave it in the back for 10 years.

The game is housed on old servers who run pretty much 24/7 (minus maintenance or accidents). Newer games have the distinct advantage of newer software, on newer hardware, under new infrastructure. I do not doubt they are behind the times on a lot of things, but I understand playing a 10 year old game comes with its limitations. I'm sure if they do ever upgrade their equipment, they will be sure to pass on that cost... to us.

- - - Updated - - -

The trademan making "X" product does not make the same mistakes years later he made when he was young. I'd bet he make little to no mistakes at all 5+ years later at his given trade.

Blizzard has been on WOW for well over 10 years as far as development goes. They should know better by this point.

If it were the same tradesman for the past 10 years, I would agree. But the team is likely changing from a technical team standpoint every couple of years and the original team is likely not even there anymore. Ask any programmer to replicate someone else's code and they will look at you cock-eyed. Games change because companies change.

[Sargiean]

Mixed bag for me. I like the zone design aesthetically. I think Blizzard improves every expansion in that regard. I liked the talent revamp and the way that they changed warlock. I liked Timeless Isle for what it was meant for - getting catch up gear - though my opinion might be in the minority on that. I liked the Klaxxi lore wise, and the Mogu. I really like the idea of Flex, and look forward to them expanding the concept for normal and hopefully heroic content (but I don't want to do the same raid tier 4 times.)

I CANNOT STAND the music in the expansion, especially in Shrine, Valley, and anywhere that is 'panda' centralized - non panda central locations include Isle of Thunder, Domination Point, etc. It is bouncy, uses kazoos and other childish melodies, and it makes me want to kill something. I hate the way Blizzard presented the pandas. I felt like they turned them into fat food loving morons. In Wc3, Chen was no moron - just drunk. I hate that I have to get loot from a raid tier 4 times, and only the 3rd+ time around (normal +) has any half decent gear. I hate the 4 months for a legendary cloak quest, though I know MOST legendarily are often grind fests. I really do not like most of the armor sets for casters, and thought the mele armor sets were just OK.

[Goretex]

I hate pandas, it's in my perspective childish and in my eyes it will remain like that forever.
but Mists of Pandaria is a good expansion overall and if they keep this good quality up or better to other themes i like more, then WoW will do more then fine!

Thisis the way i see gnomes. But overall it' sbeen positive in MoP, besides the first 3 tiers of raiding I didnt complete.

[DJKalteraphine]

Let's talk Mists of Pandaria.

Here's what I liked:
-The Pandaren were an interesting race with a cool enough stuff.
-The first playthrough of the first few zones (Jade - Kun-Lai) was really fun and enjoyable, with a gripping enough story and some genuinely well written moments and neat new characters.
-The new Monk class was fun and balanced into the game pretty easily.
-Scenarios made for excellent small group content with a lot of fun fights, and Heroic Scenarios even moreso.
-Flex was really just a good idea all around.
-The Mogu were fun bad guys.
-Patch 5.1 hub and story was really cool for both Horde and Alliance.
-Multi-tapping rare and quest mobs is a stroke of genius.
-New talents were neat, much better than the Cata system. (Though admittedly not as fun as the Vanilla system, even if the MoP talents are actually more useful.)

Here's what I didn't like:
-Neutral races sets a precedent I'm not fond of.
-Despite the story of WoW having so many loose threads that need tying up before moving onto new stories, Blizzard pushed out this expansion where virtually none of the classic stories are addressed, and instead force us into a faction war and play time with pandas.
-The story relies far too heavily on novels and other extra curricular media to advance major character arcs, making the game's story seem even more disjointed and unfinished.
-LFR has never been fun, will never be fun, and is a blight on WoW's grand history.
-A ridiculously small dungeon count, with no new ones added after launch.
-Heroics weren't just easy, they were supremely boring, and weren't even a great source of Valor.
-Too many dailies.
-Valor gear being locked behind dailies, making alt play virtually impossible until 5.4.
-Timeless Isle becomes a grindfest way too quickly, and offers no new art and very little new story.
-The death of 5-man content, in favor of 3-man and 25-man.
-PvP never felt rewarding to PvPers, making it feel like a gigantic waste of time.
-Zones are far too linear and get repetitive way too quickly for altoholics.
-The final two zones of Pandaria were as dull was watching paint dry, both visually and conceptually.
-Cooking was just too much. Just way too much.
-Archaeology was also way too much.
-Before Heroic Scenarios were introduced, Valor was far too hard to get and the rewards for Valor were far too pathetic.
-Taran Zhu might be the worst character in the Warcraft canon. He's the Qui-Gon Jin of WoW, only less Liam Neeson.
-wtf is even the point of Proving Grounds? Back in my day, if we wanted to learn a new role, we did five-mans with our bros until we got it right. *waves cane about like a crazy old man*
-Despite telling us for two years now that they'd never repeat 4.3's overlong lifespan coupled with uninterested content, that actually managed to make it even -worse- with 5.4.
-Suddenly, Varian Wrynn is the only tolerable WoW lore character? how did this even...
-The ridiculously chummy ending to SoO.
-Buyable 90s. While technically announced because of the WoD feature, they're still coming at the ass-end of MoP, which like giving us one last good kick in the head after we just took a thorough thrashing.

and probably more stuff but you get the point.

Verdict:
MoP did for WoW what the Shark did for Happy Days. WoW's glory days are at an end, and it isn't because "lol kung fu panda made wow a kid's game", it's because Blizzard rocked the boat too much and doesn't know how to swim.

[Roamingstorm]

In general I liked the expansion. My only gripe I guess is that sometimes the story did feel to flip flop a bit, other then that I enjoyed it.

[Lovestar]

It got a lot better once Blizzard put down the bong and MDMA and switched back to content that felt like Warcraft, instead of LOL MONKEYS IN PIRATE HATS and LOL SHE NEEDS TO MAKE BEER DURING RAIN and etc. etc. etc.

Warcraft has always had a place for silliness, but it's as a little dash of flavor to tone down the darkness. With MoP the devs went a little off their gourd trying to be THE ANTI-CATACLYSM; it felt like being strapped to a chair and forced to listen to children's stories when you're 20 years old.

It's like: yes, Runaway Bunny and Dora the Explorer are still good objectively-speaking, but this is also really awkward and not really how I want to spend my time.

I like many of the gameplay and design changes they made. A lot of specs are shining in MoP more than ever (some were gutted / destroyed, though, but it's a minority), and once they — well, again, put down the crackpipe and stopped trying to push GUYS, IT'S LIKE BURNING CRUSADE ALL OVER AGAIN, LOOK, DAILIES AND REP GRINDS FOR GEAR, YOU WILL ENJOY THIS YOU UNGRATEFUL IMPATIENT BRATS, it got a lot better.

Pretty much all the 5.1+ content felt really good to me, classic Warcraft pathos + quirkiness and just good fun (a giant island full of dinosaurs? Yes. Thank you, Blizzard.). Overall MoP just had a very awkward beginning and I'm not quite sure what they were thinking.

[Throne]

I played in the beta through the annual pass, which made the first few months of the game really boring. Dailies were terrible, the jump in difficulty from LFR to normal mode was too big, 5-man heroics were extremely boring, and I was moving between guilds, this all led me to quitting. I re-subbed twice, for 1 month both times, to play through the new raids. I thought the story was decent, but cliche, strange, and forced at times (like going back to Org to fight Garrosh, even though the source of his power was in Pandaria, and how some of the best story telling (it was childishly simple though) was on You-Tube). Scenarios were bad, 5-mans were too easy, LFR was bad, Flex was nice, subs dropped like crazy (which killed lots of servers), Timeless isle was interesting, dailies were awful, Pandas were a mistake, the raids were (dare I say) epic, new talents are a side-grade(thats bad), no new 5-mans was terrible, and so-on and so-on.

Overall: meh, I said negative

[Drilnos]

Overall positive. I loved the beginning and the middle, and hated the end. Lorewise anyway. Gameplay-wise, there's nothing I can complain about. Just wish we never left Pandaria...or had to kill off all of the Horde's character development...

[Chickat]

Overall positive, but there is still plenty of room for improvement (Plenty). From the limited amount of knowledge I know about WoD, they are fixing most things i hated about MoP, but who knows what they will break with WoD. There are always a few major issues every expansion for some reason.

[Haven]

Technical side of things saw an improvement: lore scrolls, optional quest hubs, rare minibosses, the way animations are being widely used, quests leading us to "preview" versions of dungeons. New talent system and class design are way better than they used to be - at least in general. Jade Forest is one of the most beautiful, well-made locations in game IMO.

Lorewise, I never felt so ridiculous. Sorting out other peoples' problems was always our main task, but this felt like it was completely irrelevant to everything. Sure, pandas are srs bznss, sure Sha are big baddies, but I have a firm feeling we'll never see this shit again, nor will it have any effect on Warcraft universe except for pandaren PCs running around.

[nemo1154]

I really enjoyed what they did with shaman, totems are awesome!

[Vargas]

I loved MoP.

It fixed everything that was horrible and tedious with Cataclysm and I liked the story for the most part. I'm so glad we got a break from the childish "OH EM GEE ITS THE END OF THE WORLD AND ONLY YOU GUYS CAN STOP IT!!" crap that's obviously designed to appeal to teenagers looking to feel like a badass.

[Kegler]

Better than Cataclysm, Not as good as Wrath, pretty close to BC as far as enjoyment goes for me.