Well, I didn’t see another thread about this, so I thought I’d start one.
I like the monk class; it seems to be almost a perfect addition to the game and one I’ve wanted for a long time: bare hand melee without lotsa armor.
On the other hand, I hate the pandas, since it seems like they’ll have to pay a hefty fee to DreamWorks for the licensing rights, and it just seems like pandering to go with pandas.
And it looks like they’ll be dumbing the shit down outta the talent trees. I mean, ffs, we’ll all only have 6 fucking talents? Oh boy, that’s gonna make each and every toon unique! :rolleyes:
What do y’all think of the news of the expansion so far?
ETA: I forgot, I also like (REALLY like) the fact that we’ll finally have a race/species that isn’t tied to one faction or the other. Maybe Blizzard is finally deciding to not be racist/specist?
While it’s true the Pandaren predate Kung Fu Panda, the connection between pandas and kung fu is now so strongly tied to the Kung Fu Panda franchise that it’s just impossible for me to get around. Whatever the Warcraft games used to have, every time I see a pandaren I’ll be waiting for Master Shi-Fu to come out and insult him, or for the Furious Five to appear. And I think a lot of people will think the same way.
In any event WOW has enough classes. I’ll be interested to see what other changes come.
Yeah, this is how I feel too. Yes, I know the Pandaren are from WC3; I loved that game. But in the public’s mind, it’s forever gonna seem like Blizzard are ripping off Kung Fu Panda, and damn if I don’t find myself tainted by the thought, too.
I mean, it’s not like nobody has ever noticed that Warcraft has a, ahem, STRONG resemblance to Warhammer. To many, this will just seem like another concept they are stealing.
I really like the new plan for the talents. How much variety do you see in talent choices these days? Currently, the first 35 points or so boil down to, “Am I speccing for PvP, or not?”. The last few points, the ones that are supposed to give you the opportunity to differentiate yourself from the rest of the population generally have very few “correct” choices.
Very few, if any, of the talents are going to be DPS increases, at least over other talents in that tier. This is by design. If there is a talent that is obviously an upgrade, like many/most of the talents in the current trees, they will be taken. There are very few actual choices to make.
All of these talent choices are on top of the tree-specific spells/abilities that you learn as you level. All mages get most of the spells, though the main nuke will depend on your spec. But a fire mage that’s casting PoM+Pyro (which, as far as I can tell, will be viable again in 5.0) is very different from one that’s casting fireballs on the run. Granted, I don’t PvP much, so I can’t speak to how much of a mind game trying to guess the other person’s spec will end up being, (is that DK immune to charm/sleep/fear, can he cast anti-magic zone, or does he have bone shield) but I see this redesign as a vast improvement over having to look up your spec to make sure you have the most DPS possible, and having very little choice if you actually want to raid.
Their specifically stated intention for this expansion is to dumb down all aspects of PvE. The quality 5-mans and initial raiding tier of Cataclysm was taking the game in a direction I really liked, more Ulduar style, but now they’ve decided to do a complete U-turn on that. Since raiding was the last thing that was holding my interest in WoW, a full expansion deliberately planned to be the same boring garbage that was ToC, Icecrown and Firelands is the last excuse I needed to finally give up on WoW. Most of my raid group has said the same thing.
Pandaria itself is just admitting creative bankruptcy, as it never progressed beyond the April 1st joke it began life as and has no place in the setting. The old gods, the Emerald Dream, Azshara and the naga, Sargeras’ plans, there’s a lot of existing plot threads they could’ve gone with, but no, they ass-pull pandas out of nowhere. When one of your major feature additions is Pokemon style pet combat, you know you’re on the downward slope.
I cancelled my account the 2nd day after they announced the expansion content. Day one I was still in disbelief, and thought it was some sort of joke. By day two, I realized it wasn’t
Weird, the announcement made me resubscribe. I loved the Pandaren Brewmaster in Warcraft III, and Chen Stormstout in the Rexxar campaign. I think the break from the western medieval fantasy setting to a more eastern inspired campaign is a good break. Maybe I’m not happy that they’re not moving to Emerald Nightmare or Azshara, but they could really work either in.
I’m really digging the idea of the monk class too. I’ve wanted two things since WoW’s launch: Pandaren and Monks, I’m getting both, /resub.
I cabn’t agree with this, although I no longer play WoW. People wanted Pandarens and kept begging Blizz for them, to no end. The whole thing was supposed to be a bit of in-verse mythmaking, but players wanted it. And while Blizz may take a while, they eventually give people what they ask for. I can’t recall from where, but I’m sure I heard that Pandarens were one of the top-requested items.
I’m neither enraged nor inspired by the new expansion. I’m kind of ‘meh’ about it. I think I’m getting ready to burn out on WoW, although I’m sure part of it has been my inability to raid in Cataclysm.
I’m gonna suspend my subscription when SWTOR launches; whether I stick with Star Wars or end up coming back to WoW next year is up in the air.
I don’t mind the Pandarens, the monk seem like an interesting class, and I am actually excited about the new talent system, which could actually offer what the devs have promised for so long: actual choices based on playstyle.
However, one thing I don’t see mentioned too much are the challenge-mode dungeons, which I and many guildmates are quite interested it, as long as they manage to not mess it up.
I loved Kung Fu Panda. I think it’s one of Dreamworks’ top movies. And when I saw Mists of Pandaria, I didn’t even think of KFP until people started snarking about it.
There are indeed a ton of plot threads back in Azeroth that the game could follow, but I think this particular expansion is well-timed. The base level 60 game had to fight off a host of potential threats to the world. Burning Crusade had to fight off Illidan and Kil’jaeden, two major threats. Lich King killed freaking Arthas. Cataclysm will kill Deathwing, who isn’t as iconic as Arthas but is arguably a larger threat.
Mists looks like it’s intended to be a breather. A small “intermission” sort of expansion where the world isn’t falling apart around everyone’s ears. I think the game, thematically, needs that, though I can’t say what it’ll do for the subscriber base.
Well, that and tey need time to introduce some new threats. Thus far, we’ve pretty much wiped out most of the opposition. All we’ve got left on major threats are:
Kil’Jaeden
Sargeras
and any wandering Titans or Old Gods. But the latter are not all named, not that well known, and either not hostile or abstractly hostile.
I mean, you might be able to work in a battle with the Bronze Dragonflight or maybe the “somwthing something” in the Emerald Dream, but that’s about it. WoW can’t keep exterminating major villains at the rate it is.
Personally, I’m really psyched about it. It seems that I’m pretty squarely in the target Bliz demographic, so yay me.
I trust that it will have the same compelling and unified visual style (one of the reasons I dropped CoH is the visuals just didn’t do it for me), the same hackneyed epic plot coupled with fun tongue-in-cheek elements and the same carefully calibrated dopamine triggering incremental reward system.
As for specifics, I’m excited about the idea of WoWkemon as another fun minigame. I’m also intrigued by the monk class, particularly as a healer. The new talent system sounds great: the current system provides 1-3 real choices coupled with an IQ test, the new system removes the IQ test and provides 6 real choices.
I’m not very excited about Pandaren, but will wait and see. If they were a legitimate rip-off of Kungfu Panda, I’d be peeved, but they’re not.
What was their exact statement regarding PvE challenge that you’re basing this on? Granted, I’m far from an elite gamer and so don’t have the nuanced opinion of Ulduar vs. IC vs. FL.
Thing is, Pandaren and KFP come from the same mental space.
Stereotypical Chinese culture + stereotypical Chinese pastime + anthropomorphized stereotypical Chinese animal. While I like KFP, it ain’t exactly an innovative idea, and the above equation is Blizzard’s bread and butter, just replace Chinese with any other nationality.
They were all over the place in the Blizzcon expansion info dump, with the raid & dungeon panel being particularly relevant. They’re up front about it, making clear statements like:
It’s all part of the whole; cutting out so-called “niche” abilities from class spellbooks, removing the talent tree mechanic so that players don’t manage to skip obvious cores or utilities, and pulling out procs and responses from class mechanics. They’ve since elaborated further on the official forums, the overall goal for the expansion is unambiguously to simplify the gameplay on as wide a scope as they can. They attribute the financial success of WotLK and the poor showing of Cataclysm’s initial months as being linked to the content’s relative difficulty.
