I mean, having the Pandaren be an agricultural society inspired by China is not “silly jack black panda” and the shenanigans in MoP aren’t any different than the shenanigans in Cataclysm. Furthermore, Id say that the MoP farm is an logical evolution of the Hillsbrad dailies introduced in Cataclysm which were far sillier and got you a talking sunflower.
I think the negativity surrounding MoP was both ignorant of the lore and insatiable. The people who had a problem with it made up their mind that it was all Kung Fu Panda stupidity and made no sense and at that point anything that happened in the expansion would feed their confirmation bias.
I blame this on representation. The Worgen should’ve been a horror race steeped in gothic, turn of the century, revolutionary themes.
Particularly with the Northgate Rebellion.
We could’ve had the French Revolution happening in Victorian England while a Werewolf Outbreak rages and the Zombie Apocalypse continues outside the gate.
Dang I can’t believe I missed another episode of “Alliance Body Type 2 wants to tell everyone how the Horde should be and also that people who liked the Horde before are ‘problematic’.”
I’m not sure why people are fixating on the farming. No one hated MoP because there were farms or farmers.
I also don’t understand the impulse to assign some secret motive to people who are expressing something very overt and simplistic: “Me no like Kung Fu Panda, MoP bad” is not really complicated. If you think that’s a dumb reason to hold MoP in contempt (and it is—as I told many people at the time, just grit your teeth through or skip the one zone it happens in and you’ll find enjoyable storylines no different than most WoW expansions, apart from aesthetics) just say that.
On one hand, I enjoy the sort of… lack of lore that Vulpera have, because it means you can do really anything you want in concerns to a character for one. Sometimes it’s harder to work around super established lore for an idea that one gets.
There’s the more down-to-earth, established-in-lore bits about the nomadic life they have and the fact that they heavily rely on their caravans to keep safe in the desert against hostile Trolls and Sethrak if one wants to go that way (caravan guards, tomb raiders, alpaca tenders, caravan healers, etc.), but they can also be pirates, or maybe they slipped away from the desert to join the Tortollans, or live on the outskirts of Zuldazar so they can filch goods from the stall vendors (or sell their own).
Small tangent, but I think the thing that makes me the most annoyed with the “Kung Fu Panda” jabs towards Pandaren is the fact that they existed in lore long before the movie. And the expansion itself was 4 years after the movie’s release, absolutely not soon enough to ride the “hype” of it, if that’s even what Blizzard was attempting to do.
(Also KFP is a good movie, and Mists was, as far as I can recall, extremely well-received by the Asian side of the playerbase, so lmao anyways)
The whole thing with Vulpera and Pandaren vs. Worgen and Tauren is one side is “cutesy” looking while the other is more… idk, grizzled? And that’s literally where all the hate stems from. If Vulpera and Pandaren were more grimdark and gruff, they wouldn’t get nearly as much hatred as I’ve seen for them, but god forbid we have even a small bit of whimsy in this gritty 2edgy4u “war game.”
(People very specifically cry about Vulpera and Pandaren (and, more recently, Dracthyr) being “furry bait” but I’m sorry to tell y’all this, Worgen and Tauren are also “furry bait” despite not being the “uwu” route of things.)
I don’t think any citation still exists, as the old forums are gone. I know the “It’s Kung Fu Panda!” backlash was pretty prolific at the time, and during an era when the Blues were more willing to speak on the forums (I think they’ve since learned how to practice better selfcare re: mental health).
Speaking as someone who despises furry-bait, I really liked how they handled Pandaren. There was some silliness, sure, but it was tempered by a kind of authentic lived in zone that had plenty of lore behind it, their story throughout MoP was engaging, and there was just enough edgy stuff involving the Sha and the Shado-Pan (and even much smaller stories like the Jade witch). It was goofy but played straight.
Conversely, you have Worgen who do not ever live up to the hype of being werewolves. There is no curse. There is no distinction between their human form and their werewolf one. They do not act differently or have the slightest issue being a part of any society in either form.
Vulpera have no lore. There are a few dozen you even encounter as NPCs. They add nothing to the Horde beyond shamelessly baiting furries to play them. They are completely overshadowed in their own zone by the Sethrak and in the larger continent by the Zandalari. I don’t like em, simple as.
You aren’t wrong. The thing is, I have no contempt for people who didn’t like MoP. There is a specific archetype of whiner, however, that claims it was “definitely” a cash grab that was just ripping off kung fu panda (the movie) and that this was the source. That it was meant to pander to a younger audience and get away from “serious” WoW. That was incorrect at the time and it’s frustrating that no amount of explanation will convince that person otherwise, even to this day.
Almost like they were meant to be a one off zone specific NPC race until a bunch of people asked that they be made playable due to the cuteness factor/that other reason I don’t want to touch on here.
Not that that’s an excuse for them to be so underdeveloped. It’s funny because Mechagnomes have the opposite issue, their lore is developed as much as a AR needs to be, but the way their models work feel incomplete. As if players should be able to choose which limbs are robotic and which aren’t but BFA era blizzard just stopped caring before adding that functionality to them.
This seems like one of those “fake news” tag lines that people take and run with.
I remember the moment at Blizzcon when the first images of Vulpera were shown - the crowd gasped and practically started throwing money at the stage.
Before the expac launched, People were data mining and searching for clues based on their design and voice lines and clothing options, hinting that they would be playable.
Vulpera were clearly designed to be played from the get go by Blizzard. Even the way they introduced them at Blizzcon was like:
“People are gonna go nuts”
And they did.
It doesn’t seem like Blizzard made some new race and then made it playable because of demand - it seems like they made a new race with the intention of people playing it as the expac went on.
You’re forgetting the fact that Vulpera were first introduced on the beta with a non-gearable model before being replaced with a slightly different, but gear enabled model late into beta.
That, and the fact that gilgoblins just happened to be present in the same patch as Mechagnomes and having a great deal of focus despite not being in the game since Cataclysm leads me to believe that in the concept phase it was going to be Mechagnomes/gilgoblins but the fan demand for Vulpera changed their mind during Beta but Blizzard never got around to giving Vulpera more lore.
Which is kind of a shame, imo, because Vulpera could have been developed more and I also found Gilgoblins to be charming. The fact that they were the polar opposite of land goblins was funny.
I remember people being suprised that the vulpera had basically the same rigging as the playable races and immediately started speculating when they would become playable.
As for lore, they have enough to satisfy them becoming playable. But that’s just my opinion
I think they wanted a lot more allied races and that unlocking them was meant to provide tons of content for the casual player. They left it open to budget and time constraints and probably scrapped a lot of options-- Hozen being the first to go. Sethrak and Gilgoblins getting axed last.
I very much doubt Sethrak or Hozen were ever on the table. Sethrak especially. Alliance just latched onto them cuz mechagnomes stank.(But they got Dark Iron that expansion, Easily the best AR to date, so they shouldn’t have been whining).
Honestly, you want to know my biggest complaint with BFA ARs? They never added the pale shattered hand skin type to Mag’har. It’s literally the reason I wanted to play Mag’har…
On the contrary, I believe Hozen were in Zandalar purely because it was at least a passing thought. Sethrak definitely got the same rigging and gearing attention that Vulpera got. That’s why people latched onto the Sethrak. When Worgen rigging got upgraded (bugs and all) it was kind of out of the blue when you don’t consider the potential importance of Sethrak.
I love Vulpera, and while I think a bit of ambiguity is good for the imagination, they could use just a WEE bit more love to fill in some blanks.
I’d love to see them add Vulpera caravans to the old world, particularly around zones in Kalimdor as a bit of worldbuilding flavor and to interweave their nomadic nature as part of the Horde.
It’d be interesting as well to see some Vulpera interested in their origin, I know they’re suspected to be children of a Wild God, so it’d be cool to see something with that, perhaps connecting them to some sort of Druidic roots.