Yeah, still my favorite zones to quest in. Raids/dungeons were also great.
Yeah, BRF was S-Tier IMO.
But good raids alone don’t completely redeem an expansion’s sins, and while WoD’s sins were the content cycle, MoP had its own sins - it doesn’t matter if Throne of Thunder was great if the rest of the expansion was bad (and it did bleed subs so people are kind of kidding themselves if they’re trying to pretend it was universally loved).
You say it’s the worst expansion but only noted the theme wasn’t your taste. Okay, but what about from the perspective of actually playing the game? I didn’t play MoP so I’m just curious; I’ve heard good things about the PvP and certain raid encounters like in Heart of Fear or Throne of Thunder.
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Panda had a lot of good new ideas - pet battles, timeless isle, and challenge mode dungeons (the start of m+).
However, I didn’t like it either. I want to fight skeletons, werewolves, and maybe dragons. Mop you were fighting giant puking bunny rabbits, giant talking insects, and ook dookers.
The Chinese supported WoW so much that they built an entire Warcraft theme park. The gameplay was good, the stories explored new and interesting themes around the livelihoods of innocents, the fallout of war, and loosing your “humanity” to hatred and self-justification. The characters and visual aesthetic being a giant hat-tip to China and their wuxia fantasy style is ok with me as they used it as an effective narrative vehicle. Do I wish that the Monk class was less Kung-fu and more Pankration (ancient Greek MMA, inspiration for DND monk), yes. It was overall a decent expansion that greatly increased the scope of the world… of Warcraft.
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Pandaria was an excellent expansion. The comedy was surface deep only, and if you looked closely you found some very dark and unsettling themes.
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I get why people disliked Pandas.
But MoP overall still felt far more inline with Warcraft than SL. Even parts of Legion were hard to accept.
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We got our own farm with giant killer carrots.
All arguments against MoP’s superiority are now invalidated.
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I am not trying to change your mind, but I definitely disagree with you. Pandaria was a great expansion. My only gripe was the extreme content drought and Timeless Isle lasted way too long. The plus side to that was Timeless Isle was extremely fun and beautiful to play in, even if it was grindy af for no other reason other than Blizz gave us nothing else to work with.
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East and Southeast Asia in general.
I can only speak to LFR, but Throne was an absolute blast on that difficulty. Some mechanics that would hilariously wipe 3/4 of the raid, but for the most part it was accessible like the Lich raids.
Fond memories.
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Arthas was so bad A when Northrend was current and he truly felt scary. Now whenever I see him pop up in old Northrend content he just feels so cheesy. Different times, different lenses. The Jailor isn’t even as terrifying as Arthas was. I mean at this point, players have experienced it before so reintroducing the experience doesn’t create the same affect second time around.
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“Is it still a generalization if it applies to 100% of the population?”
Seriously, bro?
The only thing that sucked about Pandaland expansion was the lazy decision to make Panda’s horde and alliance. Should have given horde the big Pandaland ogre guys or something
MOP was a marketing disaster more than anything. Pushing pandas front and center was a terrible idea and should have been a footnote to an Asiatic themed expansion on a continent that simply happened to include panderans.
Panderans were always going to be a hard sell because people who’s exposure was only WoW would not take them seriously and long time fans would have a memory long enough to remember they were literal April Fools jokes started from a holiday card Samwise drew and was added as a neutral tavern gag hero in Warcraft 3. Nothing wrong with including them but placing them front and center was bound to cause controversy, if not for a perception of appealing to children- insert Kung Fu Panda joke here- then for the perception of pandering to Chinese audiences.
Steering into a more pan-asiatic theme would have worked better with the Panderans being somewhat Chinese coded but also having regions that scream “Japanese” or “Thai” or “Vietnamese.”
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I still never understood why people hate pandas so effin much. You did not see that same hate targeted to goblins, gnomes, worgen, or vulpera. But for some odd reason you can have a werewolf, a fox, small green people, even space aliens, but NOT a panda. Make it make sense.
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Hard to say…
I didn’t play Vanilla, Cata, MoP or WoD.
Probably BfA. But I had a lot of fun in the last patch there too. It was just the tired old faction pride aspect I didn’t like at the start. Bored me to tears.
What amuses me is people still compare MoP to Kung Fu Panda like it’s somehow an insult… it had THREE movies that were all critically acclaimed. In cinema that’s called an accomplishment.
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Yes you did.
What, you mean you like playing as a fat bear who’s defining character trait is, “Likes food?” Pandarens literally get a racial bonus that could be describe as, “He’s Fat” since you bounce so much you only take half fall damage. Most people who played WoW would have first been introduced to Pandarens through an April Fool’s joke (Pandaren Express) and a hand full of joke easter eggs. Long time fans of Warcraft would similarly remember another April Fool’s Joke introducing the Pandaren brew master who later became a gag neutral hero from the tavern. So they’re supposed to be a joke.
It’s the difference between a race being a joke race- gnomes- and aggressively shouting, “I am the punch line to a joke.”