When MoP was the most controversial expac

Community General Discussion
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MoP is often remembered now as a pretty beloved expansion. And it deserves its good reputation. However, at the time it was full of controvery. I’ll start with the most obvious:

The theme
I remember opinions were heavily divided at Blizzcon when they unveiled Pandaria at Blizzcon. We went from slaying demons, to battling undead, to defeating the worldbreaker, to hanging out with pandas? People genuinely believed this was the point Blizz jumped the shark and gave us a filler expansion.

The story
When we entered Pandaria, we didn’t get any discernable goal. We’re just exploring and fighting the other faction. We encountered the Sha who were creatures made of feelings, and that felt cheesy. Blizz spoiled that Garrosh would be the last boss, and to many his corruption arc was too out of character for him.

New talent system
Oh boy did people fight this. I vividly remember people arguing that “meaningful choice” was just showing us 3 core class abilities and forcing us to lose 2 to pick 1.

World questing
People were overwhelmed with the raw amount of dailies at the start of the expac. Blizz said we’re not supposed to do them all, but people weren’t going to self regulate. It was a terrible rep race. There was also controversy over the future quest hubs because they had no flying, but instead had jumping puzzles and tightrope walking.

LFR
MoP began with LFR and as such it was at the peak of the LFR debate. Back then, LFR had much better rewards, and it was essentially a gearing stepping stone. You needed a very understanding guild if you wanted to skip LFR loot and go straight to normal.

Legendary cloak
I’m pretty sure there were more controversies over the cloak, but I can’t remember them. I do remember people refusing to get the cloak because they didn’t want to do the PVP part of it, which was 2 BG wins.

The subs lost
This was the main evidence people posed for MoP being a failure. Each quarter we’d see new numbers of lost subs, and people would go “HA! I told you so!”

Anyway. That’s all that comes to mind. I still think MoP was a great expansion, but back in the day it was highly controversial. I can’t think of an expansion that sparked as much controversy at the time. Yes WoD and BfA were hated, but everyone agreed they’re bad, so there wasn’t much to debate there.

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hahaha they make u do 2 bg win then all pver go crazy , this game of magic is of war of facshin , u do not go LEGENDARY if u can not win 2 bg hahahahahaa haahahah hahahaha

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I think it was a couple of years ago that I realized the “MoP was the last good expansion!” sentiment was a thing. And at the time, I thought… wait, what? I too remember those controversies. I had a generally good time in MoP but by the end of it the aesthetic was becoming tiresome and I was very ready for something new.

MoP is definitely one that history has been kind to, it seems. I thought it had one of the best, most cohesive expansion stories that we’ve seen (probably thanks to Dave Kosak before they sent him to Hearthstone), and I liked getting the legendary cloak. But expansions afterward had things I liked too, with Legion being pretty great all around.

So, I dunno… The positive feelings about MoP now make me wonder how other expansions will be viewed after a few years have gone by.

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Not everyone is old enough to remember when Pandaren was just an April fools’ joke.

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I still remember when the TukUI author went on a tirade because “pandas srsly”

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I like all these in-depth at systems when the majority of the controversy is from the Pandaren theme.

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Is this like… a theme for you, or something?

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MoP should still be the most controversial expansion because the Shado-Pan kill a bunch of children every seven seasons.

Warning: Seven kids die in this official MoP Shortstory. Not to mention all the descriptions of cruelty.

“I have been an orphan since age seven. I have slept in sewers and fought packs of virmen for food just to survive. I have sheltered under the twilight rain in alleys with thieves and murderers. You think I have never taken a beating, monster? Just last season I was whipped by a butcher for stealing his garbage , and by a blacksmith for warming my paws at his forge .”
-Ten

2 Likes
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celebrate… troll… celebrate trolling

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I’m still not a fan of the talent system, but everything else was really cool. There was a point where I bought more than one expansion and had to level through two or three all at once and I think I didn’t give the Pandas enough time to really enjoy the content.

I have gone back and done stuff on other characters and I can see how much I would have enjoyed it if I didn’t have the next expansion(s) hanging over my head.

I blame Cata.

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I didn’t care for the aesthetics or the story of MoP, but I could pick up almost any class/spec and have a blast. Until the “Class Fantasy” expansion wrecked some of them, that is.

Professions actually mattered, which was nice. Reforging was also cool–it helped reduce the sting when you got a piece of gear with bad secondaries.

Pvp was brutal if you were late to the party. You were basically a level 1 critter until you caught up on gear.

Solid xpac overall. But yea, lots of people got hung up on “lolkungfupandas.”

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I’m going to venture and say that MoP’s reception was more to do with Cata being a massive disappointment. People were shook up throughout most of Cata, and much like now with BFA into Shadowlands, they were looking for some semblance of normalcy. MoP was a massive departure from what people were already feeling estranged from, and so they balked.

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MoP was reviled at first, but I loved it from day one. I still think some of the zones look better than some of the more modern zones, to be honest. It was my favorite expansion by 5.2 (Isle of Thunder was amazing) and it was the only expansion I genuinely enjoyed PvP. The number of world quests was really the only big issue I had with it.

I miss MoP to this day, and I long for a return to that expansion. I want to hope Shadowlands will be good, but Blizzard keeps making arbitrary and ridiculous decisions for the sake of…what, anti-fun? I don’t get it. But I’ll still hope…

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There is a lot of nostalgia for sure. For me MoP coincided with me moving across the globe and starting afresh on US realms, in english language, and it felt like a different game to me at the time. So there is certainly an extend of pink colored glasses there.

I did hate the dailies at the start. Mainly because they gated valor vendor behind them which was unusual after accessible Cata vendors, so I felt like I had to do them. But they kind of phased them out and I got into PvP and never really had a need to do any of them.

I actually liked that LFR was meaningful. It wasn’t as toxic back then, it was pretty straighforward and rewarding. For a long time it was a PvE endgame for me, and at the end of the expansion it even enticed me try and pug harder modes, because I wanted more gear.

Looking back, the theme of MoP is actually most interesting. It kind feels like a separate world, instead of a rehash. The colors were very nice, the music is very very good. I wasn’t a big hater on pandas back then as well.

The talent system was a tough sell at first, yeah. But then I got used to it.

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I play for story and lore. The drunk panda being shoved in our face got old very fast.

I didn’t care there was pandas, I cared they only cared about brew. Dungeons and even the monk speck was about drunkenness. It’s like it was written by a 21 year old who just tries their first drink and were all in

It was my shortest expansion and even now I try to get out of there as quickly as I can