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[Column] World of Warcraft: Looking Back at Mists of Pandaria

SBFordSBFord Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129

The Tourist is our way of revisiting favorites of the past, recent and otherwise. In our latest column, we take a look at World of Warcraft's Mist of Pandaria expansion and what it brought to the game. Read on and the leave your memories of Pandaria in the comments.

WoW was my first true MMO love. I remember being awed by everything when I made my first character, captured in the wonder of what lay ahead and the mystery of all around. It was scary, and thrilling, and extremely fun. I bought a cheap laptop just so I could play during my breaks at college. When I discovered instances, I called a friend who was also new and gushed. He logged right on and joined me in the Deadmines. I won the blue mage staff from the last boss and believed that I'd found something so rare that I was in the money. Shortly after, I was scouring the internet trying to figure out how to un-soulbind an item. This was the mystery, the adventure, and the compelling thread that drew me through the next three years.

Read more of Chris Coke's The Tourist: Looking Back at Mists of Pandaria.

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Comments

  • AeonbladesAeonblades Member Posts: 2,083

    It was more enjoyable that Cata, but so is pretty much anything ever. That's about the only nice thing I can say about. Timeless Isle was a disaster imo, I'm glad they won't be forcing another one of those down our throats with WoD.

    I look forward to WoD only because of the promise of relevant small group content being included in the game again for the first time since Wrath.

    I'll be much happier with the game without some weird Asian theme going on too.

    Currently Playing: ESO and FFXIV
    Have played: You name it
    If you mention rose tinted glasses, you better be referring to Mitch Hedberg.

  • TheLizardbonesTheLizardbones Member CommonPosts: 10,910

    I just bought MoP from the Blizzard store for $10. I'll probably buy a month of game time for Christmas vacation. Hopefully it's better than Cataclysm. I don't think that's asking too much.

    I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.

  • orbitxoorbitxo Member RarePosts: 1,956

    hehe looking back?

     

    i just got a timecard this past month -to play this expac.

    i was a little impressed with myself how much im enjoying it.

    scenarios- looking for raid-timeless isle...all good stuff.

    the graphics are a little better than last expac...my only gripe with it , this just feels like the wow world landed in anothe rgame altogether..feels like characters took a vacation to another game.

    all in all its a nice expac. much improvements from 2 years ago. i hope their character reskins will do the game justice.

  • AeonbladesAeonblades Member Posts: 2,083
    Originally posted by lizardbones

    I just bought MoP from the Blizzard store for $10. I'll probably buy a month of game time for Christmas vacation. Hopefully it's better than Cataclysm. I don't think that's asking too much.

    I would say it's a lot better than Cataclysm, but as you said, that wouldn't be hard to do :)

    Currently Playing: ESO and FFXIV
    Have played: You name it
    If you mention rose tinted glasses, you better be referring to Mitch Hedberg.

  • orbitxoorbitxo Member RarePosts: 1,956
    Originally posted by Aeonblades

    It was more enjoyable that Cata, but so is pretty much anything ever. That's about the only nice thing I can say about. Timeless Isle was a disaster imo...

     

    Time isle and looking for raid, it what actually kept me playing  so far...
    scenarios too..

    way better than cataclysm dailies.

  • orbitxoorbitxo Member RarePosts: 1,956
    i think cataclysm had a great Villian , but poorly exceuted imo. too much 'fire' & 'lava'  just 'burned' me out...
  • AeonbladesAeonblades Member Posts: 2,083
    Originally posted by orbitxo
    Originally posted by Aeonblades

    It was more enjoyable that Cata, but so is pretty much anything ever. That's about the only nice thing I can say about. Timeless Isle was a disaster imo...

     

    Time isle and looking for raid, it what actually kept me playing  so far...
    scenarios too..

    way better than cataclysm dailies.

    I do LFR quite frequently. LFR is a good feature for sure, it works around my schedule. Scenarios aren't the kind of small group content I had in mind really, but those aren't bad either.

    I was done with Timeless Isle in about 2 hours, I realized it was much less of a grind to gear up through raids /scenarios. The entire purpose of the Island is a catch up mechanism, but it seems to blockade you from catching up at every opportunity through poor RNG.

    Currently Playing: ESO and FFXIV
    Have played: You name it
    If you mention rose tinted glasses, you better be referring to Mitch Hedberg.

  • ChrisboxChrisbox Member UncommonPosts: 1,729
    MoP is a giant disgusting fail, on the PVE and PVP end.  The only good part was getting challenge mode gold gear.  

    Played-Everything
    Playing-LoL

  • NeVeRLiFtNeVeRLiFt Member UncommonPosts: 380
    Good article!

    Played: MCO - EQ/EQ2 - WoW - VG - WAR - AoC - LoTRO - DDO - GW/GW2 - Eve - Rift - FE - TSW - TSO - WS - ESO - AA - BD
    Playing: Sims 3 & 4, Diablo3 and PoE
    Waiting on: Lost Ark
    Who's going to make a Cyberpunk MMO?

  • Ice-QueenIce-Queen Member UncommonPosts: 2,483
    There was one thing that stuck out for me with Pandaria. It was the invisible pets with paw prints you could track if you are a beastmaster hunter. That was pretty fun for me when I played it. In the end though WoW was still a gear grind at max level for me, and was enough for me to be done in a few weeks after getting 553/566 gear. Gear grinding is boring for me.

    image

    What happens when you log off your characters????.....
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFQhfhnjYMk
    Dark Age of Camelot

  • RaventreeRaventree Member Posts: 456
    I played this game for 5 years, through Lich King and Cata, but after months of doing dailies and being limited from PVP advancement by Arena, I finally called it quits.  It has been about 2 years and I still can't bear the thought of going back.  It started to feel like a tedious job, not a fun game.

    Currently playing:
    Rift
    Played:
    SWToR, Aion,EQ, Dark Age of Camelot
    World of Warcraft, AoC

  • MMOGamer71MMOGamer71 Member UncommonPosts: 1,988
    WoW was fun up to The Lich King.
  • frestonfreston Member UncommonPosts: 503
    Originally posted by Aeonblades
    Originally posted by lizardbones

    I just bought MoP from the Blizzard store for $10. I'll probably buy a month of game time for Christmas vacation. Hopefully it's better than Cataclysm. I don't think that's asking too much.

    I would say it's a lot better than Cataclysm, but as you said, that wouldn't be hard to do :)

    Even though Cataclysm was generally a horrible expansion, i think the undersea zone and the subterranean one are two of the best of the entire game.

  • TookyGTookyG Warhammer Online CorrespondentMember UncommonPosts: 1,115
    Proofread.

    Until you cancel your subscription, you are only helping to continue the cycle of mediocrity.

  • observerobserver Member RarePosts: 3,685

    My order of greatness:  Wotlk > BC > classic > Cata > MoP.

    MoP failed on so many levels.  No new dungeons after the initial launch, and only raids.  Dailies, more dailies, and even more dailies, which required gated content, to even unlock more dailies.  Then Timeless Isle came and failed hard.  It was claimed to be "dynamic", but they were literally just mob pinatas.

     
  • MagicabbageMagicabbage Member Posts: 93
    I liked Mop. I didn't play Cata much, I like Wrath because of the lore, but the color palette was beyond horrible. I loved BC because of the PvP. I hope I enjoy WoD as much as BC and from what I am seeing, I am sure I will. The story is starting to get good again. I admit after Lich King was killed I kinda felt like the story ended, and it did. Blizzard really changed a lot and I didn't quite connect with Cata, so I played it sparingly. I like the Pandas and Pandaria and the story itself and the "new Horde" this new expack should be great. Just with Garrisons alone.
  • MagicabbageMagicabbage Member Posts: 93
    I agree
  • MorvMorv Member UncommonPosts: 331

    Wrath of the Lich King was brilliantly done, and quite entertaining. I did not like Cata at all, that was a flop for me, I think primarily because it felt as though they did not want to put much effort into it. Despite that, there are parts of Cata I thought were interesting but not necessarily attention grabbing: The underwater area and Deepholm are the two areas that come to mind. I have enjoyed MoP for the most part. I have been playing since launch and have all of the Collector's Editions including vanilla and after testing other games, fairly consistently, I always want to come back and goof off on WoW and this expansion is no different, though I did not spend too much time in BC or Cata. I do play other games though and I am definitely looking forward to the half dozen sandbox games being built, bout time!

    I enjoyed the farming part of MoP, that was entertaining and creative so I look forward to the next expansion with the garrison building idea they have. I am not sure it won't look like Cata where they remade the areas saying everything is different when in fact very little changed, so, it's questionable to me whether the land will be interesting, but I hope they make up for it with new concepts. Oh and I enjoyed the pet battle stuff, that is pretty cool too.

    I hope they decide to add mounts that can both fly and swim quickly. Swim animations for all mounts. Maybe even mounts with special abilities that are just cool. Anyway, I don't want to get into it as I could easily write 50 pages on WoW pro's and con's.

     

     

     

  • kaliniskalinis Member Posts: 1,428
    Things i liked about mop. i loved the asian themed zones. I like the panda's i disagree i think they fit, Pandaran have been part of wow lore since the rts games. So they fit. i liked all the dailies they gave to start mop, i really liked how they did the thunder isle stuff with the solo scenarios and dailies that was a blast, i liked the farm also. timeless isle to me got old fast with no quests but alot of people liked that. mop was good but not lk good. Lk was much better and the peak of wow. 
  • MatryoshkaMatryoshka Member UncommonPosts: 98

    I hated that outside of raids all we had was crappy LFR and scenarios, outside of raiding I don't want to do a watered down version of the same raid I do all week, and I don't want to do 3 man content that requires zero group dynamics that have made up WoW for years. Not to mention the crap ton of dailies on release. It was just a bad idea all around to not have any new dungeons outside of release.

    I am pretty much done with WoW for the time being. The only thing that kept me playing (raiding) is even boring now for me, and I highly doubt I will be purchasing WoD with all these interesting and promising MMOs coming out in the future. They don't even have to be amazing for me, they just have to be different than the same thing I've been playing for 10 years at this point and actually have content, and they will be worth it to me.

  • NephelaiNephelai Member UncommonPosts: 185

    The sole reason for the Kung Fu Panda theme was to hopefully stop the slide in Asian subs - revenue is king.

     

    For me, vanilla was about the journey something I enjoyed greatly. It had communities that by their closed nature created behavioral responsibilities. It was also simple - level your character, run dungeons for your blue dungeon set and then raid all while leveling your trades and WORKING for your mount etc. PvP was also simple and I loved that people were so determined to win back in that day that I could go out to the beach and retrun to the same AV hours later. Beating the other faction was the priority.

     

    Today, the game consists of mini runs to end game and then repetitive grind. Sure there may be new people joining but the leveling experience has changed so much that there really isn't any journey to experience. Since the company has moved to cash cow status it has been operating by keeping its sub the same and reducing costs thru reduction in quality. Today the experience consists of:

    • Rushing thru a small amount of levels or speed leveling missing most of the zone content
    • Running normal dungeons
    • Running heroic dungeons
    • Running heroic scenarios
    • Running 3 tiers of LFR
    • Running normal raids
    • Running heroic raids

     

    The addition of scenarios, pet battles, farms etc is merely a cheap time sync.

     

    Personally I think its about time they increase the sub cost so they can produce more quality content after all the $15/4 per  week is a pittance - I spend more than that on coffee a day. That way they can concentrate on keeping it an MMO and let the facebookers go play candy crush or pet rescue saga to their hearts content rather than bring that rubbish to an MMO.

     

    I never started playing MMO's to collect pets.

  • Instigator-JonesInstigator-Jones Member UncommonPosts: 530
    MoP was the end for me. I considered the panda content to be a bad move from the traditional dark fantasy vibe, but the addition of pet battles and the dumbing down of class mechanics made my goto MMO just a sad failure. If you remember having to feed your pet as a hunter or taming beasts for their traits, or mixing your own poisons as a rogue, then you'll have known the BEST times in WoW.
  • muffins89muffins89 Member UncommonPosts: 1,585
    Originally posted by Instigator-Jones
    MoP was the end for me. I considered the panda content to be a bad move from the traditional dark fantasy vibe, but the addition of pet battles and the dumbing down of class mechanics made my goto MMO just a sad failure. If you remember having to feed your pet as a hunter or taming beasts for their traits, or mixing your own poisons as a rogue, then you'll have known the BEST times in WoW.

    because having to click my mouse to mix poison is fun?

  • kabitoshinkabitoshin Member UncommonPosts: 854
    Mists still has quality end game raids, think they are some of the best. The gear on the other hand, for my warrior, just sucks. I just can't get into this game if I'm not raiding, and that's what ruins MMO's for me since most are themepark.
  • RocknissRockniss Member Posts: 1,034
    I had played wow ever since 2008 up until this expac. I thought WOtlK was amazing. During wotlk I actually was excited from lvl 1 all the way to level 80. My expectations of mmorpg was fresh, so everything I did for progression was worth while. Now that I know where it ultimately leads to, any tyoe of leveling is a chore, just give me the good stuff
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