Blizzard Hints at Pandaren Expansion

[Kroxile]

lol, Blizzard, why don't you just die already?

As a guy that jumps back and forth between MMOs, I have to say anytime I spend playing WoW makes me feel dumber everytime I log off and to see the company begin to squirm at their loss of numbers makes me giddy with glee.

 

[Genixma]

Well I guess you can say the expansion is -puts on glasses- Panda Express.

 

[meepop]

I'm going to be calling bullshit if either become playable, since both the Pandaren and the Ethereals are neutral and have no reason to help either side.

While I may not know all the WoW lore, I'm fairly certain that Goblins were/are neutral, and they became a new Horde race while remaining neutral in Booty Bay or whatever.

OT: The Ethereals seem like they could be the next Horde race, just because they're obsessed with business. Why Pandaren would be Alliance, I have no idea, as I never played Warcraft. Oh well, we'll have to wait and see. This could rope me back into WoW.

 

[Mechanix]

I don't play WoW anymore anyway but...that's a terrible name. It's so awkward to say Mists.

 

[Speakercone]

WoW really isn't the game for me anymore. Though I will admit that the thought of rolling a panda death knight is quite appealing, I think I'll pick up ToR a few months after release.

 

[Fursnake]

I can see them adding this race for the low low cost of $24.95 in the WoW store or whatever it is they use to sell things like the sparkle pony.

 

[Realitycrash]

Play Etheral? Fuck yes!
I'd hit..Err race-change to that.

 

[Karlaxx]

I cannot tell you how infeasible even bringing pandaren into the game as NPC's is, because it was already established years ago that that would lose China for Blizzard. Engineering a way to make them playable or a reason to go to Pandaria wouldn't be worth it.

 

[sunpop]

Eh I played into cata but couldn't even drag myself to 85 knowing I would be clearing endgame as once vashir broke all the other zones bored the crap out of me. So while leveling in stonecore I stopped and realized if I hated every new zone except vashir why the hell am I playing this?

Haven't even wanted to play now thanks to league of legends, will wait for tera and see if its any good and if its not oh well.

 

[Moffman]

Eh I played into cata but couldn't even drag myself to 85 knowing I would be clearing endgame as once vashir broke all the other zones bored the crap out of me. So while leveling in stonecore I stopped and realized if I hated every new zone except vashir why the hell am I playing this?

Haven't even wanted to play now thanks to league of legends, will wait for tera and see if its any good and if its not oh well.

I thought the zones were pretty damn good, for me they flow so much better than the FF and BC zones. You are definitely right about the fact that deepholm was pretty lame though ooooo greyness... yay -.-

 

[Sansha]

I'll be fucked if I'm paying for any Pandaren content. It's a stupid notion, it does NOT fit with any lore, and it's just pathetic fan-baiting. I have no idea why people are so into Pandarens. It was a joke - and it wasn't even funny. WoW fans take irony way too far.

Emerald Dream, fine. Sargeras, bring it on, but not fucking Pandaren.

 

[thirion1850]

...Ugh... Just let it die already. Don't ruin my most favorite race in the game by making them a money-grub. ~.~

 

[MajorDolphin]

Wow... Blizz is getting desperate. Add a few more animal races and all the furries from SecondLife will swarm WoW.


Anyways, we've only been waiting since the game first opened its doors to play as the Murlocs. Three expansions later and we still can't play as MURLOCS. I've been waiting years to Aaaaaughibbrgubugbugrguburgle! my way across the land. Wtf is wrong with Blizzard? Pandas? No one wants stinking pandas. We want bloody Murlocs!

 

[godofslack]

Pandaran will not be a playable race, at least not faction specific. And even then, that's just silly, killing Panadaran one minute and healing one the next?

Ethereals are even less likely, as they are a genderless species. The only distinguishing feature of an Ethereal is their bandages, and those will be covered by armor.

It'll be a new hero class if anything. As for the image it leads to some new type of storage and some way to change your character's appearance. That's just understanding what the words mean.

 

[PrinceOfShapeir]

Hey, here's a bright idea - why don't we wait until we have some confirmation before we all start pitching fits?

 

[Clonekiller]

(this is much better if you read it in monotone). Wooo. World of Warcraft is soon to be populate by a million Kung Fu pandas. Guess I should renew my subscription so that I can play through all the nerfed content so I can fight something even more ridiculous than a dragon with a Superman chin.

Geese Blizzard, you've made me cynical.

 

[Maxtro]

Eh, sure, I'd pick it up. Buy a three month game card and that will be enough for me.

 

[MarsProbe]

I want a new heroic class, damn it! We have enough races, we missed out on having a Worgen heroic class (which would have been awesome), I want to have a monk class! Or brewmaster! I don't need to see Panda furries on the intrawebs, wow has given us too many of those already!

I'm going to speculate here that the next hero class will most likely be Demon Hunter. If you remember the big whirlpool you find in Darkshore which you can jump into and find a demon hunter type hiding down there. A friend pointed out to me that this hints that the next expansion may have something to do with the likes of Sargeras, Kil'jaeden and the like. Seemingly each WoW expansion has included a quest [chain] that hints at the content of the next expansion. Seemingly there was something to do with the Scourge (if there was, I missed it or just don't remember) in TBC while in WotLK there was a quest chain where you went around investigating rifts that had appeared underwater, which supposedly hinted at the Cataclysm. Maybe the demon hunter quest is doing much the same thing. I'm just saying Demon Hunter class as it sounds suitably hero class like to me and, like the Death Knight, they should be able to base an origin story for your hero character around the expansions lore fairly easily.

Also, surely with an expansion involving demon hunters & Eredar, they could come up with a more epic sounding title than Mists of Pandaria. That, and it would give us a reason to visit Argus, possibly.

 

[sunpop]

They did flow better but they bored me and as far as deepholm goes that was the one I was excited the most about simply because it was an underground cavern to quest in yet nothing could live up to vashir.

Also seeing the neutral faction of stone people down there made me realize I would again have to rep grind for no reason to get an enchant, of course my guilds never known me to bother much with enchanting and spending that much time working on one. However I always wanted them to just remove the faction grinding for what became a mandatory raid enchant. I already spend an unholy amount of time in raids hopefully having fun let not waste my time out of them doing the same quests 10 times a day.

 

[LorienvArden]

I still won't believe it's a real expansion until/unless it's announced at BlizzCon.

If you take a look at the trademark filing, it is pretty evident that it will be the title of the new expansion. The codes for the areas the trademark will apply for are identical to those of all the previous expansions.
If it wasn't, they just blew out a whole lot of money for several trademarks just to troll the comunity into believing it was.

I can imagine pandaren as a playable race, but the lore afaik doesn't support them joining either side. That beeing said, Blizzards WoW division is propably best known for just bending the fluff over like a drunk prostitute and go to town on it if they smell money.
Dranae , Gnome Deathknights, Worgren ?

If they can improve on cataclysm with that expansion, they might draw a crowd, but In the long run, my money would be on Guild Wars 2.
That one really rewrote how MMO should be played and their artistic design is just breath taking.
I think its safe to say that the next generation of MMOs will be defined by TOR and GW2, with WoW falling behind with every content nerf they dish out. Cataclysm was a point where WoW could reinvent itself, but it missed that chance.There where several good additions, but in the long run it couldn't stop the exodus of a larger chunk of its player base.
It'll be nigh on impossible to convince somebody to join WoW with all its necessary expansions(100+$ all in all) if you could just subscribe to TOR or GW.