The Mists of Pandaria Hold Many Secrets, Also Pandas

Cinematic was bound to be great, its Blizzard. The cinematics in Diablo 3 were fantastic aswell, the game however wasent.

This really does not make me invest in MoP, Cataclysm was such a disaster from 2 great expansions that its hard to repair what they broke.

Dumbing down talent trees is also a poor choice, it makes everyone more similar to one another in the exact same way D3 did it and people hate it.

The only thing that is interesting at all is that there is a new class, that is the only thing making this even remotely relevant to anyone who isent addicted to WoW

That was amazing. If only the game was fun to play.

If you can't play a Brewmaster then I am not interested at all.

I always wished this game could be just a 4 person Co-op Game. The Community elitists ruin it. They play non-stop, control all the instance and raid groups, and don't let anyone else have a chance.

Blizzard has a talented (and well funded) cinematic department, I'll give them that. It's too bad the game isn't anywhere near as awe inspiring.

Well that was ridiculous.

And amazing.

Got to have a quick mess around in the beta, for an old-ass game on an old-ass engine, that new continent looks pretty fucking amazing. I was shocked.

Ridiculous is this.

Well done CG, but easily my least favourite WoW cinematic. There was nothing peaking my interest from a narrative standpoint, which could not be said for the Wrath and Cata cinematics.

Can't wait to racechange my priest into a panda... because pandas.

Though I'm not into World of Warcraft, nor do I have any desire to play it at all - I can admit that was a really great cinematic trailer. I especially liked the small comedic flourish as the human handed the orc his weapon :)

God dammit they would have to be pandas wouldn't they...

@Astroknot: 1:45

@oldenglishC said:

( •_•)>⌐■-■

Looks like the WOW development team ...

(⌐■_■)

BEAR - ly have any ideas left

YEEEEEEAAAAHHH!!!

Ha! Laughing so hard right now!

I hate that this doesn't say anything about the story, I thought there was some deadly mist killing stuff, at least that's what I understood from the beta but I'm probably wrong.

@IntoTheN1ght said:

Dumbing down talent trees is also a poor choice, it makes everyone more similar to one another in the exact same way D3 did it and people hate it.

Your kidding right?

Because everyone is using the exact same builds right now. Your almost forced to. That's why they are changing it. Regardless if the change works or not I think it's a step in the right direction.

looks good but subscription... not paying it again.

I prefer these opening cutscenes that try to tell a short story as opposed to a random montage of characters doing stuff.

Can't wait, I've already paid for my digital copy. This expansion is the most exciting to me since TBC, both in terms of features list and the feel of the new continent.

This is a personal problem but I hate, HATE the aesthetic of humans in WoW. How does that man support his GIANT hulking shoulders with that tiny little waist? I can't stand super ridiculous bodies like that.

And still no interest in checking out WoW again. Fool me once Blizzard, shame on you; fool me four expansions, shame on me.

All I can think of while watching this is Jack Black and that just = bullshit

Any WoW abstinence left in me is cured by this panda fellow. No thank you, sir-

@Devinant said:

@oldenglishC said:

( •_•)>⌐■-■

Looks like the WOW development team ...

(⌐■_■)

BEAR - ly have any ideas left

YEEEEEEAAAAHHH!!!

Ha! Laughing so hard right now!

Fairly certain the Pandaren had been in the Warcraft universe long before World of Warcraft was even developed.

lol awesome.

Blizzard cinematics really put everyone else to shame.

I might finally get back into WoW. If only to fulfill my life-long dream of becoming a Brewmaster.

In case you guys missed it, the human and orc in the video are supposed to be an homage to the box art for Warcraft II.

Huh, this would almost suggest Blizzard has their sense of humor back. I've tapped the WoW well dry, but it's nice to see them not taking themselves as seriously as they have been.

@BeachThunder said:

Blizzard cinematics really put everyone else to shame.

Nahhh. They might look really detailed, but they've got a lack of weight to everything. Everything is so floaty.

Dat panda looks pretty good, though.

Mists of Pandaria has me back after skipping Cataclysm (which I hated). I'm going to be glued to my computer for weeks after this releases, consuming the new content like crazy. Easily worth the $40+subscription.

LOL KUNG FU PANDA JACK BLACK WARCRAFT II REFERENCE GUILD WARS 2!!!!!

They could have done worse, but I am still not buying this crud.

Sick

That trailer made no sense to me. Looks really nice though.

@Karkarov: It's pretty well established for Blizzard to put out one of these cinematic trailers instead of a gameplay one. It's sorta their shtick so no one should really be surprised.

@Karkarov source?

Awesome cinematics as usual, worst part is having to return to WOW.

I've preordered this addon, I enjoy wow. Its very playable, smooth and combat flows. Some of my friends are on it and we have a good laugh raiding. I've tried other mmo's but I still come back to this one. Having played since final beta with a few breaks, i've seen the good and the bad and its still better than many if not all of the other mmos out there. The only really different one is EVEOnline and thats a whole different ball game.

Just a humble holy priest.

@bemusedchunk said:

LOL KUNG FU PANDA JACK BLACK WARCRAFT II REFERENCE GUILD WARS 2!!!!!

Fucking awesome! I actually laughed reading the list of animal dudes. Naked Walrus man, HA!

@Karkarov

Uhm you do know that there are a lot gameplay trailer out for WoW: MoP. Hell, there is no NDA or anything, the whole internet is full of WoW gameplay, apart from basically everyone who already has the slightest interest already knows the game well enough.

In regards to Kung Fu Panda, you probably never even played the Warcraft 3 campaign, did you? Chen Stormstout? "Have one on the house"?

I've even read that the Kung Fu Panda movie credited Blizzard in their movie...

But you're full of shit either way.

When I see someone complain about how the Pandas make this game less hardcore or whatever, I really have to wonder, what else in the cartoon game makes your shell of masculinity crack? When you see the Panda does it make you feel funny? Does that funny feeling bother you? Do you overcompensate for that funny feeling by calling it out for being 'silly'?

CE, day 1, lets do this.

No gnomes. No go.

If you have played The Mist Beta, you've seen just how how advanced the Pandren player models have gotten. Their faces are heavily articuluated and every movement flexes and moves like you'd expect. it puts the old Orc and Human models to shame as stilted.

I predict this expansion will be the beginning of the precipitous decline for WoW - not because I think panda monks are any more absurd than the other animal-people in WoW, but because they have reached the end of the established Warcraft lore.

The Burning Crusade, Illidan, Arthas, the black dragonflight - all of these had a well-rooted basis in Warcraft's lore prior to WoW (or earlier in WoW's own lorebuilding, like the Deathwing connection to Nefarian, Onyxia, and the red dragonflight), and Blizzard have essentially "burned" through them all. The next step up would be some sort of expansion involving Sargeras himself, but they obviously don't want you essentially fighting the prime evil yet.

So they put out an expansion featuring racial stereotype kung fu pandas, in a world that already includes a movie franchise literally called KUNG FU PANDA, and featuring a new race that have an incredibly tenuous connection to the existing Warcraft history (though it is there). They are forging ahead into uncharted waters, with a story you're given no default reason to care about, unlike the others.

So some will laugh at the silly pandas (rightly or wrongly) and use that to justify not giving it a chance, and others will yawn at the lack of immediate stakes in this expansion (unlike all the others). It'll slow the subscriber bleeding for a while - this is WoW after all - but I predict it doesn't have nearly the impact of the previous expansions.

With the exception of Sargeras, all of the "major" established villains in the Warcract universe are dead and gone - you've even fought historic evils via the Caverns of Time, like Archimonde. This expansion just feels like fumbling in the dark.\, trying to wring the last drops out of a lorebook that is all but scorched earth.

I'll give Blizzard two things- They do CG really, really well and they have a knack for comedic timing. There's nothing here that's interesting enough to get me to pay $15/mo to roll another alt or gear-grind 5-mans to raid 10-mans, though. After playing GW2, I think that's my MMO of choice from here onwards, until something can top it. If you'll notice, though, Blizzard is very good about putting out expansions for WoW about the time serious competition comes onto the MMO scene. I do have a prediction, though- You'll see a dip in subs after GW2 hits, a bump in subs once MoP launches, and then within 3-4 months, people will be complaining about hitting the level cap in a hurry and that the grind is back in force. Its been that way every MMO launched after WoW- but people still keep going back to the trough for more.

Nice CG, no urge to play the game again though.

Honestly, this game could use an Asian vibe considering how many Asians love the game. Night Elf architecture doesn't count.

@Scotto: They've burned through the major villains from Warcraft's RTS days, but that's pretty insignificant. Warcraft's MMO audience and RTS audience don't have a lot of overlap, and there are even less that only play WoW because they're Warcraft lore buffs.

That said, Mists of Pandaria is giving it a honest, strong effort to write new stories that players are going to care about. Starting with the 5.0 patch that launches later this month, WoW's first "scenario" will be added to the game where the Horde attacks Jaina Proudmoore and destroys Theramore. If you want more, there's a book coming out on the same day about the events in the scenario ("Jaina Proudmoore: Tides of War").

The developers have said that MoP will culminate in a raid on Ogrimmar itself to remove Garrosh Hellscream from power. This is a character who was introduced in Burning Crusade, not Warcraft 2 or 3. While Garrosh isn't the same threat to all life on Azeroth that Deathwing was, it's just as compelling to me. It'll be interesting to see how the developers turn Ogrimmar into a full, proper raid instance.

As for the "racial stereotype kung fu pandas," I think you have to be a miserable cynic if that's what stops you from playing the game. It's a bit hypocritical to blame Blizzard for killing off major villains, and then also blame Blizzard for expanding the world in a way that allows them to write new major villains. The continent of Pandaria has a ton of cool, new evil dudes to kill.

Again though, WoW's success has little to do with Illidan, Arthas, and Deathwing. Subscriber numbers didn't swell to 12 million because 12 million ex-Warcraft 3 players had blue balls waiting to kill the Lich King. WoW's success has much more to do with continuously innovating with their game systems and feeding subscribers regular doses of fresh, high quality content.

I wanted Panderians before Lich King came out. There's no way I'm going back now, but I wish them the best. I have a lot of affection for WoW still.

This makes me wanna play this game a whole big bunch. I know it's just (gorgeous) cg, but, well, there it is. The moment when the dude handed the orc the stick killed me.