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Poll: What Are Your Thoughts On Mists of Pandaria?
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Post by
Caolela
I'd rather play as a Kalu'ak than a panda. :rolleyes:
Post by
Adamsm
I'd rather play as a Kalu'ak than a panda. :rolleyes:
Thank the Naaru you don't have to make one if you don't want to.
Post by
781960
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Rankkor
The entire aspect of Pandas were around from bloody Warcraft 3. They were always intended to be apart of the games lore.
I see people spouting that off now when for years it was common knowledge that they were literally added to a game as a joke.
Thing is, they have never been a joke or an easter egg. If that was the case, we would had never had one ON THE MAIN ORC CAMPAIGN of the frozen throne. Hidden Easter Eggs tend to be............. well............. hidden. Not out in the open. Pandaren brewmasters were openly recruitable mercenaries, and Chen was a core part of the trio of heroes on the orc campaign.
A better example of a joke in war3 was the Orc Firebats and the zerglings. Yes they were in warcraft 3 but they were just a joke, an easter egg that was only seen either in the map creator, or in the post-credits sequence. Just like Arthas playing an Ice Guitar. That too was an easter egg, a joke, not to be taken seriously, the lich king has never ever played an ice guitar.
Pandarens however were never a joke. They used to be WAAAAY back during the pre-development stage for Frozen Throne, when Sam Diddlier loved to introduce panda imagery everywhere, and they were initially announced as an april's fools joke. BUT (and this is a BIG but) after positive fan feedback, they decided to canonize the joke, and created official lore for the pandarens and added them as an ACTUAL GAMEPLAY. With actual lore, and actual relevance to the plot.
Unlike the Orc Firebats, or the Guitar-playing arthas, the pandarens WERE in fact involved on the third war. As mercs for hire, or in the case of Chen, as a trusty companion to rexxar.
Of course, this flies above and beyond the mind of most people who just wanna grab an excuse to rage, and go screaming THEY R PANDERING TO CHINESE AND KIDS!
This after playing a game with humanoid fish(Gorloc), frogs(Murlocs), bulls(taurens), birds(harpys), wolves(Worgen), bears(Furbolgs), raccoons(Wolvar), rats(Kobolds), hyenas(Gnolls), walrus(Tusskarr), tigers(Tol'vir), bisons(Taunka), crabs(Makura), pigs (quillboars), ravens (Arrakoa) Owlbear (Wildkin), Horses (Centaurs) Deers (Dryads) serpents (naga) Goats (
Draenei
Satyr), Space Goats (Draenei), Gorillas (Wendigos), Spiders (Nerubian) Beetles (Aquir),
Pixies
(Fairy Dragon) and so many more.
Pretty much every animal imaginable is on azeroth on humanoid form. But hey, lets add pandas and suddenly wow is for kids.
/rollseyes.
Post by
Caolela
Your point is all well & good, rankkorr, but if China wasn't on such an economic/modernization upswing, Blizz's sudden Pandaren love wouldn't look so much like a blatant cash grab.
Or is it just coincidence? I don't think so.
Post by
Adamsm
Your point is all well & good, rankkorr, but if China wasn't on such an economic/modernization upswing, Blizz's sudden Pandaren love wouldn't look so much like a blatant cash grab.
Or is it just coincidence? I don't think so.
It's not a coincidence; the Asian market has always been on Blizzard's mind...but the fact is, the Pandarens of Warcraft 3 were originally in Japanese armour, but when China complained back then, they made sure that in the RPG books they were done in just general Asian style.
But as Blizzard is a company, saying anything is a cash grab is a little childish, since their entire purpose is to make money.
Post by
Caolela
"Making money" while alienating a large segment of its paying customer base (many of them long-term) should not be its "entire purpose".
In the end, peeps will vote with their pocketbooks. I already have.
Post by
Interest
Is it just me or did a lot more people vote the first option now...?
Post by
Caolela
Related to my last post, I'd also repost this from a different forum's poster (I fixed spelling/punctual errors):
"As far as I'm concerned, Blizzard taking people's money for server transfers, then implementing a system that randomly removes them from the server they paid to play on is tantamount to fraud, or at the least false advertisement.
Even better - running a sale on them right before CRZ went live, knowing that they woudn't be getting as many of them makes it REALLY slimy. Blizzard are nothing but rip-off artists at this point and someone needs to look quite closely at their terrible biz practices. They have taken A LOT of money from people, then bait-n-switched leaving them without what they paid for.
They should have to refund every single $25 realm xfer fee they have ever collected."
I agree 100%. Then there's the whole issue of the CRZ insanity. What genius came up with that idea...Ghostcrawler? For that alone he should be fired. Better yet, there should be a class-action lawsuit for this kind of changing the product after you've paid for it. It will probably take something like that to finally put a halt to Blizz's arrogance.
Post by
Adamsm
Better yet, there should be a class-action lawsuit for this kind of changing the product after you've paid for it.Someone needs to read the terms of service better then....
Post by
Caolela
Maybe they cannot be sued over it, but if they could it would be a good dose of reality for Blizz.
They are implementing CRZ because they have so many physical servers (hardware - not realms) that are sitting idle or under-utilized.
With CRZ they'll be able to reduce the amount of physical hardware required to support the population of the game without merging realms. This has the potential to reduce their expenses by millions.
It will only succeed if they can fix the bugs and latency issues, balance cross zone populations to be reasonable, balance spawns and nodes to be reasonable, deal with the griefing issues, and still find and deliver real solutions for low pop realms. Otherwise it could cost Blizz more in lost revenue than they save in expenses.
Again, it's about greed/maximizing profit, not about making a better game for paying customers.
Post by
hymer
it's about greed/maximizing profit, not about making a better game for paying customers.
Those two should align, or we can pretty much write off mankind's dominant financial system.
Edit: 'Financial' may be the wrong word. 'Economical' could be better.
Post by
ElhonnaDS
Maybe they cannot be sued, but if they could it would be a good dose of reality for Blizz.
They are implementing CRZ because they have so many physical servers (hardware - not realms) that are sitting idle or underutilized.
With CRZ they'll be able to reduce the amount of physical hardware required to support the population of the game without merging realms. This undoubtedly has the potential to reduce their expenses by millions.
It will only succeed if they can fix the bugs and latency issues, balance cross zone populations to be reasonable, balance spawns and nodes to be reasonable, deal with the griefing issues, and still find and deliver real solutions for low pop realms. Otherwise it could cost Blizz more in lost revenue than they save in expenses.
Again, it's about greed/maximizing profit, not about making a better game for paying customers.
Technically, if they make the game better for 500,000 paying customers in a new Asian market, and only worse for 50,000 customers elsewhere, they are making it better for paying customers. If a product changes, and has broader appeal, then that's a superior product. No company owes it people to not change a product to one more people want, just because a smaller group of people like it better as is. If more people want this product with pandas than without, which is what you're suggesting is going to be the case in the Asian marketplace, then it is both stupid and the complete opposite of doing what the customer wants to not add them.
If what they are doing will attract more money by attracting more customers, then even if you don't like it, they're catering to the customer in a general sense. It seems as though your complaint is that they are adding things that large numbers of new customers want, despite the fact that you don't.
You are not more important than any other customer. You sneer about the Asian marketplace as though those customers are somehow inferior to you, and you deserve better treatment than they do. Why is it greed/moneygrabbing for a company to cater to what another customer wants, but a moral obligation for them to cater to what you want as a customer?
Post by
Caolela
The dominant financial sector actually produces nothing. It is in reality a parasite on the rest of society's production. But that's not an issue for this thread.
Post by
Caolela
... It seems as though your complaint is that they are adding things that large numbers of new customers want, despite the fact that you don't. ...
From what I've seen on various forums, there are several things in MoP that large numbers of existing and new customers don't (or won't) want, probably the CRZ mess being foremost.
Post by
ElhonnaDS
... It seems as though your complaint is that they are adding things that large numbers of new customers want, despite the fact that you don't. ...
From what I've seen on various forums, there are several things in MoP that large numbers of existing and new customers don't (or won't) want, probably the CRZ mess being foremost.
Right- but that has nothing to do with adding Pandas as a race, which you accuse them of doing to pander to a new market, which is the line of thought I'm discussing. The idea that it is somehow a bad idea to create a broader market for your product.
Post by
Caolela
I and many others think pandas are silly as a race, which has been said a million times by others already. And they ARE pandering to the Chinese market, that is quite obvious. Then add in the other crap that is MoP and the writing's on the wall.
But this is only part of the larger issue with Blizz, that it has long ago lost interest in what most players want/expect from the game, forcing in each new xpac something down their throats that many don't want - all for the sake of yet greater profit margin.
They're into pleasing their stockholders & investors, not their paying customers. The two I don't think have to be mutually exclusive.
But then WoW players have become so used to getting abused in this way that many have learned to put up with it. Like a sort of 'Stockholm Syndrome' for gamers.
Post by
ElhonnaDS
I agree actually. I was just commenting the other day when we were discussing a CNN story about a girl who was held in a 6X6 room for 11 years by a relative that it reminded me of playing Wow, and so I could relate to what she had gone through. Or, you know, we could be less melodramatic about a game.
Post by
Adamsm
So then what do you call people who actually like the changes hmm? Are we sheep, because we think differently then you?
Also, you say 'what most players want/expect'; but which group of players are you suppose to be representing there? Because I've never seen myself on the side of the Hardcore pve/pvp groups, I play more then your average casual, and I enjoy the challenges that WoW creates for me: Where does someone like myself fall in your rankings?
Also: I love the Pandarens, I love Pandaria, and I am very much looking forward to the next expansion.
As for the Cross Realm Zones: I actually haven't been seeing all that much of an issue with them; no sudden latency spike, no kill thieves and the like; just other players joking and talking in the zones that was missing for a long time.
Post by
Caolela
Are you kidding, Elhonna! Hey, think of the uber prog raiders & otherwise total WoW nerds. WoW is serious !@#$!
LOL(##RESPBREAK##)8##DELIM##Kangi##DELIM##
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