WoW; 4th expansion Mists of Pandaria

Zorachus

[H]F Junkie
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Well Blizzard just announced the 4th expansion pack for the World of Warcaft MMO. Mists of Pandaria

Update 07-25-12
Mists of Pandaria to be Released on September 25
http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/2861-Mists-of-Pandaria-to-be-Released-on-September-25

Update 03-19-12
http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/2687-Mists-of-Pandaria-Press-Tour

- All new continent-Asian theme, with 5 HUGE zones, no flying until end level
- Level 90 cap
- New "Pandarian" race for both Factions
- New "Monk" class
- Talent trees blown up and completely redone
- Alliance vs Horde Faction wars

Good recap of the announcement;
http://www.mmo-champion.com/content...-1-Recap-New-Talents-Screenshots-Artworks-FAQ

Video of Pandaria;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Oj_O6yZgorQ

Official trailer;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_e-5kVyyk0&feature=related

Leaked video of the Pandarian starting area. The fighting animations actually look to be the best model ever for a WoW character;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=IiH6x2KHWzQ
 
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Pandas and Monks? Forgive me but if I want a "monk" class I'll wait 2 months and play a Jedi.
 
At first i was like WTF :eek: This must be an April Fools joke, with Panda's for the kiddies, and a China themed continent, so they can attract the millions of Chinese players and make even more ca$h on this game. Gotta give Blizzard credit as a sales force and business, WoW is a cash cow, any business owner would love to have, it just keeps on pouring in trucks loads of money. And now they are going directly after that Chinese clientele, with a over one billion population.

I was expecting and hoping for the Emerald Dream, with a more mature and darker theme. Oh well...we can finally say that WoW has jumped the shark, this Pandaria expansion excites me ZERO, and hope Guild Wars 2 is out by then.
 
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so they can attract the millions of Chinese players and make even more ca$h on this game.

exactly. people don't realize that this xpac is directed more toward Chinese players than western. all about the $$$
 
It amazes me how popular WoW still is 7yrs later. They still have over 10 million subscribers :eek: at $15 a month that is $150 million per month and like $1.8 Billion per year :eek::eek: Blizzard will keep this cash cow going for years. Even if it drops down to just one million subscribers someday, that is still more than enough to keep it running and making great money, still like $200 million per year, which is still a crazy amount of cash to make off an old game.

MMO developers have said, they need a minimum subscriber base of 250,000 players to pay the bills and keep the lights on, and be a little profitable. I don't see WoW dropping down to just 250k players for a fucking decade. Can't even imagine the lame expansions they will have for it, when the cap is Level 125+.
 
they really need to begin innovating the mmo genre huh :/
i hate them for not building a hardcore, innovative UO-type mmo while theyre raking in all this money.
 
My dream would be for Blizzard to make a World of Diablo. Use the Guild Wars2 engine or something pretty like that, and rethink an all new smart questing style, make it darker and more mature than WoW.

Then I woke up :rolleyes:
 
It amazes me how popular WoW still is 7yrs later. .

me too. I can see how people might play one xpac and be done with it. But buying xpac after xpac, year after year is kind of strange imo.

if someone started playing this game at 18 and played it for 7 straight years, they just missed their whole early 20's. they look back when their 60 and think, wow, i sure was dumb.
 
At first i was like WTF :eek: This must be an April Fools joke, with Panda's for the kiddies, and a China themed continent, so they can attract the millions of Chinese players and make even more ca$h on this game. Gotta give Blizzard credit as a sales force and business, WoW is a cash cow, any business owner would love to have, it just keeps on pouring in trucks loads of money. And now they are going directly after that Chinese clientele, with a over one billion population.

I was expecting and hoping for the Emerald Dream, with a more mature and darker theme. Oh well...we can finally say that WoW has jumped the shark, this Pandaria expansion excites me ZERO, and hope Guild Wars 2 is out by then.

Actually its quite the opposite. The Chinese tend to dislike using their endangered animal in video games and probably other types of media. China has a shit ton of censorship in video games. For example, the Chinese version of WoW has a lot of gore and depictions of skeletons/death edited out. I think usage of pandas are starting to enter their comfort zone though.
 
Honestly how long do you see WoW going on for ? I remember reading years ago, Blizzard saying they expect Level 100 to be the final cap, end of the game. So that would mean at least two more expansions after this new Pandaria. Level 100 would be the 6th expansion, and released in approx 4 - 5 years from now.

Do you think they will just turn it off at that point, in like 5 yrs from now ? I would think no, if they still making money, it will go forever, until they reach that point it's not profitable anymore.
 
Do you think they will just turn it off at that point, in like 5 yrs from now ? I would think no, if they still making money, it will go forever, until they reach that point it's not profitable anymore.

it's a business, obviously
 
My beef is that Blizzard said no again to updating the character models. Before Cataclysm launched everyone asked about new high resolution and better character models, and the developers said yes they would like to do that in the future, but just not enough time to include that big of an update into Cataclysm. Well now comes the 4th expansion, and they still say no new character models :rolleyes:

To me the characters are looking extremely dated now, the Human males look fat and bloated and just plain ugly, and many other races just look terrible. They have updated NPC character models over the years, and made them better/improved looking, why not do the same for the main character's we are all playing ?

Or at least the option like all newer MMO's allow us to make them taller or shorter, thinner or fatter, eye color, etc...
 
me too. I can see how people might play one xpac and be done with it. But buying xpac after xpac, year after year is kind of strange imo.

if someone started playing this game at 18 and played it for 7 straight years, they just missed their whole early 20's. they look back when their 60 and think, wow, i sure was dumb.

How is enjoying yourself ever dumb? Some people don't get enjoyment out of partying/getting drunk/and one night stands(stereotypical early 20's behavior) and would rather play video games.....nothing wrong with that at all.
 
Got to admit, this xpac sounds neat and I like some of the changes but my swtor collectors order still stands and unlless its a total bomb wows not getting me back.
 
Honestly how long do you see WoW going on for ? I remember reading years ago, Blizzard saying they expect Level 100 to be the final cap, end of the game. So that would mean at least two more expansions after this new Pandaria. Level 100 would be the 6th expansion, and released in approx 4 - 5 years from now.

Do you think they will just turn it off at that point, in like 5 yrs from now ? I would think no, if they still making money, it will go forever, until they reach that point it's not profitable anymore.

I'd say it'll still be going strong for a while. It may be on a decline, but we're still talking about the 10 million player range here. When it falls low enough, I imagine there will be server merges etc.
 
I don't think most of you realize that the Pandarans were created by Sam Didier, one the of the great Blizzard artists, a long while before WoW. I think it was around WarCraft 2 but I could be mistaken. I just know that he really likes pandas & that they've had the idea mulling around for a very long time. As someone that has followed WarCraft lore, this is of no surprise.
 
This isn't about "targeting the Chinese" or whatever other nonsense someone was posting. Blizzard makes NOTHING off of WoW China in comparison to what they make from the US and Europe.

An analyst a couple years back suggested that only about 6% of their revenue was from China, despite the majority of their players being on the Chinese version. Chinese players don't pay the same amount as a US or European player, not even close. And even the money they DO get goes mostly to the Chinese company that runs the game for them there. Laws in China pretty much ensure that'll be the case forever.

Eh, whatever.
 
Got to admit, this xpac sounds neat and I like some of the changes but my swtor collectors order still stands and unlless its a total bomb wows not getting me back.
 
I don't think most of you realize that the Pandarans were created by Sam Didier, one the of the great Blizzard artists, a long while before WoW. I think it was around WarCraft 2 but I could be mistaken. I just know that he really likes pandas & that they've had the idea mulling around for a very long time. As someone that has followed WarCraft lore, this is of no surprise.

Yeah, they've been around for a while now. I think the problem some people have with Pandarens is that they were generally a "joke" lore and were never in any serious lore stories. The brewmaster Chen was playable in TFT Orc campaign, but I think he was optional too. They basically became official lore just now.
 
Any hint of a release date ? I know Blizzard said last year they would like expansions released faster. I would guess a Summer 2012 release.
 
This isn't about "targeting the Chinese" or whatever other nonsense someone was posting. Blizzard makes NOTHING off of WoW China in comparison to what they make from the US and Europe.

An analyst a couple years back suggested that only about 6% of their revenue was from China, despite the majority of their players being on the Chinese version. Chinese players don't pay the same amount as a US or European player, not even close. And even the money they DO get goes mostly to the Chinese company that runs the game for them there. Laws in China pretty much ensure that'll be the case forever.

Eh, whatever.

This. Wow only has 2.5 million nontrivial paying subs, not that it's a small number, but a far cry from 10.
 
me too. I can see how people might play one xpac and be done with it. But buying xpac after xpac, year after year is kind of strange imo.

if someone started playing this game at 18 and played it for 7 straight years, they just missed their whole early 20's. they look back when their 60 and think, wow, i sure was dumb.

The attitude on these forums.

Playing CS since 2001 = AWESOME
Playing WoW since 2004 = WOW YOU'VE WASTED YOUR LIFE

Get over yourself man.
 
I don't think most of you realize that the Pandarans were created by Sam Didier, one the of the great Blizzard artists, a long while before WoW. I think it was around WarCraft 2 but I could be mistaken. I just know that he really likes pandas & that they've had the idea mulling around for a very long time. As someone that has followed WarCraft lore, this is of no surprise.

Im going to stop the Hating curve and say that im very excited for this and cannot wait for all the new content. And I cant wait to be a panda! :D That is all
 
Pandaren were an April's fools:
http://classic.battle.net/war3/pandaren/ >> that april's fools.
They were later added as a joke hero on TFT, the mistake is the fact that they are adding them seriously.

BTW random facts although China is a great market, WoW isn't distributed in China by Blizzard, and there it isn't subscription based due to the local regulations, plus there are always a great deal of changes required in order to get the game approved there (you can safely google the differences between "standard wow" and "china wow"), this fact is also why the expansions tend to arrive late over there.
 
I played WoW till the month before Cata

quit around then, pretty glad I did.

This expansion looks like garbage. World of Pokemoncraft: Warcraft Kung Fu Panda edition.

They ran out of ideas, but honestly, this game jumped the shark with Cataclysm.
 
Knowing me I'll buy it, get lvl 90, do dungeons for a month or two, then quit...just like I did with Cata ;) Looks like there a few neat features so far, but ever since BC I have pretty much lost my enjoyment for WoW...
 
Knowing me I'll buy it, get lvl 90, do dungeons for a month or two, then quit...just like I did with Cata ;) Looks like there a few neat features so far, but ever since BC I have pretty much lost my enjoyment for WoW...

Ditto! I come back for every expansion. Cap my level. And play the dungeons till I can't take it anymore. So like twice each.
 
I like most of the changes and new things aside from the talent changes. i even like that new Pokemon system :p I don't see how anything they proposed is going to do anything except make cookie cutter builds even MORE likely than they are now.

And not redoing the "classic" character models to have more detail is bullshit. Blizzard tries to make it sound like creating higher detail model is hard than building the pyramids. Holy shit Blizzard, just update the models a bit to have better textures and more polygons.
 
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As opposed to 7 years of what? I'm assuming that your computer just doesn't sit there idle while you go out and "have a life."

How about 7 years of doing shit that isn't WoW. Maybe getting involved in real life? Doing something useful and more enjoyable with your time?
 
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