Fuck Pandas.

That is all.

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Was worried after I sold my account thinking that I may want to check the next xpack out. No worries anymore after reading up on it.

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haters.

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World of Warcraft: Kallaystra, Gweila, Steakumn, Tarathia [ Feathermoon/Horde ]

I'll be back for the new expan! I have been waiting for the Pandarens to be added since WoW was first released!!!

Too little too late. WoW hasn't been fun since BC.

Couldn't agree more. Loved BC raids.

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BC did seem to be the high point. Immersion through the expansion levels was nice in WotLK, but then the raid content wasn't the same.

Word on the street back when Pandaren were first rumored was that they couldn't be added to the game because it's illegal to depict violence against pandas in China. I didn't fact-check that at the time because it registered as humor rather than anything worth investigating -- then when I saw a news post about an expansion so soon after Cataclysm, I figured it was a spoof article.

(...Edit) I'm preconditioned to think Pandaren are bullshit, I guess is what I'm saying.

Lots of interesting things to explore, lore-wise, and they go with a straight ripoff of Kung Fu Panda.

Well, reboots are all the rage these days.

You may want to get your dates straight.

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Kuwen Furyblades
Hunter of Memento Reejeryn
Champion of Faydark

What he said. Pandarens were around MUCH earlier than Kung Fu Panda.

Sure, but the franchise has affected their impact. Now it'll be impossible to go anywhere in the game without your chat log picking up five cases a second of some really original sophisticate hooting "Skadoosh" around his mouthful of pills.

Yeah... Warcraft 3 had a bonus mission with Pandas in it. Dreamworks created two fully realized and very successful movies based on the concept. Looks like a straight ripoff of Kung Fu Panda to me.

As someone who has never seen Kung Fu Panda, I doubt the "straight ripoff" would matter to me, if I was playing WoW. I think some people take it all too seriously. With 8 million subscribers, I'm sure the majority will be happy with the addition and won't even consider the "ripoff".

I think I see the panda as more prominent than a mere side quest from WC3 because I played the panda brewmaster guy a lot in many of the custom maps(including DOTA). Always felt that the model, voice acting, animations, lore, etc were fairly fleshed out for a side race.

Not that it matters much since it's a side tangent that doesn't pertain to the important problems, like WoW's aging gameplay mechanics(i.e. the reason a game is fun to *play*), but the pandarens themselves are fine. Sounds like all of the primary aspects/characteristics that were there originally in WC3 are there now, regardless of what Kung Fu Panda did with it. They always had a martial arts form, they DID have an asian-oriented culture, they always had brews, etc. Not a ripoff, by definition.

Never watched the movies either; heard they sucked.

Right... Way to back track...

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Kuwen Furyblades
Hunter of Memento Reejeryn
Champion of Faydark

The dungeon preview videos look pretty unspectacular.

The talent revamp looks like it's just a way to remove effort on their part from class balancing.

the new talent system is a rip from EQ2s little system where every 10 or so levels you picked a uber version of a spell and some kind of bonus that made your character stronger.

Well maybe not a rip but it looks very close to their system.

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The new talent system looks great, can finally stop dicking around with 51, 61, 71, whatever points worth of, "+1% to blue damage! +1% to green damage!" and just get to the meat of what you're after in the trees anyway.

+1 to bovinity. The current talent system is ridiculous, in that there's no allowed variation in your pve or pvp specs, if you don't go cookie cutter you fail.

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World of Warcraft: Kallaystra, Gweila, Steakumn, Tarathia [ Feathermoon/Horde ]

So we can conclude that if you are done with WoW, you think the Talent revamp is a failure. If you haven't given up on WoW, then you think the revamp is smart.

PS: it's pretty dumb, IMO

It's the second straight expac with a talent revamp. They have the same goal they had last time - reduce or eliminate cookie cutter builds. What makes us think they will succeed this time?

It's noteworthy that the only good thing that is talked about with regard to any upcoming changes to WoW is a potential talent revamp.

Also, second revamp? Haven't they been trying to reduce cookie-cutter since Vanilla? The thing about Vanilla and perhaps portions of BC is that most classes didn't have to respec, ever, which was unfortunate. Variety is good.

I can't race change my druid. sadface

I'll probably level a panda monk "just because" (same as I did with a DK) as there's little else out there that I think is better in the MMO market. Until there is, WoW will do for how often I play and how I play these days. I've tried all of the other games and found them to be crap personally.

That and I play my xbox a LOT more these days. :p

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There are so many amazing games coming out right now.. I have MW3 coming through gamefly, Skyrim tomorrow, just finished uncharted 3, and I still need to get Dark Souls, Battlefield 3 and Assassins Creed is monday.

Oh, and I am going to check out DCUO now that it's F2P.

Ah Winter, time for the flood of excellent console games and timesucks to take you away from home so you can't play.

Huzzah.

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World of Warcraft: Kallaystra, Gweila, Steakumn, Tarathia [ Feathermoon/Horde ]

Meh, I don't mind it because I have a massive stack of unopened games waiting for me if I ever get some time off. It's difficult for me to ever say I'm bored these days, that much is for damned sure

bah, we just have a Wii (so no cool new console games for me)

I am never going back to WoW (I got rid of my toons and my account a couple years ago, so I would have to start over from scratch, I don't want to do that)

Anyway, my playtime is seriously condensed, so I will just stick to where I am now (unless they continue the nerf by omission of the cleric class)

Oh, then Let me introduce you to one.

Or even Super Mario Land 3d...

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World of Warcraft: Kallaystra, Gweila, Steakumn, Tarathia [ Feathermoon/Horde ]

That's cool but I'm guessing krby's concern was with getting a new game worth playing every six months or so, which the Wii pretty much fails to do =p

Well, it comes close every now and then, I guess. The console being isolated to first-party development doesn't help that cause.

FTFY:

(They're pretty big in Japan)

I was pretty 100% excited about monks, but the more I hear about them the less excited I get. They sound like just a copy-pasta of Druids for the most part. Same stats, same specs (except ranged DPS), same gear, even roughly the same resources. (Hi Energy and "combo" points, a system that I've never been too fond of.)

So now I'm more like 10% excited.

Wii sales aren't bad here, either. They're just more pronounced in Japan.

I'm not convinced that even if the quality of game is 98 percent as compared to 95 percent, that makes the investment decision for a gamer any wiser. There are a lot of great games for both the XB360 and the PS3 that aren't on either the Wii or the PC. That's especially the case for the PS3, even if the trend of exclusivity has been going downhill.

I say that as someone who owns all three, and my Wii stays in the closet for the most part. I've enjoyed the Galaxies, Kart, Skyward Sword, Metroid, etc, but the reasons for me to actually drag it out are way too few and far between after I play those games for a while.

Don't even get me started on the lack of good RPGs for the system =p I was particularly sad when Xenoblade and Last Story weren't brought over.

Maybe they will be ported to the Wii U for the NA market

This was probably the best year in games for me in a long time. Batman AC and Skyrim alone were amazing enough to warrant that statement. It has been a long time since I've been that caught up as I was in those two games.

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