World Of Warcraft Mists Of Pandaria

**I've come to discover that Role-Check was implemented for BGs, which is a good step forward in the right direction. It has flaws (like most of Blizzard's ideas), but it's still progress. Having one team with twice the healers as mine was an enormous setback, and even if people try to take advantage of the system, the other team still won't have six healers while we only have one. It needs improvement (should only be able to queue as a certain specialization you're currently using and can't change specs in the BG, something to that affect) to reduce manipulation, but like all things they do, Blizzard needs to tweak it.**

**WoWInsider asks Ghostcrawler about the decline in 25-man raiding, and how 10-man raids seem to be the only kind now:
WoWInsider: Do you think 25 man raiding has stabilized at all, or is it still in decline? Are you guys working on anything to address that?
Ghostcrawler: I don't know -- overall, I haven't looked at the numbers in awhile -- my hunch would be that it's still in decline honestly, because there aren't a lot of -- it's just entropy, that 25 man guilds collapse into 10 man guilds, and it's really hard for a 10 man guild to decide "Hey, let's recruit a bunch and become 25!"*

This was my biggest issue with MoP. The raid lockouts for both 10 and 25 are the same, and no one wanted to be in a 25-man guild. There were hundreds (maybe thousands) of guilds on the server I played on when I quit, because all of them were 10-man, and only a handful were 25-man. As I state later in the review, this made joining a guild and creating one almost impossible.**

In Wrath of the Lich King, you had your crazies and your jerks, but at least they didn't take up ninety percent of the WoW population. Since Cataclysm, the playerbase has strongly changed, turned into some globular, filthy black mass of selfishness... kind of like a Sha, but a lot harder to kill.

Like I said, I've played during Wrath of the Lich King, and I loved that expansion. I heard that The Burning Crusade was the best out of all of them, and I believe it, because some of the more amazing tales I've heard about the game involved that expansion. Guilds were massive, raids were actually important, and people relied on one another to get the job done. In WotLK that happened as well, in Cata, not so much, then it just completely vanished in MoP.

For a while, I wasn't sure why this was. The game had improved at least a tiny bit from Cataclysm, but the players just seemed to get worse. I play a wide range of various MMORPGs, and I can say with complete honesty, I have not run into players so hateful, so selfish, and so childlike as I have in MoP WoW, and before I quit the game, it was an epidemic, brought on by TERRIBLE ideas and additions to the world by the developers.

Then I did some thinking (a lot of it), which eventually caused my inevitable unsubscribing. The guilds were too small, and too many of them existed. Every guild I ran into had at most, fifteen people in them. In BC and WotLK that was UNHEARD OF. The reason for that is because the change to raids. Before I start ranting, in my WoW days, I was a hardcore raider. I loved to raid, and I loved to make my guild large enough to take on serious bosses. Raiding has just died completely now, and for two reasons: the same loot drops in ten-player and twenty-five-player modes, so there is no need to make a big guild to do twenty-five-player. Therefore, guilds have shrank, and everyone was in a guild. No one was guildless, and if they were, it was very briefly, because there were so, so many barely useful guilds running around. This made it extremely tough to find players to join your guild so that you could raid, because everyone was already in tiny little guilds that could barely do anything. In Wrath, on the server I used to play on, there were three or four "top guilds" which were HUGE in size, and everyone wanted to join them. Yeah, casuals played in their dinky little guilds that never did anything, but at least "Raiding Guilds" actually existed. Even when moving to a populated server in MoP, I couldn't find a single guild that was worth a damn.

The other reason is Raid Finder. I know, I know, it's not meant to replace actual raids, but here's the thing: it has. People don't join guilds because there's no reason to. Why should they? You no longer need a guild to raid. Just run the baby raid. Your chances of getting gear are pretty much the same either way, and the stuff that drops from Raid Finder is only a few item levels lower than that of actual raid drops. So, when you think about it, why would anyone even bother joining a guild? If I was a casual player, I wouldn't. There's no point. Run the baby raid and never do anything with anyone on your server, ever.

I believe these two things have caused the steady decline in player accountability, respect, and of course, dignity. No one talks to each other except to call each other hateful, cruel things, or to spam general chat with crude, childish opinions. I felt lucky when another player even bother to say "hello" to me, and I was as polite as I could manage!! People will steal your mobs after waiting for them to kill you, they'll roll need on things they don't need, and they'll pretend to have good intentions when joining your guild, only to steal everything from your bank and running like hell. The world is packed FULL of these people. It's not just a small percentage, it's practically EVERYONE. If someone sees you're in trouble, they will NOT help you. They will simply stand there and watch you die, and never say a word to you. Ask someone for some help with quests? Forget about it. They call you something horrible or laugh or something, then blow you off. God forbid you ever accidentally kill one of the mobs someone meant to kill. You better put that person on ignore before they get a chance to sling ridiculous insults at you, usually insinuating your sexual orientation, regardless of your gender.

As I've said, I play many other MMORPGs. Everquest, Guild Wars 2, Dungeons and Dragons Online, Final Fantasy XI... none of which have a playerbase like WoW's. Take EQ for example... I have yet to run into a rude person. Even the cold, non-speaking types will surprise you and buy you some gear, even though they barely know you. People rely on each other, because if you help someone, IT MATTERS. For helping other people, it doesn't waste your time or hurt you in any way. Same with Guild Wars 2. I have never met a rude person in that game, either, and that's because it actually BENEFITS you to help other people, and furthermore, it's impossible to steal from others. In WoW, it's possible to steal from others, and there is no benefit whatsoever to applying your resources to save another player. People don't care, because they don't have to care. If you die, it doesn't hurt them in any way, hell, it may even help them, because a rare mob that they want to kill just hacked you to pieces. After running to your corpse, you see they took your rare mob and left. No one cares. Everyone is selfish. Everyone is a jerk.

Which brings me to my final point. Why would I want to play a game full of people that hate me for no reason? I'd rather play with someone who was a bad player but was at least friendly, than I would a mediocre player who is a complete jerk, but in MoP, they were scarce, and when you did find one, they left the guild in a matter of days, guild-hopping like crazy, because a guild is useless now. Why bother staying to prove yourself to your new guild? There's only ten people or so in it....

This is a harsh reality, but it's reality. If people don't see it, then they need to wake up and smell the coffee. WoW has a problem, and it's not going to get better the way it's going. By now, honestly, it should have been free-to-play. Most games have gone that route by now, and they really need to make some changes and stop being greedy. One of my main thoughts when leaving the game was "why should I have to pay fifteen bucks a month to get crapped on every time I log on? There are better ways to spend my money." I'm sure others have had the same mentality when quitting for good.

As for the game itself: The pandas are just stupid. I realize that most of the WoW playerbase is Asian........... but come on. I haven't met a Westerner who gives a crap about pandas. Everyone's reaction was pretty much a simultaneous groan, followed up by questions such as: why couldn't it have been Nagas or something cooler?

The environments are enjoyable, though they seem a bit recycled. Don't get me wrong, I really like them. It's easy to immerse yourself in Pandaria, because a lot of the zones are calming. I didn't like the Valley however. It strangely made me thirsty whenever I played in it.

The quests are very fun, but the dailies are too hard. Even with good gear, they're incredibly tough to solo, and you need to drag your unwilling friend along to help you, because you know no one else will. People would sometimes ask around for daily groups, but I never joined them. After interacting with so many bad attitudes, it spread onto me, and I didn't want people to help me because all I could ever think was how they might steal from me, or call me names, or do something else to hurt me or my feelings. An MMO should not EVER make you feel that way. It's supposed to be a social game, it's a massively multiplayer online game. I didn't want to play by myself, but I felt like I had to to protect myself.

PvP: Same as always, sometimes even worse than before. Lackluster, nonchalant, apathetic players queue for PvP, don't do what they're supposed to, and you lose. You try to get them to help, you get called names. On a rare occasion, everyone was cooperative, and those were good times. It didn't happen often though. The new battlegrounds were interesting, and a lot of fun to play, I do admit. The mine shaft one was unique, and that's what I like.

Raids and dungeons: Well designed and thought out, but a lot of the same mechanics and strategies we've all seen before. Don't stand in the bad stuff, and you won't die (and people still can't do it).

Mounts: Breathtaking and beautiful, especially the cloud serpents. The mounts added in MoP were better than those in Cata, which were just a bunch of the same model drakes we've seen before.

Pet battles: I didn't think I like these at first, but they were actually pretty fun. They're not required for anything but achievements, but they can be pretty addicting once you try them out.

So, like I said, the game would be great... if it weren't for the players. I had fun with a lot of the quests and my mount and pet collections. It wasn't worth it, honestly. I play EQ now, and when I log on, I don't immediately think of how little I like everyone.

I normally don't write reviews for products, but in this case I feel the need to write one with honest opinions from someone who has played the game since the beginning and is currently max level (90). Before I begin let me start by saying this: I understand everyone will have their own opinions about what this game "should" be, but how can you possibly give a good review of an expansion without having even played enough of it to know? I'd wager most of the reviews posted are not even close to max level (at a decent solo pace questing it takes 25 hours) so I know you all haven't gotten there yet. At any rate, here are my early impressions:

Good:
- Area flow during leveling is amazing. This has really been lacking in a lot of expansions, the quests seem to line up well and you can very naturally go through the whole zone without missing obscure quests along the way. You also won't be running back and forth 20 times in the same zone for quests, each hub is clearly marked when you are of appropriate level and the mini-achievements pop up at the end of each hub so you know you're done. Probably the best questing I've ever seen. The quests themselves have some neat variety but there is only so much you can do, it's questing. I really like that you can't fly until 90, this is obviously the reason they spent so much time designing the flow of each area. People would have been pissed at not being able to fly AND having shitty questing like the old game (Vanilla) when most people grinded mobs to level instead.

- System design (talents, professions, reputations). I know some people hate the new talents, I personally love it. No longer do I have to read up on theorycrafting sites to find the optimal raiding builds, I don't have to look at top pvpers for arena builds, I don't have to port back to town between fights to respec a billion points several times a night. I also get to do some things (like have shadowstep with mutilate as a rogue) that have always been needed, now I won't just have to be subtlety for PVP like in Wrath/Cata because assassination and combat have a chance like they did in Vanilla/BC. No more rep tabards! The cooking changes with multiple branches are cool and leveling professions seems a bit easier which is nice.

- Things to do (Dungeons, Raids, Scenarios, Challenge mode, Pet battles) There are a TON of things to do. Once you hit max level you can get Valor a bunch of different ways, it is easier than ever to get gear (more on this later) and you aren't forced to do a bunch of stuff every week just for the sake of capping valor points. I don't understand the complaints about pet battles being "childish", you aren't forced to do it. I will probably never take part myself, but I have some guildmates who collect pets who are super excited about it. Why hate on someone elses fun just because you think its silly? I like the farming stuff too, plant some seeds and come back the next day to harvest. It makes raiding a little easier since you can make your own consumables pretty easily instead of farming a bunch of stuff or spending gold on consumables.

- Game difficulty. I can't comment on raiding yet since our first one is next week, but thus far I think they have nailed the progession from quest gear, to dungeons to heroics. Burning Crusade heroics were too hard, Wrath were too easy, Cataclysm were too hard (for average players) but I think that it is easy enough to start off that people won't be struggling for months to gear up for raids. I like that you can get gear a bunch of different ways and professions have easy access to upgrades early on, combined with the new gear rewards for questing people should be more prepared. For those of you who haven't hit max level you may not have noticed, quest rewards are now ALL useable by your class. You no longer get a choice between 4 pieces where none are useful and your bags get full of stuff you won't ever use. I replaced nearly all my 397+ gear by the time I hit 90. Most pieces being replaced at 88/89 like they should be. Again, the design team nailed this expansion.

Bad:
- CRZ (Cross Realm Zone). I haven't really taken part in this myself since I leveled solo, but I've had a bunch of guildmates who leveled with RealID friends and ended up getting stuck on massively overpopulated/unbalanced realms because their friend was on one of those servers (try leveling alliance side Blackrock for instance). I know what their intent was, but I don't think it was executed very well at all.

- Zone appearance. I know a lot of people are hyped on the look of the new zones, and in some cases I am too (Jade Forest was awesome) but most of the zones were VERY uninspired. They look great, so don't take this as a complaint about the art itself. But running through Steppes and Dread Waste I felt like I could have been anywhere (Azeroth, Outland, Northrend) they just weren't very original. A wasteland filled with bugs? How many times can we see this theme? It was like they took Netherstorm and Silithus and had a baby. I get that there isn't a lot more than can be done in a game this large, but I would have preferred more Asian themed areas if that's the theme and beyond a few of the mountain cities I didn't really feel like I was there.

- Travel. I don't like the portal location and it seems like it takes forever to fly anywhere right now. I will be honest in saying that I haven't completely covered Vale of Eternal Blossoms because I dinged 90 in the evening yesterday so my opinion might change. But right now I don't see a central city and there is no AH anywhere so people will still be camped in SW and ORG just like last expansion. The fact the portal only goes to the starting area instead of a central city is a little annoying, hopefully it changes.

Indifferent:
- Pandas. I don't love them or hate them. I thought the story was fine, some of the characters were cool but largely I was very MEH about the addition. I do think it is neat to have a race that both factions can be, I think each "race" picking a side and never having any conflict is a little ridiculous. Let's face it, humans would be both Alliance and Horde and we all know it. Just like some Taurens are good guys and some undead just want to be left alone. I have yet to try out the race myself, but from seeing them I like their animations so far. Also, the females don't look awful like the worgens.

Overall: I have been pleasantly surprised. I quit shortly after reaching max level in both Wrath and Cataclysm because I thought the expansions were pretty boring and only came back in the middle-late expansions to complete raid content. I don't anticipate quitting this time, there is enough to do and leveling was designed well enough to get me to level several of my characters now instead of later on when gear is super easy to get. I am excited to try scenarios and challenge dungeons and hopefully the raiding is a good balance of easy, normal and hard (raid finder, normal modes and heroic modes).

I think a lot of people have forgotten (or never known) what the original game was like and have unrealistic expectations of what this game should be. It is easier now that it has ever been in its history and gear is easier to obtain than ever before as well. You can make your character look like virtually anything you want with transmog, you can get your weekly points in any number of different ways and you don't have to spend endless hours playing to have fun. I sincerely hope they keep heroic modes extremely difficult as that is what keeps me going (Firelands was a pleasant surprise even if Ryolith was awful). It's not perfect, but nothing is. I have yet to find an Online RPG besides WoW that has ever been as fun over this long a period of time since the days of Text Based MUDs and has continued to adapt. I've liked some changes over the years and hated others, but the developers clearly try really hard to please as many people as possible.

I may edit this later with my impressions on raids, scenarios and challenge mode dungeons...

I adored WOW when it came out. MMO aspect aside, it was one of the most beautiful game worlds ever conceived. The art direction was awe-inspiring, and the combat was very good. I was invested in the warcraft lore and so actually being able to run in a building was pretty amazing to me. Thunder Bluff, the Undercity, Stormwind, Tendrassill have some of the best architectures ever seen, in real life or in virtual life.

I played through burning legion then took a break. But when I came back for trials, I'd still play ravishingly, burning through the new content as fast as I could while the trial lasted. The last time I did this was with the Cataclysm scroll of resurrection.

I just played the trial. I played a hours of it, completed a few quests.

Then got bored. It was a chore to complete. I stopped at the first pandaria 85 zone.

The magic is gone.

WOW has really changed over the years. Where it had once been bustling with life, now it is largely empty. I remember when it was so full that completing newbie quests could be hard because there was always someone killing the newbie stuff. Now, I go to 85 Horde Pandaria area like one month after launch and it is *empty*. It's like the people who still are playing the game max out the level within a week of release and then go raiding.

World PVP used to be real. Starting around level 25, Alliance and Horde were channeled to the same zones and so while completing a quest you might see an opposite faction player and decide to gank him, or he gank you. That added a sense of chaotic spontaneity and I loved it.

Now, you largely quest alone and there's no one to challenge you. Or, a high level griefer will drop by, kill you, and then fly off with a flying mount.

All of this is I believe a natural result of MMO's developing expansions which spread out the player base, as well as the game just getting old.

My biggest problem with WOW as it is right now though are the numbers. My druid has something like 16 million health. I remember when he was like level 15 and had 112 HP. I prefer having HP and damage be in the low 3 digits and the high 2 digits. That makes it easy to keep track of stuff. Now, stats are in the hundreds of thousands which makes them meaningless. I do not notice out how a piece that improves my agi from 293 to 333 makes things better, because the damage goes from like 30,203 to 31,212.

In RPG's, it's really cool getting a new sword that lets you increase your damage from just 8 to 9. But from 68382 to 72384?

Also, WOW as it has aged has only streamlined more and shed its RPG lineage. Shamans and Paladins are had on each faction. Yeah, balance, but still it takes away contrast. Druids used to go on this epic two-continent quest to get water travel form. The quests were tied in with the lore, because the people in charge were story-tellers first, power-levelers last.

Now, the power-levelers have taken over. You train water form at the trainer. Exciting, I know.

Also, complexity has increased exponentially, and customizability has gone down. With my druid there are like three charge skills, 5 "oh shit" skills, 5 finishing moves, 4 bleed moves, at any times there will be like 15 -20 skills to hit. But the other classes got skills too. So basically it's just all overwhelming and it all evens out anyways so you're frantically hitting buttons with no real idea how it will affect the underlying statistics.

There used to be 31 point talents. You could jigger out new builds using talent calculators.

Now, you pick from three abilities at certain tiers.

The game is more a beat-em-up game now than it is an RPG. A shame. I actually stopped playing 3 days into the trial and couldn't get myself to go back in the game. A first for me, and a last.