Mists of Pandaria

So I decided to pop two quarters in the World of Warcraft machine and see what Mists of Panderia was all about.  It was probably closer to $45 in all truth.  But...  in the end, it's WoW with newer, pretty graphics and bears and Chinese mythology.  There really isn't much more to it than that.  Blizzard has done a good job of creating a game that gives players a reason to keep showing up and hitting the feeder for another food pellet.  Daily quests and achievements are jsut things they use to get people to show up day after day.

I'm not mad with Blizzard.  They want to make a buck and feed their workers.  And they came up with a game that gives people a reason to keep showing up.  But if you've played WoW, it's still WoW.  Once again, Blizzard hosed the fight mechanics so you have to relearn those all over again.  And they changed the way skills level up, so you have to grind dailies in order to level up skills and get better equipment beyond a certain point. 

So in the end, Blizzard made a game that wants you to keep showing up.  But I don't want to show up as much as I used to.  I've grown tired of the "find 8 things by killing 50 enemies and return it to me" quests.  I've grown tired of escorting weak pathetic idiots that take the WORST POSSIBLE PATH through an area because they are trying to escape.  Protip: if you are trying to escape, use the wide open forest ten feet behind you instead of going through the enemy encampment.  One bitey forest creature is a lot easier than 50 pissed off elves.  Seriously.

They do put a lot of character into the expansion.  The Virmen have been my favorite so far.  Virmen are giant rabbit creatures of questionable intelligence.  At one point, they bury tools to attempt to grow more tools.  I like these things for their humor.  Most of the rest of the races/creations aren't as interesting.  The worgen from the Cataclysm expansion were more interesting as a general rule, but they had a better back story and character growth.

The Pandarians themselves are all vaguely Chinese as is the entire continent of Pandaria, but I can't help but see this stopover in a strange continent as being a two page side story as opposed to a major event.  It just doesn't strike me as grand as going to Northrend was.  There's something about the entire territory that screams "time for an expansion and we're out of ideas" as opposed to a well fleshed out territory.  Pandaria is shaped a lot like Northrend to me. 

In many ways, that's my whole problem with the expansion.  After numerous great expansions that provide someplace to go and a new mythology everywhere, we end up in...  Pandaria.  It's just not as impressive as I expected it to be.  It strikes me of lots of polish in the build and quest, but it's all just a framework to get people showing up day after day and paying their $15 a month.  There's less heart to it.  But that's just me.