Originally posted by generals3

Well it's hard to explain i guess. But yeah there were lots of comical relief moments and such but usually these were moments (even the most avid RP'ers don't rp 24/7 :p) . But the thing is i don't know but in my opinion the pandaren just don't fit at all and them being a playable race is just the final nail in the coffin.

Bingo.

For all the talking, about a matter of taste no-less, this is all that really needs to be said.

No contrived hatred of real-life China or their adorable lil' pandas.

 Just a calm, coherent statement of opinion.

Originally posted by GameOvr

Originally posted by pharazonic

Originally posted by MMOSareDEAD

WotLK did the same thing with Scandinavia...I didn't see anyone complain about it.

Pretty much. 

The outrage against MoP and similarly,  the derision Asian MMOs face in the MMO community, is nothing else but good ol' fashion prejudice and xenophobia rearing its ugly head in our supposed multicultural society. 

 

Disgusting. 

Well let's see what's wrong with your argument.

 

Wrath didn't add an Elk race and a land called Elklandia and didn't only have scandinavian architecture.

So it's "pretty much" NOT the same thing.

 

What disgusting in our "supposed multicultural society" is making the entire playerbase of WoW including North America and European markets who generate 90% of the revenue pay for a monolithic expansion aimed at ONE market.

 

A market that is so "culturally sensitive" that they have banned games for recognizing Taiwan and Tibet as seperate countries. A Market in a country that executes more citizens than the rest of the world combined and has mobile death vans to do it.

 

Yep that's swell.

 

I read the article you linked to, and while it was interesting it was also very flawwed and the author had no data to back up his claims.  It was all things like this (I am directly oting from the article here)  based on what I have read from various sources, it is possible that between 4 to 6 millions subscribers are from China and they pay 6 cents per hour to play the game."  That and the revenue he calculated was based on 20 hours per month, which seems incredibly low to me, but maybe that's just me.  Anyway, as I said he has nothing to go on except assumptions he is making and best guesses.  He could very well be correct, but we have no way of knowing that.  If i had to guess myself, I would think that the average player playes much more than 20 hours a month, that's less than an hour a day.  But I am also looking at this from a distinctly western viewpoint where many people play 20 hours or more a week.

Originally posted by generals3

Originally posted by xKingdomx

Originally posted by generals3

Originally posted by xKingdomx

EDIT: I read my post again, and it seems like I worded as if I was directing the maclinity argument to you, which I wasn't, I was talking about the ones who constantly complain about races being too cute and too childish for their manly taste.

Well i actually didn't interpret it as being aimed at me. But don't you think it's a huge stretch to go from "thinking something is too childish/cute/blabla" to "being insecure about your manliness or whatever" ?

I mean i don't watch my little pony because i think it's made for little girls and obviously not my taste. Does that mean i'm insecure? It's not because someone thinks something is too cute or whatever he's somehow insecure about something. It's a matter of taste, period. If they don't like it they don't like it. Could some be insecure? perhaps , but let's not pretend either you or me can know that.

An other reason i turned that argument against you is because i'm sick of people pulling the "insecure" card in all sorts of issues. Whether it be about a game or in rl.

Well I'm not talking about if you have to like it or not, you can hate pandas all you want, but you don't need to tell me, hin, her or them. I find it annoying when people need to constantly restate how they are not going to play with something that are childish or cute, and complains about it to no end. If anyone reads this thread, no one gains anything, just a bunch of people grouped together to complain about pandas, no solution was reached, no alternatives was suggested.

Pandas or not, criticism is moot if you can't provide a probable solution. No one made suggestion to a race that is better fitted than pandas. Panda is a race, it doesn't mean you have to play them. Just like in real life, there are pandas, but that doesn't mean you have to own them.

Don't you think there are just too much commotion over something as silly as pandas.

Well it depends. The problem is that the panda's will be a playable race and on both factions at that, this means people will see em all the time, everywhere. So while it may appear silly it can ruin someone's immersion or feeling about the game due to the mere extend with which the panda's will appear in the game.

And when it comes to alternatives, mine is simple, nothing. Don't add any new race, it ain't needed. Improve the crafting system, add more epic quests , etc. So many things you could do with the wasted dev time on the panda's. (off course it's a bit too late for that now).

As another poster stated just above me, most people offended isn't actually the RPer population, they know the history of the game and pandarians was actually part of it.

If you look on the youtube trailer for MoP, huge amount of complains are actually spawn from random hate to downright racism, so I was wrong on some parts, they aren't just insecure, some of them are simply racist. There is nothing wrong to have an asian influence on the art style. In a believeable world, it is simple to understand if there is a western cultural race, there is a probably chance to have a eastern cultural race.

 

 

 

I mean if you don't like panda race, don't pick it up = easy.

My main problem is would I pay 50$+ more for 5 more lvls & few more features. I guess no thanks, better to pick up new game & enjoy discover.

Originally posted by Aori

 

Not sure how immersion is lost for ya.. i mean WoW is full of cheap parodies and already unrealistic races. However i can understand that stance even if i don't get it.

We have walking native american cows that do the peanut butter jelly time dance, we have blue space goats with penisbeards, jamaicain trolls, brooklyn goblins and werewolves that dance like lady gaga.  How can Pandas really make that much of a difference.  

If Scotland had the largest population in the worlsd i'm sure i'd be adding haggis to WoW too. Then again, at least it's a semi-mythical creature and not something you see at the zoo.

Not sure on exact numbers but don't the 90% (non-raiders) fund the 10% (raiders)?

Originally posted by gamer2171

Not sure on exact numbers but don't the 90% (non-raiders) fund the 10% (raiders)?

According to a poll a few years ago on this site I think, 60% considered raiding important for end game content.

As a raider for over 5 years, and a hardcore raider (#1 progression guild on 18th pve ranked server) I can agree with those numbers. But then again raiding used to be more accessable. With the addition of one player can wipe the raid mechanics added to most fights, the skill bar was raised for all raiders.

A real dick move, because most raiders were not 'hard core' they enjoyed doing it with friends, even those friends that may have been so-so players.

they are not prevented from raiding, they just struggle on hard mode - which at the end of the day is just the same content but without the normal mode nerfing.  RE points above, the raiders subscriptions pay for their own content, in fact the 'raiders' get less content for their money in comparison to casuals.

Originally posted by Bladestrom

they are not prevented from raiding, they just struggle on hard mode - which at the end of the day is just the same content but without the normal mode nerfing.  RE points above, the raiders subscriptions pay for their own content, in fact the 'raiders' get less content for their money in comparison to casuals.

Normal mode is harder than it used to be not just hard mode.

Originally posted by StanlyStanko

Originally posted by generals3

Well it's hard to explain i guess. But yeah there were lots of comical relief moments and such but usually these were moments (even the most avid RP'ers don't rp 24/7 :p) . But the thing is i don't know but in my opinion the pandaren just don't fit at all and them being a playable race is just the final nail in the coffin.

Bingo.

For all the talking, about a matter of taste no-less, this is all that really needs to be said.

No contrived hatred of real-life China or their adorable lil' pandas.

 Just a calm, coherent statement of opinion.

So goblins aren't comical 100% of the time? How about trolls? They are pretty funny, as are gnomes...

Blizzard has always made races both comical and threatening in all of their Warcraft history. Remember the two-headed ogres in WC2 where, if you gave them orders the heads would start arguing with each other? The only thing with the pandas is that they might not be threatening enough, but who knows, perhaps they will be. It depends on how Blizzard designs them.

I am also surprised that people here can say that they refuse to engage in an expac that offers Asian themes because it is only designed for the Asian market. I guess these people have not played GW:Factions, the Asian themed areas of EQ2, or AoC, etc. To keep up with this theme, they wouldn't have played GW:Nightfall because it is clearly intended for an African audience right? And no desert areas because they are too Arabian...

Since at least the release of Oriental Adventures in first edition D&D, Asian themes have been around in fantasy games...

I see no problem in Blizzard releasing something to please both Westerners and Asians. After all, the gaming community is international and if they do a good job with it, then that is great. I just hope the talent changes and the streamlining of classes don't let the game down is all.

The problem is that the expansion is bad and wrong on many levels.

a) World of Warcraft was basically a replay of the original story in Warcraft. It was used up by WotLK. And what would have been the sensible thing to do? Advance the story using the craft of writing more story, this was visible in Cataclysm, though cataclysm failed in mechanics. Is building MoP about a single idea that originated as a joke in WC3, story? Barely, and if they had to do it, which they didn't, they could have had much more story and complexity. Pandas, OK, and another race they have been at war with, and a third party antagonist for a faction neutral antagonist. So much more to build on. But no, just pandas.

b) It is deviating from formula, it's like they have no idea whatsover what was in the product they had been selling for years that was successful. One race for both factions, formula change, gutted talent system, formula change, no big baddie in an expansion, formula change.  This burger tastes funny. Oh shit we forgot the secret sauce.

c) It is monolithic, built on one narrow theme, and the theme that dominates is china, chinese artwork, really bad 'chinese' music, and almost everything in the new content is named in chinese, fire elementals called Huo, chinese for fire. Monkeys, are Hozu, chinese for monkey, water elementals, Shu, shui being water in, yep chinese.

MoP is not very creative in story, what it brings to the game are changes from proven formula, and it is very one dimensional.

Now it does not matter if the race is pandas or the theme is china, just those faults above make it bad.

Originally posted by GameOvr

The prblem is that the expansion is bad and wrong on many levels.

 

a) World of Warcraft was basically a replay of the original story in Warcraft. It was used up by WotLK. And waht would have been the sensible thing to do? Advance the story using the craft of writing more story, this was visible in Cataclysm, though cataclysm failed in mechanics. Is building MoP about a single idea that originated as a joke in WC3, story? Barely, and if they had to do it, which they didn't, they could have had much more story and complexity. Pandas, OK, and another race they have been at war with, and a third party antagonist for a faction neutral antagonist. So much more to build on. But no, just pandas.

 But if they did a third party antagonist for a faction neutral antagonist, how is it any different to the expansions before it. Below you are complaining about MoP deviating from formula, yet here you are asking for it, a bit of contradiction.

b) It is deviating from formula, it's like they have no idea whatsover what was in the product they had been selling for years that was successful. One race for both factions, formula change, gutted talent system, formula change, no big baddie in an expansion, formula change.  This burger tastes funny. Oh shit we forgot the secret sauce.

 They have stated they want to make expansions more frequent, thus they can milk the players even more. So players will obviously have to put up with the lesser amount of quality put into each expansion pack. Blizzard lost its WoW secret sauce long before MoP

c) it is monolithic, built one narrow theme, and the theme that dominates is china, chinese artwork, really bad 'chinese' music, and almost everything in the new content is named in chinese, fire elementals called Huo, chinese for fire. Monkeys, are Hozu, chinese for monkey, water elementals, Shu, shui being water in, yep chinese.

 Um, isn't that the same as every single expansion? They all focus on western fantasy, 

MoP is not very creative in story, what it brings to the game are changes from proven formula, and it is very one dimenstional.

 Blizzard was never known for its creativity, but rather polish from the proven forumla, which is exactly what you just said. Why not do something they are good at. Creativity is pointless if it wasn't to improve the quality of the game.

Now it does not matter if the race is pandas or the theme is china, just those faults above make it bad.

 At least we can come into agreement into the end

Textbook happy ending.

 

Originally posted by Ezhae

 

Yeah.. 10%. Let's see. Cosndiering the price point in OP is right and it's infact 6 cents / hour it would take 8 hours a day of playtime to reach subscription price as in US. Plenty of people there play for way more than 8 hours a day on average. Another thing is, the fact that Chineese servers are not operated by Blizzard but a Chineese company so Blizzard doesn't pay for those servers. Next thing is the fact that there is way more people there playing the game than in NA/EU regions. 

It would much more closer to accurate to say NA makes about 25-30% EU makes about 15-20% and rest is Asian market. 

Should be no surprise that you're incorrect. I say that because you did zero research to back up your claims, and clearly you didn't think it out. NetEase makes the majority of the money that WoW generates in China. The pay Blizzard a fee. To simplify - its kind of like how a frachise works. Someone buys the rights to operate under a brand, and then pays the franchisor a fee. NetEase paid big bucks to operate in China, and they probably pay a nominal percentage of revenue.

Faction neutral in the sense that the previous main antagonists are not friendly to a faction, some may have started out as one factioin, but did not end up that way by the time they were antagonists and the final bosses of expansions.

Originally posted by Golelorn

Originally posted by Ezhae

 

Yeah.. 10%. Let's see. Cosndiering the price point in OP is right and it's infact 6 cents / hour it would take 8 hours a day of playtime to reach subscription price as in US. Plenty of people there play for way more than 8 hours a day on average. Another thing is, the fact that Chineese servers are not operated by Blizzard but a Chineese company so Blizzard doesn't pay for those servers. Next thing is the fact that there is way more people there playing the game than in NA/EU regions. 

It would much more closer to accurate to say NA makes about 25-30% EU makes about 15-20% and rest is Asian market. 

Should be no surprise that you're incorrect. I say that because you did zero research to back up your claims, and clearly you didn't think it out. NetEase makes the majority of the money that WoW generates in China. The pay Blizzard a fee. To simplify - its kind of like how a frachise works. Someone buys the rights to operate under a brand, and then pays the franchisor a fee. NetEase paid big bucks to operate in China, and they probably pay a nominal percentage of revenue.

That is correct, chinese pay 6 cents an hour to NetEase, and blizzard gets a slice of the profits.

MoP is not an expansion aimed towards the asian market.

It is an expansion with an asian theme.

MANY mmos have had asian themed content updates, because it has been a genre staple since Dungeons and Dragons.

Did they come out with the D&D Asian Adventures campaign to get more asians to play the game?

No! They created the expansion to give all those a new choice of roles to play, and environments to play in.

To think that an asian themed expansion has to be aimed at asian players is borderline racist.

Originally posted by xKingdomx

Originally posted by GameOvr

b) It is deviating from formula, it's like they have no idea whatsover what was in the product they had been selling for years that was successful. One race for both factions, formula change, gutted talent system, formula change, no big baddie in an expansion, formula change.  This burger tastes funny. Oh shit we forgot the secret sauce.

 They have stated they want to make expansions more frequent, thus they can milk the players even more. So players will obviously have to put up with the lesser amount of quality put into each expansion pack. Blizzard lost its WoW secret sauce long before MoP

I don't see why they always have to keep up with the "formula" to be honest. And I disagree that it is a foregone conclusion that Blizzard has lost its mojo, so to speak. I don't see how such broad sweeping statements can be made about a newly announced expac. Why not just wait and see what they come up with? I am concerned about the talent system changes, but there are issues with the old ones, so they should do something.

c) it is monolithic, built one narrow theme, and the theme that dominates is china, chinese artwork, really bad 'chinese' music, and almost everything in the new content is named in chinese, fire elementals called Huo, chinese for fire. Monkeys, are Hozu, chinese for monkey, water elementals, Shu, shui being water in, yep chinese.

 Um, isn't that the same as every single expansion? They all focus on western fantasy, 

What is wrong with them focusing on Chinese themes? I think it could add a lot to the game if it is done well.

 

Again, I don't see why it is such a big deal that they are adding in Oriental themes. Would you be reacting this way if they added in African themes instead? Or South American?

We don't know how the expac will pan out since it is early days yet. But perhaps we could all be pleasantly surprised, or terribly horrified. We just don't know.

Originally posted by xKingdomx

As another poster stated just above me, most people offended isn't actually the RPer population, they know the history of the game and pandarians was actually part of it.

If you look on the youtube trailer for MoP, huge amount of complains are actually spawn from random hate to downright racism, so I was wrong on some parts, they aren't just insecure, some of them are simply racist. There is nothing wrong to have an asian influence on the art style. In a believeable world, it is simple to understand if there is a western cultural race, there is a probably chance to have a eastern cultural race.

Well off course there are always going to be people with dodgy reasons to hate something. But let's not also forget that some people might simply not like the asian style without necessarily being china haters (i know some blatantly make it clear they also hate china but not all).

I think that for every "weird" reason to hate MoP there is someone with a valid reason.

Originally posted by MurlockDance

So goblins aren't comical 100% of the time? How about trolls? They are pretty funny, as are gnomes...

I didn't like goblins as a playable race but i wasn't Horde, so that was a non issue for me. And i hated melee gnomes. And yes they may have been funny but panda's aren't even funny if you ask me, they just don't fit at all.  Trolls while having certain funny lines still looked somewhat threatening  and trolls have always been an established "race" of the western fantasy theme. Do however keep in mind this is strictly an opinion. Some people think one race looks more ridiculous than an other others would disagree, well i think the pandaren gave a whole new meaning to " What in the name of the lich king?!" in WoW (as a playable race)