I found there was a lot of innovation in this expansion - both creatively and technically, but it tends to get overshadowed by the core questing.  Don't get me wrong, quests are a great elemental mechanic of the genre and story can be a great reward (and goodness knows I have a Skinner Boxish obsession with rooting them out and doing them all), but at time it starts to feel more like flipping through a comic book than playing a game or living in a world.

I had an interesting mental flip while trying the pet battles: I started seeing green paws as the game and yellow exclamation marks as the minigame on the side.  Despite all the storytelling, it really didn't feel that one mechanic was any deeper than the other.

I play Wow and Rift, Rift being my #1 choice.  About MoP thou, i must say the overall review of it in this article was pretty dead on. Overall i would rate it a 7. The lacking talent system being my biggest gripe followed closely by phasing that keeps me and friends from doing things together, 3rd ly by the xrealm folks i have to compete with to mine or herb anywhere.

On a side note, the Baddassness someone mentioned before as lacking , is there. I found it in my monk. Do you remember how OP the DK's were at launch of wotlk? I believe my monk could take 2-3 dk's in comparison. Truely way OP. I am sure within 6 months they will get hit very hard with the nerf bat but for now its alot of fun to play them.

Very linear questing? I think most (all of them???) themepark MMOs focus on linear questing. Why is WoW getting downmarked for its questing? Or do we want to have that GW2"s style zerging?

I don't agree about the talents. Talent trees are very tired and are so 2000. Yes, Blizzard came up with them in 2000!!! Do we still want to use the same system from 2000? Although their new system still mirrors the talent tree approach to an extent. I think that Diablo 3 has done it in the best way. Diablo 2 comes with talent trees, Diablo 3 buries them?

Originally posted by Kalstark

Originally posted by Liltawen

When I first saw the commercial for MoP I thought that they were going to introduce the Pandas as a Third Faction and that would be a totally brillliant move that would bring WOW gameplay up to date with all the other more recent games.

When it launched and I discovered that it was the same old Hoard/Alliance nonsense that has been around for 8-9 years I was seriously angry that their own commercial lied to me.

I think MoP was a serious disappointment and a major misstep on Blizzards part. They could have reentered the modern MMO world but they just threw it away.  People say that only Blizzard can defeat WOW and they sure did it this time.

 

[mod edit]

While I don't agree with how he feels things turned out, I do agree that making the pandas a 3rd faction would have been a real power move.

Originally posted by fivoroth

Very linear questing? I think most (all of them???) themepark MMOs focus on linear questing. Why is WoW getting downmarked for its questing? Or do we want to have that GW2"s style zerging?

I don't agree about the talents. Talent trees are very tired and are so 2000. Yes, Blizzard came up with them in 2000!!! Do we still want to use the same system from 2000? Although their new system still mirrors the talent tree approach to an extent. I think that Diablo 3 has done it in the best way. Diablo 2 comes with talent trees, Diablo 3 buries them?

 

 

 

You are entirely missing the point of a talent system. It is to offer variety between classes. That is entirely a good thing. Why didn't it work in Wow? Because the game itself does not support diversity. Bliz realized their game forces you into a specific role and build for anything approaching end game and pretty much the same for pvp. Talent trees in general are a flawed design. An more open ended sytems works far better in other games. Bliz was forced to chop their talent system because of the way their game is designed, not because diversity is a bad thing. Ultimately all players end up doing nothing more than queueing up for dungeon speed runs anyway so they may as well dropped 50% of the open world quest system as well. If the only reason why you enter the larger maps is to collect craft resources, daily quest grind and to find hidden plaques to read thinking that is real exploration then I'll continue laughing at the current state of Wow.

Originally posted by Sukiyaki

Polish 10 - "Blizzard never launches an unpolished product. Seriously, it doesn’t.".

Yeah as ever. At least by Blizzard PR standards. Literally hundred of threads with thousands of player complaining about horribly broken design conflicts and bugs  from an obviously mostly untested new "temporary servermerge" system they call "crossrealm zones" for weeks and continued complaints until today. Thousand of player facing lag spikes, spastic server zone switching, time based quests and events bugged, ingame time broken, PvE and RP player being ganked by highlevl PvP player in their save zones until Blizzard even fixed the most basic obvious issues that could have appeared, disconnects, broken gathering and broken PvP, certainly sound like their most hyped feature after the Kung Fu Pandas was "done" when it was released to the public..

But hey someone has to keep up that great myth about Blizzards "polish". If not Blizzards PR bureau or the handful of fanbois delusional enough to believe it, then at least some dependant reporter

I wonder how you will twist tomorrows comparatively  weak MOP sales reports into anything other than the game going downhill.

That is what people do on WoW forums (And Blizzard forums in general)...they complain....all day long about everything. I can't think of a single problem I had with cross-realm zones besides the occasional dismount glitch that only happened maybe twice in Orgrimmar that has never happened since.

To begin with, CRZs were implemented way before Pandaria went live so I don't see how this is related to MoPs expansion quality at all since it was a seperate feature. Most of the gltiches with CRZs have been patched like the repeating chat text, the lag spikes and the in game server clock before the expansion even released. On top of that a majority of the crying was directed at dumb issues like "I am getting ganked to much because of CRZ" on a PVP server mind you....

The people that whined, were crying about petty things like "I picked a low pop server so I could farm rare mounts and now with CRZ I can't because there are more people" or "I am having a hard time leveling my professions because ore and herbs are so hard to get with more people around".

Yes are still lingering issues like the fishing tournament being disabled but the overall benefits far outweigh the problems especially on PVP servers where open world PVP was pretty much dead until now.

Originally posted by Nevulus

"Blizzard never launches an unpolished product. Seriously, it doesn’t"

 

The writer actually wrote that with a straight face. Obviously the writer never played WoW at launch. It was FAR from smooth. And let's not forget about a lil failed game called Diablo III.

Someone doesn't know what "polished" means.

WOWs launch was marred not by another close to polish, but by their servers being overrun.  They underestimated sales and it was their first MMO.

D3 also didn't lack polish.  It lacked a well designed end game and loot system.  The system they implemented was very polished.

Originally posted by rodingo
Interesting. It's funny how some people chose to drag GW2 into this discussion and it wasn't even by fans but by the usual suspects who typically bash it.  Did the release of GW2 really scar some of you people that much? Sheesh.

They were questioning the integrity of this review by citing this sites review of another recent MMO, GW2.  Completely related and fair. 

Originally posted by Khondor
Might want to complete and post reviews while the game or expansion is still relevant.  This expansion was released in September.   People are way beyond caring about your opinion at this point.

The reviewers here are exactly hardcore players.  Notice how there isn't any mention of ratings or the balance of rated PVP.  In the past they've been burned by reviewing games too early.  The thing is, even if they wait over a month they still don't experience much endgame has to offer.  They only review the leveling process, hence SWTOR stellar score.

Personally I think the new talent system is a step forward.  Of course the cookie cutter builds always emerge but atleast now, you can take risk like what kind of CC you are going to grab or what kind of 90 point talent you take and you will still remain extremely viable and competitive. 

Bsaically the funadmental, most important talents are given to each class now as passives so the talents we actually pick are just added benefits that wont make or break you (most of the time - WARRIORS OP NERF NERF NERF NERF)

Originally posted by Yavin_Prime

I like Pandaria, I'm having fun with it but I 100% hate the talent changes. My warlock was 52 and a toon I was enjoying untill they changed up the talents and such. I agree it's a major step backwards for WoW, one that may have me moving on to greener pastures.

 

Maybe things suck at 52 for warlocks but I know warlocks are loving 90.  ALL specs are also being used by top players: demonology, destro, and affliction.  Affliction looks like it might be the weakest atm, but its still capable to hold its own in BGs and arena.  It just doesn't have the ridiculous burst of destro and demonology atm.

after playing hardcore (until the end of TBC), i m playing wow casual anymore and i have lots of fun. more than i was in WTLK and CATA at least.

if i was to give it a score i would give it an 8 compared to other mmo games.

compared to wow itself i would say 9+. its superior than any of the past expansions they released.

i m not having illusions. every expansion is an EXPANSION only of an 8 years old game. not a new one and thats how i see it.

anyway whatever the score is, i m having much more fun than every other game i bought the past few years ( Rift, SWTOR, War, GW2, EVE ) at least in the long term.

First off, glad to see you took your time with this.

Second, I find myself agreeing with most everything you said, bar the innovation score (I place Scenarios or more specifially, a lot of what you *DO* in scenarios, the upcoming Brawler arena, Challenge modes, Pet battes ALL SQUARELY into the innovation bracket).

As for the rest, I agree with both the good (graphics, polish, longevity) as well as bad (horrible talent redesign, somewhat archaic - but IMO not yet improved upon by other games - questing system).

TL;DR, I appreciate the effort put into the review and I hope you continue to take your time with reviewing MMOs. Too many release day knowitalls on the internet as it is.

When you play wow and have any contact with any players you see the average age is low compared to other mmo's.

Random Dungeons - scum / ninja's / flaming and griefing on epic scales not seen in any other mmo's.

Battlegrounds - bots bots bots bots / 2 shotted / fotm OP classes / bots bots bots.

Daily quests - farm farm farm farm farm your eye balls out, and this you call contend ?

No matter how epic the world of MoP looks, its what happens inside the game what makes or breaks a good mmo.

ive been in WoW from the start untill june / juli after paying many months without a contend upgrade, DS was out a good 10 months before we received contend.
In the meantime people payed a subscription.... for 10 months.
Its a milk cow.

Does MoP have good side's ? yes it has, but any mmo has good side's.

Like i said before Rob Pardo himself claimed the throne from Ghostcrawler as sub numbers on the west a crumbling down fast.

10 million players wich of 7 million are asian who do not pay a sub.
that leave 3 million western players who are dropping WoW due to many reasons and few i gave at the start of my post.

With a budget Blizzard has the income Blizzard has the money they earn is not showing back in WoW.

They ruined a once epic mmo to a dumbed down CoD like mmo, a fast food snack for a much younger audiance then back in Vanila / TBC or even WotLK.

Bash me all you want, but at the start of Cataclysm we had 350 members in our guild, at the end we had 7 or 8 people online at primetime.
Most where adults in the high 20 or mid 30's.

Its a shame that a once such epic and great game turned his face away from the community and started to look at casual players and young people at the expence of the more adult / hardcore gamer.

Look at it on your own way, this is my vieuw after playing and paying WoW for 8 years.
This year and the next will show how much damage Ghostcrawler has done to WoW.

I think not even Rob Pardo can repair the damage he has done in the past 3 / 4 years.
Time will tell :)

Originally posted by konecta
Rift is much better game so far.

Totally agree, I must say that as a former WoW player, hands down Rift is way better game and has much more options on different ways. Also Rift game world much more dynamic than WoW, theres always something happenning in Rift while you travelling etc. 

Originally posted by Mothanos

When you play wow and have any contact with any players you see the average age is low compared to other mmo's.

Random Dungeons - scum / ninja's / flaming and griefing on epic scales not seen in any other mmo's.

Battlegrounds - bots bots bots bots / 2 shotted / fotm OP classes / bots bots bots.

Daily quests - farm farm farm farm farm your eye balls out, and this you call contend ?

No matter how epic the world of MoP looks, its what happens inside the game what makes or breaks a good mmo.

ive been in WoW from the start untill june / juli after paying many months without a contend upgrade, DS was out a good 10 months before we received contend.
In the meantime people payed a subscription.... for 10 months.
Its a milk cow.

Does MoP have good side's ? yes it has, but any mmo has good side's.

 

Like i said before Rob Pardo himself claimed the throne from Ghostcrawler as sub numbers on the west a crumbling down fast.

10 million players wich of 7 million are asian who do not pay a sub.
that leave 3 million western players who are dropping WoW due to many reasons and few i gave at the start of my post.

With a budget Blizzard has the income Blizzard has the money they earn is not showing back in WoW.

They ruined a once epic mmo to a dumbed down CoD like mmo, a fast food snack for a much younger audiance then back in Vanila / TBC or even WotLK.

Bash me all you want, but at the start of Cataclysm we had 350 members in our guild, at the end we had 7 or 8 people online at primetime.
Most where adults in the high 20 or mid 30's.

Its a shame that a once such epic and great game turned his face away from the community and started to look at casual players and young people at the expence of the more adult / hardcore gamer.

Look at it on your own way, this is my vieuw after playing and paying WoW for 8 years.
This year and the next will show how much damage Ghostcrawler has done to WoW.

I think not even Rob Pardo can repair the damage he has done in the past 3 / 4 years.
Time will tell :)

What a load of tripe on the age thing.

The players you come across in WoW massively depend on when you play it, on weekdays I log in at 9pm and I am pretty much never in a group with anyone under 18. On the weekends I play in the morning and my groups are filled with kids.

In my guild there is no one under 18.

The dungeons and random groups have the same amount of trolls as other games, I think I have done about 40 dungeon runs since I hit 90 and only once was there someone ninjaing loot and leaving.

Battlegrounds suck yes, I played them all years ago, no desire to do it now again.

Daily Quests, you are again correct having such a massive amount of them is just off putting.

It's up to the players to not be milked, I though cata was rubbish so I didn't play it very much, as soon as my guild downed deathwing, I quit playing and stopped paying until this expansion came out, when I get bored with this one I will once again stop paying. I don't understand anyone that just keeps paying for the sake of it when there is 10 months of no content.

That is a player problem its not the fault of blizzard/