World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria
Dawnette Polland
ENG 325 Intermediate Composition
Jessica Ruddick
October 22, 2012

World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria Blizzard Entertainment’s (Blizzard) World of Warcraft games are a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) that was reported by Craig Glenday (2009), in the Guinness World Records 2009 as having the “most-subscribed MMORPG players” numbering at 9.1 million (p. 245). Although I have not played the fantasy game of World of Warcraft (WoW) since its inception in 1994, I have, however, played three of the WoW expansions with each leading into the next game’s storyline. The first expansion was The Burning Crusade, which led into The Wrath of the Lich King, followed by Cataclysm where the endboss, Deathwing, was destroyed. I also participated in the beta testing for the anticipated fourth expansion of Mists of Pandaria (Mists) which has recently been launched for world play. Mists could quite possibly indicate Blizzard is at the end of the storyline in the series of WoW, thereby causing the loss of its mainstream worldwide gaming subscribers—adults. In order to play MMORPG games, a subscription fee is paid monthly that allows the player access to a company’s server. After the launch of Cataclysm in December 2010, the WoW subscribers had globally reached 12 million. The number of subscribers started to decline over the last year and a half when a majority of disgruntle gamers had exhausted the full scope of the third expansion, Cataclysm, after crushing Deathwing the Destroyer in a dramatic endgame raid within months after its release. When WoW gamers learned the next expansion’s new class was a kung fu panda, additional subscribers began dropping the game left and right, bringing Blizzard’s global subscribers down to 9.1 million players as of August 2012—the same number of subscribers in 2009. The number game ebbed back up when Mists reportedly sold 2.7 million copies in the first week it was launched—raising the number of global subscribers back up to over 10 million (Karmali, October 4, 2012). This by no means has Blizzard out of hot water. In comparison to Cataclysm, Mists fell short on its debut where Cataclysm sold 3.3 million copies on its launch date. My initial introduction to the game began when I was watching my son play. He had selected an Undead avatar, which was quite . . . ugly. It was skeletal without tendons or ligaments to hold the bones together, and when his avatar killed a mob, meaning a mobile unit or humanoid enemy, it was programed to squat down and stuff its mouth full of the dead. There were other classes in the Horde and Alliance factions with much better etiquette and not so disgusting. Blizzard has now created one more class in Mists to add to the already lengthy list of available avatar choices: a panda kung fu fighting stuffed teddy bear. What initially drew me into the game the most were the intense graphics and vibrant colors that keeps Blizzard in the forefront when it comes to building a 2D panoramic world for gamers to interact and conquer together. It makes me wonder, as others do, if DreamWorks has participated in the design and development of the now eight year old game. In addition, I was amazed at the extensive knowledge of mathematical minds that worked behind the development of every pixel on my screen, along with the dynamics of each avatar’s movement of running, walking, fighting, and sitting. As many other avid players in WoW, I had reservations about the upcoming expansion after reading Blizzard’s senior VP of Story and Development, Christopher Vincent Metzen, announcement in October 2011 that Mists of Pandaria’s new class was a Pandaran kung fu fighting bear. Mixed emotions continue to be expressed throughout the WoW community that Blizzard had sold “out to the youth demographic . . . to draw in youngsters” (Groen, October 2, 2012). Up to now, the game had been geared more for the adult gamer, although there were a huge percentage of ten and 12 year-olds playing better than any adult. A large percentage of subscribers have hung in there before drawing any conclusions on Mists simply because they had faith that Blizzard would not fail in the quality and level of design, or in the addition of increased challenges for players in a new WoW expansion. Other gamers struggled with the idea of adding a kung fu fighting panda to the mix of World of Warcraft’s Azeroth folklore after spending hundreds of hours, days, and months fighting and working toward the end boss in Cataclysm. The concept of a fuzzy, cuddly bear—similar to DreamWorks’ Kung fu Panda—fighting alongside a green Orc, or an Undead, or possibly a Night Elf with 12 inch pointed ears, and a Gnome two footballs-tall, in the icy cold plains of Winterspring, or in the depths of a cavern to defeat Deathwing, was hard to comprehend. In the previous expansions, you were challenged to learn everything you could about the layout of the dungeons and raid fight mechanics. Most raiders—those who concentrate mainly on dungeons in groups of ten, 25 or 40 people—are competitive and strive to be the top on the damage meter. If you were the tank, you needed to keep the mobs focused on you so the key damage players in the group could use their avatar’s specific traits to destroy the boss at hand. If you were the healer, it was imperative to keep the tank alive over everyone else, period. If the tank went down, the party more than likely would wipe. In other words, the entire group died. Avatar dynamics, group dynamics, and skill were essential to every dungeon and raid. The dynamics remain the same for the dungeons in Mists; however, the degree of preparation and objective to the dungeons and raids is at a minimum. Where is the challenge? What use to take a couple hours with five in a group, can now be ran by skilled players in an hour or less. Visually, imagine running along a path full of magical and dangerous elite humanoids in an almost unlit corridor, anticipating two huge and overpowering dragons who are going to spew fire on the ground that will tick life off of you in seconds if you stand in it, and another part of the group is fighting a different anomaly simultaneously all the while staying out of poisonous purple life draining swirls on the ground. Your group may be weakening, but they keep fighting. You need help. In the distance you see someone running toward your group. As the figure gets closer the details of the avatar come into perspective. It is non-other than a kung fu panda in his upside down straw wok hat, with a fuzzy belly bouncing up and down as he runs toward you to save the day. This is only humorous if you are not in the midst of a heavy-duty death-defying fight. Maybe not, humor can always alleviate the frustration of dying for the fifth time. In addition to fighting alongside a teddy bear that looks like the one I use to snuggle up with at the age of two, there are a couple key components that have dummied down the game. The first being that some of the quests remind me of the learning games that are purchased on a CD and then load it onto your computer for your children to learn to count, or to learn which hand is their right versus their left. Now, Blizzard has always had something similar to guide you on the screen for a few quests such as earning a seahorse mount in the underwater world of Vasj’ir as part of the Cataclysm story and quest line. However, you were not able to anticipate the sequence of directions and timing: turn left, turn right, up, down, and there were more than one key on your keyboard that needed to be used accurately. In Mists, a few of the quests I have completed as a level 88 Death Knight (cap levels at 90), takes me into a partial cinematic place where my character is able to interact with the instructions flashing on the monitor. You are instructed to watch the icon in the center of the screen, and when it is completely yellow, hit the number one button on the keyboard. The yellow dissipates. Now I wait one more time for the center icon to fill up once again, where I will then hit the key one more time. This continues until the quest is completed. The second component is Blizzards’ so-called “Pet Battle System.” I agree with Neubronner (2012) when he states in his review of Mists that “It’s Pokémon for WoW.” Like Pokémon, each player’s various pets they have collected over time can now battle other pets within the game. Players can swap out their pets in mid-battle, capture new ones in crates (as opposed to using the Pokéballs in Pokémon) all the while levelling up their pets. The latest expansion, despite its changes, is still essentially more of the same. There are not any substantial changes to hang your hat on or to pay the monthly $16.39 subscription fee. Players who have enjoyed WoW’s gameplay and storyline at a non-competitive level will find more to love here as far as casually working through quests, battle pets fighting other pets, trapping new pets, running the random dungeons, and are not concerned that there has not been any extensive content added to the game, will continue to enjoy WoW. However, if you are a gamer who looked for a substantial amount of new content, more demands on your skills and development of your avatars in order to advance as a top-notch player, then you may want to consider switching to a different MMORPG such as Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. I personally expected more from Blizzard instead of the side-stepped expansion seen in Mists. The changes made in Mists gives a strong impression that Blizzard possibly has exhausted the World of Warcraft storyline and needs to redirect its focus to the younger subscriber demography, all the while chancing the loss of adult subscribers. With the majority of the changes in Mists geared for children, e.g. incorporating a stuffed Pandaran bear and “Pokémon for WoW,” Mists no longer represents the World of Warcraft gamers grew to love over the last eight years. Instead of going forward, Blizzard took two steps back. For these reasons, Mists is given two stars out of five, and only for the exquisite graphic design and vibrant colors that is a Blizzard trademark since the inception of World of Warcraft.
References
Glenday, C. (2009). Guinness World Records 2009. Hammersmith, London: HarperCollins.
Groen, A. (October 2, 2012). Impressions: Mists of Pandaria is more than just pandas. Retrieved October 10, 2012, from http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2012/10/impressions-mists-of-pandaria-is-more-than-just-pandas/
Karmali, L. (October 4, 2012). Mists of Pandaria pushes Warcraft subs over 10 million. Retrieved from http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/10/04/mists-of-pandaria-pushes-warcraft-subs-over-10-million
Neubronner, E. (2012). (WoW): Mists of Pandaria review. Retrieved October 10, 2012, from http://sgcafe.com/review/world-of-warcraft-mists-of-pandaria-review/