I personally really enjoyed the "no ultimate bad guy narrative" from MoP. It was like a long needed break from constant threats for the end of the world. Every expansion aside from MoP has presented the heros of azeroth with an ultimatum. Fight, or the world ends. What I loved most about MoPs questing content is that for the duration of 85-90, I felt like an adventurer in Elwynn Forest again. Exploring and questing for the sake of adventure in a new land, as opposed to 'The Chosen One' destined to save Azeroth. Then WoD came and completely flipped this concept on the head.
Ikr, for example questing in Valley of the Four Winds was so goddamn peaceful, it made the experience really unique. I just miss that feeling of not having that ultimate goal - just helping some people and exploring an unknown land. Being the ultimate chosen one makes sense in Legion, but also isn't really necessary. I think after securing Azeroth once more, we should go back to just being a bunch of adventuters exploring a strange new land.
In retrospective, it was also a good way to introduce an ultimate villain in a reasonable form, it was interesting seeing Garrosh's path to madness instead of some random villain going "Boo! Ima kill your world because of reasons!"
Iron Bull God yes. When I was leveling my Nightborne through Jade Forest and Valley I spent 50% of the time questing, 50% saying "Oh that's beautiful! Look at that Waterfall! Chen Stormstout! Cho! That statue is beautiful! That temple is beautiful! Is that a massive wall? I love this place!"
leejuicy I think Dread Wastes was a really good and needed zone in such continent. On one side you have beautiful and peaceful zones like Jade Forest or Valley of the Four Winds, so this one is like the dark side of the continent, where the main threat of the basic expansion story came from.
Regardless of gameplay, I believe Mists is still one of World of Warcraft's best musical Soundtracks ever. Give it another listen, you'll re-discover it's absolutely gorgeous.
Katsu Maximus but thats a part of the wotlk soundtrack not the entire wotlk soundtrack the mop soundtrack is probably one of the best soundtracks if you look at the average song of every soundtrack
i loved mop. so many good memories. Pvp was such fun, raiding was good, Isle of thunder with the raid one of the best things to ever come out . The only 1 thing ppl dislike about mop is :The long time between patch 5.4 and wod´s pre patch and the japanese/chinese style . Still loved it!
I personally love the Asian theme. The music, the environment, it was so different. Not for everyone, I know, but hey its a new style that was bound to be tried at some point. WoW is heavily influenced by nordic mythology, i'd love to see some others explored.
Sustainna I'm hoping the next expansion is a exploration one I feel like it will be cause people are getting burnt out on grinding demons and green shit
It's weird. People don't react well to the theme being more casual as shown by the still lasting hostility to the pandaren, but they prefer a more casual play style as shown by the reaction to cataclysm dungeons. It looks like cognitive dissonance.
I like the fact that Mists is still alive. All the mounts available there mean a lot of people still farm the mats, still use the zones, something you don't see so much in other areas. I'd love to see new crafting mounts introduced that use old crafting materials from ALL the zones, something like 20 new mounts and to get them all you'll end up using mats from every expansion and almost every zone in the game. It would be something that would encourage more people to get out into the world again. I mean, sure, it would make the prices of everything explode, but they kind of do that anyway...
started playing in late vanilla, loved it and was hooked until late wotlk and then cataclysm. especially cataclysm when they changed the game so drasticly in terms of gameplay mechanics. then MoP came along it it really suprised me. i avoided it at release but then tested it out and it felt so...fresh. the zones and the lore felt like wow reinvented itself. it was awesome. sure it had content drought with the timless island and personally i didnt play until 4.2 was out. but it felt so rejuvenating compared to the other expansion and i think its a no brainer to say its the most underrated expansion of them all.
I disagree. MoP has the strongest storyline in all of WoW. Each faction has its own antagonists and its own saviors, and Wraithion’s Meddling is excellent. The problem is that the story is about emotional conflict. The ability to resist desires is a very eastern theme, and was very well done. The conflict being internal instead of external stretched the kind of stories we expect from MMO’s, and I think for the better. By far my favorite expansion.
MoP is my favorite expansion. I just love the philosophic depth of it. The quote from the reveal trailer still gives me chills today. "For my kind, the true question is: What is worth fighting for?". When leveling new characters, reaching level 85 is super exciting, because I can go back to Pandaria! It's even better nowadays where you can completely ignore the shadowpan forest and the zone at the bottom (lol I've been there once). Kun-lai, Vale, valley and the jade forest are my favorite zones. They are breathtaking. The art style is insane, colors are stunning and the music... Can we please take the time to appreciate the MoP music? I still listen to it today when I study. It's so peaceful and beautiful. Now for the monk class, its lore is so rich, and once again there is a lot of philosophy in the class and its gameplay! For example, when playing WW you need to plan everything and you can't simply spam the keys, it fits right into a monk's philosophy; calm and effective. Pandarens...
Much philosophy, such wow, very deep. I mean yea the story was really original and development of the xpac story was what surprised me most (pleasently) but i really dont think that you can talk about any philospohical depth here sorry.
lol How many xpacs do you think there were? Not saying I agree or disagree, but since Legion isn't finished yet, we can't really fully judge it. So there were 5 xpacs prior, and saying theoretically, MoP was 3rd ("in the top 3") out of 5 isn't saying much. "Hey honey, I bought you this nice dress. Half of them at the store were better, but I hope you like it!". SMACK Doesn't make much sense to me. Like those who claim that Legion is "one of the greatest xpacs ever". There haven't been like 40 of them. *scratches head*
I have to disagree, I despise raids that are in multiple locations. A raid should be in one place, because it is a more organic experience. It is the same reason why I disliked the Dragon Soul raid.
Legion is already bad 3 months later the burnout was expected and there still is a content drought no broken isles and argus world quests are not content its a mediocre version of timeless isle and tanaan jungle. Only real difference is it got stale faster.
This video brought back a lot of memories. Mists was one of my favorite expansions, one thing that you didn't touch on in this video was the amazing leveling. You really felt as though you were progressing through the zones and following a story that you could eventually rally behind. It was very linear (with a little decision making), but this linearity helped everyone understand who the Pandaren are, why they are there, and who they are fighting (the Sha/Mogu/etc). And don't get me started on the varying landscapes, massive cliffs followed by deep open fields, water everywhere, hidden treasures, loaded with rares, etc. Amazing.
This expansion became my favorite over time. I loved it during its release and still love it. It somehow managed to defeat Wrath as my my number one favorite expansion.
I loved MoP from start to finish, never seen why anyone would dislike it. the only period i was bored was the 14 month SoO patch. I just kept myself entertained leveling new alts until wod.
MoP is my favorite expansion to date. The continent of Pandaria was ABSOLUTELY the most visually appealing and engaging in my opinion. Not to mention Throne of Thunder might be the best patch of all time.
MoP was a particularly experimental expansion that tried implementing a lot of new things, some of which worked and some that didn't. I had wanted playable Pandarians since BC got announced so MoP got me back at a time I had burned out from Cata. Overall I think it is one of the better expansions, and especially given what followed. I found all the Kung-fu Panda comparisons unfortunate given Blizzard created Chen and the Pandarian concept way before those movies.
Warlords of Draenor was better in Mist of Pandaria in many ways. I am sick of people trashing Warlords of Draenor because there were so many things about Warlords that was done just right. For starters, players took the world a lot more seriously in Dreanor, because Draenor wasn't overwhelmed with campy things like Vermin, Hozen, dollar store value symbolism, or other overly cartoony aspects in Pandaria. The instances in Dreanor were much better, because the instances required real team work, and you had groups communicating and working together instead of rushing through heroics in 10 minutes. It also helped that there were training grounds that prevented incompetent players from entering heroics.
WoD time travel conceit was a muddled concept to begin with and it had very little developmental support after release. It did some things well but overall it was received poorly, marking the sharpest decline in the game's history. Also Warcraft has always had a cartoony aesthetic, nothing in MoP was particularly out of place compared to the other races or places that exist in Azeroth.
It wasn't the cartoony part of Mist of Pandaria I had a problem with, it was the whole fact that you couldn't take the world seriously enough when you were in Pandaria. When you were in a Pandaria instance you fought giant rabbits, beer elementals, and a insultingly goofy storyline, while in Warlords of Dreanor, the humor was kept under control, and you fought Gronn, Magasaurs, demons, and Orc Warlords, that is what Warcraft should be like. Also, just because something is received poorly by the masses doesn't make it bad. Good game design is not based on popular opinion. One of the best MMORPGs was Asheron's Call, and not that many people played it, but it didn't change the fact that it was better that most modern MMORPGs.
Difference in tastes. I never found WoD dungeons terribly interesting while I enjoyed the MoP ones because of the lighter elements and it wasn't more of the same. Also something being received poorly by mass audiences is a definition of bad; that is not to say people can't enjoy it, but it doesn't make it good either. Good design is one that is enjoyable for most people and popular opinion is one of the few objective ways to judge that. I personally enjoyed many of the design choices of WoD but statistically speaking it did not perform and it was unable to sustain interest over its lifespan whereas MoP was able to gain subs over its.
You are wrong about good game design being based on it being enjoyable by the masses. Good game design is more complicated than that. It involves the complexity and effort being put into the game. You can not argue that Warlords of Draenor had a lot of work put into it, whether the masses liked it or not. I will also have to go back to Asheron's Call, perhaps one of the greatest games ever made. Most people in the gaming community despised that game, but it didn't change the fact it was a well done game with in depth mechanics, organic style of play, and a gameplay oriented combat system. Even though there were very few people who played that game, the community was respectable, mature, and helpful. That was the opposite of the community in the Wrath of the Lich King, which has the highest numbers of players and positive reception among the masses. The community during WotLK was immature, entitled, couldn't care less about the value of the content, and no one cared about the community. The moment when Blizzard decided to restore important concepts to WoW during Cataclysm and Warlords, these entitled players left in mass numbers. It wasn't Blizzard who as at fault, it was the other way around. As a true player who truly loves and appreciates WoW, I would rather see a low population of mature, helpful and patient players, instead of being stuck with 12 million players where most of them are entitled, and impatient. WoW doesn't need those people. I always stuck around WoW because I was loyal to WoW, and anyone who leaves WoW just because Blizzard does something they don't like have no business playing MMORPGs to begin with.
I loved MoP all the way through. I was salty and sceptical during announcement but the more info was pouring out the more I liked it, and from the release to 5.4 it was and still remains as the best x-pack in my opinion.
MOP was a breath of fresh air, we really could use an expansion like that now, I am sick of green and demons and all this gloomy shit, like really sick.
MoP was my favourite expansion then and is still my favourite expansion now. It was absolutely amazing. The sheer scale, the beauty, the questlines, the humour, the art and that MUSIC! It was incredible! I loved the idea that you could just explore and enjoy the world. There was also so much to do! So many mounts to collect and bosses to kill and the raids and PVP was awesome! I still listen to the soundtrack regularly. By far the best login screen apart from the WotLK one. I miss this expansion so so much.
I really enjoyed MoP. I just liked the feeling of it, the art style , the gorgeous landscapes and mainly the really relaxing and chill feeling of the lore.
Thing I miss most about Mists of Pandaria... Chris Metzen! I think Ion is doing a great job, but no one will ever compare to Metzens rock star charisma.
Ion and Chris Metzen had different jobs. Chris Metzen was in charge of lore, while Ion was in charge of game design. During Mist of Pandaria it was Greg Street (Ghost Crawler) who was in charge of game design. I had nothing against Greg Street, but he did make some decisions that were destructive to the state of WoW that resulted in removing organic parts about WoW. Ion seems to be more considerate about having a more organic experience in WoW.
MoP had the best class design and Best PvP. Valley of four winds still is my favorite zone to this day and timeless isle is considered one of the most if not best endgame zone by a lot of players.
@@Kpazz Based on what? I didn't know anyone that disliked Isle of Thunder, I saw people going to Isle of Thunder well past the need to do it. Timeless isle wasn't quite as universally well liked but it was far from hated too, except maybe by the casual players on PvP servers getting 1 shot by heroic geared raiders cause Blizzard kind of forgot about world pvp values being insane.
I had fun... but the theme of the expansion certainly took away from my enjoyment. Throughout the expansion I kept thinking... what on earth were they THINKING!
I NEED PART 2 ASAP! Amazing video (as always). I also would love to see a little bit of 'review' of the raids, how was the difficult and what they did right and wrong.
Tbh krasarang wilds is my fav zone. And I really like Towlong aswell. To me MoP is the expension I have the most font memories off, I only started late wrath but I really loved MoP
Great series! Very nostalgia inducing. I loved MoP to bits and was a really good year in real life as well so I'm quite fond of that time and getting home, building a guild from scratch and playing with new found friends. Ah I miss those times.
MoP xpac was the best thing I've ever experienced, the content was never boring, plus Pandaria was really stunning and beautiful. Especially the detials that stood out from all expansions in terms of raids, dungeons. Also worth to note that leveling was quite immersive. Not to even mention that MoP is my second on the list in terms of the best xpacs of all time. Have a nice day Bellular!
Real Talk: Mists was my second-favorite expansion after Wrath. It got a lot of shit, but did so much new, interesting stuff, and managed to introduce brand new things, and then tie them back to the broader lore of Azeroth with the Y'Shaarj reveal (or even before; anyone who ran Ulduar back in the day saw it coming as soon as they got to Elegon). Every raid in Mists had interesting, new, fun elements to it that made all of them unique in their own ways. Name a raid boss as kill as Will of the Emperor or Garalon or Spoils of Pandaria. Absolutely amazing stuff. The setting was gorgeous, fresh, and well-realized (except the Townlong Steppe; that place can burn). Scenarios were a cool new feature that's been expanded on greatly. People gave the farm shit, but it's nice to have access to some materials without having to go out and "farm" them in the real world, especially if you have a job. The talent change made the system streamlined to the point where we can pop in and out of situational choices now which has altered the way character builds and encounter design has shifted. Mists really did some amazing stuff to the game and it's a shame the start was so rocky, because it's one of the most consistently good expansions.
I was kind of burned out on WoW when MoP came. I leveled, did some dungeons, had my fun, and you probably can tell by my avatar I'm quite biased on Pandas, I loved the setting, the art style was amazing, the mythos were new and interesting, but having left raiding during Cata because of studies and losing contact with my guild meant that I kinda missed on the endgame content. The most I did was LFR, twice each raid at most, and for me LFR was alright to see the raids and the bosses, but without the strugle and having a guild, they end being forgettable for the most part. Regardless of the problems, I liked MoP because it felt new and fresh, Cata had its problems, but I liked the world revamp. I'm one of the few who legitimately likes leveling alts and the old zones revamp were cool with unique storylines, again, can't say about the end content, but personally that's what I took from it. Then Warlords came and it felt SO unnecessary, the things I liked the most was the intro to Draenor, the cutscenes and the race model revamps, everything else felt so forgettable and unnecessary. It didn't bring much new in terms of story, didn't expand the world, and the whole "alternate reality" is still so forced and confusing, In the end it didn't feel like it left a "legacy" to the game overall. I don't know if I expressed myself properly, by the end I felt like I was just rambling
Blizzard went wrong when they expected every gamer to be an end game player. If only the top 1% are true end game players (think: sunwell, BT, MC at their release)and the rest are trying to reach the end game, everyone will be happy. Wow is nothing but a miniature society showing that if everyone can have everything, noone want's it anymore.
Great series! Has me hyped for the next one. As a player who took a lengthy year long break from wow during MoP Im really sad that I missed one of wows greatest raids in ToT. Ive taken breaks before during bad tiers like Totc and DS but I regret missing the entirety of ToT everytime I run that place for transmog.
I was having my son during launch but Island of Thunder patch redeemed a lot for me. That and the hunter rare pets we had to track, Darkspear Revolutionary event-riding with Vol'jin "No sleep til' Orgrimmar!" was one of my favorite moments in game ever.
Played since launch of original Naxx and Cata was the only time I unsubed . Mists is what brought me back to wow so I only have fond memories of this one
I jumped fully into Mists of Pandaria when it came out. I Loved that expansion from beginning till end. The little farm in the Valley of the Four Winds helped me to get through one of the deepest points in my depression. I found a love of gardening thanks to Mists of Pandaria and I have embraced that into my career.
Everyone has their favorite expansion based upon what stages they were going through with their guilds and personal life outside of WoW. That being said, Mists was my favorite expansion. Legion has been good, too. Something that wasn't talked about in this video was the 10 or 25 man raiding system of Mists (as well as Cata and Wrath). This is something I sorely miss. We did very well with our 10-man team in both normal and heroic content in Mists and had a lot of fun doing it. Most of the raiders I knew took part in smaller, more intimate, enjoyable teams. When Warlords introduced the 20-man system for mythic raids, it was a giant problem for guilds like ours that were no longer allowed to participate in that end-game content unless we overhauled and changed who we were as a guild. I would say 95%+ of the people on my bnet friends list who were great heroic raiders in Mists stopped playing during Warlords and didn't come back, not even for Legion. Blizzard threw smaller guilds and 10-man raiders under the bus in Warlords and continued with that model in Legion.
MOP was by far the most beautiful expansion and combine with the music soundtrack kept me playing. The Troll rebellion also was an incredibly emotional turn. Playing a horde and riding into battle with the troll army against Garrosh gave me a chill and kept me coming back for more.
I had played for years with different groups of people both IRL and people I met in WoW. But in mists, during the prepatch I met the people who to this day have changed my life. Some of the most relaxed, or funniest nights I have had have been with those guys and we formed our own 10 man guild in Mists of Pandaria. If WoW tried to reinvent itself in Pandaria IU think it did a good job. Ahead of the Curve and Cutting edge, I.e the raid changes were epic and I feel the system of Mythic now would never have happened for but the testing they did in MoP. Mogu'Shan vaults was a great raid and for me as the raid leader trying to assemble a raid team in this very low difficulty environment made it very easy. Then as we moved on through to SoO and saw more rewarding mechanics we gelled as unit.. I will never forget killing seigecrafter heroic (mythic now).. That was the real endboss for me :P
I'd take the MoP style dailies over the Legion ones any day. Once you hit exalted they ended. There was a goal. Now its just go out and do these to get AP that never ends.
I only ever played wow for a year in mop so much nostalgia i remember getting to like level 20 then getting bored with my class and race and start again.
Obviously Mop is already better than Legion I mean the quest zone wasn't shite and dailies were simpler now its like do this world quest and keep doing them till you eventually run out.
For me, the Sha were always an interesting concept that was implemented terribly. Seven themed baddies connected with negative emotions that feed and breed their own name-sake sounds really cool until you think about it: Why weren't the Sha running rampant around Pandaland before the Alliance and Horde got there? Was it the increase in population of sentient and empathic beings in Pandaria? I hope not, because the initial expedition to Pandaria was tiny, one bumper crop in the Valley of the Four Winds and you'd easily have enough food to fuel a generation of pandas to trigger it. Did they forcefully euthanize to keep the population down below the tipping point? And how the hell would they know what the tipping point was without going over it once or twice? Was it the conflict that the Horde and the Alliance brought to their shores? I really don't think so, because there was a regular threat and reality of war all along the Serpent's Spine. Every so often you'd have masses of Mantid pouring up and over the spine (who, at least the sentient ones, directly serve the Sha) and go on an absolute rampage. This was such a large, recurring, and serious problem that it was the Mogu back during the Thunder King's days that built the spine. A conflict that cuts a continent in two is not one without strong cultural, economic, and emotional impacts. And considering one of the Sha is dispair, how did it not seep out during any of the previous conflicts stretching back ten-thousand-goddamn-years? Or let's not ignore the fact that the Mogu never went away. One of the dungeons in MoP was assaulting the seat of Mogu power INSIDE the vale of Eternal Blossoms. They were still murdering, torturing, kidnapping, enslaving, and brutalizing Pandaren, Hozen, Saurok, Jin-Yu, Grummel, and any other race they could catch. Are you telling me a constant state of guerilla war wouldn't evoke strong enough negative emotions to stir up their avatars? And then think of the places that the Sha were able to pop up: In the temple of the Jade Serpent, (The August Celestial of Wisdom,) The Temple of the Red Crane (The August Celestial of Hope,) The Mantid Empire, (Servants of the Old Gods and their children) and In the Shadow-Pan, (an organization specifically created to supress the Sha.) For the Sha to appear in the Mantid is to be expects, what with their service to the Old Gods and their children, but a strong Sha presence in any of the other locations shows how easy it was for the Sha to erupt. The Shadow-Pan had TWO of the Sha infesting their organization, the Sha of Violence is a boss in the dungeon Shadow-Pan Monastery, and Taran Zhu was possessed by the Sha of Anger. Wouldn't organizations and temples dedicated to fighting the Sha be more effective? Wouldn't temples dedicated to aspects that were the polar opposites of the Sha provide better protection against their influence? Really cool concept, but the execution made no goddamn sense.
Didn't Yu'lon tell us that they'd been getting worse and worse over time (Old God stuff slowly regenerating and all that crap), and we basically just forced what was already a growing problem?
I think the main difference of that would be that the pandaren fought their battles out of self-defense with the hope of establishing peace/equality in their wars, often times against animal like opponents such as the mantid whom they had no need to establish peace with anyways, while the alliance/horde fought each other out of hatred/bitterness held in their hearts due to their grudges, so while both may have been fighting, one did it with positive/neutral emotions and the other with negative emotions in a large mass, which would tip many parts of pandaria over the edge to release the sha
It seems I am one of the few who absolutely loved Cataclysm. As a vanilla player, I loved seeing the original world I loved reworked and improved and all those mysteries and unfinished areas I was curious about finally being opened up. I also loved the zones and the questing and the story, was a huge fan of the dragonflights. All of the zones felt really unique and interesting to me and was very happy with the two new playable races.
The only class designer to 'get it' and every single person just stole from his original ideas for each class revamp/redesign for the rest of time. Oh and they destroyed his original designs literally 1 xpac after he was fired, warlock has seen only worse design ever since MoP which is kind of pathetic on Blizzard's part.
@@Outwardpd Personally,as a life long lock-player, i think warlocks peaked in WoD. But it's clear that his work was the reason they could peak as high as they did.
Honestly, MOP is what brought me to WoW, loved the expansion, and loved WoW ever since, great video by the way, brilliant analysis as always. Aaaaand see you next time
Mists had the best raiding experience. The mood and art direction along with an excellent soundtrack made playing mists my second favorite next to Wrath.
I see a lot of people praising mop, but I'm on the side of "Nah. That's not my Warcraft." MoP was too light and fluffy and full of memes. How I pity the Horde having to deal with the Hozen. For example, look at the Death Knight starting zone. That is one of Blizzard's greatest creations in my eyes. There was good, quality, subtle humor hidden here and there but it didn't clash with the dark theme. Ultimately, I think MoP just didn't give people a world that was very inclusive. If I want to be a kung fu panda, that's fine, but don't take away my ability to be a soul reaping death knight, essentially making me feel like I don't belong in the game at all. As a last little positive note, the only content I really thought was well designed was the Throne of Thunder patch. It had a compelling story arc and an interesting antagonist. A much better step up from playing a farming game where the town is in danger from talking bunny rabbits.
I think WoW needed some peaceful time. Chasing a new villain and trying to save the world over and over got pretty stale. MoP gave us some unique fresh experience, there was no global threat, so we just came back to exploring and helping some peeps, just like in low lvl zones. Yep, non-stop bloodshed is what makes Warcraft, but when Warcraft makes a pattern and follows it strictly for many years, it gets pretty boring.
Mists is probably my favorite expansion besides Legion. I started in mid-to-early wrath, and nothing really managed to blow me away like Northrend did until MoP. That was the expansion that made me interested in the lore of the game, got me excited to participate in dungeons and raids, and explore. That was the expansion that made me a better player, and I still get chills when I return back to Pandaria every now and then. As for the daily quest overload; I'll admit that there was a lot of factions to grind out, but I never understood why anyone would be dumb enough to do all of them at once. Especially with the massive content drought of 5.4, I went slow and did one at a time. Even at my snail's pace, I completed all of them with plenty of time to spare.
The problem is that wow is a watered down game that has zero identity anymore, it doesn't feel like mmorpg where you build your character and story, your thrown into the game at near max level as some grand crusader king commander god, played for 11 years and legion ended wow for me, I want to create and mold who I am, wow simply has no design for you do that outside of rp addons
WoWbyTPK I agree to a certain extent, but I'll have to disagree with your "build your own story" argument. I don't think wow ever strived to make you anything other than just another cog in the machine until wod with garrisons. I think I preferred it that way. Everyone running around with the same weapon because they went through what was essentially a single player campaign is immersion breaking, to say the least.
EXACTLY MY POINT, you were your own cog that chose what you did and was rewarded for it, players could discern you by your gear , title, content finished because servers were communities, you knew they players and how they differed , The game since cata has turned into a single player campaign with millions of clones running with you, IF you played in vanilla then you would know players VERY MUCH SO had their own story, and the server helped fuel who you were, I mean unless you were a unsocial player and that is your fault or prerogative
As a fan who loved pandas since warcraft, it felt amazing to come back to wow after all these years and play one. Wish he was horde though. Regardless, playing a panda made you feel like you were apart of the lore. It was a joy to complete a set for transmog and really get an idea of what a panda would look like in the wow world. That luster fell in the next expansion when they made it class specific instead of race. I played warlords of draenor as an orc and it just didn't feel right. What should felt like a homecoming felt like a grind. Today it feels like that in BFA.
i started to hate wow after wotlk,because of the lost content. And now what,13 years of lost content,and legion is a cod singleplayer camping. I want legacy servers
Even today Mists is such a refreshing change from Cata while questing. The biggest reaction seemed to come from many who didnt know or realize Pandaren had been around longer than WoW.
Vyntage yeah, I know. Also Tauren aren't slow, it just seems slower. But I still think that being small still has it's pros. Always feel half invisible as gnome or dwarf in pvp... and Gnome melee kinda feels like people have problems to get behind me or keep me in front of them.
I started playing on live right at the end of MoP. Didn't really notice much of the expansion as I was too busy levelling up, but the Jade Forest has absolutely grown on me and I still enjoy the storyline there immensely. Also I think that in terms of graphics and scenery MoP was one of the best expansions. Of course technical progress and all that jazz is a thing, but... y'know :D Anyway, really enjoying this series so far, would love to see more of it!
I love the lightheartedness, fresh color scheme, and the outlandish feel of the world. Reminded a bit of the feing i had with TBC. It Fell short though on the typical wow issues of the post wotlk era
I started in Wrath and then came back for every expansion. When I came back for Mists, it was at the end, but I absolutely loved it. Leveling was so fun for me and I seriously dig the Chinese aesthetic. I still go back and fly around just to be there.
Mists will always have a special place in my heart. I loved the landscape, the story, everything. It may not have been a legendary villain like WoTLK...but it was a 'whole new world' (sup Aladdin) and a very welcome breath of fresh air. I'll always remember the immense fun I had in it and frankly the bit of sadness I had when moving on to the tragedy that is Warlords.
*people in MOP* this sucks give us something else
*people in WOD* no wait go back
no way wod was worse than mop....
It was bud
The only thing WoD had over MoP was a stronger theme, but there were so many bad decisions made during that expansion.
the only thing MoP did right was throne of the thunder king, rest got so boring so fast. At least WOD had the best raids to date
Yeah, I have no better memories of WoW than sitting in my garrison. Good times, good times.
I personally really enjoyed the "no ultimate bad guy narrative" from MoP. It was like a long needed break from constant threats for the end of the world.
Every expansion aside from MoP has presented the heros of azeroth with an ultimatum. Fight, or the world ends. What I loved most about MoPs questing content is that for the duration of 85-90, I felt like an adventurer in Elwynn Forest again. Exploring and questing for the sake of adventure in a new land, as opposed to 'The Chosen One' destined to save Azeroth. Then WoD came and completely flipped this concept on the head.
Exactly. And I'm kinda scared they can never put that genie back into that bottle.
Ikr, for example questing in Valley of the Four Winds was so goddamn peaceful, it made the experience really unique. I just miss that feeling of not having that ultimate goal - just helping some people and exploring an unknown land. Being the ultimate chosen one makes sense in Legion, but also isn't really necessary. I think after securing Azeroth once more, we should go back to just being a bunch of adventuters exploring a strange new land.
In retrospective, it was also a good way to introduce an ultimate villain in a reasonable form, it was interesting seeing Garrosh's path to madness instead of some random villain going "Boo! Ima kill your world because of reasons!"
Oh the ultimate enemy was there alright. But instead of fighting them, we made them a playable race!
Lichlord Kazam This made me chuckle way more than it should have
Let me know what you think about this mini-series. Might continue it on if it's enjoyed.
I kinda dread the WoD episode.... that'd be a shitshow.
Well you can do wod in a 10 second vid. Hey guys, Wod was well .... ok lets continue :D
Please continue the series! I enjoy the hell out of your videos!
BellularGaming MoP is by far my favorite xpac
I enjoyed this video and would love to see it become a series! WoD should be... interesting lol
WoD would rather be the opposite. At least 1h of discussion if not more.
Is there anyone else out there who just loves the zones of pandaria?
Yes I thought all of the zones in Pandaria are great, especially Jade Forest.
Iron Bull mop
Will always be the best expansion to me
except for dread wastes. I could never love that one...
Iron Bull God yes. When I was leveling my Nightborne through Jade Forest and Valley I spent 50% of the time questing, 50% saying "Oh that's beautiful! Look at that Waterfall! Chen Stormstout! Cho! That statue is beautiful! That temple is beautiful! Is that a massive wall? I love this place!"
leejuicy I think Dread Wastes was a really good and needed zone in such continent. On one side you have beautiful and peaceful zones like Jade Forest or Valley of the Four Winds, so this one is like the dark side of the continent, where the main threat of the basic expansion story came from.
Regardless of gameplay, I believe Mists is still one of World of Warcraft's best musical Soundtracks ever. Give it another listen, you'll re-discover it's absolutely gorgeous.
still nothing beats the Arthas - Invincible soundtrack. goosebumps everywhere
Katsu Maximus but thats a part of the wotlk soundtrack not the entire wotlk soundtrack the mop soundtrack is probably one of the best soundtracks if you look at the average song of every soundtrack
I can just listen to Chinese horse guitar
Agreement
i loved mop. so many good memories. Pvp was such fun, raiding was good, Isle of thunder with the raid one of the best things to ever come out . The only 1 thing ppl dislike about mop is :The long time between patch 5.4 and wod´s pre patch and the japanese/chinese style . Still loved it!
Asian* style.
I personally love the Asian theme. The music, the environment, it was so different. Not for everyone, I know, but hey its a new style that was bound to be tried at some point. WoW is heavily influenced by nordic mythology, i'd love to see some others explored.
The Asian style was beautiful and refreshing. Are americans racist?
Lol. The only one thing, then proceeds to list two things. I loved MoP. Still quit for most of the xpac, though.
The chinese style is perfect! A breath of fresh air and I wish we'll get more of it in future patches.
I'm fed up with dragons, demons and undead.
Still so underrated
And yes continue the series please!
it's a mix of Japanese/Chinese culture, and mythology! with mantis, panda, and lizard people with living stone statues! the hell's not to like?
I think this is me here. I didn't really like the theme of MoP. Or the story for that matter. It just wasn't a super fun expansion for me.
I'd say it's overrated...
@@rattlehead999 lol I think you've never heard of wotlk the most over rated xpac.
MoP was great. It would be nice to get another good "exploration" expansion rather than "We're fucked, so go kill x" expansion.
Sustainna I'm hoping the next expansion is a exploration one I feel like it will be cause people are getting burnt out on grinding demons and green shit
It's weird. People don't react well to the theme being more casual as shown by the still lasting hostility to the pandaren, but they prefer a more casual play style as shown by the reaction to cataclysm dungeons. It looks like cognitive dissonance.
Its weird how they don't show sub numbers proudly in Legion
It looks like a paradox
this x 1000. It was so refreshing to just explore the world and participate in the adventure, without some obvious plot like every other expansion.
YaB0iJake totally agree
I like the fact that Mists is still alive. All the mounts available there mean a lot of people still farm the mats, still use the zones, something you don't see so much in other areas. I'd love to see new crafting mounts introduced that use old crafting materials from ALL the zones, something like 20 new mounts and to get them all you'll end up using mats from every expansion and almost every zone in the game. It would be something that would encourage more people to get out into the world again. I mean, sure, it would make the prices of everything explode, but they kind of do that anyway...
started playing in late vanilla, loved it and was hooked until late wotlk and then cataclysm. especially cataclysm when they changed the game so drasticly in terms of gameplay mechanics. then MoP came along it it really suprised me. i avoided it at release but then tested it out and it felt so...fresh. the zones and the lore felt like wow reinvented itself. it was awesome. sure it had content drought with the timless island and personally i didnt play until 4.2 was out. but it felt so rejuvenating compared to the other expansion and i think its a no brainer to say its the most underrated expansion of them all.
The expansion everyone started out hating then ended up loving :P
We didn't knew what we had untill we lost it, at least i still have my memories
MoP was gorgeous and they did an amazing job with the Pandaren and Monks.
It will always be the most beautiful continent
I disagree. MoP has the strongest storyline in all of WoW. Each faction has its own antagonists and its own saviors, and Wraithion’s Meddling is excellent. The problem is that the story is about emotional conflict. The ability to resist desires is a very eastern theme, and was very well done.
The conflict being internal instead of external stretched the kind of stories we expect from MMO’s, and I think for the better. By far my favorite expansion.
This. The world building and character moments in MoP were amazing. The NPCs didnt feel just like quest givers.
MoP is my favorite expansion. I just love the philosophic depth of it. The quote from the reveal trailer still gives me chills today. "For my kind, the true question is: What is worth fighting for?". When leveling new characters, reaching level 85 is super exciting, because I can go back to Pandaria! It's even better nowadays where you can completely ignore the shadowpan forest and the zone at the bottom (lol I've been there once). Kun-lai, Vale, valley and the jade forest are my favorite zones. They are breathtaking. The art style is insane, colors are stunning and the music... Can we please take the time to appreciate the MoP music? I still listen to it today when I study. It's so peaceful and beautiful.
Now for the monk class, its lore is so rich, and once again there is a lot of philosophy in the class and its gameplay! For example, when playing WW you need to plan everything and you can't simply spam the keys, it fits right into a monk's philosophy; calm and effective.
Pandarens...
I enjoy official a lot though. Battle for Azeroth looks like the best expansion yet tbh.
Much philosophy, such wow, very deep.
I mean yea the story was really original and development of the xpac story was what surprised me most (pleasently) but i really dont think that you can talk about any philospohical depth here sorry.
Now imagine all that without the damn Asian aesthetic.
Finally some one on my save wave length
I started playing in mists and I absolutely loved it :D
Same
same
Same
Same it was an amazing expansion then we got wod then we got legion which is just horrible imo
Me too.
I love my Pandas. They were more light hearted, but I think that's a plus. Honestly, goblins feel like more of a joke than they do IMO.
hard agree.
though i'm fine with joke races, so whatever
I loved that it increased furry posters in WoW :/
SOO was one of the greatest raids we've seen. I easily hold MoP in top 3 xpac.
lol How many xpacs do you think there were? Not saying I agree or disagree, but since Legion isn't finished yet, we can't really fully judge it. So there were 5 xpacs prior, and saying theoretically, MoP was 3rd ("in the top 3") out of 5 isn't saying much. "Hey honey, I bought you this nice dress. Half of them at the store were better, but I hope you like it!". SMACK
Doesn't make much sense to me. Like those who claim that Legion is "one of the greatest xpacs ever". There haven't been like 40 of them. *scratches head*
I have to disagree, I despise raids that are in multiple locations. A raid should be in one place, because it is a more organic experience. It is the same reason why I disliked the Dragon Soul raid.
Legion is already bad 3 months later the burnout was expected and there still is a content drought no broken isles and argus world quests are not content its a mediocre version of timeless isle and tanaan jungle. Only real difference is it got stale faster.
slb159 MoP was the Fourth expansion.
Ulduar was best raid.
I think people hated on MoP because of the setting and the pandas, but in reality MoP is 2nd only to wotlk.
No, they hated on MoP because it was capitalizing on Kung Fu Panda's success (It wasn't, Pandarens were around since Warcraft 3)
TBC > WoTLK > All the others
This video brought back a lot of memories. Mists was one of my favorite expansions, one thing that you didn't touch on in this video was the amazing leveling. You really felt as though you were progressing through the zones and following a story that you could eventually rally behind. It was very linear (with a little decision making), but this linearity helped everyone understand who the Pandaren are, why they are there, and who they are fighting (the Sha/Mogu/etc). And don't get me started on the varying landscapes, massive cliffs followed by deep open fields, water everywhere, hidden treasures, loaded with rares, etc. Amazing.
This expansion became my favorite over time. I loved it during its release and still love it. It somehow managed to defeat Wrath as my my number one favorite expansion.
I loved MoP from start to finish, never seen why anyone would dislike it. the only period i was bored was the 14 month SoO patch. I just kept myself entertained leveling new alts until wod.
MoP is my favorite expansion to date. The continent of Pandaria was ABSOLUTELY the most visually appealing and engaging in my opinion. Not to mention Throne of Thunder might be the best patch of all time.
Love the format and the subject matter. Would be cool to see other expansions covered. Keep it up!
Francsis! Error 37 Lol good times.
If Anyone wants to relive the expansion,Tauri is a excellent scripted mop server
I loved mists, everything about it. Especially the atmosphere of the zones!
MoP was a particularly experimental expansion that tried implementing a lot of new things, some of which worked and some that didn't. I had wanted playable Pandarians since BC got announced so MoP got me back at a time I had burned out from Cata. Overall I think it is one of the better expansions, and especially given what followed. I found all the Kung-fu Panda comparisons unfortunate given Blizzard created Chen and the Pandarian concept way before those movies.
Warlords of Draenor was better in Mist of Pandaria in many ways. I am sick of people trashing Warlords of Draenor because there were so many things about Warlords that was done just right. For starters, players took the world a lot more seriously in Dreanor, because Draenor wasn't overwhelmed with campy things like Vermin, Hozen, dollar store value symbolism, or other overly cartoony aspects in Pandaria. The instances in Dreanor were much better, because the instances required real team work, and you had groups communicating and working together instead of rushing through heroics in 10 minutes. It also helped that there were training grounds that prevented incompetent players from entering heroics.
WoD time travel conceit was a muddled concept to begin with and it had very little developmental support after release. It did some things well but overall it was received poorly, marking the sharpest decline in the game's history. Also Warcraft has always had a cartoony aesthetic, nothing in MoP was particularly out of place compared to the other races or places that exist in Azeroth.
It wasn't the cartoony part of Mist of Pandaria I had a problem with, it was the whole fact that you couldn't take the world seriously enough when you were in Pandaria. When you were in a Pandaria instance you fought giant rabbits, beer elementals, and a insultingly goofy storyline, while in Warlords of Dreanor, the humor was kept under control, and you fought Gronn, Magasaurs, demons, and Orc Warlords, that is what Warcraft should be like. Also, just because something is received poorly by the masses doesn't make it bad. Good game design is not based on popular opinion. One of the best MMORPGs was Asheron's Call, and not that many people played it, but it didn't change the fact that it was better that most modern MMORPGs.
Difference in tastes. I never found WoD dungeons terribly interesting while I enjoyed the MoP ones because of the lighter elements and it wasn't more of the same. Also something being received poorly by mass audiences is a definition of bad; that is not to say people can't enjoy it, but it doesn't make it good either. Good design is one that is enjoyable for most people and popular opinion is one of the few objective ways to judge that. I personally enjoyed many of the design choices of WoD but statistically speaking it did not perform and it was unable to sustain interest over its lifespan whereas MoP was able to gain subs over its.
You are wrong about good game design being based on it being enjoyable by the masses. Good game design is more complicated than that. It involves the complexity and effort being put into the game. You can not argue that Warlords of Draenor had a lot of work put into it, whether the masses liked it or not. I will also have to go back to Asheron's Call, perhaps one of the greatest games ever made. Most people in the gaming community despised that game, but it didn't change the fact it was a well done game with in depth mechanics, organic style of play, and a gameplay oriented combat system. Even though there were very few people who played that game, the community was respectable, mature, and helpful. That was the opposite of the community in the Wrath of the Lich King, which has the highest numbers of players and positive reception among the masses. The community during WotLK was immature, entitled, couldn't care less about the value of the content, and no one cared about the community. The moment when Blizzard decided to restore important concepts to WoW during Cataclysm and Warlords, these entitled players left in mass numbers. It wasn't Blizzard who as at fault, it was the other way around. As a true player who truly loves and appreciates WoW, I would rather see a low population of mature, helpful and patient players, instead of being stuck with 12 million players where most of them are entitled, and impatient. WoW doesn't need those people. I always stuck around WoW because I was loyal to WoW, and anyone who leaves WoW just because Blizzard does something they don't like have no business playing MMORPGs to begin with.
MoP was pretty good overall! Back then tho we didnt like it that much xD
Funny that. I think my position has shifted a decent bit over the years to being positive. (Something that didn't happen with Cata & WoD).
I loved MoP all the way through. I was salty and sceptical during announcement but the more info was pouring out the more I liked it, and from the release to 5.4 it was and still remains as the best x-pack in my opinion.
Spinexus k
Spinexus k
think reason why is because of Kung Fu Panda it was talked about and every where back then
I still visit Pandaria nearly daily on alts...for the farm mainly. Still growing cloth to make royal satchels for all my alts.
MOP was a breath of fresh air, we really could use an expansion like that now, I am sick of green and demons and all this gloomy shit, like really sick.
MoP was my favourite expansion then and is still my favourite expansion now. It was absolutely amazing. The sheer scale, the beauty, the questlines, the humour, the art and that MUSIC! It was incredible! I loved the idea that you could just explore and enjoy the world. There was also so much to do! So many mounts to collect and bosses to kill and the raids and PVP was awesome! I still listen to the soundtrack regularly. By far the best login screen apart from the WotLK one.
I miss this expansion so so much.
Mist is my favorite expansion hands down.
Swoody Mine too.
I really enjoyed MoP. I just liked the feeling of it, the art style , the gorgeous landscapes and mainly the really relaxing and chill feeling of the lore.
Thing I miss most about Mists of Pandaria... Chris Metzen! I think Ion is doing a great job, but no one will ever compare to Metzens rock star charisma.
Ion and Chris Metzen had different jobs. Chris Metzen was in charge of lore, while Ion was in charge of game design. During Mist of Pandaria it was Greg Street (Ghost Crawler) who was in charge of game design. I had nothing against Greg Street, but he did make some decisions that were destructive to the state of WoW that resulted in removing organic parts about WoW. Ion seems to be more considerate about having a more organic experience in WoW.
MoP had the best class design and Best PvP.
Valley of four winds still is my favorite zone to this day and timeless isle is considered one of the most if not best endgame zone by a lot of players.
But the majority of players hated Timless Isle and Isle of Thunder...
@@Kpazz Based on what? I didn't know anyone that disliked Isle of Thunder, I saw people going to Isle of Thunder well past the need to do it. Timeless isle wasn't quite as universally well liked but it was far from hated too, except maybe by the casual players on PvP servers getting 1 shot by heroic geared raiders cause Blizzard kind of forgot about world pvp values being insane.
There are two kind of people. Those who like Pandaria and those who don't know how to have fun.
More like... the KIDS who like the pandarians and just started playing. Then we have people who have played wow from Vanilla or TBC....
I had fun... but the theme of the expansion certainly took away from my enjoyment. Throughout the expansion I kept thinking... what on earth were they THINKING!
Last time I checked Warcraft isn’t fun. It’s bloody and rough. Seriously tho it’s night and day. Fuck Kung fu panda.
but pandaren is from warcraft 3, even before kungfu panda, checkout chen stormstout
Ganking pandas is fun I hate them
I NEED PART 2 ASAP! Amazing video (as always). I also would love to see a little bit of 'review' of the raids, how was the difficult and what they did right and wrong.
Tbh krasarang wilds is my fav zone. And I really like Towlong aswell. To me MoP is the expension I have the most font memories off, I only started late wrath but I really loved MoP
Great series! Very nostalgia inducing. I loved MoP to bits and was a really good year in real life as well so I'm quite fond of that time and getting home, building a guild from scratch and playing with new found friends. Ah I miss those times.
My FAVORITE expansion!!
MoP xpac was the best thing I've ever experienced, the content was never boring, plus Pandaria was really stunning and beautiful. Especially the detials that stood out from all expansions in terms of raids, dungeons. Also worth to note that leveling was quite immersive.
Not to even mention that MoP is my second on the list in terms of the best xpacs of all time.
Have a nice day Bellular!
Thumbs up for the Metz. God, I miss the guy.
I still hold out a fleeting hope that he'll be at BlizzCon.
Enrique Bernardou -- No, he's ruined WoW, his head has gotten extremely large thinking he's a narrative god. He's not, he's a terrible writer.
Real Talk: Mists was my second-favorite expansion after Wrath. It got a lot of shit, but did so much new, interesting stuff, and managed to introduce brand new things, and then tie them back to the broader lore of Azeroth with the Y'Shaarj reveal (or even before; anyone who ran Ulduar back in the day saw it coming as soon as they got to Elegon).
Every raid in Mists had interesting, new, fun elements to it that made all of them unique in their own ways. Name a raid boss as kill as Will of the Emperor or Garalon or Spoils of Pandaria. Absolutely amazing stuff.
The setting was gorgeous, fresh, and well-realized (except the Townlong Steppe; that place can burn). Scenarios were a cool new feature that's been expanded on greatly. People gave the farm shit, but it's nice to have access to some materials without having to go out and "farm" them in the real world, especially if you have a job. The talent change made the system streamlined to the point where we can pop in and out of situational choices now which has altered the way character builds and encounter design has shifted.
Mists really did some amazing stuff to the game and it's a shame the start was so rocky, because it's one of the most consistently good expansions.
I was kind of burned out on WoW when MoP came. I leveled, did some dungeons, had my fun, and you probably can tell by my avatar I'm quite biased on Pandas, I loved the setting, the art style was amazing, the mythos were new and interesting, but having left raiding during Cata because of studies and losing contact with my guild meant that I kinda missed on the endgame content. The most I did was LFR, twice each raid at most, and for me LFR was alright to see the raids and the bosses, but without the strugle and having a guild, they end being forgettable for the most part.
Regardless of the problems, I liked MoP because it felt new and fresh, Cata had its problems, but I liked the world revamp. I'm one of the few who legitimately likes leveling alts and the old zones revamp were cool with unique storylines, again, can't say about the end content, but personally that's what I took from it.
Then Warlords came and it felt SO unnecessary, the things I liked the most was the intro to Draenor, the cutscenes and the race model revamps, everything else felt so forgettable and unnecessary. It didn't bring much new in terms of story, didn't expand the world, and the whole "alternate reality" is still so forced and confusing, In the end it didn't feel like it left a "legacy" to the game overall.
I don't know if I expressed myself properly, by the end I felt like I was just rambling
I've been on since pre-vanilla beta and this was my favorite expansion :) so pretty!
You better know that 14 month drought happened because they were working on the best expansion to ever be made by Blizzard for all time.
To be fair WoD was originally going to be a gigantic expansion similar to Legion, it wasn't like they were just being inefficient.
I have been playing since Cata and MoP to this day is my favourite expansion. :) Excited to see what’s up next!
Blizzard went wrong when they expected every gamer to be an end game player. If only the top 1% are true end game players (think: sunwell, BT, MC at their release)and the rest are trying to reach the end game, everyone will be happy.
Wow is nothing but a miniature society showing that if everyone can have everything, noone want's it anymore.
thats a good line at the end.
Great series! Has me hyped for the next one. As a player who took a lengthy year long break from wow during MoP Im really sad that I missed one of wows greatest raids in ToT. Ive taken breaks before during bad tiers like Totc and DS but I regret missing the entirety of ToT everytime I run that place for transmog.
It’s been 5 years O.o
I was having my son during launch but Island of Thunder patch redeemed a lot for me. That and the hunter rare pets we had to track, Darkspear Revolutionary event-riding with Vol'jin "No sleep til' Orgrimmar!" was one of my favorite moments in game ever.
i loved mop
great mini series! hope you do this for all the expansions :D that would be alot of great content to watch
Played since launch of original Naxx and Cata was the only time I unsubed . Mists is what brought me back to wow so I only have fond memories of this one
I jumped fully into Mists of Pandaria when it came out. I Loved that expansion from beginning till end. The little farm in the Valley of the Four Winds helped me to get through one of the deepest points in my depression. I found a love of gardening thanks to Mists of Pandaria and I have embraced that into my career.
Do mists 10 years later!
Everyone has their favorite expansion based upon what stages they were going through with their guilds and personal life outside of WoW. That being said, Mists was my favorite expansion. Legion has been good, too. Something that wasn't talked about in this video was the 10 or 25 man raiding system of Mists (as well as Cata and Wrath). This is something I sorely miss. We did very well with our 10-man team in both normal and heroic content in Mists and had a lot of fun doing it. Most of the raiders I knew took part in smaller, more intimate, enjoyable teams. When Warlords introduced the 20-man system for mythic raids, it was a giant problem for guilds like ours that were no longer allowed to participate in that end-game content unless we overhauled and changed who we were as a guild. I would say 95%+ of the people on my bnet friends list who were great heroic raiders in Mists stopped playing during Warlords and didn't come back, not even for Legion. Blizzard threw smaller guilds and 10-man raiders under the bus in Warlords and continued with that model in Legion.
6:44 Mists was released 2012.. not 2013..
Yep! That's what I wanted to say, I was very confused when he said that, jumped a full year ahead.
MOP was by far the most beautiful expansion and combine with the music soundtrack kept me playing. The Troll rebellion also was an incredibly emotional turn. Playing a horde and riding into battle with the troll army against Garrosh gave me a chill and kept me coming back for more.
Best expansion ever. Miss TOT raid ;(
Lightning, seek my foes!
Thumbs up on this one mate. Very nice series and can't wait to watch the content! :)
Bring back MoP Arms warriors :(
yeah none of this garbage legion arms warrior that plays like shit
enh shamans...
I had played for years with different groups of people both IRL and people I met in WoW. But in mists, during the prepatch I met the people who to this day have changed my life. Some of the most relaxed, or funniest nights I have had have been with those guys and we formed our own 10 man guild in Mists of Pandaria. If WoW tried to reinvent itself in Pandaria IU think it did a good job. Ahead of the Curve and Cutting edge, I.e the raid changes were epic and I feel the system of Mythic now would never have happened for but the testing they did in MoP.
Mogu'Shan vaults was a great raid and for me as the raid leader trying to assemble a raid team in this very low difficulty environment made it very easy. Then as we moved on through to SoO and saw more rewarding mechanics we gelled as unit.. I will never forget killing seigecrafter heroic (mythic now).. That was the real endboss for me :P
I'd take the MoP style dailies over the Legion ones any day. Once you hit exalted they ended. There was a goal. Now its just go out and do these to get AP that never ends.
Love to watch this kind of videos. Would love to see a series for each expansion!
MoP was amazing. I miss the feel of the expansion. Legion had it's great points, but I'm getting tired of the linear questing experience.
Love where you're going with this series. Perfectly explained.
BEST. EXPANSION. EVER.
I only ever played wow for a year in mop so much nostalgia i remember getting to like level 20 then getting bored with my class and race and start again.
Obviously Mop is already better than Legion I mean the quest zone wasn't shite and dailies were simpler now its like do this world quest and keep doing them till you eventually run out.
I loved MoP because of the (at least at the beginning) light hearted theme and the exploration of a place we had never been before.
For me, the Sha were always an interesting concept that was implemented terribly. Seven themed baddies connected with negative emotions that feed and breed their own name-sake sounds really cool until you think about it: Why weren't the Sha running rampant around Pandaland before the Alliance and Horde got there?
Was it the increase in population of sentient and empathic beings in Pandaria? I hope not, because the initial expedition to Pandaria was tiny, one bumper crop in the Valley of the Four Winds and you'd easily have enough food to fuel a generation of pandas to trigger it. Did they forcefully euthanize to keep the population down below the tipping point? And how the hell would they know what the tipping point was without going over it once or twice?
Was it the conflict that the Horde and the Alliance brought to their shores? I really don't think so, because there was a regular threat and reality of war all along the Serpent's Spine. Every so often you'd have masses of Mantid pouring up and over the spine (who, at least the sentient ones, directly serve the Sha) and go on an absolute rampage. This was such a large, recurring, and serious problem that it was the Mogu back during the Thunder King's days that built the spine. A conflict that cuts a continent in two is not one without strong cultural, economic, and emotional impacts. And considering one of the Sha is dispair, how did it not seep out during any of the previous conflicts stretching back ten-thousand-goddamn-years?
Or let's not ignore the fact that the Mogu never went away. One of the dungeons in MoP was assaulting the seat of Mogu power INSIDE the vale of Eternal Blossoms. They were still murdering, torturing, kidnapping, enslaving, and brutalizing Pandaren, Hozen, Saurok, Jin-Yu, Grummel, and any other race they could catch. Are you telling me a constant state of guerilla war wouldn't evoke strong enough negative emotions to stir up their avatars?
And then think of the places that the Sha were able to pop up: In the temple of the Jade Serpent, (The August Celestial of Wisdom,) The Temple of the Red Crane (The August Celestial of Hope,) The Mantid Empire, (Servants of the Old Gods and their children) and In the Shadow-Pan, (an organization specifically created to supress the Sha.) For the Sha to appear in the Mantid is to be expects, what with their service to the Old Gods and their children, but a strong Sha presence in any of the other locations shows how easy it was for the Sha to erupt. The Shadow-Pan had TWO of the Sha infesting their organization, the Sha of Violence is a boss in the dungeon Shadow-Pan Monastery, and Taran Zhu was possessed by the Sha of Anger. Wouldn't organizations and temples dedicated to fighting the Sha be more effective? Wouldn't temples dedicated to aspects that were the polar opposites of the Sha provide better protection against their influence?
Really cool concept, but the execution made no goddamn sense.
Didn't Yu'lon tell us that they'd been getting worse and worse over time (Old God stuff slowly regenerating and all that crap), and we basically just forced what was already a growing problem?
Things That Don't Matter yes, we forced it, idk why is this guy trying to complicate it
I think the main difference of that would be that the pandaren fought their battles out of self-defense with the hope of establishing peace/equality in their wars, often times against animal like opponents such as the mantid whom they had no need to establish peace with anyways, while the alliance/horde fought each other out of hatred/bitterness held in their hearts due to their grudges, so while both may have been fighting, one did it with positive/neutral emotions and the other with negative emotions in a large mass, which would tip many parts of pandaria over the edge to release the sha
I for one love Krasarang Wilds. It really feels like a jungle. The excelent audio in that area plays a large role in that.
Krasarang Wilds was a beautiful zone until the Landfall patch.
It seems I am one of the few who absolutely loved Cataclysm. As a vanilla player, I loved seeing the original world I loved reworked and improved and all those mysteries and unfinished areas I was curious about finally being opened up. I also loved the zones and the questing and the story, was a huge fan of the dragonflights. All of the zones felt really unique and interesting to me and was very happy with the two new playable races.
best expansion.
I love this!! Keep your content up and have found most entertainment in WoW content videos from you
Nothing about our lord and savior Xelnath?
Really he appears in part 2.
YES. RIP XELNATH, YOU WILL NEVER BE FORGOTTEN. WE MISS YOU EVERYDAY.
The only class designer to 'get it' and every single person just stole from his original ideas for each class revamp/redesign for the rest of time. Oh and they destroyed his original designs literally 1 xpac after he was fired, warlock has seen only worse design ever since MoP which is kind of pathetic on Blizzard's part.
@@Outwardpd Personally,as a life long lock-player, i think warlocks peaked in WoD. But it's clear that his work was the reason they could peak as high as they did.
Honestly, MOP is what brought me to WoW, loved the expansion, and loved WoW ever since, great video by the way, brilliant analysis as always.
Aaaaand see you next time
Good expansion
Bad community
Mists had the best raiding experience. The mood and art direction along with an excellent soundtrack made playing mists my second favorite next to Wrath.
The best one :)
Mists of Pandaria was my favorite expansion. I thought all the zones were beautiful.
I see a lot of people praising mop, but I'm on the side of "Nah. That's not my Warcraft." MoP was too light and fluffy and full of memes. How I pity the Horde having to deal with the Hozen. For example, look at the Death Knight starting zone. That is one of Blizzard's greatest creations in my eyes. There was good, quality, subtle humor hidden here and there but it didn't clash with the dark theme. Ultimately, I think MoP just didn't give people a world that was very inclusive. If I want to be a kung fu panda, that's fine, but don't take away my ability to be a soul reaping death knight, essentially making me feel like I don't belong in the game at all. As a last little positive note, the only content I really thought was well designed was the Throne of Thunder patch. It had a compelling story arc and an interesting antagonist. A much better step up from playing a farming game where the town is in danger from talking bunny rabbits.
CRAWLING IN MY SKIN!
I think WoW needed some peaceful time. Chasing a new villain and trying to save the world over and over got pretty stale. MoP gave us some unique fresh experience, there was no global threat, so we just came back to exploring and helping some peeps, just like in low lvl zones. Yep, non-stop bloodshed is what makes Warcraft, but when Warcraft makes a pattern and follows it strictly for many years, it gets pretty boring.
A lot of the lore surrounding Pandaria is pretty dark.
MoP was not light and fluffy and it wasn't even meme age back then
Mists is probably my favorite expansion besides Legion. I started in mid-to-early wrath, and nothing really managed to blow me away like Northrend did until MoP. That was the expansion that made me interested in the lore of the game, got me excited to participate in dungeons and raids, and explore. That was the expansion that made me a better player, and I still get chills when I return back to Pandaria every now and then.
As for the daily quest overload; I'll admit that there was a lot of factions to grind out, but I never understood why anyone would be dumb enough to do all of them at once. Especially with the massive content drought of 5.4, I went slow and did one at a time. Even at my snail's pace, I completed all of them with plenty of time to spare.
The problem is that wow is a watered down game that has zero identity anymore, it doesn't feel like mmorpg where you build your character and story, your thrown into the game at near max level as some grand crusader king commander god, played for 11 years and legion ended wow for me, I want to create and mold who I am, wow simply has no design for you do that outside of rp addons
WoWbyTPK I agree to a certain extent, but I'll have to disagree with your "build your own story" argument. I don't think wow ever strived to make you anything other than just another cog in the machine until wod with garrisons. I think I preferred it that way. Everyone running around with the same weapon because they went through what was essentially a single player campaign is immersion breaking, to say the least.
EXACTLY MY POINT, you were your own cog that chose what you did and was rewarded for it, players could discern you by your gear , title, content finished because servers were communities, you knew they players and how they differed , The game since cata has turned into a single player campaign with millions of clones running with you, IF you played in vanilla then you would know players VERY MUCH SO had their own story, and the server helped fuel who you were, I mean unless you were a unsocial player and that is your fault or prerogative
As a fan who loved pandas since warcraft, it felt amazing to come back to wow after all these years and play one. Wish he was horde though. Regardless, playing a panda made you feel like you were apart of the lore. It was a joy to complete a set for transmog and really get an idea of what a panda would look like in the wow world. That luster fell in the next expansion when they made it class specific instead of race. I played warlords of draenor as an orc and it just didn't feel right. What should felt like a homecoming felt like a grind. Today it feels like that in BFA.
i started to hate wow after wotlk,because of the lost content.
And now what,13 years of lost content,and legion is a cod singleplayer camping.
I want legacy servers
Even today Mists is such a refreshing change from Cata while questing. The biggest reaction seemed to come from many who didnt know or realize Pandaren had been around longer than WoW.
5 years later and Pandaren and Monks still least popular xD
Too much kids = humans and orcs.
Vladimir Olegovich true, true... but guess I'm not better since I only play small races, because they seem to run faster and fight bigger enemies xD
They don't run faster though, and the enemies are only bigger because you're smaller.
I just rerolled a monk and it's a blast to play lol.
Vyntage yeah, I know. Also Tauren aren't slow, it just seems slower. But I still think that being small still has it's pros. Always feel half invisible as gnome or dwarf in pvp... and Gnome melee kinda feels like people have problems to get behind me or keep me in front of them.
Love these mini-series, Bellular!
MoP is still my favorite expansion overall (been playing since vanilla). I remember taking it as a message to WoW players to chill the fuck out.
I started playing on live right at the end of MoP. Didn't really notice much of the expansion as I was too busy levelling up, but the Jade Forest has absolutely grown on me and I still enjoy the storyline there immensely. Also I think that in terms of graphics and scenery MoP was one of the best expansions. Of course technical progress and all that jazz is a thing, but... y'know :D Anyway, really enjoying this series so far, would love to see more of it!
I love the lightheartedness, fresh color scheme, and the outlandish feel of the world. Reminded a bit of the feing i had with TBC. It Fell short though on the typical wow issues of the post wotlk era
I loved MoP. I've been power leveling a hunter and just got back to Pandaria and have slowed down to go through the zones and quests again
Best thing about the Jade Forrest was the 80s style Montage! Loved it!
I started in Wrath and then came back for every expansion. When I came back for Mists, it was at the end, but I absolutely loved it. Leveling was so fun for me and I seriously dig the Chinese aesthetic. I still go back and fly around just to be there.
Mists will always have a special place in my heart. I loved the landscape, the story, everything. It may not have been a legendary villain like WoTLK...but it was a 'whole new world' (sup Aladdin) and a very welcome breath of fresh air. I'll always remember the immense fun I had in it and frankly the bit of sadness I had when moving on to the tragedy that is Warlords.
Great video, I really like the concept and would love to see it become a series.