Quote Originally Posted by Dublock View Post
You mention Ambitious here and then mention Cata.

You mean it wasn't ambitious to completely re-do levels 1-60? If you have not played a new alt since Cata it is amazing. Leveling has never been so much fun and interesting. Re-doing so much of the world, Blizzard deserves props and they did it well.
I did, and I don't agree. They didn't 'completely redo' 1-60, they changed a few zones. Azshara, Thousand Needles, I didn't go everywhere that got a facelift, to be sure, but at a rough guess, I'd say about 30% of the content I encountered had been new. New in the sense of not the same content I leveled through on one of my earlier alts, but certainly not that new in the sense that it was the same formulaic 'collect 10 unicorn hooves' fare I had seen in every expansion.

There were some cool zones in Cata, don't mistake me: I really liked the look of Deepholm, and I loved Vashj'ir. But the further along in Cata I got, the more dull everything became. Uldum, at least they were trying to do something interesting with the Indiana Jones homage, even though it was badly ham-handed and derivative, and Twilight Highlands was just bleah.

I don't see the big deal about creating a new world with its own set of problems. It is perhaps the most "creative" in the sense of being something completely different. You can argue that it doesn't match the rest of the WoW universe, but personally it doesn't hold much water.
Not sure what you're actually addressing here.

This is all speculation but I think they are going to set the stage with MoP to introduce more villains, I think (or hope) that there will be guys who appear and then disappear before we can do anything about it.
Of course they're going to introduce more villains. The question is, will the villains they introduce be vibrant, well-executed and entertaining? Will the places we're sent to battle them be engaging and fun?

Have you played the Beta? Honestly the introduction of the Panda race and the race as a whole is a lot more serious then say the Goblins. The only real argument that is "Its pandas, must be in-mature!" while ignoring all the new lore that surrounds them that portrays them as a serious race that deals with some mature concepts and issues. I fail to see how dealing with that worsens the IP as a whole. I would be much more willing to argue that Goblins as they were introduced as a whole worsens the IP then the Pandas.
No, I let my account lapse back in December of last year out of sheer disappointed boredom, and you don't get a beta invite without an active WoW account. Goblins have always been in Warcraft, since the days of Warcraft II. They're a part of the property, and their role as comic relief isn't that troubling to me. It's the fact that the Pandaren ARE being taken seriously when they're aesthetically ridiculous that's got me annoyed. As a one-off bit of comic relief, Pandaren are just fine. Seriously, this whole operation is being taken over by the Furries, and I'm not okay with it.