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WoW: Mists Of Pandaria Feels Disappointing (At Least To Me)
“To ask why we fight is to ask why leaves fall”
By now everyone out there has seen the commercials for World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria. A lot of people have played the beta as well. I certainly did. What I can say is that Pandaria underwhelmed me. I have to admit and preface this with the statement that I am not most gamers. I have little interest in PvP or endgame content. I rarely do any group content.
When Cataclysm came out, I was thrilled, but that thrill rather rapidly turned to disappointment. The new character set up made me feel as if there was little choice in what I was doing, and that became even more apparent in Pandaria. Characters I had created back in Patch 1.6 no longer felt appealing to me. My nuanced characters now felt cookie cuttered and standard.
I have several high level characters, but beginning back in Lich King, I began to find myself uninterested in rerunning the content repeatedly. This got worse in Cataclysm and now, in Pandaria, I found myself not even wanting to make a Monk and level her.
The problem, for me, with Pandaria and Cataclysm is that there is now a sense that the endgame content is more important than the rest of the game. For a lot of players, that is true. People want the shiny gear at the end of the content and will do whatever they can to get it. There are people who will rush to become the first to hit the new level cap often by tag teaming a character to run it straight through the story content.
Take my comments for what they are, my comments. I will not be returning to Azeroth. I love my characters and I love the story. These now seem to be missing from WoW as the need to feed the endgamers seems to grow more important than giving me the ability to go through at a decent pace and enjoy the content.
8 Responses to WoW: Mists Of Pandaria Feels Disappointing (At Least To Me)
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Steve
September 29, 2012 at 12:45 am
Very impressed by your comments. I thought I was the only one who played WOW for the adventure, exploration and character development aspects of the game. I’m not into Raiding (don’t even know what the lure is for that except maybe for item idolatry)and have been playing since the beginning with little or no PVP interactions. I agree 100% that the last 2 expansions have been geared towards end game players — players who will play on long after the story content has been exhausted. Nevertheless, I probably will invest some time in the expansion. I’ve toyed around with the new talent tree system (pre-release)and my initial impressions are that the re-working of that system may make WOW a more enjoyable game to play casually.
LFen
September 18, 2012 at 8:14 pm
I agree. I played some of Cataclysm and enjoyed the PvE to a point but I feel my characters aren’t as interesting. I used to look forward to getting a new talent point each level and learning new skills. Now it is just endless questing. I’m bored and I feel like my characters have had strokes or something and lost much of what made them interesting to me. I’m not currently subscribed and I don’t plan on acquiring Mists. For that matter I’m sick of Blizzard charging for these expansions. They could just update the game after all they are raking in millions in the monthly fees. I think $15 a month should entitle players to new content without a $40 surcharge
Me
September 18, 2012 at 6:35 pm
Yeah, my entire guild of rl friends disbanded and quit right before Cataclysm. We went to rift and quickly got bored and quit that. Star Wars was a joke and didn’t bother with GW2. I love MMO’s, but guess my only hope is EQ Next.
Josh
September 18, 2012 at 6:17 pm
Well the fact of the matter being, your playing World of Warcraft which is an MMO and you basically said you do not enjoy PvP, or Raiding, or being in a group, largely what the game is about. A game can only be so fun when your playing a MMO by yourself and ignoring the multiplier aspect. At least thats what it seems your doing.
Bridgette P. LaVictoire
September 18, 2012 at 6:44 pm
Josh,
I do enjoy being in a guild and talking to my guild. What is more, for years, I enjoyed WoW without being reliant on the PvP or group content. I didn’t demand that WoW make the best gear available to me. All I ask for is a game that is more than just a rush to the level cap so that you can numb yourself playing endgame over and over again.
zizi
September 18, 2012 at 3:39 pm
I agree. I played WoW for several years, from the beginning to 2011. The last two years, I didn’t have as much time, so while I could level to 80 or 85, whichever was the cap, I could not get to the higher level dungeons as my gear score was too low. It was harrowing to repeat the same dungeons over and over and over in order to get the ability to improve the gear, and eventually the time was not worthwhile anymore. I missed my characters, and tried to log in again during a free week, but had the same disappointment and logged out after an hour of, again, one of those high level low gear dungeons…
WoW is moving at the pace to keep the speed grinders and high end content moving, and everyone else left in the dust. I’m really enjoying GuildWars 2 instead. However, I feel nostalgia for my Azeroth virtuality.
Sunburst
September 18, 2012 at 1:26 pm
The vanilla and bc days were memorable – not that I liked getting my butt kicked by murlocs but you know what? At least I know what a murloc is! Players today rush through with the least amount of effort and frankly the game has lost depth and passion. I seriously doubt any new players remember anything about their lower days because there isn’t anymore wiping (for instance sunken temple was a horrid place but when you got those darned statues turned in the right order woot!). So now we meander in our op gear and talents waltzing through Azeroth without much hinderance.. we no longer have to work for a level..sad sad.
Malazoth
September 18, 2012 at 1:07 pm
I stopped playing WoW in Cataclysm because of the cookie-cutter specs. As I said to my friends when I left the game, “There is now an insurmountable ontological chasm between my druid and me.”
Thanks for the honest review. I’m going to save my money and just stay out of Azeroth.