Mists of Pandaria Will Probably Bring Me Back to Wow

For the first time in its nearly 8 year lifespan, there will be an expansion pack release this coming September that I am not super gung-ho and excited about. I have a long and colored past revolving around World of Warcraft, and to this day I can stay with pretty good certainty that it is far and away the game that I have spent the most number of hours on over my gaming career. Some of my favorite gaming related memories, and darkest saddest parts of my life are completely centralized on the thousands of hours I have spent conquering evil and exploring the world of Azeroth. It is because of that dichotomy of nostalgia and hatred that I finally quit the game cold turkey a little less than a year ago, and why I will also likely be going back some time after Mists of Panderia.

There is a lot of talk in the games industry and amongst the MMO playing population that World of Warcraft is dying. Horror stories about millions of players, the entire population of other MMOs, leaving WoW or just the MMO space in general. While this obviously is something to be noted, I wouldn’t consider that meaning the game is dying, and even if it is, who cares? Blizzard entertainment is working on a new MMO, and the game has been out for almost 8 years and even AFTER millions of players left, it is still far and away the most popular MMO. Even a game like The Old Republic, which had the backing of an exceptionally large and talented development team, millions of dollars, a MASSIVE existing fan base in the Star Wars universe, and over 5 years of development time, and yet in less than a year is has already announced going free to play and has lost proportionally more population than WoW in less than one eighth of the time. So, with the environment of video games and the MMO space changing, its important for blizzard to do the same thing as they always do, but also do things a bit differently, exactly what I see for the Panderia expansion.

It has been almost two years since the release of the most recent WoW expansion, Cataclysm and despite regular downloaded content updates; the final endgame release of the expansion is already nearing a year old. For the ‘hardcore’ market of players, clearing the same endgame content for 9+ months can get excruciatingly boring, and when I was in that situation the only thing really keeping me around was the social aspects of playing with my friends, and the general security blanket of regularity that is scheduled raid time. So in the sense that the content is exceptionally dated, and everyone already has every character class to level 85, its right about time for a new expansion. A new playable race, a new class, a new continent, expanded level cap, all of the expansion pack essentials that will keep players playing and bring old players back. This is the case wherein they are doing all the same things as everyone expects from a new expansion, but at the same time there is more here than there appears.

The class they are adding to the game finally adds another healer to the roster, a must needed addition. The continent is a new and interesting chain of islands that has an Asian themed aesthetic that is a breath of fresh air when compared to the dark browns and reds that was Cataclysm. And the Pandaren, a race of silly drunk panda people (possibly my favorite fantasy race of all time) add something completely new to the mix in that you can ally with both of the game’s factions after the starting area. This is something that not only have we never seen, but also at one point Blizzard publicly admitted that they NEVER planned on doing.

In the case of this new and interesting content, even when built on the same basic ideas that the game has been crapping out since 2004, I know that I will eventually go back to WoW to play the Mists of Pandaria Expansion. I absolutely will not get back into raiding, but I can honestly say that I will likely level my main character up to max, start a panda monk and still probably put more hours into it than plenty of other games I paid a full sixty bucks on. I know it doesn’t make any sense, and I know I am paying money for more of the same, but the world is immersive, the story is actually interesting and Blizzard knows how to put out games worth my time. I know I can play the game, enjoy the experience and stop.  If you can grow up and play an MMO like you would every other game, enjoy it from time to time and move on with your life, I think you are a better gamer and person for it.