New expansion? Cue the nay-sayers

I’ve not been playing this game all that long when compared to others—just a scant 2 years all told—so I still find that there is a lot of fun to be had in it’s various aspects. I appreciate that having played it for longer some may feel a little more jaded by expansions that don’t quite meet their expectations but I well and truly don’t understand comments like these¹:

“While Blizzard DotA seems cool, that WoW expansion is absolutely lame. It truly does look like a Kung-Fu Panda ripoff. The Warcraft world is laughably bad these days.”—anon

“As a 7-year-long WoW player, I agree. The shark has officially been jumped.”—anon

“It would have take one HECK of an xpac to bring me back to WoW…this was not it. So long WoW forever!”—anon

I’m quite frankly astonished that people, having watched a short presentation and/or seen the numerous reports dotted about the web would be so quick as to write off WoW as lost.

What I saw when I watched the presentation was some seriously good looking scenery where the artists had absolutely nailed the oriental aesthetic they were aiming for. I also saw a new race of walking, talking Pandas with some highly expressive and polished animations. And you know what? That’s pretty much all there was to be seen. Personally I’m already looking forward to waddling around in the grass on my fat panda legs.

Next up is the new Monk class—masters of hand to hand combat, proficient in the use of all manor of martial art style weaponry and capable of tanking, healing and pew-pewing. I’m also looking forward to giving one of these guys a shot, if Blizzard have animated the combat moves even half as well as the various day-to-day things we saw in the video then crotch watching will surely get a whole lot more interesting.

Finally, there are a whole raft of tweaks and changes including a redesign of the talent tree system, the new companion pet battle system, challenge mode, battle scenario’s and, although not yet announced I’m sure, a new selection of raid instances in which my friends and I can wipe on trash.

I’m pretty damn excited by pretty much everything Blizzard has announced so far. So excited that I went right ahead and bought into the 12 month commitment—there’re some good times ahead and I’ve made certain that I’m going to be a part of them². I just don’t understand why some others don’t feel the same way.