A short period of time after I started playing, the latest and greatest Expansion, Mists of Pandaria, was released. Pandas have been somewhat of an Easter Egg thing for the series (I think) for a while. I know that in Warcraft 3 anyway, there was something to do with Pandas which was optional. They now get their own full on debut for the world of Azeroth.
The day of it’s release, Pandas popped up all over. They were running all over the place doing quests and leveling up as quickly as they can. Later, when I started playing dungeons, they were present there aw well. It’s actually a little annoying as 90% of the Dungeons I play consists of me and my Blood Elf, plus four Pandas doing spin kicks. Ok, technically one of the Pandas will be healing, since Dungeon parties are a Tank, a Healer and three DPS folks (Ramchan is DPS, but could maybe tank a lower level dungeon). I actually have no idea what makes a Tank a Tank exactly but Dungeons are a post for another day.
I did not buy Pandaria. I don’t really care about $60 Expansion Packs or playing as a Monk. All of the new areas are devoted to Level 85+ characters. I have no need.
I did however discover that I apparently can make Panda characters. I can’t make monks or go to the new continent, but I can create Pandarians with other classes. So I made a Pandarian Priest. This was in the middle of Brewfest so the plan was that he would be kind of a Friar Tuck sort, where he just runs around the world drinking. I also wanted to RP up the angle of everything being crazy exotic.
The reality is, I finished the starting zone and then never played him again, but that’s not really the point.
I really enjoyed the Pandarian Starting area. There is a great little narrative that leads you through some of the Pandarian Lore and ultimately culminates with you choosing Horde or Alliance. So far I’ve played the Blood Elf, Orc, Tauren, Dwarf, Undead, Death Knight, and Panda starting quest lines. I’d say the Pandarian line is the best one of those. The Tauren one seemed to just teeter out into nothingness and Blood Elf wasn’t very cohesive. The Dwarven line is alright but nothing amazing and the undead quests are mostly just kind of sill and fun than being real story intensive. The Pandarian line is nicely self contained and wraps itself up pretty logically.
Why haven’t I played the Panda again then? Well, I choose alliance and Alliance is just really boring to play.
