Players Are The Real Villains in WoW: Mists of Pandaria

By Kevin Parrish
published

Chris Metzen talks about the story behind the Mists of Pandaria expansion pack, indicating that players will be the true villains.

Blizzard's Vice President of Creative Development Chris Metzen talked with PC Gamer about the upcoming expansion pack for World of Warcraft, Mists of Pandaria. He indicates that the players are the real villains in the story because they come to a peaceful island bringing corruption and death.

"The big hook to Pandaria is that as we roll up on the beach, all the hate and violence we bring as Alliance and Horde really kind of begins to make the Sha bubble up," he describes. "And the Sha is something that’s been contained for ten thousand years. It has been a very serene place, and of course our shenanigans break it, heavily."

"The weird psychology of players bringing the problem with them to a relatively untouched land was an interesting spin," he adds. "You always hope these things, as experimental as they are, play well. I don’t mean necessarily in terms of design, but that people get it, and run with it, and it feels engaging after all these years."

Later on, PC Gamer asks an interesting question about whether Pandaria's peaceful mentality will change the Horde and Alliance, or will these two factions simply invade the island, corrupt it, and then resume cutting each other down. Ultimately the MMORPG will always be about the Orcs warring with the Humans although there will be times when both factions realize that warring doesn't beget a lot of personal growth, that there are children to raise ad societies to build.

But in Mists of Pandaria, the factions are reminded of their true hatred towards each other.

"We’ve spent so long fighting alien demons and broken planets in Burning Crusade, the lord of death in Lich King, and the world literally falls out under our feet," Metzen said. "The Alliance and Horde have just been banging against events and reacting to all these mega-level chapters. With this one, they find themselves like, 'Oh, yeah, I hate you. We had to deal with all that stuff, but I hate you!' And that coming around again felt like the right beat for this time in the franchise’s history, or ongoing storyline."

He also admits that some of the designers have already left the team to go work on the new MMO "Titan." To read the full interview, head here.

Kevin Parrish
29 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Kryan
    Translated to honesty: "Yeah, so we couldn't really find a good lore niche, but then we remembered! Horde and Alliance can simply fall back to pre Warcraft 1,2,3 days and forget all the progress made to find common ground and stop fighting. I mean who wants peace? Oh and did we mention, the old area will remain unchanged, making NO sense at all...yup, NPCs in outland will say the same things they've been saying for 5 years."

    nah, it's over for me. goodbye WoW.
    Reply
  • The real villains of WoW are the developers who after Wrath decided to keep adding in more PVP content yet at the same time deciding to balance classes based on which class they were playing at the time or was featured prominently in the upcoming patch's lore. Which has led to the current version of the game where playing Rogue is like walking around with an aim bot.

    Reply
  • tacoslave
    skyrim
    Reply
  • amplifiedesg
    Because they most likely started putting their A-class MMO talent onto Titan years ago; WoW just feels so uninspired now! The game is dying all be it slowly, but it is limping inevitably to its demise. I just hope they don't totally burn and salt the hallowed ground of the Warcraft series as they continue to rape and pillage Wow's dying corpse.
    Reply
  • memadmax
    If(not bored out of mind yet == true) {
    1:Sit in SW;
    then;
    2:Start Random Que;
    then;
    3:Sit in SW;
    then;
    4:Hit Alt-Tab;
    then;
    5:Watch movie/whatever;
    then;
    6:Wait for Random que to pop;
    then;
    7:Do Random que for approx 45 mins;
    then;
    8:Leave Random, sit in SW;
    end if;}
    If(Bored out of mind){
    1:Hit Alt-F4
    end if;}
    Reply
  • blazorthon
    With how badly Cata nerfed the game more than Wrath did, I find it utterly too easy to play. Even in Wrath I could take my level 52 paly and kill stuff 6, 7, 8, even 9 and 10 levels higher than my guy despite the fact that I was wearing level 30-45 gear. Now Cata is far easier than even that and I find it impossible to justify paying for that. Also, with the way that Blizzard ruined my PVP talent specs by forcing us to not go half and half like most proper PVP specs were, they took away a lot of the fun from one of the few fairly challenging things to do besides soloing five man dungeons that are my level.

    Now a lot of the players that haven't already left are poor players that can't fight back even when they have far better gear that PVP is now almost as boring as the rest of the game. Honestly, I can't justify paying for the subscription anymore. At least Wrath had more fun PVP like beating out the idiot players two or three at a time even when they have far better gear than me in Arathi Basin, Alteric valley, Strands of the Ancients, and other battlegrounds (but not Warsong Gulch, I've just never liked that one).

    memadmaxIf(not bored out of mind yet == true) {1:Sit in SW;then;2:Start Random Que;then;3:Sit in SW;then;4:Hit Alt-Tab;then;5:Watch movie/whatever;then;6:Wait for Random que to pop;then;7o Random que for approx 45 mins;then;8:Leave Random, sit in SW;end if;}If(Bored out of mind){1:Hit Alt-F4end if;}
    The random dungeon wait times are only that high for DPS only players. As a tank and healer, I've never waited more than 5 minutes and the wait was usually under 20 seconds. The problem there is that there are far more DPS players than there are healers and tanks, some DPS players wait much longer than tanks and healers.

    amplifiedesgBecause they most likely started putting their A-class MMO talent onto Titan years ago; WoW just feels so uninspired now! The game is dying all be it slowly, but it is limping inevitably to its demise. I just hope they don't totally burn and salt the hallowed ground of the Warcraft series as they continue to rape and pillage Wow's dying corpse.
    Couldn't agree more. Blizzard opened up WoW for casual gamers and people too stupid to learn to play, so the hardcore players are continually leaving the game for other games to play. WoW loses subscribers by the thousands each week or month and Blizzard really should get a clue.
    Reply
  • blackbke
    All things considered, WoW has done a pretty darn good job. Do you know any other game that's 7 years old and still tops the charts? I don't.

    That being said, the downturn of the game is a fact. And it's inevitable. Even the most fun stuff in life becomes dull and boring if you do it all the time. No expansion pack can bring back the joy of your first WoW toon. Not because vanilla WoW was so much better, but because it was your first WoW experience. That first experience has now long faded, and no matter what Blizzard does, it won't come back.
    Reply
  • billybobser
    So I could save the world by not doing anything. Therefore quitting the game is beneficial to saving pandaria,

    interdasting....
    Reply
  • blackbke
    blazorthonWith how badly Cata nerfed the game more than Wrath did, I find it utterly too easy to play.citation]
    When Cata came out it was pretty darn difficult. Mobs hit a lot harder so I could only take 2 at most (as an spriest that is). Dungeons were very challenging and hard to heal, especially heroics. There were hundreds of threads with people begging Blizzard to nerf the content.

    Now almost 2 years passed, 2 major patches passed, available gear got a lot better... what did you expect, that everything would remain as hard as it used to be?
    Reply
  • ironmb
    Let's be honest, the graphics are completely outdated, PVE content is dumbed down, PVP is the same thing over and over and over. Sitting in org/stormwind till something cool happens. The game is dying, it may still be the top MMO, but its definitely dying. I can't find myself to come back to WOW with this new expansion. I was a pvper, and nothing else, glad was my only option every season.. but MOP just looks like a bag of rubbish that blizzard is pushing out to get one good milk from the "zombie" customer base.

    Everyone should look into a new MMO, SWTOR is a good game, very good potential. WOW is done for me.
    Reply