Pandaren Not the Alliance Race
There’s a post over at Gaming Steve about the news from Blizzcon, and an interesting bit about the possibility of the Alliance race being Pandaren.
Why not the Pandaren? Why are so many other sites reporting the Pandaren as the new Alliance race?
When the editors of the gaming magazines were brought to Blizzard’s offices to view The Burning Crusade for the first time, there were dozens of posters and artwork depicting the Pandaren as the new Alliance race. At the time Blizzard was 80% certain that the Pandaren were going to be the new Alliance race and it was presented as such. However, due to various complex reasons, there is now a zero percent chance of this happening. At best you might be seeing non-killable Pandaren NPCs in the game.
Could this change at all? Could the Alliance get the Pandaren?
Well, anything is possible, and Blizzard is famous for changing their mind about … well, everything! But considering the charged political reasons surrounding this issue I do not believe that Blizzard will change their mind on this decision.
Key bits being “charged political reasons” and “you might be seeing non-killable Pandaren NPCs”. I’m guessing someone got up-in-arms about the killing of Pandas. Wow. That’s a political situation? It’s too bad. I would have liked to play as a panda. Of course, as one of the commenters on the Gaming Steve post pointed out, it would make the Alliance/Horde player imbalance even worse. Though the suggestion that the Alliance should therefore get an “ugly” race is just silly. Why add a race if no one is going to want to play it? They should add a race people want, otherwise just stay home.
Heartless said,
November 2, 2005 @ 5:23 am
I actually thinks its a game population balance reason. Panderans are by far the most popular race in Warcraft lore… if you don’t believe me then explain why 90% of fan sites have some sort of panderan skin available on their forums
If Panderans were introduced people would want to play them more than Blood Elves. Why? Because Alliance have Night Elves already… so at best the already undersized horde population may try Blood Elves, but not Alliance. Why would any Alliance roll up a Blood Elf anywhere when NE are available to them already?
Blizzard claims Horde is underpopulated due to the lack of *pretty* races… which may be the case, but introducing one now is not the right answer. UD is the most popular Horde race and for obvious reasons. Great reacial abilities and just a cool feeling about them. Night Elves are popular on Alliance for the same reasons.
Also UD and NE each have their own unique areas dedicated to them. All the rest of the races share boring (IMHO) lands.
Horde would switch sides to play as a panda in a heart beat… just to try it out. Alliance won’t be doing that for Blood Elves. At first… yes everyone is going to try out new races… but they won’t be sticking.
If Alliance get Panderans… expect a bad population problem to get much worse.
Tara said,
November 2, 2005 @ 11:47 am
Then why not make the Panderans for the Horde? There’s some story that would make that work, and it’d really help the imbalance problem. Way more than Blood Elves. I totally agree that playing as a Blood Elf isn’t that exciting, though their racial attributes sound neat. I think there’s more here then just an imbalance problem behind the decision on Panderans.
Yeah, and unique starting areas is key. As long as there are new starting locations, I’ll keep rolling up and starting new characters. The first 10 levels fly by and it’s sometimes a nice break from being stuck to try something new and rewarding.
Guido said,
November 2, 2005 @ 1:25 pm
Aww, if there really are a few “don’t kill pandas” enthusiasts stopping the Pandaren from becoming an alliance race, it’s about the worst service they can do to the pandas. Yeah, people say they “hate gnomes”, but nobody ever would go and kill a real gnome because of that! Do they think killing pandas in a video game would make people go on a panda rampage?
Anyway, I’d have loved Pandaren in WoW. Sure, it would have had such a big appeal that the blood elves wouldn’t have been the “coolest new race”, but then, I won’t roll a blood elf for anything else than checking out their starting area anyway
Oh, yeah, starting areas. Really important. However, the starting area for the undead may be on another continent than the one for all the other horde races, but you’re forced to go to the barrens before lvl 20 anyway
Tara said,
November 2, 2005 @ 3:07 pm
Really, the undead have to go to the Barrens? I haven’t played as them yet, so I don’t know. But couldn’t you go to the Hillsbrad Foothills and Tarren Mill? Or are there no quests there… That would be sucky. The Barrens does have a huge number of quests!
Haha, I really doubt anyone will be going on a panda killing spree. Especially because there are only about 1600 of them left in the wild. Sad. See factoids here. But I think it’s more about the symbolism involved, not the actual possibility of training people to kill pandas more effectively.
Ninefingers said,
November 4, 2005 @ 4:10 pm
Maybe they’ll do a Tiger race… so we can poach them! “Politically charged” my foot. So killing dwarfs (i.e. little people i.e. midgets) is ok? I don’t see munchkins having a hissy fit about it.
As for being a balancing issue, I don’t get it. On non-pvp servers it won’t REALLY affect anything. (besides Battlegrounds) As for PVP servers, what difference is one race going to make? If a server is massively scewed to one side, the addition of a race on either side isn’t going to make one bit of difference. And orcs are sexy…
Ninefingers
Tara said,
November 5, 2005 @ 12:45 am
Hahaha! “Orcs are sexy.” Nice. The concern with the population imbalance carries further than just the Battlegrounds. I’ve definitely noticed it in the Auction House, for instance. I play on Llane, which according to Warcraft Census has 2.5 as many Alliance has Horde. There’s so much less loot in the Horde side AH! And I imagine they limit the server population globally, not based on character allegiance, so that makes the Alliance parts of the world (Ironforge anyone?) more crowded. For example, I have another character on Dark Iron, which actually has more Horde than alliance (thanks to PvP Online and Ctrl+Alt+Del), and when I go to IF on that server vs. Llane, it’s noticably less crowded.
Oh, and I totally agree on it being silly to get upset about killing Pandas. But it has been suggested that the offended party is the Chinese government, and if they threaten to not allow the import of the expansion, that’s a mighty market closed off.
Malican said,
November 8, 2005 @ 12:19 am
Not sure I believe the claims that the political reasons are because the Pandaren’s would die.
I do believe the thought that it’s because all media released in China must be approved by the government, and that because the Pandaren has Japanese culture in it’s lore, that they would not allow it.
James said,
November 23, 2005 @ 12:43 am
Actually I think it’s because of China. I heard they would ban the game in China if pandas were made killable. Something about they’re not allowed to display killing of pandas over there in any way, even if it’s just a game.
I’m not positive but if that’s true, thanks a lot CHINA. For ruining it for the rest of the world.
Everett said,
December 24, 2005 @ 12:24 am
Pandarens = No (Think about it)
Tiger race = No (Blizzard’s not going to make a new race with no REAL history. Look at the Blood Elves)
Worgen = Possibly (Heard about that rumor from different places)
As for what I think the race will be, I’ll bet money on the Dranei. They have a pretty lengthy history and can be found in the game, killable.
Sexload said,
February 9, 2006 @ 8:13 pm
Man, someone bitching about killing Pandas? Endangered? Hell no they would make a damn fine burger. As for me, I’m all horde so anyone the alliance get’s will die from me and my Horde friends so anyone you guys get, beware.
Droid said,
February 26, 2006 @ 6:04 pm
lol i dont see Indians getting mad because the Allince is killing Holy Cows!i mean seriously i live in the south and every fucking kid at my school has a Tauren Character and most of them own cattle!
Artimus Fink Server 12 said,
March 25, 2006 @ 4:29 am
Well, communism has affected you. Enough said.
Satan man said,
March 31, 2006 @ 7:40 am
YEH THANX ALOT CHINA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Stupid idiots why are they saying not to kill pandas…theyre the ones killing them anyway by destroying theyre habitat. I say that the chinese government go cry me a river and the rest of us can enjoy playing with the pandas!
GO PANDAS!!!!!!!!!!!!=)=)=)
Ummmkay? said,
December 18, 2007 @ 5:47 pm
Why dont they let you play as Pandaren and Goblins and give them the option to choose sides?
Then they could make races like Goblins playable as well, and have them able to choose which side they support.
Anyone?
AnonymousWowFan said,
January 2, 2008 @ 7:42 pm
I do find the idea of giving the goblins the ability to choose sides an idea I’ve never heard of. But i do have questions on the details of what the goblins RACIAL capital will be and how they would choose sides but the idea is new and should be very well looked and thought over.
The pandarens is iffy because of chinas protest but to calm that change their background a small bit. That and the only real similarities between the pandarens and Real Life pandas is there fur colors and and that they can run on all four. To Fix the problem and ease protest Say they moved from there ancestral lands to an island and their Fur tanned to an Tanned orange looking color( If they turned brown they would look to much like the furbolg).
In conclusion to my statement I THINK that that adding the Goblins to pick a faction side is a wonderful idea and should be experimented with. The Horde would greatly benefit from getting the pandarens and i think if they are made playable they should go with the Horde or Given the ability to pick sides like a person would pick sides with he Aldor or Scryers but it should be a chain so they can prove their worth and it’d make the story more fun. So if the Horde ever gets the Pandarens then in my opinion the Alliance should get either a Rare type of Troll like the Horde got a different kinda Elf or Blizzard should throw a whole new race in altogether like the Dryads were a Unit in the Warcraft games available to the elves and were kinda like the centaur but not mean to everybody and they look like a Tauren-Elf instead of an ugly guy with Horse legs.
There’s what i think and if i made an impact on your view say something to Blizzard or post a comment response to mine. Have a nice day and Enjoy Wow.
P.S. Sorry my post is so long.
Willyamos said,
June 14, 2008 @ 5:04 pm
Why don’t they just make a whole new side. It could include Panderans, Centaurs, Goblins, and other stuff. It could be called the Brotherhood or something like that. The attraction of the Panderans would bring a lot of people to this side so the population of everything could even out.