A recent press release
from Blizzard Entertainment reveals that Mists
of Pandaria will be World of Warcraft
Classic's first, and only, expansion.
World of Warcraft Classic is an alternate version of the MMO giant,
released in August 2019 to appeal to players who wished to play the game as it
was prior to the many paid expansions of the original. Since launch, many
players have been speculating if Blizzard would invest in legacy versions of
these expansions as well. The news broke this morning that the company was
interested in just that, but only for the fourth expansion, Mists of Pandaria.
Citing that the expansion
"appealed most to the company's current sensibilities", the press
release stated that Mists of Pandaria
was the only expansion they would add to Classic,
ever. It additionally revealed that though some beloved parts of previous
expansions would be kept untouched, like all lore involving Kael'Thas
Sunstrider, changes would be necessary to adapt to the sudden jump in content.
We have compiled a list below of the most notable points about gameplay fixes,
story alterations, and Blizzard's development plan:
- Garrosh Hellscream turns out to be a quadruple double agent who was on your side the whole time working against the real threat: All Your Favorite Characters, who have turned evil then died off-screen.
- All work on the expansion will be done in-house at Blizzard, as far as you know.
- The Forsaken race has been permanently removed from the game because skeletons are upsetting to the development of our youth.
- Blizzard plans to release a tie-in mobile game which will provide bonuses when paired with World of Warcraft Classic. They have faith this will be handled well given their longstanding respect and admiration for the mobile market.
- Male Blood Elf and Draenei characters will not be playable, which we mention since no one would notice otherwise.
- The Dazed debuff now has a 100% chance to occur from any direction, but only to casters, warriors below level 60, and the person complaining about it most in guild chat.
- Fixed a bug where Survival Hunters could deal damage.
- Due to the missing content between the original game and the current expansion, all existing characters will remain capped at level 60.
- To encourage healthy patriotism among its players, races are now region-locked depending on your country of origin.
- Skinning a bear will aggro every bear within a 40 yard radius.
- In-game chat has been disabled, as it may lead to statements that offend a portion or group of the public, or otherwise damages Blizzard's image. As a result, Goldshire and The Barrens have been removed from the game entirely.
Attempting to enter The Barrens
will instead show 40 hours of your character walking against a tan backdrop
while periodically opening random 4chan threads in your browser. It was months
before beta testers noticed the change.
After outlining these
major changes to the existing gameplay and story, the press release went on to address
changes to Mists of Pandaria
exclusive content, which they felt they had "not given the proper degree
of respect" in the initial run of the expansion. A summary of these
changes can be found below:
- Pandarens are now a hero class that starts at level 90 with a cap of level 300.
- A new epic mount will be introduced exclusively to characters level 90 and above: A fully-armed fighter jet.
- PvP is no longer enabled anywhere on the continent of Pandaria, as the Pandarens are a peaceful people untroubled by the forces of war or civil unrest.
- Pandaren's inherently superior craftsmanship means they start with every trade skill maxed.
- Characters that enter Pandaria will no longer be able to leave, as they will independently realize that no other country in Azeroth experiences such joy and prosperity.
- In the year 2020, we will continue to get away with naming our panda-men Pandarens from Pandaria.
- Characters in Pandaria will have any mail they send enhanced by the Pandaren Center of Communication Enrichment.
- Pandaren's dads can now totally beat up other races dads.
- A new racial passive for Pandarens increases damage dealt in direct proportion to how many Overwatch loot boxes you've bought.
- Pandaria has been renamed to The People's Republic of Pandaria.
Which country or
countries Pandarens will be region-locked to has not yet been revealed.
Personally, we're guessing Germany!
Blizzard concluded its
press release for Mists of Pandaria
Classic with an embedded video featuring a speech from company president J.
Allen Brack. A transcript of the speech is as follows:
"Here
at Blizzard, we hold ourselves to the highest possible standard at all times.
In a recent event, our community claimed our product didn't meet the
unrealistic standards they built for us based on our amazing track record. It's
hard to say if we've ever done anything approaching wrongdoing. But if we had I
would apologize, and accept full accountability for making speeches about it.
Because of our standards, which are very high, we vow to support our games after
launch. This is definitely not a normal thing every online game does, and if it
were we'd do it better. Because we're Blizzard, and we have high standards."
After this statement,
what appeared to be an aide came onscreen and had a whispered conversation with
J. Allen Brack. He clarified that they had confused their pre-launch speech
with their post-launch speech, after which the two laughed, said "Mondays,
right?" and swapped out some papers. A transcript of their second speech
is as follows:
"Everything is fine, buy Diablo 4."
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