'World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria'; Mixed Reviews of New MMO Expansion
World of Warcraft has many loyal subscribers who now have their hands on a new expansion which looks to bring in more players to the game.
World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria, the fourth expansion for the hit MMO, released on Tuesday.
The new game brings a higher level cap, a new character class and an entire new race to play.
The new race is one of the biggest draws for players as they want to explore the world of the Pandarens, giant Panda-like warriors. They'll now have access to a new island to play with the new race which won't be aligned with either the Alliance or the Horde factions from the start. The new race will be faction-neutral for their first 10 levels to give a little more freedom for players.
Some of the early reviews of Mists of Pandaria have been mixed.
Tecca was impressed with the game's changes, calling it "a friendly, more open experience" and applauded the new looks.
"Beautifully animated with entertaining, fun quests, Pandaria reimagines the usual online role-playing game fare," the review stated. "You quest, kill monsters, and collect baubles just like you do in most games, but you do it an incredibly lovely setting."
PC Gamer hasn't shown much love for the new playable race. "It's not ... particularly thrilling so far," they say, adding that the Pandarens aren't "a joke race, but they're definitely very kiddy."
The gaming giant has seen a loss in subscribers since their last expansion was released with 3 million deactivated accounts since 2010's Cataclysm broke sales records.
Part of that loss has come amidst criticisms that new content doesn't arrive quickly enough. Mike Morhaime, Blizzard president and co-founder, says that could be changing soon.
"One of the things we're doing in MoP ... is we've introduced scenarios, which make it easier for us to add content to WoW more frequently," he said in a launch-day interview with the Orange County Register. "I think that's important because we'll be able to add these scenarios more and more frequently than we've added content to the game in the past."
