Mists of Pandaria

[halabar]

Next expansion? See MMO-Champ for the trademark filing.

Let the speculation commence. Real question is, will the pandarans be playable?..

[PsiVen]

...would be a hilariously clumsy and inept basis for an expansion.

My money is on epic hoax.

[Levantine]

Consider said it better than I could have on his Twitter. The evidence fits, but it'd be a ridiculously weak base for an expansion which leads me to believe its not.

[Sagara]

Same here.

WHere there was "burning... CRUSADE!", "WRATH, of the LICH! KING!" that was completely, 100% clear from the get-go, and "CATACLYSM" that I can still hear Metzen scream at the top of his lungs, we've been having expansions whose purpose and foil was very clear (I like to think that despite Deathwing being the Big Evil this time around, it's more about the Cataclysm itself that the big nasty dragon).

"Mist of Pandaria"... MMkay? Are the Pandaren going to go *evuuuuuuuuuulz* and begin an invasion in the name of... what? ANOTHER Old God (which would be cool in itself, btw)? The Emperor of Pandaria? The Zandalari trolls? The Legion? Azshara?

Despite all semblance of the contrary, my being prays for it being something else. ANYTHING else. Okay, maybe not "Rise of the kobolds". But you get the drift.

[halabar]

Keep in mind that the expected "Emerald Dream" is trademarked to kingdom come, so this might be the wrapper in which we see the Emerald Dream. After all, this expansion isn't named Maelstrom, allthough it is featured prominently.

[Sagara]

Indeed. After a good deep breath of de-raging, I'm now waiting for more info. A title is not much to strat from, so we'd best keep our eyes, ears and minds open to what's coming next.

It just feels... Y'a know... Odd?

[Dantriges]

Could be that they focus on another Old God or so. Most of these are pretty unknown, so there is no name recognition. I mean if you name the xpac the Awakening of N´zoth, most people would go N´who? And there aren´t many known enemies left. Azshara is known to a broader player base and Sargeras. And Sargeras seems to be the pinnacle to me. You can´t really make a bigger threat than the guy who started the Burning Legion, enslaved a big amount of worlds and who was the tough guy of the titans. Perhaps an Old God but I think most people who are a bit into lore woul be unpleasantly surprised if a former unknown guy shows up as the big bad after Sargeras especially considering that the Old Gods lost to the pantheon. You could say that the complete pantheon was on Azeroth but on the other hand, the Old Gods were here in full numbers with their lieutenants and their respective armies.

They could make an Xpac around Azshara, but it would probably mostly water based. Perhaps Vashír was a test to see how people like that.

And well as the previous poster said, Emerald Dream is already trademarked.

Ah well, could be that they trademarked it just in case. Perhaps as a preparation for a lawsuit but well I don´t know much about US copyright laws.

[Sagara]

/tinfoilhat

Point is, we need to consider the problem the other way around: Let's suppose this is indeed the title of the x-ack. They had an x-pack idea, or a set of ideas, and somewhere in the middle or at the end of the brainstorm, they went for the title "Mist of Pandaria".

Now, we need to cross check - bring the ideas that could have been brainstormed and how they would fit or not with the title.

Sargeras seems a no-no. He's a known lore figure, and "his" x-pack would probably heavily rely on him. If I had Pandas and SArgeras in the same boat, I'd use Sargeras' connections in the title, and use Pandas as a side dish.

Azshara? Same problem: too well known, it would be better to get a water-based title and link it to Pandaria "Distant Tides" or something.

The Old Gods are not named per se, and we known pretty much nothing about them besides C'thun and Yogg-saron. But the Olds Gods as a group is *very* well documented, thanks to Ulduar in no small part. So while a single Old God would have us go "wait, who?", throwing: "Return of the Ancient Ones" gets us immediately in the mood: the Old Ones are back, and this is likely a cutt-troath fight against cosmic horrors of a magnitude that puts Deathwing to shame.

I like the Emerald Dream theory, in fact. But maybe because I'm having problems taking "Pandaria" seriously as a major x-pack point.

[Worldie]

Could probably be just some sort of major patch to me. Like a "Cataclysm.5"

[KysenMurrin]

Regarding the next expansion, it's been said in interviews that they'd already started designing a new continent before the idea of the Cataclysm came to them, and they dropped it to work on redesigning the old world. I wouldn't be surprised if they return to some of those ideas for the next expansion.

Who knows, maybe Pandaria is the new continent, and the title reflects that it's all about exploring this totally unknown area; but we really can't say anything from just a title.

[culhag]

Yeah, maybe the main point of the expansion will be exploration rather than going after yet another Big Bad.

[Dantriges]

You still need something to form a raid against but perhaps we are doing raiding in the literal sense, pillage and burn.

[lythac]

Kael'thas gets the Pandaren hooked on magic.

[Invisusira]

Hasn't Blizzard always been pretty firm on the whole "Pandarians are an easter egg race" thing?

I wouldn't be completely surprised if this were just them trademarking a name to incite theories/throw people off their trail, especially after the whole worgen/goblin mask thing last time around.

[sherck]

Is there a timeline involved? Does this have to be available in 2012 as a WoW expansion?

Could this be the name of their next MMO instead of a WoW expansion ?

Cheers,