wow Mists of Pandaria Was Released 5 Years Ago

[Stan 5,018]

Five years ago, Blizzard released the fifth World of Warcraft expansion: Mists of Pandaria. Check out our retrospective to learn more about raids, features and changes that were added throughout the expansion!

Overview

The fifth expansion added Pandaren and Monks. Below is an overview of the most interesting highlights.

Mists of Pandaria Pre-Patch (5.0.4)

New Talent System

• New layout for specializations was introduced with Core Abilities for each spec. 

Account-wide Mounts, Pets & Achievements

• Allowed working on a wide variety of Achievements across multiple characters.
• Once you earned a mount or pet on one character, all characters on that account were able to summon it.

Cross-Realm Zones (CRZ)

• In Mists of Pandara, cross-realm zones were introduced for the first time and over the years, they've become an essential part of the game.

AoE Looting

• One of the most desired features of the expansion was AoE looting. Players no longer had to click each corpse individually to get loot. All loot can be picked up with a single right click.

BattleTag Support

• The permanent account-wide nicknames on Battle.net made their way into the game.

Patch 5.1 (Landfall)

The first content patch of the expansion added a new max-level zone called Krasarang Wilds with new daily quest hubs and two factions.

• Operation Shieldwall (Alliance)
• Dominance Offensive (Horde)

Brawler's Guild

• The first Season of Brawler's Guild was added to the game.

New Scenarios

• Mists of Pandaria had a lot of scenarios if you remember. In Patch 5.1, Blizzard added the following:
  •  "A Little Patience", "Lion's Landing", "Dagger in the Dark", "Domination Point" and Assault on Zan'vess".

Patch 5.2 (The Thunder King)

The second content patch brought Throne of Thunder, Tier 15 sets, a new zone called the Isle of Thunder with new factions and world bosses.

Here's a look at Tier 15 Sets. Note that Throne of Thunder is easily soloable right now, so if you like any of those, go grab them!

Blizzard (Source)

The beating drums of war are growing louder, and both the Alliance and Horde are gathering along the shores of the Isle of Thunder. It’s time to face the risen king and his growing army. Before you strike out against the terrors of the island, though, take a peek at the tier 15 armor sets that can be found inside the Throne of Thunder.

Death Knight - All-Consuming Maw

Druid - Haunted Forest

Hunter - Saurok Stalker

Mage - Chromatic Hydra

Monk - Fire-Charm

Paladin - Lightning Emperor

Priest - Exorcist

Rogue - Nine-Tail

Shaman - Witch Doctor

Warlock - Thousandfold Hells

Warrior - Last Mogu

In Patch 5.2, Wrathion wanted to investigate the origins of the mogu's power and emulate them. In Mists of Pandaria, players were able to get a Legendary cloak with unique effects.

Patch  5.3 (Escalation)

In this patch, both factions got new scenarios and Garrosh Hellscream declared martial law in Orgrimmar, expelling the Darkspear Trolls from th city and sending his elite Kor'kron Guard throughout Durotar and the Barrens to supply his war in Pandaria. Vol'jin began an insurrection agaist the Warchief, and both the Aliance and the Horde shared the same goal of success. 

Brawler's Guild

• Two new tiers of bosses were added to the Brawler's Guild.

PvP

• Deepwind Gorge battleground was added to the game. 
• The Tiger's Peak Arena was introduced.

Patch 5.4 (The Siege of Orgrimmar)

Garrosh built a compound beneath Ragefire Chasm and infused the True Horde with the pilfered essence of Y'shaarj, eager to rebuild the Horde in his image: strong, obedient and pure. The tensions stoked by Garrosh Hellscream's arrogance reached a boling point with the devastation unleashed upon the Vale of Eternal Blossoms. Siege of Orgrimmar contains 14 bosses and four wngs as members of the Horde and Alliance take the war directly to Garrosh's doorstep.

Timeless Isle

• A new max-level PvE zone located to the east of the Jade Forest was added to the game with a new faction and world bosses like the four August Celestials or Ordos, who drops Damien's Ice-Vein Mask :).

New Raid Mode

• With SoO Blizzard introduced Flexible raid mode, where players could form groups sized anywhere from 10-25 people, and the difficulty would automatically adjust to allow an appropriately challenging experience.

The Proving Grounds

• To learn a new or perfect your current playstyle, Blizzard added the Proving Grounds to the game. You could access them by talking to your Class Trainer or Trial Master Rotun inside the Temple of White Tiger.

(Source)

Do you have any fond memories of Mists? Feel free to share them in the comments below!

[greatCraft 29]

hahah the panda who kept getting caught.

 

good times

[Hypersonic 113]

Good old SoO

 

[Kaelos 74]

Most controversial expansion and now I really miss its atmosphere, bosses and music

Edited September 25, 2017 by Kaelos

[Orshova 31]

Am I missing something about this, why is it under the heroes of the storm tab?

[Durf24 42]

Honestly, a lot of people give MoP flack for the pandas, the year of SoO, and various other changes that took place during the expansion but my biggest gripe has got to be the introduction of CRZ. As someone who used to camp for rare spawns like the TLPD or aeonaxx CRZ is just a massive hindrance when it came to camping these mobs because everywhere that isn't part of current content is under the effects outside of people forming groups and inviting players from other servers to their own and so you have to compete against a few dozen other people who all want the same thing, this was especially annoying on PvP servers and actually caused me to transfer from my original server just so I didn't have to deal with the influx of players of the opposing faction. I really wish Blizz would add an option to turn it on and off but I can see how that'd be difficult, if not impossible, to implement.

[Wowplayer 0]

Wasn't Mists the 4th expansion??

[Rossblackblood 0]

aaah, this was the expac i started playing in, near the start of even, man i miss those times.

[Valks 2,373]

9 hours ago, Kaelos said:

Most controversial expansion and now I really miss its atmosphere, bosses and music

I absolutely loved it, at least once it got rolling. MSV and ToES were really fun IMO, I didn't like the atmosphere of HoF but the fights were interesting. ToT was just awesome, it's just a shame Ra-den was a letdown. I loved every other fight, especially doing the glory achievements in there. SoO, despite being there for so long, was still a really fun raid. Playing Fire Mage on the Shamans was fight was so much fun. Same goes for Paragons. Mythic Blackfuse was arguably one of my favourite fights ever.

All in all, I think MoP was awesome.

[Valhalen 1,484]

2 hours ago, Blainie said:

I absolutely loved it, at least once it got rolling. MSV and ToES were really fun IMO, I didn't like the atmosphere of HoF but the fights were interesting. ToT was just awesome, it's just a shame Ra-den was a letdown. I loved every other fight, especially doing the glory achievements in there. SoO, despite being there for so long, was still a really fun raid. Playing Fire Mage on the Shamans was fight was so much fun. Same goes for Paragons. Mythic Blackfuse was arguably one of my favourite fights ever.

All in all, I think MoP was awesome.

I really love MoP. It is one of my favorite expansions, tied with WotLK. I love how we got to experience a whole different atmosphere with Pandaria's beautiful landscapes. The Pandaren starting area was fantastic, felt like an entire different game. One of my favorite things in MoP was the account-wide mounts, pets and achievements. No longer you'd have to farm for the same mount with all your characters. It was pure bliss (especially since I've always been a mount collector).

I think a lot of people hate MoP because it deviates so much from the "WoW formula and scenario", with a, quote from players, "Mysticism furry bullshit". The Pandaren and Monk is a race/class I wanted since Warcraft III. I never really saw it as a "joke" race, but more as a more diverse concept of how large Azeroth is, with different cultures.

[InfernoRFU 117]

I miss SoS LFR and Flex, those were best times.

[Syktris 36]

Imo, MoP was the best WoW xpac. Beautiful places to see, amazing lore, amazing dungeons and raids, they had fun BGs too.

<3 

[MrEdren 114]

Did they ever explain why the Mogu look like Pete from the Goofy Movie?

[Janz 9]

I see a lot of love here for MoP... I think it's time for some realtalk....

Mists was horrible... Compaired to anything that came before it... I felt so let down... 

I'll give you that in retrospect it doesn't feel that terrible, but I think thats because it was followed by the absolute worst expansion, WoD... :D

That being said, this is all so subjective and even I had some good times in MoP... My favorites will always be TBC and WotLK, imo those eras are the best mmorpg ever made :)

Edited September 26, 2017 by Janz

[Valks 2,373]

23 hours ago, Valhalen said:

I think a lot of people hate MoP because it deviates so much from the "WoW formula and scenario", with a, quote from players, "Mysticism furry bullshit". The Pandaren and Monk is a race/class I wanted since Warcraft III. I never really saw it as a "joke" race, but more as a more diverse concept of how large Azeroth is, with different cultures.

If Blizzard had just copy pasted them into the game, with the backstory of Pandaria being "fat pandas did some punching, now they eat a lot hehe xd", I'd completely understand the hate towards them.

The fact that the entire continent was essentially new lore and yet it was still so well done - I think it was done brilliantly. The Lorewalkers were an awesome addition and allowed lore-hunters to find out everything about this new world. The races all had real motives, backgrounds, everything. The Mantid and their devotion to the old gods, their "betrayal", I loved it. Was the ending a bit cheap with Garrosh surviving and the whole "mercy for the horde" thing? Yeah, I guess, but it was inevitable with what they planned next. Garrosh had to survive.