Let me rephrase.

WHY. DO. YOU. HAVE. TO. NAME. THE. XPAC. PANDARIA. THE. FACT. THAT. THEY. ARE. FROM. PANDARIA. IS. IRRELEVANT.

It's not irrelevant, particularly given almost everything that happens after the Cataclysm and Deathwing's demise is centered around the discovery of this new continent. These forgotten lands, as well as the way the Horde and Alliance go about exploring them, are central to the overall story line (much like Illidan and the Burning Legion were to The Burning Crusade, the Lich King and his Scourge were to Wrath of the Lich King, and Deathwing's destructive return to Azeroth was in Cataclysm).

I'm not sure I understand your argument. It feels like you're claiming we're naming the expansion after a new race's starting zone (not true) and arguing that's "jumping the shark." If you're only taking issue with the title, I don't think that qualifies for such a label at all. More importantly though, I get the sense you learned only two bulleted details about the expansion (new race and new land to explore) before deciding to post this thread.

01/26/2012 12:52 PMPosted by Tranhuntard

They didn't put Pandas in the game after WC3 because they knew that Pandas were too childish, silly and trivial. Why Pandas now? The obvious reason is Kung Fu Panda.

None of this is true by the way. Should you feel the need to speak on our behalf in the future, we'd appreciate it if you didn't make stuff up. :)

The expansion is not named "Pandaria". It is "Mists of Pandaria". Now to really nitpick.

If you're going to shorten the name down to one word, it should be "Mists". "of Pandaria" is an adjectival prepositional phrase describing the mists. The focus of the phrase is definitely "Mists".

Yes! I always type "Mists" when writing notes from our meetings with the developers and such. "Pandaria" doesn't encapsulate the expansion name enough for me and I don't even like saying "MoP" in my head when I'm reading over my work. :p

I kinda feel like there's a disconnect between Expansion name hype and player excitement.
Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King, Cataclysm and even just plain World of Warcraft pointed you towards the event that was going to be the overarching theme of the expansion.

Mists of Panderia feels like a door you go through, and you have no idea whats beyond it or whats going to happen, or even what you're going to do.

That's kind of the idea.

01/26/2012 01:36 PMPosted by Carchariasa

When TBC was being considered, they were originally going to call it Mists of Silvermoonia, but it got changed at the last second for some odd reason.

It was all because someone made a thread on the forums!

I dunno, I would have preferred World of WARcraft: War Of the Blood War Anger Destruction Explode

I mean, that just sounds cooler. And things that sound cool validate me as a male. With testosterone.

/brofist

01/26/2012 02:18 PMPosted by Necran

My favorite thing about this thread is how Zarhym never addressed the core issue presented and instead made strawman after strawman and mocked the opposition. Pretending the OP didn't have coherent point. I lurv ya Zarhym, but it pains me to see you resorting to Bill O'Reilley tactics.

You're not allowed to go back in time and insert a core issue into the thread, then claim I failed to address it.

The OP says it's a cheesy name and likened it unto the decision to have Fonzie jump a shark in his leather jacket on water skies in Happy Days. If there's some deeper, truer criticism he was eluding to... you're right. I missed it. (Or pretended to miss it?)

And people love shouting "strawman!" so much on the forums that I'll pretend that wasn't a coherent criticism of my responses. :D

01/26/2012 02:18 PMPosted by Necran

It is unimaginative to name a land full of Pandas Pandaria.

I could try to reference real world nationalities and their relation to the names of the respective nations from which they're derived. My guess is that wouldn't be the best use of my time or yours. Instead I'll just remind you that's been the name of the continent for a long time now.

Once a bunch of new updates about the expansion come flying out from our offices, we trust players may not just have pandas on the brain anymore when thinking about 5.0. Yes, it's true, the next expansion's name, new playable race, and new continent are all derivatives of the word "panda." We're confident that's not going to encapsulate the entire gameplay and story experience though.