Pandaren in Warcraft? No, yes, maybie?

Po from Kung Fu Panda - No Relation

So the rumors are back, I'd wondered how long it would take.  Every expansion people buzz with curiosity about these furballs.  I'd love to see them but thats just me, I love furry characters.  I think it would be great to have cat people too.  Hmmm I hope they have a furbolg playable skin too, it would take much of a model swap and you could have 'two' races using one basic movement model.

But some people might be wondering who are these furry guys?  Why should I care?

I'm going to cheat, you see wowpedia.com has an excellent article on them found here.  Go and poke around its info.

Theres an urban (cyber?) myth that says Wacraft refuses to have them in the game because of Chinese law.  This actually isn't true by the actual law.  However Communist-China is very touchy about how its national animal is shown.  More than a few things are affected not by the law, but by what party officials want to happen, so they might block it with the force of law.

So why might Blizzard be willing to risk that hornet's nest?  Well that isn't the only issue with China.  China law forbade the depiction or showing of skeletons so Wrath of the Lich King is stalled at coming out in that country.  If Blizzard simply accepts that anything after The Burning Crusade doesn't exist there then they are free to do whatever they please in new games.

Pandaren pic circulated around TBC

So all that remains is continuity reasons not to.  Blizzard is adept at making stories to force everyone to work together (Then trying to insist we should be fighting <shrug>).  Just look at how "hippy-love-everyone" the xenophobic racial supremacist night elves turned.


But honestly its more likely they are a neutral faction.  If both sides are going to be adventuring in their lands then having them pick a side would severely limit what their players can participate in.  Not something Activision-Blizzard would do with their Sub numbers no longer rising.

So I'm voting for them being NPCs who need us to solve their problems.  Unattackable NPCs who wont ever be seen to be hurt or anything just in case they get to release WotLK in China.  Or perhaps they will just auto level the Chinese from 70-80.