And monks!!! O.O

YAY!!!

Nice! Half the work for Bliz, since they only have to make one starting zone.

I wonder if this will also open up cross faction communication? If pandas choose different sides, they surely won't "forget" their pandaren language, will they?

I think that starter zone should be pretty interesting... lots of conflict between the factions, both sides vying to win you over to join them.

My only concern really is the "cutesy" nature of pandaren, and the vibrant zones, attracting immature crowds who aren't really suited to the mature gameplay of WoW (as opposed to say, Perfect World). The header screenshot could actually fit a lot of current F2P oriental-themed MMOs, which worries me. Hopefully the content will be fantastic enough - Cata's old world revamps were really, really good.

I doubt they'll open up cross faction communication. They had it for awhile in the Vanilla Alpha where undead could speak common and just that limited amount of cross faction communication made for a lot of harassment issues. And the community was *a lot* less hostile at that point than they are now.

I don't know how they'll justify it or if they'll even bother and just make it a "Gameplay > Logic" decision, but Pandas on different sides probably won't be able to talk to each other

@Sacrilege: As opposed to the totally mature people who are freaking out over pandas? Given a relative definition of maturity, I'd rather take the panda fans tbh. At least they don't take everything so deathly seriously.

(And, to be frank, WoW's art style was never Serious Business so I'm not quite sure what point you're trying to make with this.)

monks available to all races except goblin and worgen

Dear Blizzard:

Please don't let the lady pandas have ridiculously perky boobs or be strangely thin compared to the males or have anything else that doesn't fit the race. Please don't wait to put them out until last minute to test or have far fewer customization options than their male counterparts.

Don't do the same thing you did with the Worgen, the Tauren, and the Trolls. Be true to the race, (more like the female Charr from GW2), and don't just cater to what 17 year old boys want.

In 2 years we will all point to this day as the day WoW jumped the panda.

I can't believe it! I'm so insanely excited right now. I'm so jazzed that the race is neutral, so that both the Alliance and Horde can play them. I feel like that's such a fair way to go. And, from what I've seen, the new zones are breathtaking! The male pandaren look incredible so far. And, so the ONLY thing I hope is that the females will honestly look just as good this time around. I was so disappointed in the female worgen. I desperately wanted them to look more like their male counterparts, but I feel like they unfortunately went another route. I'm just hoping with as badass as the male Pandarens look, that the females will look just as amazing. Please please!

I'm just so excited, though. I seriously can't wait!