The Asian Lore doesn't attract me either. Neither is the monk class (as I am getting older I doubt I can beat the kids in button smashing...)

But all the rest is very very exciting to me.

- Collecting and searching for rare pets, raising them in pet fights, fantastic stuff. I still consider games like Pokemon and collecting the bananas in Donkey Kong 64 in 3D superb.
- Farming element: I think they should extend this. Farming, could be added as a future profession with a personal phased farm. it would beat housing by a mile. Making money out of very rare crops etc ... Possibilities are endless.
- Scenarios: fantastic stuff that will replace the easy dungeon runs in no time for many of the casual players.
- new world bosses, always nice to do a few of them each week.

To conclude on topic: I have my doubts about the challenge dungeon runs. I already see it in chat: needed one specific class with X dps and Y gear. Don't even think if your gear score is 2 points below Z.

"keep venturing farther and farther away from what Warcraft is"

Perhaps you could elaborate on this?

@Bossy yes I agree, I loved DK64 and Pokemon back in the day. Half the reason I'm into RPGs is because I love collecting items, gear, pets etc.

I'll definitely pick it up to check out the story and new features and who knows, maybe i'll like it so much i can get over the full-on asian theme.

@robsmith77 To elaborate on that- I consider WoW to be, like most other modern RPGs, based loosely off of the Lord of the Rings and Dungeons and Dragons. Keep in mind I'm not a D&D player so there may or may not be pandas in there I'm not aware about. But when I see this not-so-serious (ie. panda monks) side of WoW rear its head, it really takes away from the epic-ness that I always loved about this game.

Call me old school but I feel that if you look at Orcs & Humans all the way until now, it's become a whole new beast. I'm not saying thats necessarily a bad thing, just that I'm not personally a fan of having everything in the expansion be based off of that.

Although blizzard seems to be apologizing for it now, I thought that giving all the zones in Cataclysm a very different feel avoided all monotony and really gave you the feeling that EVERYONE was in deep sh#t. So the streamlining that seems to be happening is a little scary to me. Keep in mind I am not in the beta nor have I read much on the storyline of the different zones. I just go off of what I read here and what I see in screenshots.

Anyways hopefully that cleared it up for ya. I'm not opposed to change, I like the new focus on the Horde/Alliance war but some things rub me the wrong way at this point.

Like I said to Bossy, though, I plan on picking up the game and giving blizz a chance to show me that the content far outweighs my issues with the theme.