The only other cute, fat, and peaceful creature on there has such a small presence in the game and isn't even a playable race.

Yeah I don't really understand the objection that a race based on pandas doesn't fit with all the other wonderful and wacky creatures there are

Hold on, I wrote words about this to the last person who got on my case about not liking Pandaren, then posted this to their G+:

The presumption that I have to like Pandaren if I am still playing the game that has other weird races in it assumes that I'm actually in favor of the other races, or that I am incapable of having individual decisions.

Of the items listed, only 3 others are player races, and Draenei do not hit that same squicky furry note that Worgen and Tauren (both races I am not fond of) hit. I'm sure that the future creepy tit-bears of the Pandaren females will hit the same note.

Past that, another 3 races are very standard fantasy race fare. The oxmen are basically just wild tauren, and the bird people are hardly a new idea.

That leaves us with Murlocs, which would be silly if made a player race, the "horse elephant man", a mob type from one zone, Walruses (also weird and not a player race) and Pandaren.

Which are an April Fools joke, a creepy furry disaster waiting in the wings, and some uncomfortable cultural appropriation.

Then they objected that it's not about likability, it's about ~*fitting in*~, so I said:

Well, they don't fit in. I mean, I guess at least Blizzard isn't trying to convince us that they do, but they're very specifically making a decision to set them apart as something new and different from this magic floating turtle island that has had no contact with life on Azeroth as we know it.

Which, the exotic, othering of the Pandaren is another part of the whole awkward cultural appropriation thing.

Also none of the others were the basis of an April Fool's

It's a silly thing to post to a CM twitter account. It only reallt replies to the silliest of the "OMG Pandaren don't fit in" arguments and replies like Jadiera's are much more coherent (as was your post on your blog btw, one of the more coherent things I've read about why you're just not excited about the game any more - even though it started with "Pandas, they weren't there" it was much more than that).

Anyways, it's just recycling a silly internet meme that's been going around. Yes, it's silly to freak out about Pandas if your only basis is, OMG they're Panda-men. But those sorts of reactions it's probably best to ignore in the first place and reply only to more sensible ones.

Beyond reasoned critiques of the Pandaren as a playable race, the "lol and PANDAREN are too much lol" type responses bother me on a more existential level too, because it really does devalue the notion of personal taste. Whether or not I like or dislike the rest of the stuff in WoW, I can still hold opinions about the Pandaren specifically. It's completely ignoring all nuance for a black and white "You must love everything / you must hate everything" sort of view.

Or it's just people who think WoW is dumb trolling at people by telling us that everything we like is stupid so we're not allowed to dislike this new stupid thing.

I was specifically referring to what java mentioned, the silliest OMG THEY DON"T FIT type statements. Jadi's arguments all totally make sense.

I get that it was an april fools joke, but there was that Pandaren dude in Warcraft 3 so it's not like the brought it completely out of left field or anything.

Yeah the pandaren thing is pretty black and white

:V

Give this woman the $10,000... lol

afk, deleting Cirua priest and remaking Cirua the Monk tank

Race changing gara to a panda and renaming her Pandarainla.

AFK creating a new Zabrak Monk Tank that uses a Lightsaber.

This, this, so much this.

Qft

You QFT!