I was strolling through Stormwind and came across these boys and heard this Pandaren reference:
It got me to thinking. I wasn't a big warcraft fan so I don't really have the history of Pandarens. So I decided to do some research. (It's what I do.)
Apparently they started as something a Blizzard Artist thought was cool. Then it was used as a joke in warcraft 3. Then a Pandaren Brewmaster was actually added to Warcraft 3 Frozen Throne.
Fast forward to WoW. In 2005 Sony set up a command in Everquest II for players to order pizza from Pizza Hut from within the game (conveniently it was "/pizza"). It has since gone away, but it didn't mean Blizzard couldn't spoof it for April Fool's day with /panda. (As far as I know there was no actual relationship with Panda Express, an actual Chinese Food restaurant chain.)
Check out the spoof because it's pretty funny. When I did I saw this picture:
Pandaren Express:
Doh! Seriously - I had never before seen this picture when I did my 2006 April Fools:
My April Fool's Picture Copied Here:
I'm not feeling so creative now, eh?
More Links:
- Pandaren at Wowwiki
- Wikipedia History of Pandarens in both Lore and in game.
3 comments:
WoW has a great number of intriguing references to RL. I've only been hooked on WoW for about 4-5 months, but the first extra-game reference / inference that struck me was the "Hemet Nesingwary" book questline that seemed vaguely reminiscent of Hemingway.
I suppose that it should have been a clue to me that since obvious RL parallels exist -- from Tauren / American Indian culture to the "borrowed" speech styles of the Trolls (Jamaican) and Goblins (the Bronx) to the fun dance rip-offs -- that deeper parallels are present, too.
Just another fun and addictive WoW feature.
(Tuesday morning updates are rough...)
BTW -- I've mainly played Horde, so it is interesting to see the Alliance references too.
As you might see by posts like this I'm a big fan of these references too. I play mostly Alliance so you'll probably find that more heavily in my posts.
Yes, I see!
It's interesting to see on how many different levels WoW does this...
-- Within it's own 'universe' (like the reference in your post I'm commenting on),
-- With spoofs or take-offs of RL persons or events (like Alliance flight-masters wearing flight goggles lol),
-- With sober references to RL (like the grave I stumbled across south of Dun Garok, Hillsbrad Foothills [that's east of Southshore for Alliance reference] on the cliff overlooking the sea; my guess is that it's a tribute to a RL Blizz employee),
-- And many, many more...
Adds a good and interesting element to the game.
Hit lvl 44 with Doeg last night (/cheer) doing quests for Hemingway... er... Nesingwary. :P
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