The noble, cuddly-wuddly pandaren are actually skilled fighters.

With ever expansion, the worlds that make up the World of Warcraft continue to change.  Every expansion leads to higher-level characters, more skills, new worlds to explore, new enemies, and the omnipresent thumping of the drums of progress as the never-ending cold war between the Alliance and the Horde spreads across the worlds of Azeroth.  So what’s the next race to be dragged into the eternal combat between the sworn enemies?  The noble, peaceful Pandaren.  That’s right, Blizzard is adding a race of playable panda bears to World of Warcraft.

“Players have been asking to see the pandaren in World of Warcraft since the game’s launch, and we’re excited to finally be able to give them a proper re-introduction to Azeroth,” said Blizzard CEO and co-founder Mike Morhaime, while making the announcement at Blizzcon ’11 in Anaheim, California.

Indeed players have wanted pandaren forever.  Pandaren were first introduced in Warcraft III way back in 2002, with a heroic pandaren Brewmaster named Chen Stormstout available as an aid to player characters.  The noise for (and against) pandaren haven’t stopped since then.  Given the other changes the game is making, introducing the monk class and adding the pandaren as a neutral player race (pandaren choose a faction at level 10) are undoubtedly the biggest of them all.

Will it help WoW keep players around?  That remains to be seen, but I doubt it’ll hurt.

Tags: Blizzard, WoW, World of Warcraft, Mists of Pandaria, pandaren, WoW adds Pandaren race, WoW adds monk class, monks and pandaren added to World of Warcraft, Mike Morhaime, Blizzcon ’11, MMORPGs, massive multiplayer online roleplaying game, video games, computer games, Anaheim, California

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