The Pandaren and the Sha

The Mists of Pandaria beta has started, and with it a ton of new information has come out. Not only are people finding out about items, game mechanics, and zones, but people are finding out about lore and what things will finally look like. With that, we have finally seen in game models for the Sha. I would link them or otherwise include them in this post, but my work internet blocks all the sources which could provide it to me. However, let me describe it to you. They look evil, of course; the one I saw looked like a much nicer shadowfiend. However, more importantly, they were black with white accents. I'm sure MMO-Champion would have a picture.

The Sha and the Pandaren are only found in Pandaria. The Sha and the Pandaren are black and white (if we ignore the red pandaren females). The Sha respond to emotions. It seems to me that the Sha and the Pandaren don't just share a common location, but are actually linked.

With Warcraft we have Old Gods and various other evil forces. So I think most people just figured the Sha were somehow connected to an Old God that resides there and left it at that. I'm not saying that the Sha can't be connected to an Old God, but my personal theory is that the Sha are souls of dead Pandaren that respond to the emotions around them.

Think about it, Pandaria is a lovely place with people who seem deeply spiritual. What if part of its beauty is that the spirits of dead Pandaren of responding to the Pandaren's mostly positive outlook on life? Then the Sha come when bad emotions and hatred flow and make things more sinister and dangerous.

Time will tell if my theory is correct or not, but I would personally love it if it were true. I think it would not only add a darkness to Pandaria, but it would also add a darkness to the Pandaren, whom so many people complain about as not being serious. But this all brings me to my last point, which is really more of a desire/prediction.

Ghostbusters 2.

Ghostbusters 2 had a river of ectoplasm that responded to human emotion. It also fed that emotion back into people that were near it, but let's ignore that part. In Ghostbusters 2, when things were at their most desperate, the Ghostbusters coated the inside of the statue of liberty with the ectoplasm and used strong positive emotions that were stirred by an inspirational song to animate the Statue of Liberty to penetrate the defenses of the museum.

What of the Sha could also possess objects, similar to a poltergeist? What if, in the Siege of Orgrimmar, Garrosh's defenses are too strong to break without losing too many people. To combat this the Horde and the Alliance bring the Sha to Azshara to infect the giant Gallywix face and then use strong positive emotions from their cooperation and an upbeat song to animate the giant face, bringing it out of the ground with a body to break the defenses of Orgrimmar?

I wanna do that raid fight.

20 Days of WoW Blogging: Day 16 - Things I miss post-Cata

Cataclysm brought many changes to World of Warcraft. Many of those changes were great!. Very few were bad. Some of them were unwelcome, but ultimately necessary. Here are some of the things that I miss.

Southshore
I would generally always make my way through Southshore on my Alliance characters, but I can't anymore. They've all been turned into goo.

The Wrathgate
I know that it's in the past now and wouldn't make sense to keep, but it was absolutely one of the coolest things they ever put in the game. I mean...damn that shit was cool.

Understanding Orgrimmar
There once was a time when I played a Horde character or two. I understood Orgrimmar very well. Then I spent a very long time playing Alliance characters and in the past couple weeks I logged back into my Horde characters and Orgrimmar is a foreign place now. I don't like it. Then again, I'm not a Horde player so I don't really have to deal with it.

Being in Northrend
I just liked Northrend, alright? Northrend didn't have fucking trees everywhere. Old world's got trees all over the damn place. Fuck trees. Outland is also good for this. No trees.

The potential for Uldum to be awesome
I was absolutely fascinated with Uldum. It was just this mysterious hole in a wall that you couldn't get through. After hearing/seeing all the cool stuff in Uldaman and Ulduar my mind was full of possibilities. I wanted more than almost anything to explore Uldum. Then, it wasn't really that cool and we spent half the zone in a joke. It was better as a mystery.

And some more things:

• Magni Bronzebeard
• Keys! I loved collecting keys. I actually had the achievement.
• CoT: Stratholme drake runs. I remember my first successful run of that. We fought for it.