On the official forums Laider wrote a fantastic and honest reply to the BlizzCon announcement. Community Manager Bashiok replied with something insightful for those that do (foolishly) believe Blizz are stealing ideas from Kung-Fu Panda.
This is something I want to touch on a bit more. People seem to think that Pandaren were a joke, a throw away easter egg that we never fully intended as a playable race.
I will direct you to recall the Warcraft RPG (pen and paper) manuals released in 2003. While much of it hasn’t been canon for quite some time, the Pandaren occupy a greater amount of pages and space within the manuals to establish their lore and story than pretty much every other creature on Azeroth. To give it some context, they occupy the same number of pages as Trolls in the Monster Manual, and share the same amount space in the Alliance and Horde Compendium with Orcs or Humans, and just like them … you guessed it… Pandaren were a playable race.
Metzen's art from 2003
(There’s also an awesome sketch Metzen did of a Pandaren, Dwarf, Furbolg, and Gnome hanging out all friendly-like)
As I said a lot of this was pre-World of Warcraft, and by whatever stroke of fate, Trolls and Forsaken became playable races and Pandaren, Naga, and Furbolgs did not. Some other mix could have just as easily been true, and no one would have questioned it. Worgen didn’t even exist back then, of course, they were a new creation for World of Warcraft.
It would simply be inaccurate to state that Pandaren were a throw away. Our intent, going back to Warcraft III, when the vast majority of the world lore and story was established for the franchise, was always to have a deep and rich history for a race known as the Pandaren.
There feels a ridiculous amount of players out there (and perhaps it is just the vocal ones and, therefore a very small percent) who need to read this and ingrain it into their minds. Pandaren are not an after thought, not just a cool easter egg in Warcraft 3, but a legit race that has been long overdue to feature.
cheekymonk 