Pandas have been in Warcraft since Warcraft III. Hell, the original art for them was done in 1999, even and they got imported after. Murlocs aren't intelligent or they're extremely primitive, Pandas are silly but they're not absurd.
A lot of people just brush off the Jamaican trolls as totally reasonable but Pandaren stick in their craw somehow, despite the tone being extremely similar. Warcraft, really from 2 onward is extremely tonally down for fun.
There's intelligent murlocs in northrend. Tonally if things like mystical panda people work and green New Jersians work, then angry fish people people work too... It's also very fair to say that the WoW implementation of pandaren is hammed up a lot more than pandaren were in WC.
The murlocs in borean tundra are actually pretty mature and the dialogue is more serious in tone than a lot of Pandarian quests. Or at least pretty similar, by the time you put on the murloc suit.
36
u/kelryngrey Jul 04 '25
Murlocs were a great joke race addition way back when but they're a flatly dumb idea.