Or more specifically, a Pandaren.

Blizzard, the company that makes World of Warcraft, has registered the trademark for the name ‘Mists of Pandaria’. Thank you, MMO Champion, for this bit of exciting, squee-worthy news.

I’m not going to get into all the glorious details of World of Warcraft. Hopefully most of you readers already know what the game is. I’ve had two periods in my life where I played, both for a few months at a time. And both times I stopped playing because nobody was around to play with, and because the more complicated, time-consuming quests were stacking up. I haven’t played for probably two years now, unless you count that brief week in early 2010 when I got a free week of playtime.

Basically, I love World of Warcraft. It is everything I could ever want in a video game. Maybe I’ll explain why in a post someday. But as of right now, I’m a recovering addict. I don’t want to pay the $15 a month to play, and I know if I did start playing again, it would consume all of my free time. I’ve avoided the siren call of all the new expansions and playable races (goblins!). It’s just not for me right now.

But I will rejoin World of Warcraft in a heartbeat if they expand into the world of Pandarens.

Artist's Rendering

The primary ‘war’ in World of Warcraft is between humans and orcs, but there are dozens of mythical races in the game like elves, zombies, dwarves, gnomes, centaurs, dragons, etc. A lot of these races are just anthropomorphic animals, like the bovine Tauren, the walrus-people and the werewolves. Tops among these are the Pandarens, essentially sentient, walking, talking pandas who love alcohol. They are utterly brilliant! Not only do they look adorable, but they’re lovable, drunken samurai warriors! That could have been a cartoon show in the 80s! They just look like so much fun, especially in the larger World of Warcraft. But for the longest time they have only ever been something of an urban legend.

Pandarens first appeared in the expansion pack to Warcraft III. You could hire a Pandaren mercenary during the Versus games, and the Pandaren Brewmaster Chen Stormstout would join your group of adventurers if you played the orc campaign. He was a blast. I even own the Chen Stormstout action figure!

In-game rendering of Chen Stormstout

But then when World of Warcraft came out, there were no signs of the Pandarens in the entire game world. Chen got mentioned a tiny little bit, but no Pandarens to talk to, to get quests from and certainly not to play. They were utterly absent. There were rumors flying around that since the Pandarens combined Japanese samurai with Chinese panda bears, that the Asian countries were upset. And they’re a huge market for World of Warcraft. Maybe it’s true, but who knows for sure.

World of Warcraft has had several expansions since it first came out. They’ve added at least two new playable races to reach side, as well as three whole new islands/continents.

If the next expansion brings about Pandaria, their home island, or playable Pandarens, I will gladly fall off the World of Warcraft wagon.

Also, here’s everything you could ever want to know about Pandarens.