Plight of the Pandaren

Meet Pguinto, a pandaren Holy priest on realm Frostmourne-US. When not administering hugs on short notice, he likes to disrupt the operations of the Iron Horde with other, like-minded adventurers. Thus far, he enjoys life and what it has to offer, but has recently noticed smoke on the horizon.

Living on a PvP (player-versus-player) server, Pguinto has had his share of being ganked, but has noticed its worsening since his entrance to Draenor. Now, when he survives another day unscathed, he breathes a sigh of relief for not needing to die to a random Alliance adventurer, killing him for reasons he cannot fathom. Unfortunately, this fearful experience is common to all Wandering Isle pandaren, Huojin and Tushui alike.

Description

Common name: Pandaren
Scientific name: Ailuropoda sapiens
AUCN conservation status: Endangered
Estimated individuals remaining worldwide: 1.1 million (6.3%)

Pguinto attempts to take a selfie, which is photobombed by a fellow pandaren.

The intended selfie.

The pandaren is a humanoid bear native to Pandaria and the Wandering Isle. Approximately the height of a human (Homo sapiens), it possesses white fur with distinct black, brown or red bands. Although it may possess great bulk, the pandaren is deceptively agile, capable of feats such as sprinting, dancing and sometimes even stealthing.

Pguinto hangs out with a troll Guardian druid.

Pguinto expresses jealousy of said druid's superior posterior.

Compared to the other sentient races of Azeroth, pandaren are unusually docile, being slow to anger and careful to decision. However, should they find good reason to, they can lash out with the ferocity of a wild bear. This measured approach to everything they do is not surprising, considering their coexistence with the sha in the Pandaria homeland.

Threats to survival in the wild

Pandaren are hunted for their honor points, Broken Bones and quest credit.

Today, the pandaren are of an endangered species, with its small population threatened by regular ganking. It faces difficulty propagating because of:

• Its novelty as a playable race. The ability to create a pandaren character became available only three years ago with the release of Mists of Pandaria, and was the latest race to become so. Today, there are only an estimated 1.1 million individuals worldwide split more or less evenly between the two factions, compared to 2.8 million humans. The situation is dire on Pguinto's realm, Frostmourne-US, where there are only around 450 Huojin pandaren above level 90, compared to more than 17 000 humans.
• Its ridiculousness as a playable race. The first Blizzard mention of "pandaren" was as part of an April Fools joke. In addition, the pandaren is commonly seen by the playerbase to be "too cute" and "too frivolous" for such a bleak setting as Warcraft.

On a per-faction basis, pandaren is the least popular race in both factions.

As for the deadly pressures upon them:

• Blizzard has intended PvP combat to arise more often and organically in the world. Among other things, this involves introducing the freeform PvP zone Ashran, as well as inviting conflict around questing locations, rare NPC spawns and geographic chokepoints.
• Players building the Gladiator's Sanctum in their garrisons are encouraged to engage in world PvP. Broken Bones are required for work orders in the Gladiator's Sanctum, which may only be sourced from player kills.
• In addition, the Nemesis quests require 500 kills of each opposing race-faction, regardless of their relative populations. This is devastating to the pandaren, as, not only are individuals of opposing factions pit against each other, each member will need to contribute more deaths than those of the more populous races. To satisfy 10 000 players (5 000 000 kills), each Huojin pandaren over level 90 would need to die more than 296 times, compared to only 43 times for a human.

Your donation counts
The Azerothian Union for the Conservation of Nature (AUCN) needs your help saving the endangered pandaren. A modest donation will help us:

• Provide counselling to pandaren affected by ganking
• Promote pandaren as a respectable race to play
• Lobby Blizzard Entertainment to relax the Nemesis quest criteria for Huojin and Tushui pandaren
• Lobby Blizzard Entertainment for action on faction imbalance in general.

More on threatened species

• Plight of the Goblin
• Plight of the Dwarf
• Plight of the Gnome
• Plight of the Troll

Bibliography

• Andrews, Scott (2013), WoW Archivist: Blizzard's April Fool's jokes are more real than you think, blog post, WoW Insider, viewed 17 January 2014, <http://wow.joystiq.com/2013/03/29/wow-archivist-blizzards-april-fools-jokes-are-more-real-than/>.
• Grace, Olivia (2014), Senior PvP Designer Brian Holinka interviewed in Korea, blog post, WoW Insider, viewed 17 January 2014, <http://wow.joystiq.com/2014/02/21/senior-pvp-designer-brian-holinka-interviewed-in-korea/>.
• Pandaren - Wowpedia - Your guide to the World of Warcraft, wiki article, Wowpedia, viewed 16 January 2014, <http://wow.gamepedia.com/Pandaren>.
• US Realm Pop, web page, Realm Pop, viewed 15 January 2015, <https://realmpop.com/us.html>.
• World PvP in Draenor - Horde Issues, forum post, Blizzard Entertainment, viewed 17 January 2014, <http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/12844694443>.
• Wowhead (2014), Guide to the Garrison Gladiator Sanctum - Guides - Wowhead, database entry, Wowhead, viewed 17 January 2014, <http://www.wowhead.com/guide=2718>.