I wasn't going to, but I went ahead and purchased the recent World of Warcraft expansion, Mysts of Pandaria. I had initially been morally opposed to the idea, because "Pandas?! In my Azeroth! Never!" Admittedly I still feel a little self-conscious about it, but I've been playing through the starting levels and re-doing some of the Stormwind/Westfall stuff on this new character, and I've got to say that the monk character is really interesting to play.
The highlight of the Pandas for me has been the incredibly creative storyline. For the uninitiated, Warcraft and its associated games takes place in Azeroth. There are two warring factions that control most of the land in Azeroth, the Alliance, which consists of the humans, gnomes, dwarves, night elves, worgen, and dranei; and the Horde, which consists of the orcs, trolls, goblins, blood elves, and tauren.
In Mysts, the Pandaren homeland has recently reappeared on the map of the world, and new Pandaren characters are totally neutral. In fact, you play the first ten or twelve levels of the game without having any contact at all with anybody from either faction. It's not until the very last set of quests that you see the two factions, and learn from two representatives, a goblin and a human, how very different the overall philosophy of these two factions is.
At the end of the starting area, you're asked to choose a faction, and are transported with the Pandaren that you've been working with (either Aysa or Ji) to the capital city of the faction you choose. I chose the Alliance, because most of my characters are on the Alliance, as are my roommates and coworkers who play. When my Pandaren monk got to Stormwind, we were told to go visit King Varian Wrynn. King Wrynn immediately talks about the importance of the agreement the races of the alliance have, and why this agreement is so important.
This was the part that got me, and sealed the whole storyline for me. It had already become my personal head-canon that in a universe where Ji and Aysa hadn't discovered the factions, they were going to end up together. Aysa was the calm, level-headed Pandaren master who had joined me on the way to the alliance. Her counterpart Ji, was hot-headed and always ready for action, and headed off to join the Tauren.
When King Wrynn is talking about the battle lines of the alliance and the horde, he makes it very clear that any other Pandaren you may have known or loved are not only not your friends anymore. This is the part that got me, because it took Aysa a moment to respond, and the excitement in her voice for having joined the alliance had diminished just a little bit. She stammers a "yes, I understand" and it's done. A quick spar with King Wrynn and you've joined the alliance.
You part ways with Aysa at this point, but (even though she's a character in a game) she'll be in my thoughts from time to time as I explore the alliance territories. It must have been hard for her, to part with somebody she was clearly getting used to. A few more quests in the Pandaren starting land and I'm pretty sure they would have been star crossed lovers. It's my sincere hope that she (and maybe Ji) show up again in my travels through Azeroth.