Welcome to a new series of articles- I am now going to present you with an explanation of the starting area for the Pandaren race, and a guide to progressing through it.

Before talking about ingame material, though, I do have to mention the before-game material, namely character creation.  You will notice that during character creation, the Pandaren race icon is in the center, horizontally speaking, making it neither a Horde nor an Alliance race.  This is somewhat illusory, as you will need to select a side of the great conflict to be on eventually, but at first you will start out neutral to it.  This is actually fairly useful, as it allows players who aren’t initially certain to make a decision as they go- more useful for roleplayers, but nonetheless a useful option.

Pandaren are allowed access to the Warrior, Hunter, Rogue, Priest, Shaman, Mage, and Monk classes- there are no Pandaren Death Knights, a notable and likely intentional omission; it wouldn’t actually make much sense for there to be any.

Pandaren also bring their own unique set of useful qualities for a player to take advantage of.  They have an ability ( ) which can put an enemy to ‘sleep’ until either (time) passes, or they are damaged in some way.  The Rested effect on the experience bar lasts longer for Pandaren, meaning more magnified experience when you return after time away from Azeroth.  Food bonuses, a rather large and varied set of effects derived from some of the foods you can eat (more frequent at later levels) are increased for a Pandaren character, and to make it easier to get them, Pandaren have an increased level of Cooking skill so that they can learn the recipies earlier.  Finally, Pandaren take less falling damage.

This set of abilities makes them more useful for some players for a number of reasons.  Players who are not on constantly will benefit a lot from the improved Rested effect, as Rested accumulates more the longer you do not play the character.  Reduced falling damage is very useful for players who like to explore the environments in the game more than is strictly required by the various quests and dungeons, as slopes that cannot be walked or run down are very common, and being killed by the fall can severely hamper your ability to explore the more interesting locations in the world.  The ( ) ability is very useful when operating alone in semi-hazardous areas- while it’s not so great to try and use it on creatures of a much higher level than you, using it in an area where trying to fight something might attract too much attention can keep you out of trouble.  Rogues will also like it, as it can be especially nice when you need to sneak past something and the terrain forces you to go close enough that you may be seen despite using your stealth abilities.  The cooking bonus is mostly cosmetic in effect, but increased food bonuses can become really impressive for passive restoration of Health and whatever resource is applicable to your class at later levels, particularly with the Feast foods, which are commonly seen in higher-level dungeons and raids.