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Blizzard Unveils Wrath of the Lich King Cinematic
Today at the Leipzig Games Convention, Blizzard released the opening cinematic for the upcoming Wrath of the Lich King expansion to World of Warcraft. The cinematic is available on the official site via streaming video or the Blizzard downloader. There's a mirror over at 1Up. As with all Blizzard cinematics, it looks fantastic.
Sounds like Blizz is trying to silence some of the WAR talk that's been going on in the last few weeks. It will be interesting to see how they react in the few weeks after WAR launches if it does well. "free month for old subscribers" sounds about right...
Whether or not there is some sort of god, I'm not supposed to say/god is a word and the argument ends there-Smog
I'll be buying it.
Can't wait to play the new hero class!
I got burned out about January. I just can't commit the kind of time it takes to play. Odly enough though I do have fun uncovering the fog of war, and the seige tanks look cool. We shall see...
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I want the "wrath of the lion king" That's what I originally read and was very excited. Now I'm back to dissapointment.
The cinematics for Diablo were amazing. The ones for Starcraft were wonderful - I still get a chill watching the "funeral" sequence. The first one for Warcraft III blew the curve again. They always had a lock on terrific art and technical achievement.
The first two thirds of this new cinematic was just, "Pretty, but... common". The last third pulled it out, and it's once again great. They aren't leading the pack by a large margin anymore though. The available technology has leveled the playing field. They'll have to step up.
Previous trailers for WoW have been longer than this and showcased a bunch of different classes looking awesome.. but I daresay neither of them have been as awesome as this. This is the first serious Warcraft trailer I've seen for this game.
It focuses attention directly on the central figure of this expansion: Arthas the Lich King.
Arthas is your problem. Arthas is the central figure of the conflict. No matter who you are, your entry into this expansion's content will immediately involve Arthas meeting you at the front door and welcoming you to your untimely demise.
I love it.
I have to hand it to Blizzard, their trailers are always of such awesome quality.
It instantly made me want to renew my account again. Must.... resist.....
Please Blizzard, stop doing this to me!
Life starts at the end of your comfort zone.
Which one was the "funeral" sequence? A quick search of youtube came up empty.
Here you go.
Anyone have the plain .torrent for this? I can't seem to get the downloader going under Wine (it runs, but doesn't do much).
Well if MMO cinematics are making headlines... http://mythicmktg.fileburst.com/war/us/home/flash/WAR_cinematic_08.html Warhammer's got a new one out too.
I quit playing WoW earlier this year (early March) and I must say that life's been great since. I wasn't a raider (but was doing arenas hardcore) but I fell victim to what's called "Altitis". I found that taking characters to 70 was fun and fast and pretty soon I ended up with four level 70s and two level 60s (61 and 62) when I quit.
So when Blizzard brought out new daily quests or new festival events, I felt compelled (OC ftl) to do every quest on every alt - needless to say that stupidity (or OC again) burned me out. Now I am doing a lot more with my "free" time. I am hoping that the expansion won't make me renew my account or somehow magically I'd be busy playing Fable2, Alan Wake and Fallout3 that I won't notice WoW. I only need to hold myself together till SC2 or Diablo3 comes out at which point resistance will be futile :(
Should've stuck to playing Riverraid or Pitfall :O
It was really just a bunch of ice. Didn't really hold a flame to the videos embedded in Warcraft III. Maybe it has something to do with them just rehashing "the grind"? I mean, besides Arthas, what does the expansion really have going for it, story-wise? There's nothing else to really show off in a trailer. Yes, this comment is littered with personal opinion. I just never understood games that had no story to them.
Blerg.
Blizzard could just pick up Edwin Starr's song: WAR, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing...
Grats to you for holding out. I lost a ton of time to that game. Granted much of it was fun, and I really enjoyed PvP, but the grind (read raiding)just got to be more hell than it was worth. I think I got turned off when I went through Kara for the first time, and the Raid leader wouldn't quit. I held off on Kara for as long as I could. I helped my guild by donating supplies and money, not raiding as I often didn't have consecutive hrs to dedicate to gaming.
Anyhoo It was a full press w/ a 1/2 ubergeared and 1/2 undergeared party. I left that feeling excited, tired, and full. As in my appetite for the next best thing (in WoW)was finally satiated. Then I played UT3 and Crysis for a while, and now I play just a touch of TF2, but 4 hrs / week for games combined right now.
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SIMBAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!
I believe that should be
KIMBAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!
I get the feeling that they weren't trying really hard with this trailer. :D).
When they made trailers for Diablo and Starcraft, they were trying to sell games. For Wrath of the Lich King they don't really need to sell the game, because people are going to buy it anyways.
For example this trailer doesn't even really show what the game is about. IMO this trailer was just to make the existing WoW players even more rabid (and it suceeded
"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers." - Pablo Picasso
Far as I know this is going to be the opening of the game, IE its the one you see on first run after you install it.
So yeah, its not trying to sell the game to new people. Its for the people who are buying it.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
It always annoys me when I'm running an instance for the first time, and I go slowly and try to understand all of the quest dialogue and try to talk to all the NPCs so I can understand the reason for the instance, but my group is just rushing through because it's the millionth time they've run it.
"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers." - Pablo Picasso
The first two thirds of this new cinematic was just, "Pretty, but... common". The last third pulled it out, and it's once again great.
For a three-minute-long cinematic, I find that statement to be misguided. You need to judge the cinematic as a whole. What that statement basically says to me is that every scene that is not packed with action is "common". Interesting. Let's just ignore the incredible graphics and eerie music for a second and focus on the story presented in this cinematic (which is quite short).
Yes, the first half to two-thirds of the movie aren't packed with action, but that is often the case with storytelling. Usually you have your introduction, development, climax, and resolution, but in this case you have the introduction, which is intertwined with the development, and then the climax (which is the "good part" from your perspective). The first half builds up to the "good part" and, because of that, it makes that part much more worthwhile.
To contrast this a little bit, I also watched the Warhammer Online cinematic (http://mythicmktg.fileburst.com/war/us/home/flash/WAR_cinematic_08.html). This one has about a minute-long introduction, then the rest is just action with a climactic part at the end (where this dragon bursts through the gate). To be honest, this one became boring rather quickly and the climax was not as strong as it could have been. The graphics are great and each scene is presented well, but the story doesn't develop nicely. The transition from the introduction to the action part starts off nicely, but after about thirty seconds or so you realize that it has plateaued and doesn't really go anywhere until the climax. They keep showing these different combat situations between characters the viewer doesn't have any attachment to and then they slow the action for a few seconds before the climax, which fails to deliver. The problem is that the action was already at a pretty high point, so the climax didn't have much room to increase in intensity.
I have to go ahead and give the nod to WOTLK as the better cinematic of the two.
"For a three-minute-long cinematic, I find that statement to be misguided. You need to judge the cinematic as a whole."
Actually, that's exactly what I did. See the text you quoted, where I said the trailer was great.
My point was that what they are offering isn't eclipsing the competition like it used to.
Remember this one from 1999? The "wow" factor of that one is far greater than that of this new trailer.
Well, it's ok. It's good enough, but not as good as the original WOW trailer or the Burning Crusade one. I found it impressive, but lacking in the flavor/story of the others.
Actually, that's exactly what I did. See the text you quoted, where I said the trailer was great.
I disagree. You broke the cinematic into two parts: the first two thirds and the last third. The distinction you make is that the prior is "common" and the latter is "once again great". The distinction in the cinematic itself between your two parts is when Arthas unleashes the undead dragon and the army below is shown. That leads me to believe that the difference to you is the boring 'Arthas walking around Northrend' half versus the exciting 'undead dragon breaks free and flies over the undead army below' half.
What I'm saying is that you need to look at the first half as a precursor to the second half. The second half might stand well on its own, but it is much more effective with the first half preceding it. For example, if you read a well-written novel, you (hopefully) wouldn't think lesser of it because the only exciting part was when the protagonist killed the bad guy. The way you've described your opinion of the cinematic is akin to thinking lesser of the aforementioned novel because the introduction wasn't exciting enough. It's an introduction -- it's not meant to be action packed, although it certainly can be. Granted, the two mediums are drastically different in terms of length, but the concept still applies. Even in the War3 cinematic the action splices in the introduction are short (and this again intertwines the introduction with the development).
With that said, I have to agree that the War3 cinematic is more enticing than the WOTLK cinematic. However, to perhaps offer some reason why "what they are offering isn't eclipsing the competition like it used to", I believe the WOTLK cinematic was directed more towards their current player base, as opposed to attracting new players (at 10 million I hope they don't think they need more players). In addition, we are only talking about one cinematic here, so it is not entirely representative of "what they are offering". If you watch the original WoW cinematic (URL:http://media.worldofwarcraft.com/movies/video_loader/wow_video.htm?vid=wow-intro_en&dir=movies/wow_intro&rating=wow), you will probably find it to be quite enticing, as it was geared towards attracting consumers.
Well, enough rambling from me. I hope I've explained myself clearly enough. I'll see you all in the Duke Nukem Forever official cinematic thread.
...what's it got to do with the game? Is there really anything in there (beyond a "mood") that should make me want to play it? Show me game footage and I'll get interested.
It looks nice, but it didn't send a shiver down my spine like the first two did. Not to mention it is a painful reminder that all my gear could again be obsolete. I think I will say no more, least I portray myself as a bitter husk of a human that was beaten up by a bunch of insolent adolescents last time the level cap was raised...
Ahem. As I was saying... Shiny is good, shivering is excellent.
The grind is quite simply for people that play too much.
And sadly, many of these people who "play too much" get bored and resort to griefing the casuals.
Don't get me wrong, PvP *can* be fun, but when you have a group of 5+ people with no lives (and therefore full Season N gear or Tier (2*N) gear) repeatedly killing any and everybody who's trying to quest for hours on end, well it ceases to be fun.
So the casuals become fodder for the no-lifes.
And dont' get me started on non-PvP servers. Blizz loves to charge you $25 per character to xfer over. Not my fault they couldn't figure a balance between PvP and PvE on a PvP realm.
Meh they had so many opportunities to make PvP right and even introduce some RPG elements along with it (like say a "scent of death" debuff where town guards will throw you out if you've been on a killing spree, vendors will charge you more money or not deal with you, etc).
But atleast I hear it isnt' as bad as EVE Online ^_^
This Warcraft cinematic was okay, but another was released just ahead of this one and I think it is a much more compelling video.
The Official opening cinematic for WarHammer Online:
http://mythicmktg.fileburst.com/war/us/home/flash/WAR_cinematic_08.html
a lot of the quest lines just kind of die. You level up to 58 and then head to Outland. Or you level up to around 60 and find that all of the quest lines disappear into prior "end-game" instances that nobody is running anymore.
Ironically, you're answering someone else's complaint about "unchanging world environment". The truth is blizzard does change it with the expacks, which demark "campaigns" as in a war.
you had the battles at the dark portal before bc, which were won, and azeroth's forces pushed into outland.
Those quest lines ended because that stage in the conflict was over. This is where blizzard screwed up though. They didn't go back and morph the previous world's quest lines to fit in with their recent storyline revisions.
This doesn't mean they had to remove the old-world raids. They could be ongoing areas of resistance which have to be periodically quashed like certain areas of the middle east.
The main quest lines though need to lead toward the dark portal and integrate with outland, and eventually northrend.
This would obviously be much better seamlessly integrating the expansions into the game, and reselling it as one unit under a new price, but this kind of thing is not necessary to achieve what i'm laying out.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Aristotle's Poetic's right ? Sympathetic characters have to be done away with in order to create interest from the audience ? The purging of human pathos via the externalization of the real forms of drama in human life. Yes the MMORPGs' are lacking this dimension, but I question whether or not the medium lends itself to any kind of meaningful dramatic narrative. The chorus of consumer idiots always present, tends to muck up any attempts to deliver dramatic content.