WoW Moviewatch: The end of the World ... of Warcraft
by Moo Money 
Apr 28th 2008 at 12:00PM
I think that Dopervius has real potential for a future in machinimated comical relief. Only time will tell if he will improve, but for a first real try at this, he's not doing so bad. What say you, uber-critical audience?
[Thanks, Ziemowit!]
If you have any suggestions for WoW Moviewatch, you can mail them to us at machinima AT wowinsider DOT com.
Previously on Moviewatch ...
Filed under: Machinima, WoW Moviewatch, Humor
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
mattarin Apr 28th 2008 12:15PM
that dance party really made the alliance gayer then they already are
Moos Apr 28th 2008 12:52PM
Badly model viewed? I've seen serious machinimas with worse. Thought it was pretty funny, untill the venga boys annoyed me so much I clicked it away to write this comment :)
Kemek Apr 28th 2008 12:41PM
heard the microsoft sam voice and hit the stop button without watching. Seriously people, do a real voiceover or don't make videos at all. I refuse to watch any machinima so trashy that is uses microsoft sam (unless it's a rip on stephen hawking of course).
Treima Apr 28th 2008 12:48PM
The opening looked like a typical day in Stormwind.../facepalm.
matthewclaycomb Apr 28th 2008 1:17PM
wow..that was quite stupid.
Minnow Apr 28th 2008 1:20PM
Better than anything I can ever make....
Awlbiste Apr 28th 2008 1:27PM
I'm sure I could never make anything even half-decent but that doesn't preclude me from calling it trash. Maybe it got better after 22 seconds.
Thijz Apr 28th 2008 1:49PM
That world at the start looked pretty neat, the rest was horrible
darian Apr 28th 2008 2:27PM
You wanted uber-criticism, and here it is.
The brief dialog at the beginning, including the text swirl, could have been entirely skipped. Going straight to the "ZZzztZzztZtzZTzztzzTZ" would have been best.
Arguably, the best part of the machinima was zooming in on Azeroth. Unfortunately, this is immediately marred by subsequent travel scenes. White outs are an established and effective transition mechanism, but used that frequently and combined with that visual filter the effect became obnoxious.
The Ogre was too small given his place in the perspective of that scene. Many similar minor quibbles can be brought up.
"Happy News" is incorrect. The lyrics are clearly "Happiness".
Fitting things to the lyrics is a powerful part of many machinima, but that bus was far too visually jarring.
In general, the entire bus song overstayed its welcome. The song itself was good, but the novelty of the humor wore off very quickly.
The cross-dressed human could have been funny, but he was A) clearly a Basutei (Illegal Danish) knock off and B) over represented. While it was gratifying to see that him dead, that really didn't make up for it.
Static backgrounds are not meant to be used during scenes in which the foreground moves, particularly when it turns. This has been done in certain trans-dimensional contexts to good effect, but Stormwind doesn't fit that bill (nor any of the contexts it is used throughout the film).
A lot of time was spent on the Cathedral. Beyond the inconsistency of background, you'd think for the time spent on it and the number of hits it took we could be gratified with more than one kill.
The following scene really demonstrates how to make characters "unrealistic" using WoWModelViewer. The movements are clearly against what we know in WoW. While breaking from the normal gameplay can work, that's normally reserved for comedy or extreme epic fights. Situations such as these where the audience expects the actors to move realistically become jarring when they don't.
Arnold was a nice touch, completely destroyed by the lack of any sound accompanying the destruction of the flying machine.
I understand that the sundering of the universe is a chaotic and incomprehensibly destructive situation, but because the audience prefers images they can comprehend it's better to make the apocalypse visually pleasing and understandable rather than stacks of glowy explosive effects over some backdrop you can't quite make out but you can tell isn't moving properly with the effects. There were a few moments were you could see stuff happening, but it was never clear what or why.
Using computerized voice overs can be nifty (or obnoxious), but if you're going to use them note their limitations. They don't have human diction or speech patterns down pat, so it's hard to hear what they're saying if you aren't careful. This video wasn't careful. It took me a few run throughs to get that what the gnome was saying.
The destruction of Azeroth was a very neat effect, and the credit animations were nifty.
In conclusion, this was a very decent first effort. However like almost all first efforts it sported some very noticeable and gaping flaws that make first efforts pretty hard to bear through and stomach.
Tutunkommon Apr 28th 2008 2:37PM
Agh, my eyes... I would rather be forced to watch all 30-however-many-he-is-up-to-now episodes of How to Paladin back to back!
Actually, I enjoy HtP....
Verses Apr 28th 2008 4:19PM
Weird... When The video starts I get this age check and some strange Korn video in a FPS starts...
deadcheeze Apr 29th 2008 12:56AM
This is so terrible... it makes 'How to Pallie' look Brilliant.
Jessierockeron May 8th 2008 5:01AM
If you pause a half second after he blows up you can see his parts flying everywhere.