Posts with tag cinematic

Before each faction hits the shores of Pandaria, players get to meet with their faction leader and witness an in-game mini-event that tells the tale of arriving on the lost continent. BlizzPlanet snagged the video, above, where you can see the Horde introduction to the continent with the retelling of a naval battle between the Horde and Alliance, precious cargo, and a lost ship. Garrosh is none too happy with the goblin underling who lost important cargo during the fight and tasks Nazgrim with sending his best and brightest to find the lost ship.

What is most surprising is Garrosh's behavior at the beginning of the event, signaling the beginning of his lack of control. Supplies are running low, support is running thin, and each of the various nations of the Horde are having trouble paying their dues. Silvermoon, it seems, is in a precarious amount of debt. Garrosh's patience with his allies is wearing thin, and his brashness might be taking over a bit too suddenly.

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It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!

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Many of you might not remember the trailer at the top of this Breakfast Topic. I remember looking for it a few months ago and just not being able to find it in hard media form, only remembering that it was on one of the Blizzard discs that I had lying around my apartment. It was a futile attempt. However, someone sent me a link to the YouTube version, so I was very excited. To be honest, I don't even remember where I saw it. My best guess would have to be on the Warcraft III disc with all of the cool trailers for upcoming Blizzard games.

What struck me about this video is how much of Warcraft is still here, so many years ago today, than what was originally pitched to us. That orc shaman has the exact same kind of mannerisms and mysticism surrounding him in his few seconds of screen time that it feels like Thrall has in his storyline. It felt fun and prophetic to look back and see the World of Warcraft still relatively the same tonally, even though we've all changed so much since we first saw that video.

Oh, yeah, that's Peter Cullen doing the voiceover. What do you guys think? Would this trailer still sell you on the Warcraft?

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After Blizzard's machinima team stretched its wings with the inclusion of WoW's first in-game cutscene, The Wrathgate, players have expressed their praise and hope that more cinematics would be included in Warcraft in coming expansions. With the success of The Wrathgate, Blizzard included Arthas' end in cinematic form after his defeat on Icecrown. When Cataclysm released, both the goblins and worgen were treated to cinematics that transitioned the player from starting zone to a larger world with an epic cutscene and story. Now, the Dragon Soul raid and the ending of Cataclysm are marked with story cutscenes showing off Deathwing's anger, Thrall blasting Deathwing out of the sky and parachuting onto Deathwing's back. Even Cataclysm's twist ending got a cinematic.

Which cinematic was your favorite? The betrayal of the Forsaken at the Wrathgate still holds a very special place in my heart since it was the first time cinematics were done in WoW. It was a home run from the start. Watching Sky Captain Swayze and Ka'anu jump out of the Skyfire, along with my raid, also ranks high on the list of cutscenes for me, even if it's only a few seconds long.

What do you guys think? Vote!

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Brace yourselves for what could be some of most exciting updates to the game recently with patch 4.3. Review the official patch notes, and then dig into what's ahead: new item storage options, cross-realm raiding, cosmetic armor skinning and your chance to battle the mighty Deathwing -- from astride his back!

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SPOILER ALERT: MMO-Champion has datamined the final cinematic of World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, showing the fate of Azeroth, the dragon aspects, and more. If you do not want to be spoiled on the video that plays once the Madness of Deathwing encounter is defeated, do not hit the jump for the video.

Again: spoiler alert! The video after the jump contains spoilers for the ending of Cataclysm.

From Hollywood celebrities to the guy next door, millions of people have made World of Warcraft a part of their lives. How do you play WoW? We're giving each approach its own 15 Minutes of Fame.

Football fans, we love you and we do feel your rightful enthusiasm, but admit it: The TV commercials are the best part of every Super Bowl. Just a few short weeks or months after the game, most people don't remember much about the games themselves -- but I'll bet most of us remember the Doritos commercial where the unsuspecting corporate cube drone lobs a snowglobe into his boss's nads. That 2009 ad spot grabbed the #1 ad meter position away from Budweiser for the first time in 10 years. Its creators: two of the five Herbert brothers -- and yes, 15 Minutes of Fame regulars, you guessed it ... three of them play World of Warcraft.

Since the Doritos bonanza landed Joe Herbert and his brother Dave on Leno, The Today Show, and more, the duo has been hard at work turning out more hip commercials and a board game that's in stores now. The thing that caught our attention, though, was the fantastic cinematic Joe produced for the guild he and another brother lead, and the Warsong Band. Settle in for an enjoyable trip through the history of the Warsong Band, above, and then join us for a chat with Joe Herbert for Doritos, snowglobes, PvP, board games and more.

In order to clarify what information is being downloaded with the direct digital download of Cataclysm, Blizzard has said that all current World of Warcraft subscribers will be downloading the cinematic as part of a pre-Cataclysm patch. I am guessing this is some extra 4.0.3 data that will be coming out in the next few weeks for all players. Here is the official post:

Cataclysm Direct Download and Game Cinematics

We'd like to take a moment to clarify how we'll be delivering World of Warcraft: Cataclysm cinematics to players who purchase the expansion digitally through Battle.net or download the installer from the web in the future.

Prior to the December 7 launch of Cataclysm, all current World of Warcraft players will receive the Cataclysm intro cinematic as part of an upcoming patch. In addition, all other in-game cinematics (including previous ones such as the Wrathgate movie) will be available for download to players who have not previously installed them. These cinematics will be automatically downloaded in the background while you play the game, after other critical game data has been received.

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As hinted during the Starcraft 2 cinematic panel yesterday, a new Cataclysm cinematic just debuted at the Cinematics: Cataclysm panel. As any beta worgen player could tell you, the "transition cinematic" that really kicks the story into high gear has been missing, and now we know where and what it is. As a quick gloss on what you'll see without spoiling anything too heavy, you'll see your character's transition from human to worgen, with some quiet speculation on whether your humanity's salvageable or not.

We'll post it as soon as we can find/get a copy on YouTube, but suffice it to say -- it rocks. I'm amazed at the quality the cinematics team can get out of the in-game models these days.

EDIT: A copy just went up and I've posted it past the cut. The quality's not that great, but I'll post a better copy as soon as one appears.

EDIT: High-quality copy now available past the cut.

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BlizzCon 2010 is upon us! WoW Insider has all the latest news and information. We're bringing you liveblogging of the WoW panels, interviews with WoW celebrities and attendees and of course, lots of pictures of people in costumes. It's all here at WoW Insider!

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Blizzard has announced that the first Cataclysm commercial will air on Sunday, Oct. 17, during the Dallas Cowboys vs. Minnesota Vikings NFL game. The game kicks off at 4:15 p.m. Eastern, 1:15 p.m. Pacific. This commercial will feature the first look at the cinematic for Cataclysm, just a few days prior to BlizzCon.

TiVo Alert: Cataclysm TV Spot Debuts 10/17

This Sunday, during the Dallas Cowboys versus Minnesota Vikings NFL game on Fox (starts at 4:15 PM EDT, 1:15 PM PDT), we are debuting a new television commercial for World of Warcraft's upcoming expansion. The commercial will feature the first look at cinematic footage from Cataclysm, so tune in to an exciting game this Sunday and catch the new commercial!

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This is wonderful news, especially for the Cowboys, who are in need of some sort of cataclysm of their own to beat the Vikings. Kaboom.

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World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will destroy Azeroth as we know it; nothing will be the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion (available Dec. 7, 2010), from brand new races to revamped quests and zones. Visit our Cataclysm news category for the most recent posts having to do with the Cataclysm expansion.

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Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mat McCurley will be your host today.

Hey, I'm back! Blame Alex. Yesterday, heroics opened up for testing in the Cataclysm beta. Tonight, the epic quest to get absolutely destroyed by these dungeons begins! Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday! Come one, come all. Witness the horrors, trials and tribulations of stalwart souls! The slaughter in the Stonecore! The battle in the Blackrock Caverns! Throne of the DIES ... The quite literal Deadmines! Hellish Halls of Origination. A truly Grim Batol! Uh... Vortex Pinna...culling? What do you want from me? It's early.

Enough of that. Let's get on with some questions.

There are some Cataclysm spoilers in a couple of The Queue questions this week, so be wary if you're avoiding that sort of thing.

With the final content patch of this expansion on our doorstep and Cataclysm following close behind, we'll be taking the next several weeks to look back on Wrath of the Lich King and everything that made it what it is, for better or for worse, in WotLK Retrospective.

Wrath of the Lich King wasn't just an expansion -- it was an experiment in progressive storytelling featuring story lines and lore that we haven't seen since Warcraft III. While Burning Crusade tackled new issues and races, it did little to further any of the Azeroth stories we'd seen in the earlier Warcraft games; Wrath took a step backwards to move the prior stories forward. Along with this change in direction, we saw the introduction of a few things that hadn't been seen in Warcraft before that made a large change to the way we view stories and quests in World of Warcraft, and a re-introduction of many of the heroes and prominent figures that we'd only caught glimpses of in vanilla. Today, we're going to look at Wrath lore: what worked, what knocked it out of the park and what failed to impress.

Phasing

Quite possibly the biggest technical advancement in storytelling was the introduction of the phasing mechanic. This allowed players to play through quests, and as the stories progressed, so did the world around the players, giving a new and unique feel to story line progression. Suddenly, instead of playing through a zone with no indication that you'd made any changes to the status quo, the world changed around you -- the chain of events in Conquest Hold in Grizzly Hills and Frosthold in the Storm Peaks both actually ended with NPCs being replaced as a direct result of player interaction. In the quest chain of The Battle for the Undercity, both Alliance and Horde players are teleported into a phased version of Orgrimmar, designed as a vehicle to further the story line -- and as a way for Alliance players to interact with Thrall without being attacked.

Everyone seems to be pretty excited about Cataclysm -- whether it's playing one of the two new races, exploring all the new zones or just being able to finally fly around in Azeroth. But one of the things I'm most looking forward to is getting to see what Blizzard has put together for the Cataclysm cinematic. I have to admit that while I enjoyed the Wrath cinematic and thought it was wholly appropriate for an expansion surrounding the Lich King, I found myself missing the flavor of the first two cinematics.

You know what I'm talking about -- the orc and night elf duking it out, the warlock with the gigantic infernal, the dwarf hunter and his bear; the characters that were simply unnamed players like us. The first cinematic gave us a small introduction to these guys; the Burning Crusade cinematic fleshed them out even further, but they disappeared entirely with the Wrath cinematic. Don't get me wrong, there was nothing bad about Blizzard's choice with the cinematic for the second expansion, I just found myself wistfully wondering what happened to the tauren after the mage sheeped it. Where did the draenei go after smashing in the heads of his enemies? And most importantly -- we got the teeniest glimpse of a troll in the Burning Crusade cinematic; how about we see more of him? Or how about a gnome or two for a change?

What would you guys like to see in the Cataclysm cinematic? Deathwing bursting out of the ground and setting Azeroth ablaze? Sweeping landscapes? Goblins and worgen, of course, but what other races or classes would you like to see?

Earlier this month, an interview was conducted with Jeff Kaplan by Phil Kollar of Game Informer where they talked shop about World of Warcraft. One of the items that piqued my interest was that a new cutscene was being included in patch 3.3. I'm sure we can guess that it has something to do with Icecrown Citadel (and Arthas).

I know the Wrathgate cinematic itself was a big hit. Blizzard is certainly no stranger to creating movies. There's the Ulduar trailer, the Call of the Crusade trailer, and the Fall of the Lich king trailer.

Remember the Sunwell Plateau? That one is my favorite out of them all.

I'm sure there will be new cinematics to come. But if you could pick a moment in the game, what would you like to see in cinematic form?

A lot of people were wondering if there was going to be an official Blizzard trailer for World of Warcraft's Patch 3.2, Call of the Crusade, and lo' and behold, there is! Just not out in its usual promptness.

The trailer itself is made up of mostly in-game footage of the various events in the new dungeon, the Argent Tournament. We see some boss fights in the coliseum raid, a few overviews of the tournament grounds, etc... The new Battleground, the Isle of Conquest, is also featured in the trailer, and there are some good shots of PvP going on there.

There isn't really any lore or story to it - other than that the Argent Tournament is preparing us for Icecrown Citadel. Nothing we don't already know. You can get a cool desktop background though.

You can watch the trailer above on YouTube or head over to the Blizzard site and download it in super high def.

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WoW's Patch 3.2 ushers in the Crusaders' Coliseum, the Isle of Conquest, flying mounts at 60, and much more. WoW.com has all the patch information your Worgen obsessed mind can handle in WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.2!

Nick Markham is a student at Chapman University , and he recently dropped us a tip about something special that happened there. Chapman University is fairly close to Blizzard's Irvine headquarters, which could be why they were able to take the time to drop by. One of their film classes had a treat when six members of the Blizzard cinematic team came by to give a three hour presentation about what they do, how they do it, and other miscellaneous film-related issues. So what's the news?

The most crushing news is another confirmation that we shouldn't expect to ever see a gnome in an official World of Warcraft cinematic. The quote from Jeff Chamberlain, the director of the cinematic team, is "Not if I can help it!" Apparently, while gnomes are arguably one of the coolest races in WoW, the director doesn't feel that they're "epic" enough. I can see that viewpoint, I guess, but that just means we'll have to rely on Baron Soosdon to brings us the gnome love.

The Wrathgate animation, of course, was a significant topic. According to Nick's report, the cinematic team and Blizzard both consider Wrathgate to be a complete success. We should expect to see a new, similar animated event with each significant content patch, though it's going to take a little bit to get that going.