Posts with tag wardens-of-azeroth

We covered the first part of Erunno's Wardens of Azeroth yesterday, which makes today the day for Wardens of Azeroth part 2. Yesterday, I was focused on how its silent nature made the machinima feel more interactive to me. Since Erunno wasn't clearly spelling out every detail of the plot, the audience was left to fill out the story in their imagination. Today, I wanted to talk a little more about that.

A huge part of any roleplay game is the role. And even if you're not a roleplayer, you still get a certain sense of your character and the story behind that character. The whole darn game is firmly rooted in the imagination. Machinimas like Wardens of Azeroth do more than just spin out their own tale. They encourage and empower the players themselves to embrace creativity when playing WoW, and really think about how the lore and characters all come together in a final piece of art. I don't know if that was Erunno's goal, of course, but that was certainly an affect of this movie.

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At this point, you must be familiar with the name Erunno. Not only is Erunno a popular blogger over at the Myndflame site, he's also a successful machinimator. He's been called the Uwe Boll of machinima with a tongue firmly planted in cheek, but I swear I had nothing to do with that. If you don't recall, though, Erunno was the machinimator behind the award-winning A Dead Bug's Life.

This is part 1of Wardens of Azeroth, the prequel piece to his amazing The White Drake. Wardens breaks machinima standards by presenting a silent movie, encouraging the audience to frame and interpret the action on their own. In my opinion, Erunno's technique is actually creating a more interactive experience for the viewer. The viewer is forced to not only observe the action, but also to think about the story taking place.

While we'll be featuring the second part of Wardens of Azeroth tomorrow, I'm especially curious to see what you folks think of just this first part. What is the story saying to you? How do you feel about the characters?

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