Posts with tag youtube

Sure, the Cataclysm trailer was cool and all, but did it seem like it was missing a little something? That little something may have been the Wowcrendor touch. Fortunately, Wowcrendor has remade the trailer in his own unique style (he says on the YouTube page that it's an early cut Blizzard eventually scrapped for obvious reasons), and you can watch the result above.

As with Wowcredor's other videos, the satire is piled on in heaps, from MS Paint-ed lava to a nice dig at rated battlegrounds, and a nice little coda about Barrens chat (given, that's a pretty big comedy target to hit, but Wowcrendor hits it anyway). Funny video, and proof that no matter how awesome Cataclysm sounds, odds are that we'll still be playing the same game with the same people.

---

Here's a great way to start off the weekend for sure. lockexenocide on WoW LJ points out this remix of Thorim's "In the mountains" speech, and I like it a lot. It's part of a speech Thorim gives when you first pull him, thrown in with some phat beats and cuts. Unfortunately, LJ doesn't know who put it together, but even stranger, a search reveals a another Thorim remix in the Youtube video above.

I'm surprised there aren't more remixes of Blizzard's music and/or audio -- these sound really good, and it'd be fun to hear someone like The Maiden of Virtue ("Cast out your corrupt thoughts!") or Noth ("Rise, my soldiers! Rise and fight once more!") get this treatment. There's probably a whole bunch of cool ways aspiring DJs could cut up and remix some of Blizzard's audio.

Update: Here's a cool Yogg Saron mix from Thebum in our comments.

I was never one for these tabletop strategy games or D&D but thanks to WoW I have become quite a tactician. Tactics are so integrated in the game that they come into play figuring out how to down Hogger without aggroing too many of his numerous minions, to sneaking through hostile territory and avoiding NPCs who want to kill you all the way to confronting KT in Naxx or Ignis in Ulduar. The latter is especially true, Ignis is a nightmare where a knowledge of tactics is life or death. When your raid leader asks if everyone knows the tactics and you all nod heads and mutter yes, it's not actually courtesy, he or she is trying to figure out how many people will survive long enough to down the giant er ... giant.

Once upon a time all you had to do to learn the tactics was play. Wiping on bosses and the depression of death, failure and repair bills can be a great motivator. At the same time, there are few unique boss fights in WoW. They all follow some kind of pattern and sometimes phases are even borrowed from other mobs. Others, such as Shade of Aran's Flame Wreath go down in lore and legend, even getting their own ever-so-catchy (nay beautiful) theme tune. I challenge anyone to move after having heard that (I even have that in iTunes and would play it just in case my raid forgot. No one ever did.).

So I wonder, constant readers, how do you learn tactics? I can read WoWwiki, for example, until I'm blue in the face but because of the weird way my brain is wired (don't ask), the only was I can truly learn tactics is in the fight itself. Yes, there's YouTube, there's the pre-boss-fight sit down where the raid leader does a run though the fight because no one bothered to take ten minutes to do some reading up. What methods do you use?

The Guild (which, as we were told by Michele Boyd last week, just started putting together their third season last weekend) is having a video contest, with a little twist. They want you to make a one minute video of a potential guildie for The Guild that would obviously get rejected -- in other words, a worst guild candidate ever video contest. So maybe you could clearly be a loot hog, or not know anything about your character (but claim to know everything). Or whatever else you come up with -- it sounds like they want the entries to be as embarrassingly bad as possible. To enter, you'll just have to create a video, upload it to a sharing site like YouTube or Vimeo (make sure you save a high-quality original of it just in case), and then drop them an email with a link to the video.

Sounds like fun. If you win, you'll get featured on their website, and/or have a chance to get your video on their season 3 DVD release. They've also got legal rules over on their site (unfortunately, it's US-only, like so many other contests on the Internet), and have discussions about the contest going on their forums as well. Good luck to all who enter -- we can't wait to see the results!

Any machinima that uses The Beastie Boys wins a few extra points in my book right off the bat, but it certainly helps that this video in particular is well choreographed. The video fit the music very well, and I think my only real complaint is that it started to drag on a little. To be truthful, I can't tell if that's the fault of the machinima or the fault of my fascinating inability to sit still for more than a few minutes if there are no explosions in my direct vicinity.

I do like the fact that there was a story being played out using the lyrics of the song, rather than just a bunch of unrelated scenes cobbled together as we see so often. It's nice when someone sticks to a theme rather than flashing back and forth between random characters and scenes, only focusing on words that stick out in a song rather than the entire song. The jarring scene switches have their place, but this isn't it. It's good to see the author recognize that.

The creator, CSid, mentioned that this was a test project and they'll be working on their own WoW web series. I haven't seen enough from CSid to make a prediction on its quality, but I can say that I plan on giving it a shot. The animation quality is there, and the ability to tell a story through WoW models is there. We'll see about the writing, I suppose. If you can't see Youtube at home for some reason, here's an alternate Vimeo link.

Previously on Moviewatch ..

Our intrepid YouTube adventurer Dan O'Halloran found this video posted back on the 5th of January this year detailing the Ulduar raid zone thus far. It was made using private server technology, and contains heavy spoilers. You've been warned.

When you watch the video you'll notice that much of it is incomplete. Large areas are nothing more than gray swaths with no content in them. This is intentional and normal – the areas just are not developed yet.

However there are areas which are vibrant and high quality. Parts of the place resemble (as expected) the ancient gods look to it. The place could (and will) be sitting right next to the Halls of Lightning.

Take a watch through the video when you have a moment today. And don't forget to check out the previews of the Tier 8 gear MMO-Champion is offering.

Update 7:38 p.m. EST: Looks like Blizzard had YouTube take the video down.

shadowsun asked...

I have yet to get Wrath (I know, "PRAISE BE") although I am getting it this Thursday. I was wondering about the new raiding system. Which is harder, 10-man or 25-man? For example is the 10-man easier in the point that you need less players but harder as in they need to be more well geared? Or is the 25-man harder?

This is interesting -- we at WoW Insider are big fans of Felicia Day's "The Guild" webseries, which will now be shown exclusively via Microsoft apparently. They've announced that the second season of the popular series will premiere exclusively on Xbox Marketplace, MSN, and the Zune marketplace, and will apparently be released for free (with Sprint as an ad sponsor).

Very interesting. Formerly, The Guild posted their episodes on YouTube, which not only let browsers there find them easily, but let sites like this one embed and spread the word about the series. But while MSN has a video site, it's not immediately clear that they'll allow embedding -- it may not be so easy to spread around/watch episodes if The Guild is no longer uploading to YouTube and other video sharers. The Guild will have an embedded MSN player on their currently-being-redesigned site (complete with ads), but we're not sure whether we'll be able to embed it any more or not.

We will, however, find out the whole story on the new season (which will apparently include a holiday special) this week when we talk to Felicia Day herself on a special episode of our podcast, the WoW Insider Show. Look for that by next weekend, and keep an eye on the site on Tuesday -- even if we can't embed the new episode, we'll be sure to let you know where you can see it.

Gnomechewer remains one of my favorite machinimators by far, and his most recent work doesn't dull those feelings at all. Homesick: The Making of a Supervillain (which you can also see on Vimeo) continues Gnomechewer's history of blending game footage (not just WoW, you see a bit of Garry's Mod as well) with music that absolutely fits the tone. It helps that my musical tastes are pretty similar to his, admittedly. Not everyone will see his choices the same way I do, for sure.

For some reason, I also find myself fascinated with the way Gnomechewer blends the pulp medieval setting of Warcraft with modern day technology and communications. Warcraft has always had some element of technology which I've adored, but that level of modern technology isn't something I would enjoy in WoW itself. In this format, though, it's very intriguing. Another good example of this is his machinima Back In Your Head, which displays the effects of media and social networking on Jaina Proudmoore and Kael'thas Sunstrider's hypothetical celebrity relationship.

The end of this particular video is a bit grim and a bit abrupt, which Gnomechewer said was a result of running out of HD space, but I still found the ending neat. Abrupt, but neat. It felt like enough of a twist that it wasn't too bad, but I find myself wishing he

Previously on Moviewatch...

Warning: Parts of this film may be offensive to some viewers.

It's sad that we have to end the Moviewatch week with the film Fruit of Elune by Tivas & Gobbler of Myndflame and Dementia Studio. The filmmaker's description is this: "Elune, diety of the night elves, rains love from the heavens creating peace." My take? No. It's neither love nor peace. It's just another commercial parody, this time without much imagination and with the same underwear joke over and over again. If it were merely immature, I would shrug it off, roll my eyes, and forget about it. But on top of not being very funny or original, the filmmakers attempt a joke about domestic violence which I find entirely unhumorous and offensive to boot. I'm astounded and saddened that the judges picked this film as a Runner Up in the Comedy category for the BlizzCon 2008 movie contest. If it hadn't won a prize in the contest, you wouldn't be seeing it here on Moviewatch. Not on my watch, anyway. Not cool, Blizzard, not cool at all.

[Via WarcraftMovies]

If you have any suggestions for WoW Moviewatch, you can mail them to us at machinima AT wowinsider DOT com.

Mercy of the Sea, Runner Up in the Action/Adventure category of the BlizzCon 2008 movie contest, is a long film, clocking in at over 23 minutes. The clip embedded above is only the first act of three acts total. You can watch the entire film by streaming it, downloading it, or watching the three YouTube clips in order. Sleeping Dogs Productions, headed by J. Joshua Diltz, which also created Rise of the Living Dead and The Island, now brings us the tale of High Priestess Elunari as she tries to rescue her kidnapped child from her power-hungry husband, the Arch Druid. Of the BlizzCon-entered movies I've watched this year, this one is my least favorite.

While it is an undoubtedly polished production -- the voice talents, music, and sound design stand out in particular -- the story struggled to keep my interest, sometimes from plain confusion. The backstory takes up the first 3-1/2 minutes of the film and is told without animation, via what is essentially a slide show. It moves very slowly and provides little that we don't understand from context later. (As such, I would recommend axing the narrated backstory altogether.)

Then, ironically, much of the action in the main portion of the film was difficult for me to follow. The battle scenes were too cluttered with closeups and blur-effects to make much sense to me. Most times I couldn't even tell what spells were being cast or who was fighting whom. I never figured out how the Priestess escaped, who died overall, or why the "core" meltdown occurred. Nor was I able to follow the action well enough to figure out how the Arch Druid caught up to the Priestess at the end of the film, much less why either of them were still alive after their fiery collision. Without adding spoilers, I also can't figure out how the ending events occurred either. There were too many quick cuts, too many out-of-context closeups, too much deus ex machina, too much backstory and not enough battle context for me to enjoy the film.

Tomorrow we'll take a look at Fruit of Elune by Myndflame to wrap up our BlizzCon movie contest coverage.

[Via WarcraftMovies]

If you have any suggestions for WoW Moviewatch, you can mail them to us at machinima AT wowinsider DOT com.

It's October 1st, and Brewfest will be over at the end of this week. But fortunately we have Hallow's End starting on October 18 to look forward to. In the spirit of the upcoming holiday, filmmaker Konack1 made a trailer to prepare us all for the visit of the Headless Horseman. This is his sixth machinima attempt and he's making wonderful progress. This trailer features a spooky kid whispering warnings (The Sixth Sense, anyone?) and a professional-quality narrator whose deep voice sounds remarkably like the late Don LaFontaine. Konack1 even uses the dip-to-black technique so popular with movie trailers these days. The visuals of the Horseman rising from his grave and stalking his way to the city combined with the child's creepy voiceover are very effective in creating a Hallow's End mood.

Konack1 is still posting his work on YouTube, so we don't have a higher quality version of this video to show you. However, I would urge you to check out some of his previous work. Especially My Immortal - Tribute to Cody, an ode to a lost pet, that left me in tears.

If you have any suggestions for WoW Moviewatch, you can mail them to us at machinima AT wowinsider DOT com.

Previously on Moviewatch ...

Drop of Blood: The Collection Pt. 1 is a twin set of parodies and it's the first machinima by a 15-year-old kid named Morten from Denmark. He's remade the openings of the old Spider-Man and Scooby-Doo cartoons set in Azeroth, including setting them to music of The Simpsons take-off for the former and the original music for the latter. (Apparently he's a student of ancient television history?) It's quite silly and fun; it will make anyone who used to watch those old shows smile.

Let's help out Morten by giving him a few pointers. (Constructive criticism for a new guy on the block, please? I know you guys can do it!) Some of the action is tied to the music very well. The Spider-Pig pops in to "scare" us right on cue with the music. On the other hand, when he leaps through the trees, there was an opportunity to hit the last "Look out!" with the pig zooming off screen, but instead he flies away too slowly. Also, even on the high quality version on Youtube the title fonts look a bit blurry. It could be poor font choice multiplied by Internet sizing, but it's something to watch out for when you make movies to be viewed online. On the last tilt up to the top of the mountain with Spider-Pig looking over the valley takes too long. Instead, I'd consider using a faster tilt with push into the pig at the very end of the scene. The main issue I have with the Scooby-Doo parody is that we never see a WoW version of Scooby! Rut-ro! I think Scooby would be a Shaman in Ghost Wolf form, but maybe that's not goofy enough. Any other ideas?

[Via The WoW Portal]

If you have any suggestions for WoW Moviewatch, you can mail them to us at machinima AT wowinsider DOT com.

Previously on Moviewatch ...