wrath-cinematic
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Russian commercial rips off Lich King trailer
As if it weren't enough that we have to tolerate protection warrior dominance in PvP as the first sign of the impending apocalypse, we started getting tips about a somewhat...odd-looking Russian commercial two days ago featuring Evgeni Plushenko, an Olympic gold medalist and three-time World Champion. By now, YouTube's gotten in on the joke with the Related Videos sidebar as well. Finished watching it? Yep -- what you're seeing above is a riff on Blizzard's Wrath of the Lich King trailer as envisioned by Oriflame, a cosmetics company advertising their Glacier Ice cologne. If they're not actually riffing on the trailer, then apparently their marketing department shares a hive mind with Blizzard's cinematics team, which may become troublesome around the time the latter starts storyboarding the Cataclysm trailer. I am stricken by a sudden vision of Burma-Shave advertisements in Gilneas: This cooling shave / Will never fail / To stamp its user / Alpha male / Burma-Shave.
BlizzCon 2008: Cinematics panel
So, this is going up a little late, huh? The panel was Saturday night! Trust me though, I have a good excuse! I think it's more fun to not tell you my excuse, so have your fun making one up for me. Let's get into what you're here for, though: A rundown of the Cinematics panel. The panel was a lot more technical than most of the other panels that I saw. It was very technical, giving more insight into how the cinematics were made than you would expect. They started from the very beginning of the process: The storyboards. The process of the storyboarding was described as, "sitting down and jamming out ideas." A very, very interesting note is that the Wrath of the Lich King cinematic started out in the same form the previous ones did. A montage of various action scenes, with a few one-liners from Arthas. There were even going to be gnomes in the montage! As they continued refining the storyboards, it became less and less of a montage and more and more Arthas, until they finally went for a more story-driven cinematic, focusing on Arthas himself and the might of the Scourge.
Breakfast Topic: How would you do the Wrath cinematic?
If you read WoW Insider, or really any WoW site, there's really no way you can be unaware of the Wrath cinematic's debut. Some people loved it, some people hated it, some people can go either way on it. I found that pretty interesting, because I personally loved it. While watching it, I actually thought to myself, "Wow, Daniel is gonna love this." Turns out he wasn't a fan of it at all!I loved the fact that it was more heavy on the story than the previous trailers. The Burning Crusade cinematic had some story, but it all seemed like it was just an excuse to kill some people and then throw in a quotable one-liner. Not that there's anything wrong with one-liners. Yelling 'You are not prepared!' with a few dozen other nerds at BC's midnight release was pretty sweet.I think that the trailer missed on the adrenaline factor, which is what made the previous trailers so fun. Daniel had some gripes with the Lich King's character, but I think that oomph of adrenaline would've pushed it from 'awesome' to 'completely amazing.' It needed something that gets you pumped. I adored it, but I came out of it going "wow, that was neat" and not "Hell yeah, I'm off to kill some undead, woohoo!" I think the only thing I would have done differently is add some conflict. A battle between the Horde/Alliance and the Scourge, maybe. Quick snippets of random pairs duking it out would've taken away from the 'epic' of this trailer, but I like the idea of a massive battle raging down below. That likely doesn't jive with the storyline they're working with since that dragon is going to be an actual character and/or boss in Wrath, but it would have been nice anyway.What about you guys? Let's say you were given the opportunity to rewrite the script for the whole thing, what would you do? Would you scrap the whole shebang and start over, is it fine how it is, or are you somewhere in between?
Traces of the Wrath cinematic found ingame
Just in case, like me, you were wondering just what happened in the cinematic for Wrath of the Lich King yesterday (wait -- Arthas puts Frostmourne in the ground and a dragon comes out?), it looks like we're likely to get some answers. We didn't exactly see any familiar player characters or races in the trailer, but apparently the location of Arthas' little dragon summon can be seen in Northrend, as per the shot above. We still don't know what spell it is that summons a frost wyrm, but you can clearly see the hole in the ground the thing left.And while most players assumed the wyrm was Sapphiron (the frost wyrm boss of Naxxramas), MMO Champion doesn't think so -- there's a model in the beta called Sindragosa (labeled "The Frost Queen"), and there's a place called "Sindragosa's Fall" -- we're not sure where it is in the game, or if that's it above, as Icecrown Citadel has barely been explored.So maybe further questing and lore in the expansion will give us a little bit of a clue as to what exactly Arthas was doing in that trailer. Odds are that dragon we saw is ingame somewhere, and we players are probably just the dragonslayers to slay it.Update: Yep, the area is Sindragosa's Fall, which makes the dragon almost definitely Sindragosa. So it looks like the summoning we saw in the cinematic might be more story significant than we thought.
Players respond to the cinematic
Welp, the cinematic is out now for your viewing pleasure, and the response is... mixed. While pretty much everyone praises the technical quality (Blizzard's got that cinematic magic, which makes it all the more surprising that they went with live action for the movie), there is some back and forth on whether this cinematic stands up to the other two. While fans of Arthas definitely got their fill (and it was interesting to hear Terenas' voice echoing from the past, which hearkens back to perhaps the best cutscene Blizzard's ever done), other players were disappointed to see that this cinematic doesn't follow the standard "various classes and races battle it out" formula. And that only shows that this expansion will be very much more about the guy in the Lich King suit than anything else.We'd point out, too, that this trailer didn't really have a "You are Not Prepared"-style catchphrase (though the word "King" definitely echoes with significance right at the end there). Clearly, Blizzard chose to go a different direction this time around, and whether it worked or not, of course, is up to you.Unfortunately, Gnomes didn't get their day... or did they? When players cry foul on the forums, Vaneras (in official blue text) answered with the picture above. Can you see the Death Knight Gnome hidden in among the Undead army? I like Schwick's answer even better, though -- there's probably a Gnome Rogue stealthed right behind Arthas. Those little buggers are everywhere.Update: A few people are suggesting that there is more to the trailer that we haven't seen, but Nethaera has confirmed that that's everything. She commented on the forums that the trailer only showed half the battle, but later confirmed that she meant the story was incomplete (and that we needed to complete it by going to Northrend), and not that there was more of the trailer to show.
Wrath cinematic trailer unveiled
Is there anything left to be said? The Wrath of the Lich King cinematic was unveiled to the public earlier today on Blizzard's sites... and it's freaking awesome. The trailer features Arthas, the Lich King, trudging the icy plains of Northrend with the echoing narration of the late King Terenas Menethil, his father. Haunting music, a chilling narrative, and imagery that shows the frightening power of the Lich King is all packed into the short trailer, which can be downloaded in hi-resolution for Macs and PCs. "The truest victory, my son," King Terenas says, "is stirring the hearts of your people." I can tell you right off that this cinematic stirred my heart... and sent a shiver down my spine. Check out the full version over at the Wrath site now.Update: Our friends over at Big Download now have the trailer in downloadable form, so if you want to preserve it on your hard drive for future generations (or just to watch it a lot more), you can do so.
