#sylvanas shadowlands model

[moon-swag-tourney]

Propaganda below!

The Aurora

She’s a spaceship! She’s a lesbian! She’s invested with Octokittens! Her crew consists of a band of murderous space pirates who enjoy singing and telling tales!

She is currently a galactic battleship but was "born" a sentient moon before being mechanized. She's in a lesbian relationship with her engineer.

she IS a moon, shes gay, I love aurora so much

Tyrande Whisperwind

LOOK i realize blizz fumbles her writing with every single franchise. but i love her. she singlehandedly rebuild night elf society after the war of the ancients and led it for 10,000 years and She has a cool look (aside from the weird bumpit and heels model they gave her from cata to legion) and in shadowlands and battle for azeroth she called on the dark side of elune to become the night warrior to get vengeance for the genocide of her people and it was probably the coolest thing blizz had done with her and they gave her a VERY cool model and cool glaives and she just did sickass shit like decapitate orcs and kill nathanos and strangle sylvanas. Yes i know the end of that shadowlands arc was HELLA mid and blizz keeps fucking her over, but. love her for her potential and what she could be, not what blizz actually does with her. she's my mom.

[anotherchariotpulledbycats]

Executive Decisions that would see Me Fired from Managing World of Warcraft

Gnomes are no longer canon.

Vulpera are removed from the game.

Pandaren are removed from the game.

All races released in the Battle for Azeroth expansion are removed from the game (except for Highmountain Tauren, they're valid).

Mists of Pandaria never happened.

Shadowlands never happened.

Playable races for Death Knights have been cut down because let's be honest, you only made a Gnome Death Knight as a joke for a few minutes and then deleted it. The Death Knight races are Human, Orc, Dwarf, Undead, Worgen (Not canon, but werewolf death knights are cool, so they get a pass), and Blood Elves.

Warriors and Rogues can equip and use ranged weapons again.

Hunters can use melee weapons again without speccing into Survival.

You have to learn skills at class trainers again.

Bandages are decoupled from Tailoring. That was a stupid decision from the outset: Why do I need to become a tailor to dress wounds?

You now have Salvaging as a gathering profession, allowing you to break down low quality items into crafting materials.

Flax can be gathered from early game plants by Herbalists. (The earliest tier of Tailoring mats is Linen. Linen is spun from flax. Where is the flax?)

Raptor models with actual feathers.

Sylvanas gets a redesign to make her a proper queen of the undead and not just a blue elf in stripper gear.

Language: Forsaken renamed to Gutterspeech FUCK OFF ACTI-BLIZZARD

Elf ear sizes and length have been reduced by around 75%.

[cocolacola]

not to be a hater but i cannot emphasize enough how much of a downgrade this was

[netherstray]

Late night prediction: part of Sylvanas' redemption (or whatever it'll be called) will involve forgiving Arthas. And everyone will hate it (including many major characters) but I guarantee this is why Jaina is still heavily involved even after Kul Tiras. Whatever happens with Arthas will either be key or part of figuring out how to save Anduin.

[unpopularly-opinionated]

I don’t play WoW but I used to play Overwatch and Diablo and this touches on just the general issues that are inside of Activision Blizzard right now regarding the major decline of World of Warcraft and how they’re losing to Final Fantasy XIV, how if the latest WoW expansion or Overwatch 2 flop as they’re projected to do then Blizzard’s most definitely going to pivot almost entirely to mobile games, and how the differences in age demographics are actually dividing the company into multiple camps.

It’s important to note two things: 1) this could be fake but also 2) the link came from Grummz, a former team lead on WoW and producer on Diablo II and Starcraft. It still could be fake despite this, but if he’s sharing it then I feel like there’s at least some measure of truth in this.

Transcription below in case this gets deleted and/or you don’t wanna click the link. Warning, it’s fairly long.

“I’m dropping this here after getting chewed out for three hours over shit the chewee did at work so fuck it. Assume larp and let me vent.”

>Shadowlands is a shitshow. Critical response, Player drop off and just about every engagement metric outside of cash shop have been catastrophic. No higher up expected this because of their “we are too big to fail, if we built it they will come” mentality. They refuse to accept their focus on the world being a begrudged mechanic to funnel players to raiding is not appealing to the player base at large because it appeals to them. They have spent the last 4 months trying to course correct but there is no solid direction and the response to 9.1 has only made things worse.

>Sylvanas is planned to replace the Arbiter despite so many people in the company and god knows how many online saying this would be a total replication of Kerrigans storyline in Starcraft 2 that killed none competitive interest in the brand entirely and you can only go “no, no they WILL like it eventually” for so many real world years before its time to change course. Thus far that has not happened.

>The elephant in the room is FFXIV. To the people in charge they are acting like this came out of nowhere and don’t even seem to understand why its drawing players away in their tens of thousands. We have all tried to highlight things it is doing that are clearly appealing to an mmo audience and not, in my opinion, focussing more on mobile game style retention traps to keep MAU users and habit forming personalities logging in. Its not that they don’t care. They just seem so pig headed and digging their heels in with their fingers in their ears thinking all the problems will go away because WoW is “too big to fail”, there will never be real competition and “they will keep coming back”. But they aren’t coming back anymore. Not in the numbers they used to.

>The people making the spending choices know this. The new model for WoW is market the hell out of a expansion pack for a huge quarter then use 6 month lock ins to pad numbers for the quarters after that. Even if corona had not happened 9.1 still would have been dropping after the initial 6 month subs expired to “keep the chain holding”.

>The mood in the company is tense but also very much “its just a rough transition period”. Activision has been pushing hard for Blizzard to release more regular product and to generate more income per user. As far as i know this is going to be a transition over the next 5 years to a much larger mobile/tablet gaming focus. By all accounts not just WoW but Overwatch was intended to be the moneymaker in the interim but once again someone had the bright idea to kill a game casual players loved on the alter of e-sports hoping for another Brood War. From what i hear the “told you so’s” were loud and a lot of people walked beyond Kaplan.

>The sentiment that was shared quietly in private but being spoken more often is simply that the leadership at Blizzard are not bad people, nor incompetent people but people who had to fill seats left when the old guard jumped ship wether they were suited for it or not. Brack is a genuinely good man out of his depth, Ion is a fantastic raid designer put in charge of designing a virtual world he has no interest or real ideas for and so on. They have been taking form the roles they excel at to be put in positions where they get to do far less of that purely because there is nobody left with the experience to do so and the trickle down is a lack of concrete direction, ambition and focus.

>2021 has seen the playerbase, media and gaming at large “turn” on WoW to a degree i don’t think the leads in their “positivity dojo” bubble considered possible. Its gone from people going “This is how Blizz needs to fix WoW!” to “WoW is no longer salvageable, time for greener pastures” and i think on some level this was never considered as a possibility so there have never been any major plans beyond the usual “try and minimise player drop off by arranging releases around competitors launching updates/products”. The official forums being filled with talk of FFXIV and worse “why do we actually pay a sub?” hasn’t helped.

>There have been some testing the waters lately from certain higher ups if we can remove the line “No King Rules Forever”. Read into that what you will.

>There are still arguments going on about the Kael’thas Voice actor shitshow. I don’t know much about it but i know its heated, wouldn’t be the first time a knee jerk reaction only seemed to generate bad press. We lost a noticeable amount of pvp engagement after the Swifty thing.

>The Preach interview was treated as a disaster and there was talk of more strongly vetting interviewers for “bad actors” and only engaging with a list of questions Blizzard provides. Some pointed out that could just be used to create some form of Fireside Chat akin to the FFXIV “Live letters” but that fell on deaf ears.

>The two sentiments right now among the team are either “we really need a win” or “theres a dedicated cabal of internet trolls out to kill WoW”. Right now we are crunching hard to get 9.2 ready to wrap up the jailors storyline so we can get an expansion out early 2022. If that doesn’t happen there are talks of major shakeups coming down from Activision that have been threatened for a few  years now. Its an all hands on deck feeling thats been around to some degree since the “Is this an out of season April Fools Joke” Blizzcon. A make or break deadline is coming closer and things like Diablo 4 were not planned before then. Blizzard needs a significant win not just in initial profit but consumer goodwill. Nobody likes working at what the public now seems to see as “the bad guy” of the mmo industry.

>This has also made new hires decline. Not significantly but the “you WANT Blizzard on your resume” line doesn’t seem to have the appeal it used to. This has lead to more hiring via friend of a friend, to some rumblings about nepotism, and people severely lacking in experience “because they get great twitter optics”.

>On the topic of Twitter we are not being told to “disengage” from it. Multiple employees like Nervig and Holisky publicly attacking paying customers because they got too heated and couldn’t keep quiet is bad press that could have been avoided. A email reminder has gone around more than once lately stating “if you are not customer relations you should not be representing the company to customers, especially if you cannot remain professional”.

>Lastly the biggest elephant in the room is “yo’ boy” Asmongold. The newer hires cannot stand him. They have used terms like “toxic masculinity” and “dogwhistles to dangerous males” while some of the oldest crowd still remaining have called him “based” or “telling it like it is” which has lead to friction to put it mildly. People are told not to talk about him and the recent FFXIV stuff only made it all worse. The idea that an outside element can have such an effect on the product genuinely upsets people. Like Zach is engaging in some malicious act of cyberwarfare. Many of us have point out the now famous quotes by Naoki Yoshida about understanding that players will drift and we need to make something worth coming back to because they want to but some people for lack of a better word see out customers -or “consumers” as they refer to them nowadays- as some kind of antagonistic relationship where the goal is not being an entertainer putting on a show for a crowd but some kind of game hunter trying to trap a large, profitable kill. I wish i could blame Activision but this is a sentiment from more of the younger crowd than the “tech boomers”. Which personal opinion is probably why so many folks like Metzen and Morheim left.

>Before you ask, yes the topic of “wokeness” has shown up in group talks. Its not all some grand sjw conspiracy, people really do want to feel welcome and represented. However the “we need everything veto’ed by people not working on it to see if its inoffensive and bland enough” rubs some of us the wrong way. Like anything in life you can take something too far and lose sight of the core ideals and with everything gone on since Blitzchung it feels like people are forming little factions to pull people in different directions to decide “What Blizzards identity is now” and how to appeal to new players. There has been some drop offs with “go woke go broke” as the only answer in the survey when unsubbing but honestly we are losing subs in unforseen numbers anyway and still making more money than ever through cash shop “heavy users” so it honestly doesn’t make an impact.

>All in all things are rough right now. Blizzard doesn’t have the love of the customers anymore, is no longer treated as an industry giant and while D4,D2R and Immortal aren’t going to kill Diablo even if they fail the sentiment for World of Warcraft and Overwatch 2 are a lot more tense and stressful. The phrase “it might be good to brush up on your mobile development portfolio if we get another underperformer” has been doing the rounds a lot. If Shadowlands continues its stark decline and Overwatch 2 is looking to underperform like its current projections suggest i think the Blizzard of a few years from now will be imitating King a lot more than trying to learn any lessons from Square Enix’s mmo division.

[korkrunchcereal]

World of Warcraft: Chains of Domination Panel

Recap on the So Far

Centered on Jailers forces.

All four covenants unite for the first time in years to take the fight to the jailer

New areas, new enemies, new rewards

Return to the Maw: Explore new areas. Mounts will work again. 

Korthia, the City of Secrets. New Area of the Maw pulled in. Similar to Oribos. Has mysteries the Jailer is interested in. 

New rewards include: Giant Hand mount, pets, other Maw themed items

Sanctum of Domination: Ten boss raid. Tarragrue, Eye of the Jailer, Kel’thuzad, Fate of the Damned, ends on Sylvanas. Finale of the Sylvanas fight changes the future of the Shadowlands

The Eye of the Jailer is Odyn’s eye. 

New Torghast updates. New foes, powers, rooms, traps

New Mega dungeon: Broker Trader City.  8 boss dungeon. Portals, Auction House, various cartels. Learn more about Broker culture. Mythic only to start. First half is Broker cartels. Second half is outside the market and into a heist. INFINITE DRAGON PIRATE BOSS

Mega dungeon rewards: New pets, disc mount, unique weapon models.

9.1 introduces flying. No rep grind. Do Covenant storyline.

New Flying Mount Based on Covenant. 

New Covenant armor cosmetics

new Season of stuff

[1296-very-good-year]

soo (PTR SPOILERS) from what I’ve seen of the 9.1 intro quests in Ardenweald, Sylvanas attacks the Winter Queen as a distraction for someone (my guess is Jailer Anduin) to sneak into the Heart of the Forest and steal the sigil/key, which Bolvar tells us happens via a missing cinematic after we arrive too late to stop it. Which... potentially means a very cool moment/fight/conversation between Bolvar and Jailer Anduin, and which has a CHANCE of being cgi since they already have a fully rendered Bolvar model from the shadowlands trailer.

And from a story pov makes total sense since Bolvar has a history with both Anduin and the Jailer since he helped raise Anduin and he was the lich king... Make it happen bliz im ready 

[helloarchivist]

WoW for the fandom ask game

This is the sweetest bud thank you !! :D Okay here we go:

blorbo (favorite character, character I think about the most):

This one is really difficult bc I mostly have a three-way tie going on between Renathal, Nathanos, and Illidan's over the top ass, like. I am rotating one of them slowly and pensively in my mind at all times. My heart wants to say Nathanos, who I have felt very fondly for the for eons and centuries bc he's just so?? he's SO gruff and angery that it goes all the way around the circle and comes out as endearing, at least for me.

That being said Renathal had me like publicly acting up for months, and my heart still hurts for him over Denathrius' betrayal and the 99% of the time thankless job he had immediately afterwards of trying to reunify and revitalize Revendreth (which is still my fave zone in Shadowlands bar none).

Generally hot as Illidan is I mostly just feel like, inordinately angry and sad about everything he had to go through (even if he did make ~half of the problems for himself). Plus we love a single father, especially one with like 1500 adopted half-demonic children.

scrunkly (my “baby”, character that gives me cuteness aggression, character that is So Shaped):

For effect pls picture me T-Posing on top of Bwonsamdi, who is somehow both unbearably attractive and the scrunkliest weirdest little man I have ever seen. Honorable mention goes to Ara'lon (but only his in-game model is scrunkly, the cinematic Ara'lon is the prettiest baby in all the wilds).

scrimblo bimblo (underrated/underappreciated fave):

Okay okay so hear me out.....Breka Grimaxe from the weird little Exile's Reach tutorial zone. Do I know she's a throw-away NPC that's just there to give you tutorials about your starting skills? Yes. Do I care that this is the case? Nope! She was a good mom and she was gruff yet supportive, grizzled hot lady that could kill you but wouldn't energy, like?? I understand her whole purpose is to get you through that area and then drop you off at daycare Orgrimmar, but I still wish she had gotten a fun lil tie-in to the rest of the story.

glup shitto (obscure fave, character that can appear in the background for 0.2 seconds and I won’t shut up about it for a week):

This is gonna seem weird bc you can technically see him like...whenever you want, but Polemarch Adrestes? He's another one that starts off kinda gruff and rankled about you but warms up a bit with time and I have such a soft spot for the guy. He's not quite obscure enough to technically count for this but I'm putting him here bc getting his attention is made to be such a big deal and then he just kind of gives you quests sometimes and is just a guy.

Honorable mention bc she's not a character but listen BLANCHY!!! Or any of the cool like world spawn mount critters, I only ever caught glimpses of them occasionally but please know I would be INSUFFERABLE talking about them to my family for the whole rest of the day every time. I just get jazzed about stuff like that, it's still one of my fave bits of the game.

poor little meow meow (“problematic”/unpopular/controversial/otherwise pathetic fave):

You wanna catch me crying in the club, doing Runas' questline broke my heart, even on the like third or fourth playthrough when I KNEW what was coming. He was really trying so hard, even at the end, and I just. :( He is my poor lil meow meow, I just wish there was some other way for that questline to go.

horse plinko (character I would torment for fun, for whatever reason):

Ready for some controversial picks? Genn Greymane and Malfurion lmfao like. Genn makes me insane which I know doesn't make a ton of sense given that he's a gruff, grumpy old man, but he's racist and obnoxious, and he stopped Sylvanas from getting that fucking lantern and set in motion a sequence of events that led to me personally having to set foot in Torghast, my ultimate detested.

Malfurion because oh my gOD HE IS INSUFFERABLE. HE'S SO PRETENTIOUS, self-important pompous ASShat if I WANTED to hang out with some stick in the mud graduate professor I would have GONE TO GRADUATE SCHOOL. He trophy wife'd Tyrande which gives me endless endless migraines, he was terrible to Illidan, and I am going to feed him head first into the horse plinko. He and Genn can duke it out for the worst most tepid takes for all eternity.

eeby deeby (character I would send to superhell):

Denny's already in superhell (even though I love him lmfao), and so is Sargeras and Gul'dan and like. That is one of the high points of this game is generally speaking the Big Bads do go directly to superhell once they're no longer narratively relevant. The only one off the top of my head that I can think of that is still kicking around is Odyn. Who is as bad and irresponsible of a father in this as he is in most stories.

**

Thank you so much again for the ask buddy this was a lot of fun!!!

[panasop]

New Shadowlands Models

This is obviously spoilers so if you don’t want them don’t click them. But oh BOY am i excited for this expansion now. So let us review our currently leaked cast.

First up, our potential heroes/protagonists:

YSERA

THE WINTER QUEEN

The Khan Makyr THE ARBITER

KYRIAN UTHER LIGHTBRINGER

Now for the potential good guys/ anti-heroes/ actually ambiguous characters:

KAEL’THAS SUNSTRIDER

(CORRUPTED VERSION(?))

BOLVAR FORDRAGON

LADY VASHJ

Now for the definitely antagonists/big bads (unless some major lore development happens we’ll see)

KEL’THUZAD

MUEH’ZALA (as in Troll God of Death, not to be confused with Bwonsamdi, who is the Loa of the Dead)

HAKKAR 

THE JAILER

and now, presenting everyone’s favorite mean girl, the woman who people love to hate and hate to love, the reason why we are even in this mess to begin with:

SYLVANAS WINDRUNNER 

Let me know what you guys think of these models. Personally my favorite is Sylvanas because it makes her not look as cartoonish, although i am loving the rest of these. also AAAAAAHHHHHH YSERA IS COMING BACK AAAAAAHHHHH.

[wrathion]

all these models are so damn cool, props to the art team

[krimzie]

Excuse me yes I am vibrating at very high frequency because of that new Sylvanas Windrunner model for Shadowlands and EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

[katieskarlette]

A stupid, pointless skit in which my mage gets off her butt and tries to “fix” recent lore (especially the Arthas thing) through the power of sheer frustration, a prop from a different IP, crappier image edits than usual, and a blatant disregard of logic that even eclipses Blizzard’s

Somewhere in Dalaran, my mage, Skarlette, has been quietly minding her own business since shortly after 9.1 launched.  Catching up on her reading, letting Murky play in the fountains, failing to organize her bank, and just generally ignoring anything going on in the Shadowlands.

Now I’m imagining her giving a weary sigh, setting aside a yellowed tome of magic, and heading off to Zereth Mortis.  She marches into the Sepulcher during the newest cinematic, looking thoroughly fed up.

“Champion, where have you been?” Uther asks.  “We could have used your help in the Sanctum of Domination.”

"Never mind that.  What the hell is going on here?  I can’t leave you guys alone for a single patch without everything falling to pieces.”

Skarlette stomps up with one of those spirit-catching vacuum things from Ghost Busters and sucks up what’s left of Arthas into a box.  

She turns to Sylvanas and tries to point at her, but the author only has access to WoWhead model viewer at the moment and can’t figure out how to unequip her weapon, so pointing makes her also whack herself in the face with her fiery staff.  It is just as uncomfortable as you imagine. 

Recovering quickly, she says, “You.  Go find Nathanos and then make yourself scarce for awhile until the discourse quiets down.”

She next turns to Uther and Jaina.  “You two, come with me.  There’s a pod in my conservatory in Ardenweald with Arthas’ name on it, but the three of us will have to grind out a few million anima to grow his soul back.”  

As you can see, they are not looking forward to that.  That’s a lot of daily quests.

Skarlette then stomps further into the raid and screams in the general direction of Zovaal, “And you, Mister ‘I Show More Nipples Than Characterization’, can just go away and not come back until you’ve developed a personality and a master plan that doesn’t involve a degree in quantum physics to understand.  You are a bad villain and you should feel bad.”  

Zovaal cries a little bit, but nobody can tell under the helmet.

Skarlette then makes a portal to Oribos and physically shoves a confused Jaina and Uther through it.  

They plant the wisp of Arthas’ soul in Skarlette’s night fae garden and feed it anima until he’s whole again, then drag him before Pelagos to be properly judged.  

He ends up in Revendreth, naturally, and after a few centuries of grueling atonement and hilarious shenanigans with Kael’thas he can join Uther in Bastion, where they train new Kyrian together.  When Jaina dies they can find a lovely little cottage somewhere in a part of the Shadowlands that doesn’t completely suck and (un)live happily ever after.  

The End

...

I don’t know wtf this turned into but I have a headache and I wanted to make a comic but WoW Model Viewer isn’t working for me and rather than troubleshoot it I decided to crank out this stupid skit with WowHead, Google images and stuff I had already made instead and I’m sorry but not really because damn it if Blizz can write dumb plots that make no sense then so can I nyah

[asynca]

thoughts on the new shadowlands models of sylvanas, kaelthas ysera (she still has an armor bikini!!!) and others?

Okay, look, apparently I am a bastion of unpopular opinions about Shadowlands (hue hue hue), but I absolutely adore Sylvanas’ new model. I love her face (it looks much closer to her HD face, and much more delicate and prettier, and she finally resembles her sisters), I love the cool palette for it, and I think it will make her glowing red eyes stand out much more!

Look, I’m happy to see Ysera’s model because it means she’ll be back in the game. I love her and generally fucking cried real tears when she died - not only for her but for Alexstrasza who loved her dearly and pretty much lost everyone she ever loved. Ysera’s humanoid model is like.......... exactly the same 90s hornboy design. Her dragon model is beautiful though, I love the new colours in it. 

Kael’thas is pretty even in death, lmao. I love his ‘chained to his own headstone’ chic. 

Someone pointed out that the Naga was Vashj (I didn’t recognise her!!) and I like Vashj as a character so I’m super interested to see what they do with her. The bone tail is creepy as fuck (and also, like, bothers me anatomically because rather than being gaint bones, naga tails would be long rib-cage-like structures BUT WHATEVER IT’S FANTASY). 

Anyway I’m excited about Shadowlands. 

Two of the writers on twitter have strongly hinted that Matthias/Flynn is going to be a thing, and also that there is more gay rep in general in Shadowlands so I’m excited to see how that plays out. 

[therebloggerbird]

World of Warcraft Trailers RANKED

Because I’m incredibly bored and needed something to do. I played WoW briefly back during the Wrath era, and still like to keep up with what’s going on in that IP once a year or so. But I’ve always been really impressed with Blizzard’s cinematic trailers. So I have them ranked here, based on my personal preferences. Bit long under the cut, but I’ve still tried to keep things concise overall.

9. Mists of Pandaria

I almost feel like Mists of Pandaria gets a pass because in many ways it doesn’t feel like it “fits” with the others. Even the art style looks “off” to a degree. What’s with the strangely bara-looking characters? Overall it’s a pretty tight and decently crafted cinematic – Blizzard is very good at making these trailers even at their worst, as we’ll see – but it feels disconnected from the larger world. I can even overlook the whole kung fu panda concept to just say that the weirdly humorous and cartoony affect doesn’t seem to hit, even by the admittedly cartoony standards of the whole IP. Just kind of silly.

8. Shadowlands

“Icecrown.” This is where I wish I could review these in reverse, but I always like to count up rather than down in list reviews. Shadowlands is the culmination of a trend that can be seen from Legion through to the present in terms of Sylvanas Windrunner’s character progression. Right off the bat this trailer has a big setup – we’re returning to Icecrown Citadel, one of the most memorable and important locations in the entire series. While the full extent of her fall is not made clear until later, we can see that old Sylvia is clearly going the Garrosh Hellscream route of turning into a villain by popular demand. What follows is a very stupid action sequence. Is it cool looking? Of course it is, the budget on these things is ludicrous. It’s still stupid, however. Sylvanas might as well have dealt with the OG Lich King by herself, along with pretty much every other raid considering how untouchable she is in this showdown. More than that, the disrespect to Bolvar Fordragon, who I believe was never seen again after the end of Wrath, seems a bit harsh. The ending leaves more questions than it answers, and not entirely in a good way. The concept of the “Shadowlands” as given later doesn’t seem bad, but you’re telling me nobody thought to do this with the Crown beforehand? It’s a bit out of nowhere.

7. Battle for Azeroth

Battle for Azeroth’s cinematic trailer suffers from having come after the trailer for Legion. Legion’s trailer is incredibly over-the-top in a very endearing way, and BfA takes a step back from that. I get that it’s probably an homage to the early days of WoW, but considering how Legion showed how far the world had come in many ways, BfA seems kind of dull and same-y. Siege towers? Really? When you have legions of magical air-dreadnoughts? It also shows the ongoing negative trend with hero characters in the franchise. Nobody gives a damn how powerful the “main characters” are in a game about the PLAYERS going around and having adventures. And if they do, I’d still ask who on earth these stupid schmucks are who sign on to be a part of the Alliance and Horde line-infantry at the very least. Sylvanas shows off an early taste of what’s to come in terms of her decline, and Anduin is kind of a funny character to me. Look at this child they put in a set of Warhammer space marine armor. Who let him onto the battlefield? Hand over command to the werewolf and protect this poor kid!

6. Cataclysm

Cataclysm goes with a good trend you can trace back to the Burning Crusade in focusing on the villain. That’s good framing in an RPG. The problem for me at least is that Deathwing’s voice lacks something. He sounds like a bit of a dullard, and while his voice is deep it lacks resonance and sounds a bit tinny. Compared to the narrations in other trailers, it’s just not as good, even if it isn’t bad. The visuals are great, however, and the way we’re shown the world being destroyed clearly communicates a “the world will never be the same” vibe in a very direct and visceral way. Overall not a bad trailer, but just a bit basic and weaker when compared to the top performers.

5. Legion

I like this trailer the more I watch it, because to me it’s probably the purest distillation of what Warcraft actually is. Every character in this trailer looks like they could be a player, not a “protagonist” or an “NPC”. The dynamics between the big, crazy, chunky character models and the very cold and realistic lighting makes for an amazing image. I always wondered what the demand for a live-action Warcraft film was when they have cinematics that look like this. This trailer has some great action, balanced yet bombastic, and also features Infernals, which are always cool. As said before, the sheer scale of everything puts BfA to shame, yet it doesn’t feel as silly as something like Shadowlands. The biggest problem with this trailer is that Varian Wrynn’s voice just isn’t that impressive. He gives a great speech, for sure, but he still just sounds like “a guy” and doesn’t exactly have the pipes of a Menethil. The line “I’ve been slow to trust” as he sees Sylvanas come through the fog is pretty hilarious in retrospect.

4. Burning Crusade

You are not prepared! A classic, and many people’s favorite. Burning Crusade doesn’t really have a “plotline” within the actual trailer, but the visuals are all very cool nonetheless. Special mention goes to the draenei paladin, who looks amazing and whose motions seem to have so much more weight than anything else in the trailer. The rest of the clips are impressive, and there’s a bit of humor thrown in as well. Of course, the big showing is from Illidan, who gives a fantastic little speech brimming with tension and gravitas. I’d maybe consider #4 and #3 on this list tied in a lot of ways.

3. World of Warcraft

The vanilla cinematic trailer benefits from novelty and a good sense of focus. Opening narration (by who, I don’t know) provides us with everything we need to know about the state of the world and what we’re jumping into. The faux-Latin orchestral sting right afterwards makes for a stunning opening to the visuals, and we’re then treated to a very lasting impression of Warcraft’s aesthetics. All the action is good, with special mention to the Infernal summoning, and there are very few weak points in the trailer. There’s no “narrative” but one isn’t really needed, as we’re trying to sell people on exploring a world rather than investing in a plotline just yet.

2. Warlords of Draenor

Warlords of Draenor is an incredible cinematic adaptation of one of the most important bits of Warcraft backstory. The execution of this trailer is incredible, and again makes me question the necessity for an actual live-action film. We have big, baritone-voiced characters brimming with detail in a very tense and dark moment, followed by explosive action. Everything looks good. Grommash looks cool, Gul’dan looks sinister, and Mannoroth is absolutely fearsome. The dialogue is overblown and over-dramatic in the absolute best of ways, and is made better by every single character having voices that bottom-out the register. Mannoroth’s death is a little quick, but doesn’t really need to last that long, and all the musical and visual notes are beautifully synced. Even Garrosh gets a cool showing, and the trailer ends with a dramatic rise that is one of the best examples among all the trailers. The actual idea behind having an alternate-history timeline plot in Warcraft is a little wonky, but I feel like this trailer sells the idea better than the actual expansion did (from what I hear).

1.Wrath of the Lich King

The grandmaster, the pinnacle. “My son.” I am absolutely biased. Wrath of the Lich King is not just a great Warcraft trailer, its a great trailer by any standard. Intense narration that really builds up the scene coupled with a fantastic soprano opening to the trailer proper. This is another trailer that does a great one-scene bit, and is also similar to Legion in that it contrasts some very subdued visuals with some very over-the-top ones. You almost question whether or not this Dark Lord looking character is the villain, if you didn’t know the backstory of Arthas, with how soft the start of the trailer is. The consistent dynamic where his dead father will narrate some virtue, followed by the Lich King displaying the opposite is great. “Exercise restraint” with the summoning of the undead dragon Sindragosa, followed by “stirring the hearts of your people” with a shot of the undead horde is a great progression. And the trailer even manages to end with some heart-pumping intensity while still remaining very subdued. There’s a reason why, even when I’m not entertaining any feelings of nostalgia for Warcraft, I still go back and watch just this trailer. It’s a fantastic piece of art all on its own.

[korkrunchcereal]

WoW Q and A

(Red shirt guy asked the first question) Heritage armor for allied races is neat, not as interesting as heritage armor for regular races. Will there be a change to it with the leveling changes? Can still get your heritage armor as allied race. Just have to reach max level.

Did the Jailer in the Maw see the legion as a threat? Explains why Sylvanas worked with Varian? As we go into the Shadowlands we’ll find out Sylvanas’ motives, her relationship with the Jailer and when it started. Hint: It started during Edge of Night (her short story from after Wrath). Sylvanas helped Varian to bide her time so not everyone would attack her.

New progression of covenant abilities + Legendaries affecting PvP. How does it affect world and instanced PvP? knobs can be turned to affect and work with PvP. Covenants shouldnt be “whats better a mage or a warlock?” Active abilities + Soulbinds and trait trees. Starting point is should work in PvP, but can turn off if need be. War mode enabled in Shadowlands.

How will flying work in Shadowlands? Same as it’s been in every expansion. If its a little annoying for everyone its probably better than alternatives.   

How will pathfinding work in past expansions with the level changing and scaling? No answer yet. 

In WoW classic, will we receive a toggle for the HD models? Current plan is no.

Will legendaries ever be transmoggable? Short answer: Yes. Can’t say when, but very soon. Tmog your sulfuras, thunderfuries and others.

What is the creative process to choose an expansion theme, specifically Shadowlands? Begin process of brainstorming 2 expansions ahead. Sets some of the plot points that are now unfolding. Weekly meetings to brainstorm. The world/environment is something to consider. Where do we want to go next? Often story will twist and turn to get us there. Example of WoD from MoP: “Wouldn’t it be awesome to go there? Let’s find a way to get there.” Sometimes it’s not quite the time. Legion was an idea after MoP, but decided to do it after WoD. Digging up old ideas they discarded / had for past expansions for Shadowlands. 

Have you ever named an expansion before developing it? All future expansions have code names. Legion was a placeholder name, decided to just keep it.

Free Hong Kong shouted on the stream and asked in question. 

The Jailer’s identity? Not someone we know, but he’s a mysterious new figure of a cosmic importance. His conspiracies, things he wants to do etc. driving the core of the story. He’s the centerpiece villain.

With Heart of Azeroth scrapped, what happens to the tier 4 HoA cosmetics? Not going to deplete it like artifacts. As you move into the Shadowlands, they’ll weaken and won’t have the effects is current plan.

 Other customization options?  More than 40 additional customization options for blood elves. Examples shown at Blizzcon, such as human, are just a small selection.

Any more realm merges/connections? Yes it’s planned. 

New expac comes out, we get the Soundtrack. New patches add new zones and new music that’s not on the Soundtrack. Considered releasing additional digital tracks for the added music? Short answer: Working on it. Before Shadowlands, capturing the BfA music that came out post launch.

Lorewise, who won Stromgarde and Darkshore? Alliance won both of them. 

With Faction war dying down, will faction borders loosen. Raid with friends cross faction? Alliance and Horde separation mechanically is a pillar that makes Warcraft Warcraft. That division is part of why we have the “For the Horde/For the Alliance” shouts. Uniting is not in the cards right now.

Eye of N’zoth: Do you get anything for having it post 8.3? Be yourself, see what follows. 

Classics based on BC, WotLK etc. Is that something being considered? Got to be careful how it proceeds. 

What happened to AU Draenor, and the Lightbound like Yrel? Will we see them again post Mag’har recruitment? That AU Draenor is still out there and the light still has a place on it. It’s something they’re keeping in the back pocket. Shadowlands is first step exploring the large concepts of cosmology. 

Is Chronicles canon? Whose point of view was this written from? Titans PoV is the narrative. Things hinted in chronicles expanded in Shadowlands. 

If Shadowlands is where the dead go, what happens when we die in the Shadowlands? The experience is very different for the Corpse Run. Different screen effect, experience etc. Spirit healers are the Kyrian covenant. Watchers in the mortal realm to watch for souls and decide if they’re ready to die. Player Character is tethered by the need of Azeroth so don’t perma die (yet).

How much of the tower do you envision being part of max level gameplay? Most of your end game? Varies from player to player. Some will casually do it, others will super grind it. still deciding if you can “win”, aka maximum value/maximum height.

With mechagnomes wearing armor “leglessly”, will there be playable races with more/less than 2 legs? If it’s appropriate to the story / expansion, “maybe”. 

Tier sets not coming back next expansion? It depends. 16 armor sets for the covenants (Cloth, leather, mail, Plate x4). Class themed armor coming back at some point post Shadowlands launch. People started going so fast with getting tier that it made getting it almost like a prison. Set bonuses is something they want to embrace, but not in the form of a box you tick. Satisfaction in getting gear in Shadowlands will come from things like Legendaries, smaller tier sets etc. 

[shadowphoenixrider]

I’mma ramble about Shadowlands datamined models ‘cos I’m taking all the story spoilers with a fistful of salt for the moment (’cos it’s Alpha and stuff).

Here’s a cut.

The artists, as always, hitting it out of cocking park. I mean I was looking at Sylvanas’s face and going ‘heck, this looks much more detailed than before’. They’re fucking gorgeous.

It amuses me though, because Blizz is going: “These are the Kyrians, and these are the Forsworn. Now, the Kyrians are the good guys and the Forsworn are the- where are you going?”

Me, gravitating to the Forsworn: What? They look cooler!

The bone naga are cool. Nice to see Lady Vashj again! Also, Kel’Thuzad is around? Hmm.

Ysera doesn’t seem to have had an updated model and that makes me sad. It is Alpha though.

Think I bigged Muehzala up too much, and now we have his ingame model I’m like: ‘I don’t want this’. I was expecting something more...ethereal. Shadow-like. Not really sure I like this ghoul look.

Hakkar! I had a feeling we were gonna see him again, and I’m glad to see the Loa knocking around anyway. Hope to see Rezan and the others?

...I don’t care about Kael’thas. I’m sorry, I don’t! But he’s definitely stealing from Medivh’s wardrobe.

Something about Maldraxxus’s aesthetic makes me think it’s got a different vibe from the Scrouge. Sure, it’s still undead stuff, but it feels more...’natural’ for lack of a better term? Scourge stuff felt so much more industrial and you know, ‘crimes against nature’-esque. Wonder if that was intentional.

Drust people? Interesting.

I can put good money down right now that there’d gonna be a shitton of people gonna be horny for those gargoyle models. I’m almost certain! In fairness, I like those female models too sooo

Who put all those spikes and metal bits on that PVP spider mount? Someone should have told them ENOUGH - it’s a bloody riot

The other mounts look pretty cool, but none are kinda screaming at me yet. I love how none of the Ardenweald ones match Draggka’s aesthetic, it’s kinda funny.