There’s like three real cinematics, and barely any action besides Wrathion one. Most are just talking heads and machinimas
You can make whole movie out of WoD cinematics, it’s kinda sad. BFA also had a lot.
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People disliked sad orc movie scenes
So blizzard just stopped doing that, can’t have it both ways
I mean not really. People memed on them but having full CGI cutscenes in the middle of the expansion was actually a high point of BfA.
Now if they could do the same thing and have them cover something besides BfA’s trainwreck of a story that’d be pretty neato.
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i’d honestly prefer WoD action style of cinematics.
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Or perhaps they had data that stated that many players didn’t like a lot of cinematics?
no cinematics, no systems, barely any story content, just let players farm m+
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This one was better.
It’s not hard to imagine Acti cutting Blizz budget in expectation of being sold. Would explain lots of things, including the sudden “back to basics” barebones world design, the Dracthyr ( do those look like they were designed with time and budget available? ), the amount of bugs and glitches, etc. DF is what you get when the guys holding the purse strings want to hold onto the money to keep the balance sheet attractive to MS without doing a red flag such as cutting positions.
I can’t post links, so I copied, and pasted this article from MMO champion:
Things are hotting up at acquisition hanging in limbo for a year now, a series of recent developments have significantly impacted the chances of becoming a Microsoft IP. Here’s what’s happened in a nutshell.
Despite making headway in countries like [Chile], Microsoft still has a long way to go in its Activision Blizzard acquisition. Specifically in the USA and UK, whose market regulators have decided to make that road just a little bit longer.
The Activision Blizzard acquisition by Microsoft has been such a prevalent topic over the last year that you could be forgiven for thinking that it was a done deal. But in order to ensure that the market is not cornered by an increasingly overstuffed Microsoft (whose acquisition portfolio includes Obsidian Entertainment, ZeniMax Media, and Mojang, among many, many others), countries are still in the process of deciding whether the acquisition is both legal and fair.
Now, both the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and the USA’s Federal Trade Commission (FTC) have decided to postpone the delivery of their verdicts. For the CMA, this will be by a month, pushing the decision from March 2023 to April 2023. For the FTC, this could be as late as 2024.
This is from the FTC site itself:
FTC Seeks to Block Microsoft Corp.’s Acquisition of Activision Blizzard, Inc.
Agency alleges that maker of Xbox would gain control of top video game franchises, enabling it to harm competition in high-performance gaming consoles and subscription services by denying or degrading rivals’ access to its popular content
December 8, 2022
The Federal Trade Commission is seeking to block technology giant Microsoft Corp. from acquiring leading video game developer Activision Blizzard, Inc. and its blockbuster gaming franchises such as Call of Duty, alleging that the $69 billion deal, Microsoft’s largest ever and the largest ever in the video gaming industry, would enable Microsoft to suppress competitors to its Xbox gaming consoles and its rapidly growing subscription content and cloud-gaming business.
[In a complaint issued today], the FTC pointed to Microsoft’s record of acquiring and using valuable gaming content to suppress competition from rival consoles, including its acquisition of ZeniMax, parent company of Bethesda Softworks (a well-known game developer). Microsoft decided to make several of Bethesda’s titles including Starfield and Redfall Microsoft exclusives despite assurances it had given to European antitrust authorities that it had no incentive to withhold games from rival consoles.
“Microsoft has already shown that it can and will withhold content from its gaming rivals,” said Holly Vedova, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Competition. “Today we seek to stop Microsoft from gaining control over a leading independent game studio and using it to harm competition in multiple dynamic and fast-growing gaming markets.”
Microsoft’s Xbox Series S and Series X are one of only two types of high performance video game consoles. Importantly, Microsoft also offers a leading video game content subscription service called Xbox Game Pass, as well as a cutting-edge cloud-based video game streaming service, according to the complaint.
Activision is one of only a very small number of top video game developers in the world that create and publish high-quality video games for multiple devices, including video game consoles, PCs, and mobile devices. It produces some of the most iconic and popular video game titles, including Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, Diablo, and Overwatch, and has millions of monthly active users around the world, according to the FTC’s complaint. Activision currently has a strategy of offering its games on many devices regardless of producer.
But that could change if the deal is allowed to proceed. With control over Activision’s blockbuster franchises, Microsoft would have both the means and motive to harm competition by manipulating Activision’s pricing, degrading Activision’s game quality or player experience on rival consoles and gaming services, changing the terms and timing of access to Activision’s content, or withholding content from competitors entirely, resulting in harm to consumers.
The Commission vote to issue the complaint was 3-1, with Commissioner Christine S. Wilson voting no. A copy of the administrative complaint will be available shortly.
NOTE: The Commission issues an administrative complaint when it has “reason to believe” that the law has been or is being violated, and it appears to the Commission that a proceeding is in the public interest. The issuance of the administrative complaint marks the beginning of a proceeding in which the allegations will be tried in a formal hearing before an administrative law judge.
All of this I believe is just anti Microsoft BS from those in government entities trying to stop the acquisition, and yet it’s okay for Alphabet to buy whatever it wants, Apple, or even Facebook.
Yes, and the longer it goes on, the longer Acti will be pinching the purse strings. From what I understand, the EU/UK commissions mainly abide by their citizens support of the deal and their polling was showing most citizens are fine with the deal, so the main stickler will be the U.S. who will mainly want to see how much money in fines/fees they can make before approval.
One improvement that was made is that the first raid tier actually had an end raid cutscene. Usually at most it’s some poorly put together in-game cinematic.
There’s plenty of story content, however, you must read the entire quest, and not just the part that tells you kill X amount of mobs.
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Legion raids after EN had cinematics at the end
A big part of it is that Dragonflight also had one of the shortest previous patch to launch cycles in WoW’s history, if not the shortest. Plus, major cinematics tend to only be vital story indicators. I think overall the cinematic quality is pretty great, especially for such a short launch cycle.
There’s a funny relation to taxes here. If say half the population of a state leaves, the remaining population is still responsible for the taxes, so they have to make up for the people who left. Wow’s been bleeding subs consistently since Wrath, yes, there’s been some spikes, but only really for a month or two before the decline sets in again. So, guess what, now all the people playing are making up for those who left with store items, soon to be trading post, there will be more as well eventually. Plus the added bonus of you money not going as far with the same product. Clearly Blizz has cut corners. The game is as buggy as its ever been. A few cinematics that was clearly lower quality than what Blizzard has produced in the past. Maybe the other team left who knows.
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I suspect they moved away from a fuller cinematic style, instead to feature less complex cinematic that feature the player character kind of standing about and breathing through their mouth.
I like seeing my transmog, so it’s fine I guess. But WoD really was a high water mark for cut scenes in the leveling experience.
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Yet every cinematic now has accurate lip-syncing and custom animations. Where’s this “small budget”?
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