I feel like my gripes with the cinematic are different from the usual “Liadrin looks to masculine”, “woke,” etc etc. Although I do wish they portrayed the belf eyes better.
But am I alone in feeling like the scope of the cinematic was really limited as a whole? We saw such a small sliver of Silvermoon, and most of the fighting takes place on this weird porch with like 4 elves maximum fighting until the charge at the end which cuts as soon as Liadryn and Lor’themar enter the clash. In every other cinematic featuring a location like this, we get a massive panoramic shot of the famous location in which the cinematic takes place.
Look back at the WoD cinematic. The first shot is pulled out to show the sheer scale of the Dark Portal, with thousands of orcs approaching from the perspective of the point of view. Only then does it zoom in on the fight, which has a slow buildup and (literally) explosive payoff.
Wrath of the Lich King has a distant shot of Icecrown, and then the glacial plains where Arthas raises the dragon.
Even the Dragonflight cinematic, which is one of the most widely criticized cinematics (behind the TWW cinematic) shows so much of the Dragon Isles, Tyrhold, and has such a strong sense of place.
I really wish we got to see more of Silvermoon. This cinematic could have taken place on a white square floating in a black void and I feel like it would have only been moderately worse than this. It honestly feels like it was outsourced to some foreign company and rushed. It doesn’t feel like the high quality cinematic shorts we have gotten prior to this one.
The animations in this one also just feel so stilted and wooden. The weird full-plate armor spin-slash felt like an in-game animation, not something you would see in a proper cinematic. It also overall just felt so cheesy, like something out of a marvel movie (but without the setup before the payoff that marvel movies have).
Am I being whiny? Yes. Am I washed an nostalgic? Absolutely. But this one just felt so lame and stilted. I don’t know. I can’t even really adequately describe why. I mean hell even the TWW cinematic was better than this, to me.
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you’re not allowed to have criticism of the cinematic here
/s
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There is a difference between criticism vs just whining.
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To note, the cinematic takes place on Quel’danas which is the island that houses the Sunwell, not Silvermoon itself.
IMO the full-plate-armor slash does feel odd but to me it felt like “Oh this is the grace and skill of elves” rather than feeling out of place.
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I dislike her design but I’m guessing that is Lor’themar along side her, he looks cool and had some good fighting stuff.
I however did not like the ending of it, they took away our hope and built tension, just for it revert itself a hopeful situation. I want doom n gloom, I wanna go into an expansion with no hope of success in a story sense, I want them to push more tension and inner turmoil… I want to see us lose.
Next time we will make it one of your favorites who appears to be on the chopping block then! So many of my favorite characters have been killed for dumb reasons, ive had enough “inner turmoil”
I think it’s part of the design that the scope was limited, it’s to make it feel more enclosed, shadows are pushing in. We went from sunset looking down on the battlefield to night where we are pushed to the Sunwell’s entrance.
I do think it should of been longer, it was a little jarring but maybe they wanted that unease and confusion
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I agree, that’s also my only criticism of the cinematic, it just seemed a little more limited in scope than what we normally get for cinematics. The TWW one was as well, but it made up for it by being heavily dialogue focused.
But oh well, it just makes me more excited to play Midnight and find out what happens in the story, so if that’s what they were going for, good job.
I don’t care who they use, I just want a good story, depth of character and characters to care about. That’s not something the current game and writing staff is capable of or at least that’s what it looks like. Turmoil is good for pushing a story forward and yes I believe deaths should happen, the game has been far too safe in this time of distress.
I want to see major lore characters be killed off, this is a time of extremes, this is the void, make them feel impactful.
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Im fine with fighting to a stalemate and not seeing more of my favorite characters arbitrarily killed off just to be edgy.
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Not about being edgy, you just like fairytales where everyone lives in the end and everyone gets their happy ending… I crave a more adult story.
This is a story right now of SURVIVAL. Unfortunately there is no fear of loss at this time, just more weak story telling.
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Sorry bucko but if sargeras swinging a planet sized sword at azeroth didn’t result in us losing an elf sure as hell won’t.
No. A lot of people wanted to see either Horde or some trolls or something. That trailer basically says nothing about the story other than “looks like we have a weapon against Xal kinda”.
I almost feel like this trailer could’ve opened with the ending. Have the entire thing opener with Liadrin already bursting in to the temple for the final desperate plea to the light, then take the trailer from there, just make it a montage of cool crap.
I dunno what that even was, we barely got anything cool other than the visuals themselves.
Specifically the facial animations. I also would’ve liked to see a bit more passion out of Lorth. I also didn’t think their voices or the sound FX were booming enough at moments, it felt quiet and subdued. The direction is pretty poor in general.
An establishing shot would have been nice. Or even a wider shot of the sunwell. It seemed very small. It would have been a good chance to let us behold its grandeur.
One of the big things I liked about the cinematic is that instead of the denizens of Azeroth versus whatever cosmic baddie we essentially got to see a clash of two cosmic forces, the void and the light. Seeing all the warriors of light charging out of the sanctum and into the fight was amazing. We aren’t standing alone this time.
Yeah seeing Xal be infallible the past 5 expansions has been old, it’s nice to see her get owned by the Light finally. It felt relieving like when I’m reading a book and the story finally shifts in the direction it was building up for the last 10 chapters.
That’s the first time we’ve seen the Light do anything as a force of its own.
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wdym, she smiled and then disappeared. shes playing 6D chess
No you are.
But if your criticism is “its hard to have dirty thoughts about this character because you didnt make her pretty enough”
Or
“why is a person in the middle of a battle not fully make uped?”
then expect some pushback
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She can’t subjugate the Blood Elves or take the Sunwell with them and the Light standing in her way.
I don’t think she can even take Azeroth with the sword in it. I think that’s the entire story they’re dragging along.
