Honestly why I love WoW’s earlier lore. Definitely leaned more grimdark. Could hit the perfect tone if they did it right. The trolls were ultra-violent cannibals in the earlier books, capturing folks and doing terrible things especially in sacrifices. Then of course everything with the draenei and orcs is nothing to scoff at. Women being captured and bred in experiments to produce powerful orc warriors. The red mist melting draenei faces. The little boy whose throat was slit to open the Dark Portal. The little girl durotan watched impaled in front of him as the orcs stomped on her head.
Honestly for a Warcraft show, I wouldn’t mind the recognizable cinema of like –
‘Warbringers’
‘Lords of War’
and ‘Harbingers’
– for their style of animation in a Warcraft series, as some have suggested & urged their desires for … So long as the writing, voice-acting, editing & pacing etc is done well that is.
I just like the idea of making it still look and feel like WoW. While those are not bad examples, some of us are just not into some of the anime or stop frame styles. Live action is far too cost prohibitive, but the perks of keeping it in house, and doing it up like the cinematics makes it instantly recognizable and doesn’t get the fans clamoring for a FFXIV version of WoW. Just my opinion.
I mentioned earlier in the thread that not everyone was into that kind of stye, however many still are and it ultimately comes down to a matter of personal preference & perspective Some will say “Yay!” whilst others will say “Nay!”
Hence why I said earlier along with that statement:
For us? Sure. For Blizz it comes down to one thing…
if they can get it done cheaper, in house, with their artists in a style they are comfy with for half price or better, then we get what we get. Best part about this for ALL of us, if we hate the style they pick, we don’t have to watch it
I mean if the show is successful despite the show cost versus show profit — In hindsight, it could prove to be an incredible boon to their game(s).
Perfect example of that is as previously mentioned — ‘Arcane’
Before Arcane, people had used the same logic you provided on the League of Legends series & even tried to suggest they shouldn’t because of it – or indicate in correlation to such: That it would never be much of a success / it’s too late as the game’s too old & no longer in its prime / the audience wouldn’t be significant enough, etc — Yet despite all that, Arcane eclipsed all those doubts and came out largely successful.
It acts as a brilliant advertisement for their game too, should people who are unfamiliar with the games come across the show, thoroughly enjoy it and become more curious about its origins – coming to pay & play, and thus ultimately profit Blizzard further.
The pessimist in my says no show. Blizz does now like giving others creative control over something they own. And that would be the only way for the show to work.
I love that “Arcane” is the standard. Both seasons ran them $250M to produce. WoW’s basic cinematic is about $25,000 to make, so probably more like $250k for a full length episode. If they do 10 episode seasons, that is $2.5M, 1% of the cost per season. Then if they make the episodes only available on a BattleNet streaming service, and charge $4.99 a month with ads, or $7.99 without, and release one new episode a week, folks would have to sub for 3 months just to see one season.
Even at $5 per sub, and 200k people subbing, that is $1M in revenue per month, giving them $3M per season. If it costs $2.5M per season, they made a profit. But if only 50k people sub, they now made $500k for two seasons and suffer a loss. I’m sure their best bean counters are wondering if the juice is even worth the squeeze.
Never said it wasn’t. Say what you will, but Blizz charges $90 for the epic edition of TWW, $90 for an AH mount, $30 for a cata pack, $30 for an anniversary bundle, $155 for a 12 month sub/mount package… and still won’t balance classes, fix certain known bugs, give us a cool mount for the anniversary, or unlock race/class combos that could generate hundreds of thousands in income via race changes. I don’t see them doing a series until they know they can make a killing on it.
If they want to get their name out there, I’m sure they would.
Arcane also acted as a MASSIVE advertising campaign for their game & company.
So if Blizzard begins to notice various numbers in their games or stock start sloping down and their current tactics aren’t working much to keep it afloat — Trying a different method to boost up their noticeability, significance and relevance - would be a fair move to make
I’m not saying “No oNe kNoWs” — but there’s certainly people out there who don’t or some of those that use to, but have long since forgotten or been diverted away from them by some means or another.
I get what you are saying, but this LoL animation got what? 17-30M people to see it on Netflix so far? The Warcraft movie (that lost money) had almost 50M tickets sold world wide, and doesn’t even count the folks that bought the digital copy to own and watch again.
Pretty sure since the acquisition by Microsoft, Blizzard will get even more attention, and the Mtn Dew promo sold out the mount so fast (2 weeks), they had to restock the codes. So there are millions of cases of soda on shelves with WoW on it. Can I purchase something from Pepsi with Arcane on it? So while I can see your point of view, and wish you all the luck in the world, I will stick with asking for a Blizzard version of the show, and not a League of Legends version.
High budget animation is the only way it could work. I rewatch the Warcraft movie on repeat and love it as a fan, but can easily see how it never made mainstream waves back at theatres in 2016.
Besides, Arcane is in a league of it’s own (no pun intended).
NO ONE is writing S+ tier story quality like that, NO ONE. Why? Because I know nothing about league of legends and it’s a perfect story on its own.
They shouldn’t retread old stories from the RTS/MMO games. It doesn’t even have to be serialized. Just tell cool, small stories set within the world in an anthology format.
Does it always have to be about Arthas, Thrall, and Jaina? How many more times do we need to see Arthas “Angsty Dudes In the 00’s Feel Like They Relate to Me For Some Reason” Menethil kill everyone in Stratholme and pick up the damn sword? Enough with that. The 30 years of lore we’ve got doesn’t need to be retreaded to tell good stories set in this universe.
… So long as the writing, voice-acting, editing & pacing etc is done well that is.
