Show me the cinematic where Wrathion looks awesome.
If I were to speculate, I would reckon WoW becoming more cartoonish might be due to a key factor.
The game is so old it can’t handle new high fidelity graphics without them being heavily stylized. Therefore they need to make the cinematics more stylized as well as to fit the general theme.
(Also it sells better, and Blizzard isn’t doing too hot these days.)
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I literally can’t because even if I did, you’d claim it wasn’t, so what’s the point?
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I don’t know…You’ve bothered to make at least 3 replies in this thread already, so…
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IIRC the introduction to story based ingame cuts/cinematics was added during Wrath, and quality of the design from them has increased in that aspect over time.
The CGI style, again is different in nearly all aspects from planning, creating to execution.
The trailers for all expansions are selectively design to look this way as their hook line and sinker. This has been a Blizzard thing since they developed Blackthorne and greatly upgraded that technique with Diablo.
All cinematic cuts and aspects from the game are designed to show the world within to capitalize on their own art style. To push their engine to the absolute limits with really never having to change/replace it.
Liking or not is subjective and personal to each person, but the technique and technology for both are done and are very different.
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Excellent discussion points Msßombastic, thank you.
Makes sense. This is not for me, it represents a dramatic decline in quality. For the sake of the game, I hope most other people like it better.
Presents them all in very good light. None of the aspects have appeared in full cinematics to my knowledge since Cata and Wraithion wasn’t the Black Flight’s Leader then.
Edit: Double checking, the end of Cata was also in game render, not Cinematic, oops.
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Thanks, Togashi. That painting does look much better.
I wish the cutscenes and cinematics hadn’t gone downhill. I used to really enjoy that aspect of this game.
I was thinking that it must have been around WotLK/Cata that things started going downhill for me.
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Yeah…looking at the two it’s become even more stark how this safety culture has turned wow from dark and gritty and blood and violence into…
WEEEEEEE! FLYING ON DRAGONS SMILING AND GIGGLING AT EACH OTHER SO MAGICAL! TEEHEE WE SHOULD JUST BE FWENDS AND LOVE.
Disney indeed.
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I just watched the OG WoW cinematic, then the two Dragonflight ones (the cool rock-dudes one and the Troll and Dwarf flying together one). What a difference!
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I could write pages about how I feel about a Troll and Dwarf being all buddy buddy…but I’ve rustled enough jimmies here haha.
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If you all really want a deep dive that feels like a walk through the shallow end of a kiddy pool on contrasting art styles.
Check out the differences between The Matrix storyboards and Knives Out storyboards.
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I hadn’t seen this (had to google it). Priceless! Thanks.
I mean, one’s an in game cinematic and the other is a launch trailer. Can’t really compare those two images.
Take a look at the expansion launch trailer and compare that to the undead.
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You’re being disingenuous at best. The Cinematics have stayed high quality. You just don’t like the direction, you said as much with wanting grimdark edgelord stuff.
But again, your making false comparisons. Let’s compare your Wrathion cinematic and pic above to something from IN TBC instead of the pre expac cinematic.
How about the Black Temple trailer? Kael’Thas looks blocky and polygon based, Akama looks generic, etc, etc. I think Illidan has more lines, but they’re cartoonish to the point of ridiculous.
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Would you feel better if I said “downhill to me”?
and
is just you projecting.
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Yes, because your statement of the “Animation going downhill” is not clearly an opinion piece, it’s stated as some sort of universal truth. How about “I’m not fond of the new animation.”? Or “I really prefer the older choices.”? Neither of which try to slander the animation or indirectly belittle people who do like it.
Projecting would imply I want grimdark edgelord stuff. That doesn’t make any sense since I LIKE the new stuff and prefer a more optimistic story. If you weren’t after a certain aesthetic (Grimdark edgelord) You wouldn’t be comparing a Cinematic of a forsaken warlock to an ingame model of Wrathion.
Because just an honest look at the Dragonflight trailer shows very clearly that there’s just as much detail in their current pre-rendered cinematics as there used to be, even if you don’t like the overall style.
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They’re cinematic artists, not miracle workers. 
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You’re comparing an in game character model to a cg rendered cinematic
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OOF, didn’t mean to hurt so many feelings. And fair enough, call the semantic police on me, I should have stated up front that these are my opinions and not facts. But come on, “universal truth”? Don’t be absurd. I made a statement, that should have been seen as an opinion by most readers.
I guess I can also make wrong assumptions.
Like this:
Sounds logical but is not. You have come to the wrong conclusion. It sounds like you would feel differently if I used a still from the Dwarf part of the cinematic?
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