Looks up the cinematic
Did Khadgar always have a belt on the top of his robe? That’s…a choice. Like a 90s comic book character.
As for the interaction between Khadgar and Alleria…it felt perfectly normal to me. They’re old friends who haven’t seen each other in a long, long time. They’ve grown in separate ways. Rare is the individuals who can have those kinds of life situations thrust upon each other and come out the other side ready to pick up as though nothing happened.
Well, he is old …
And yeah, even a few years apart can make people difficult to reach and speak to normally, especially if they’ve gone through something traumatic and you have no real context for it personally.
Yeah, but the belt isn’t half way up his chest yet.
I liked that they talked at a normal pace instead of thhhhhhhhhhhhhe looooooonnnnnnnnnnnng draaaaaaaaaamaaaaaaaaaaatic annuuuuuuuuuuuunciaaaaaaaaaaaaaations or monologing the plot at you.
Oh and no one mumbled/whispered talked the whole time too.
Its the first real ‘conversation’ we’ve seen in a WoW cinematic because they’re not throwing out foreboding one liners the whole time and I hope this becomes the norm now that there’s a new writing team.
The cinematic is very well done and it makes me excited to see hopefully a lot more of them than we’ve gotten in the past. It would be cool if there was much more emphasis on cutscenes, doesn’t necessarily have to be as heavy as FF but I would like more please.
But this one specifically I don’t really care about just cause I don’t really care about Alleria as a character lol I don’t play Alliance besides a few characters.
Happy to see Khadgar again though!
Perhaps the slight uncanny effect of this being one of them fancy Real-Time Cutscenes With Fluid Animations they’ve been doing since the Hug Cutscene at the end of Shadowlands.
So far we’ve been seeing this done with Dragon Aspects and a few folks back in SL, but we’re seeing it on old favorites like Khadgar, Jaina, and Alleria this time. They also use an upressed model for these cutscenes too, so that may be why it looks sort of off cause you’re use to seeing this quality model in the pre-rendered cinematics, but now they’re here in real time instead of the frame rate of the pre-rendered ones.
I’d argue 90’s Comic Book Character is the default art aesthetic for the franchise.
This just posted:
Is it just me or is Alleria’s artwork just getting worse?
Good to know we are once again fighting something that will destroy all of Azeroth if we don’t stop it.
I don’t know if we should do a separate chat for the story but imma put this here anyway.
It seems restrictions on inter-faction travel have been VASTLY reduced, at least lorewise.
In the past, Arator the Redeemer has been Alliance-adjacent. I mean the boy was raised by Vereesa (yes, PURGE OF DALARAN Vereesa) and his parents were Alliance heroes. Anyway, he now lives in Silvermoon.
Turalyon is shown to visit Arator in Silvermoon. Yes, Turalyon, the literal Regent-Lord of Stormwind and the whole damned Alliance military. He’s just popping into the premier Horde capital of the Eastern Kingdoms, having a chinwag with his little boy, without guards present. No concern of him spying or anything, nope, he’s just there for a visit.
Alleria is also allowed to visit, being granted permission by Lor’themar himself. Yes, Alleria, the woman who nearly corrupted the whole dang Sunwell just by going on a little stroll nearby. While she was escorted under guard, unlike Turalyon, and was not permitted to remain in the city past sunset, this surprised me a lot given that a whole subset of the Sin’dorei race were outright banished from Quel’thalas on the basis of their void association, and this was before they outright turned into Ren’dorei.
Given the still very recent history of war and devastation between the factions… personally I’m not a fan? Maybe I’ve become a wow boomer who’s still clinging to my faction conflict, but I don’t think we ought to go from two world wars to the Alliance leader just popping by to a random residence in Horde territory for a visit. That seems to open up so many questions in terms of potential spies/espionage/sabotage, whatever, that at best it makes Lor’themar look like an idiot for allowing it.
If you believe the GD magic 8 ball predictions Silvermoon is going to be destroyed and remade into a faction neutral city. I keep asking my 8 ball if that’s true but all it gives me are references to Tom Hanks movies.
Tbh I think it’s a massive missed opportunity to not make a cool Void Elf city in that inaccessible part of Northern Lordaeron. I fear neutral Silvermoon’s looking more and more likely though. It’s a shame, maybe I’m becoming a minority, but I really do enjoy the factions.
I enjoy(ed) them as an aspect of the storyline. Though, I fully support cross faction grouping for actual gameplay content.
*ahem *
HORDE RULEZ!
Pretty much my stance too.
I mean, they weren’t done perfectly. But the politics of Azeroth just lacks teeth these days, we’re just all friends, and while I acknowledge that we are in a magical world with dragons and fox people, it feels like a pretty big suspension of disbelief that the factions are just so OKAY with each other now.
Night elves literally lost Teldrassil like 9 years ago in lore, like, that’s not a long time. There were no war crimes trials. Lots of Horde soldiers and even leaders who were there for that attack have been in no way brought to justice.
Also the Alliance won’t leave MUH LORDAERON ALONE! Get out, git! Shoo! Imma blight ya!
*cough * Teldrassilwasavalidtarget *coughcough *
But seriously. I feel like too much of the story/game has been kidgloved. That’s why I nope’d out of DF.
Well look, it did save us a lot of resources in that we didn’t get bogged down in a costly military occupation of a hostile…
looks up at the crowd of angry night elves
gulps
looks down at “Nice Forsaken” flash cards
Um. We denounce the war crimes that occurred at Teldrassil. The Forsaken are committed to peace and love for all.
rots
Yeah they seem to really, really want the Horde and Alliance to be friends and are really pushing in that direction.
Neutral Silvermoon feels like such a monkey’s paw kind of situation too lol which I guess is typical of Blizzard.
Many people have been asking for a revamped Quel’Thalas and a crumb of story focus on blood elves, and it looks like we’re finally going to be getting that… but yeah seems like there’s going to be a giant asterisk attached to all of it lol
I just had a look and wow.
For an up and coming artist, that’s extremely good work.
For a veteran artist, that’s extremely competent work.
For a company with a reputation for highly-polished and stylized artwork, that’s underwhelming.