Blizzard Unveils Wrath of the Lich King Cinematic

Today at the Leipzig Games Convention, Blizzard released the opening cinematic for the upcoming Wrath of the Lich King expansion to World of Warcraft. The cinematic is available on the official site via streaming video or the Blizzard downloader. There's a mirror over at 1Up. As with all Blizzard cinematics, it looks fantastic.

It Was Great - But It Wasn't "Amazing"

[Petersko]

The cinematics for Diablo were amazing. The ones for Starcraft were wonderful - I still get a chill watching the "funeral" sequence. The first one for Warcraft III blew the curve again. They always had a lock on terrific art and technical achievement.

The first two thirds of this new cinematic was just, "Pretty, but... common". The last third pulled it out, and it's once again great. They aren't leading the pack by a large margin anymore though. The available technology has leveled the playing field. They'll have to step up.

Warcraft Cinematic

[GearheadX]

Previous trailers for WoW have been longer than this and showcased a bunch of different classes looking awesome.. but I daresay neither of them have been as awesome as this. This is the first serious Warcraft trailer I've seen for this game.

It focuses attention directly on the central figure of this expansion: Arthas the Lich King.

Arthas is your problem. Arthas is the central figure of the conflict. No matter who you are, your entry into this expansion's content will immediately involve Arthas meeting you at the front door and welcoming you to your untimely demise.

I love it.

Re:Blood in the Water

[Tridus]

Sounds like they've got an expansion coming out this year and want to market it, the same as... oh... I don't know... every other game company on the planet that has a game coming out in a couple months?

Re:Blood in the Water

[Bieeanda]

Perhaps, but Blizzard has also released teaser cinematics for all of their games since Diablo II. MMO subscribership is not a locked-in, partisan thing either-- if WAR attracts 500,000 WOW subscribers (and that is an 'if' on the scale of Kipling's), that's no indication that any of them will stop subscribing to WOW. Likewise, while the games are similar in theme, you're more likely to see cross-pollination in new subscribers than outright competition, as newbies hear 'This sucks, I'm going back to WOW' and 'I'm sick of this, I'm going to WAR instead'.

Re:Unimpressed

[zyl0x]

Oh I know all about the potential for story in the Warcraft universe. You nailed the problem; it's an MMORPG. If you ask me, they already came up with something better than grinding. Warcraft I through III were brilliant, fun games. I suspect the problem now is simply a matter of greed. Quality, one-purchase games such as Warcraft III are - while highly successful - not the money-making machines that the ex-EQ developers and managers want, so they don't make them anymore. It's even more depressing that so many people play these games. As consumers, it's really our fault.

Re:Unimpressed

[bigstrat2003]

Off the top of my head (I'm level 73 or 74 in the beta):

• Arthas
• The Cult of the Damned infiltrating an Alliance town
• Malygos, and his assault on magic
• The Ashbringer
• The continuation of Tirion Fordring's story
• The evolution of the Scarlet Crusade
• The continuation of the Infinite Dragonflight story (including the revelation of who their leader is)

...and that's just off the top of my head. WoW is chock full of story, you just have to pay attention. If all you really bother knowing about the story is what boss you're killing (which is all most players do), you've missed 80% of the story.

Re:Unimpressed

[FiveRings]

Oh I know all about the potential for story in the Warcraft universe. You nailed the problem; it's an MMORPG. If you ask me, they already came up with something better than grinding. Warcraft I through III were brilliant, fun games. I suspect the problem now is simply a matter of greed. Quality, one-purchase games such as Warcraft III are - while highly successful - not the money-making machines that the ex-EQ developers and managers want, so they don't make them anymore. It's even more depressing that so many people play these games. As consumers, it's really our fault.

It seems that you're so anti-MMO that you're not seeing the whole picture. Blizzard, alone, has StarCraft2 and Diablo3 in the works, likely funded by WoW money. I would hope those fall under your "quality, one-purchase games" category?

Re:Unimpressed

[dave562]

The quest dialogues are well written. I think that the horde quest lines are better written and more well integrated with the world. My only big gripe is that since I haven't been playing the game since it first came out, a lot of the quest lines just kind of die. You level up to 58 and then head to Outland. Or you level up to around 60 and find that all of the quest lines disappear into prior "end-game" instances that nobody is running anymore. So if you really do read the quest lines like I do, you get to the point where you are ready to go fight some major badguys that have been built up in one way or another since level 1, and.... ooops, no nachos for you.

Re:Unimpressed

[Kjella]

It was really just a bunch of ice. Didn't really hold a flame to the videos embedded in Warcraft III. Maybe it has something to do with them just rehashing "the grind"?

The grind is quite simply for people that play too much. I figure most of these have content enough for a single-player game, but what addict plays any such game 8 hrs/day * 250 days/year = 2000 hours? He'd burn through every single player game I know like a crisp being done in a few weeks. Maybe if they paid 100$/mo (2x50$ single player games) they could hire enough people to keep up but the market would vanish. So they make the end game like a tar pit, the further into it you get the slower you move. There is no end, there is no ultimate victory. If you grind like craxy to reach it anyway, I'd say that's your mental problem and not WoWs.

Re:I can wait.

[snuf23]

Come on really now. It's time Gnomeregan was taken back by the gnomes. I can't stand that place.