Blizzard Debuts Cinematic for World of WarCraft: Warlords of Draenor

yes, this

As much as I'd hate to even think about going back to playing World of Warcraft again, I still love Blizzard's cinematics.

It's not a revision, because Warlords of Draenor is an alternate version. That is, there are now TWO Draenors, the new one where the timeline is changed, and the one that still exists as Outland, the level 60-70 leveling area.

Sadly, this means the alliance heroes can't survive and reappear - because this timeline is from when the orcs first used the Portal (Warcraft: Orcs and Humans). Gul'Dan never ripped the planet in half, so it's not just floating rocks like Outland is...yet.

Also I want to see Thrall's reaction to alternate Grom. Please say Thrall is gonna come back... :)

Sounded like Rexxar to me. Going by appearances is too difficult, but that voice sure sounded familiar.

Ah, damn. I thought that was a tease for the movie before I started reading the comments. I... huh. Well, at least their cinematics still look good.

@nathanxplosion: I'm sorry

What's with "Use of Alcohol"?! I guess that was some sort of Orc Kiwi cocktail or sumthin...

Non-green orcs look both weird and dumb.

As I understand it, Garrosh is in an alternate timeline, and it doesn't affect the current Azeroth. Instead, they (using MAGIC) make the Dark Portal connect this new Draenor to the current Azeroth, so Garrosh can stomp around with his new army.

You know, Dragon Ball Z did this too and that turned out alright.

@stimpack said:

It would not shatter records like that of Avatar or Titanic. Nor would it make a billion like Avengers did.

And we do know that WoW is less popular than it ever has been in it's entire history thus there's no way a movie that's targeted at the fans like you're talking about could possibly be as successful as it would've been at the game's peak popularity.

I wasn't using Mega Man as a literal 1 to 1 comparison it was just something pulled from random. I could've easily said "X property" and my reference to people not going to see it has nothing to do with me believing they are shut ins but rather it's become more and more difficult to convince people to leave their houses now days in general given A) How much faster movies come to video & B) The constant amount of entertainment that's available to them at all times at home via TV, Hulu, Netflix, YouTube, video games, etc. Note <-that is a fact, not an opinion.

Avatar's success was not a surprise. It was billed, promoted, talked about, etc, as the next thing to revolutionize movies and as such many people went to see it. WoW's success wasn't really a surprise either. MMOs like Ultima and Everquest had already been successful at that point and here came a licensed MMO based on a property that already had a big + dedicated fan base who were already gamers unlike an MMO based on a movie or whatever where you might have some amount of crossover. Now WoW's mainstream success nobody could've predicted, ie it becoming the watershed MMO.

Blur knows that it can't work and knows that it's not possible for them to do because as they've said they don't have the resources and even they did it would be an astronomical undertaking. Far more people want to see Star Wars 7 than a CG KOTOR movie and it will always be that way. Live action movies will always possess a greater money making potential which is a big reason why these movies are live action and not CGI. Note - the potential, that's how a movie studio will always look at it.

The only time it's the other way around is when a studio doesn't want to spend a lot on something like the 2007 TMNT movie where WB opted to do a $35 million CG movie over a $100 million live action film because they didn't believe there was a big enough audience to support a $100 million turtles film. Cut to 7 years later and we have $100 million turtles film that's made over $100 million in less than a week.

Also while we're on the subject of history let's remember that graphical fidelity isn't going to win over an audience as The Spirits Within proved, and having a large fan base doesn't guarantee (super) success either. Final Fantasy VII sold over 9 million copies but how many copies didn't Advent Children sell?

@charlee_coco: I was with you until the part where you said it wouldn't shatter records. You can't state your opinion as fact. None of us know how popular it would really be, but I believe that it would. World of Warcraft is not Mega Man, at all. It's an entirely different beast, and I don't think the people that play it or have played it are all shut-ins. I wouldn't have imagined Avatar being so ludicrously popular, but it most certainly was. If that pile of garbage can pull in the numbers, I don't think anything is outside the realm of possibility. I honestly wouldn't have thought World of Warcraft would have been such a breakout success, either.

Anyway, point being that we could discuss our opinions of why it would or would not be popular, but it's entirely pointless.

I'm aware of Blur's history, and how much dedication and care goes into their productions, though. I guess it all would just depend on how much they're willing to bet that it could work.

Various companies like Blur are constantly asked about making full length CG movies like that of their trailers and ones like the one above and universally the same response is given regardless of the company asked which is that it would take 5 years and cost nearly $300 million to make a feature length film on this level.

Studios like Blur have also confirmed that part of the reason why these type of pre-rendered trailers are so amazing/impactful/beloved is because they're only minutes long and as such can devote more time and attention to every aspect of those few minutes that studios like Disney, Pixar, and Dreamworks can't with their features.

As for them making their money back and shattering box office records. No, that would not be the case. Even at WoW's most popular, a movie like that would never do the type of business of movies like Avengers, Transformers, Harry Potter, etc. I'm guessing that you're assuming the millions of people who play WoW would all go see it, but that's not the case. The truth of the matter is that only a small minority of that audience would actually leave their homes and go out to a theater and see it. Big box office numbers are generally (if not always) a result of the average movie going populace, not the original fans of X property the movie was adapted from. That's (part of the reason) why you don't see direct adaptions of things like video games, because nobody would go see it. "How awesome would it be if someone like Pixar made a MegaMan movie?" Yeah, that probably would be awesome, but only for us, and not the population at large and as such would never make financial sense or do well financially.

YEAH HELLSCREAM
I'd be excited if the game actually looked like this. :(

The Blizzard cinematics are always such a tease because they are always amazing and for games I have zero interest in playing.

@heatdrive88: Pime taradox. Wrathion and Kairoz have some big plan to prepare Azeroth for another Legion invasion, and it means freeing Garrosh during his trial and sending him back to Draenor 35 years ago to create an alternate timeline.

Garrosh uses the timeway to bring awesome technology to the pre-corruption orcs, and convinces his father to refuse the blood of Mannoroth. They make a new Iron Horde, and start building the Dark Portal not just to link to Azeroth, but to link to present Azeroth post-Siege of Orgrimmar.

It's fuckin' weird timey-wimey shit.

It's some time travel shit, man, I dunno. WoW has messed with the lore so much already it kinda doesn't matter anyway.

@huxleyy: I sort of had that thought in my head but didn't want to say it out loud and be wrong.. I have no f-ing clue about any of the back story here but the cinematic was cool.

Every effing time I see one of these...

I'm blown away and go "fuck yeah!"

I wish the moments weren't tied to an MMO.

Especially when there are moments directly tied to lore I remember from Warcrafts 1-3 :(

Hopefully Lothar survives this time. Never forget...

To the people getting themselves riled up about lore-mutilation, alternate timelines and continuity reboots:

Watch the Blizzcon 2013 WoW lore panel. The developers explain how this time travel thing is going to work. Basically the current timeline is fine, and will remain untouched.

Imagine the WoW movie thats coming out next year was made with computer graphic tech than with real actors. so much better :)

OMG!! I can't wait for this expansion! comes out four days after my birthday. hint:

@wh00kie: Orcs became green after drinking mannoroths' blood (which you see here is cancelled by Garrosh Hellscream via his father Grommash Hellscream)

If only the game was as fun as the trailer. They could do a lot more with the warcraft IP than just feeding the cash cow.

They should've named it, World of Warcraft: Secret of the Ooze

These cinematics still gives me the chills.

This is about the least sensical thing I've read in the past week...

@pr1mus: Outland (sadly) continues to exist with it's dated questing, but maybe they'll shape it up in the next expansion.

@viciousbearmauling: Garrosh is cool, dude! In a I don't give a shit type of way.

@efesell: Dying laughing over here not sure if you were trying to be funny but that just hit the right button

@makari: Awesome explanation!

You have to think of it in terms of every decision ever made in history birthing a splinter future. They aren't dimensions, they are possibilities, and in the Warcraft universe it is possible to see, enter and manipulate the possibilities via time magic. The setup to WoD is a bit more complicated than that given it stretches over a few expansions of buildup but that's the basic gist: It's a possibility that has been linked magically to the real world, and thus has become real itself.

Wait so the orcs aren't green? Boy oh boy what is even

The disconnect between the action in this (and previous trailers for wow) and the gameplay is just so steep for me. So much that this feels like false advertising. I felt exactly the same about the old republic.

But mang. Someone just give them a script and let them make cg movies cause, yeah, this is real good looking.

I assume this will take place in some capacity in Draenor before it was destroyed and became Outland.

Are they simply redesigning Outland like they did the old world in Cataclysm or does Outland continues to exist as it currently is and this becomes a separate world since they're talking about time travel?

That is one good looking trailer.

oh god damn it i'm going to stick the needle back in arent i

Damnit everything I've read about this expansion has made me want to avoid it like the plague, but damn that cinematic just made me go pre-order. Well done Blizzard you assholes!

That's true, but then everyone is wrong and right, because we can't know. : (

@petrolhead: But this game isnt set in our universe, so any of our laws of pyhsics dont apply. Also magic.

Likewise but sadly that'd be so expensive they wouldn't be able to make games for a number of years. But that said the WoW movie is going to have more cgi than even Avatar did and that movie was 99% cgi for most of its run time.

Personally, my problem with it, is that time has no dimension. All this time travelling doesn't hold to science to begin with and every argument is pure fiction. "Alternate timelines" implies one Universe split into two, that contradicts every laws of conservation.

@wastrel: Ah, I see. Thanks.

That's technically (in the literal sense) really well done, but Blizzard's attempts at story and graphical design still make me purse my lower lip and raise my eyebrows.

@amyggen: This expansion takes place in an alternate timeline Draenor. Not anything else.

@efesell: But people are mentioning alternative timelines and stuff like that here, which makes at least part of it not sound like canon.

@amyggen: Of course?

@project343: The main problem is that they've done time travel multiple times before and up until now it's been Back to the Future style where you're in the same timeline and changes can become permanent.

It's hilarious how much trouble people are having with the idea of alternate timelines.

@efesell: I thought about that, and I imagine you're entirely correct. That said, I'm sure it wouldn't be hard for them to make their money back and more. I mean, I imagine a full CGI WoW movie would shatter box office records with ease.