World of Warcraft Shadowlands Cinematic Trailer Released Ahead of Next Week's Launch | MMORPG.com

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World of Warcraft Shadowlands Cinematic Trailer Released Ahead of Next Week's Launch | MMORPG.com

As the much anticipated release of Shadowlands approaches, Blizzard is celebrating the launch with the release of a new cinematic trailer, titled "Beyond the Veil," setting up the next expansion in the World of Warcraft universe nicely.

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Jamar870

Continuation of war even in the afterlife. So much for the dead finding peace.

mklinic

I haven't really played since MoP aside from the free few days they gave recently. I've been a bit on the fence about possibly picking up Shadowlands and playing again, but watching the cinematic doesn't really do anything to move the needle toward coming back to play more.

It's not a bad cinematic visually, but despite the articles assertion that "it shows quite a bit," I didn't get much an idea of what the compelling story is that I'm supposed to come back for. If I contrast this against the WoTLK for example; I felt that cinematic presented a compelling villain and hinted at a decent story without giving everything away.

Maybe I'm just too far behind in the story, too dense to 'get it', or am viewing through rose colored glasses (or any combination there of). Just didn't do it for me.

Iselin

mklinic said:

I haven't really played since MoP aside from the free few days they gave recently. I've been a bit on the fence about possibly picking up Shadowlands and playing again, but watching the cinematic doesn't really do anything to move the needle toward coming back to play more.

It's not a bad cinematic visually, but despite the articles assertion that "it shows quite a bit," I didn't get much an idea of what the compelling story is that I'm supposed to come back for. If I contrast this against the WoTLK for example; I felt that was a more compelling cinematic and presented a compelling villain and hinted at a decent story without giving everything away.

Maybe I'm just too far behind in the story, too dense to 'get it', or am viewing through rose colored glasses (or any combination there of). Just didn't do it for me.

MoP was also the last time I played other than a tiny bit last year when I checked out Classic but ended up playing more retail

I've pretty well ignored all catch-up stuff which I assume will just be there mostly for historical interest now.

The pre-launch event this past week and next is very useful for returning players to let us at least gear-up to a decent standard before Shadowlands. Most of that takes place in Icecrown with Argent Crusade dailies where you can use the commendations you earn to get i100 gear, and 20 bosses that spawn on a rotation 20 minutes apart who also can drop i110 gear + other goodies like mounts and a 34 item bag (which I got today on my warlock.)

My highest level characters were squished to the 37-41 range but getting them to 50 was very easy just questing. I chose to use Draenor for that because it's pretty straightforward and you can fly there (also in Legion) now without the achievement it used to require and that makes it very fast to go to quest areas and hub to hub. A day or 2 per character is all that takes.

I just leveled my warlock, hunter and paladin and have all 3 of those pretty well geared and ready to go.

If you do go back, just be aware there's an 8 hour maintenance scheduled for tomorrow. I assume they're actually adding Shadowlands in that maintenance and keeping it locked and all that will happen next week is the unlock of the content already there.

After the maintenance week 2 of the prelaunch event continues.

Lorewise I'm kind of looking at this as WoW does Diablo 3

FrodoFragins

While it's visually interesting, it's not really great at setting up the story.  It seems you have to know what's going on to connect with it at all.  I guess they assume everyone has seen the Afterlives cinematics for each race.

I just think if they want these more expensive cinematics to help sell Shadowlands, that they need to do a little more plotwise.  They also missed an opportunity to show Garrosh's torment again in something other than a cheap 2D animatic.


EDIT:

mklinic said:

I haven't really played since MoP aside from the free few days they gave recently. I've been a bit on the fence about possibly picking up Shadowlands and playing again, but watching the cinematic doesn't really do anything to move the needle toward coming back to play more. 

It's not a bad cinematic visually, but despite the articles assertion that "it shows quite a bit," I didn't get much an idea of what the compelling story is that I'm supposed to come back for. If I contrast this against the WoTLK for example; I felt that cinematic presented a compelling villain and hinted at a decent story without giving everything away.

Maybe I'm just too far behind in the story, too dense to 'get it', or am viewing through rose colored glasses (or any combination there of). Just didn't do it for me.

doh.  Looks like you beat me to the punch.  I wasn't trying to copy you.

foppotee

A good cinematic but I usually think of WoW's cinematics being better & more impacting in some way. Maybe another casualty of the pandemic?

axellslade

Not impressed. Should I be?

xpsync

So i was in the Auction House last night, minding my own business and, Yeah! All hell broke loose... Good times!!!

xpsync

@mklinic

I'm same as Iselin, i came back for Classic stayed for BFA and haven't played since cata.

Gearing up can be quick af, the link below has the bosses loc and times, next in line are marked in red, you'll need to refresh the page to update next boss and click the NA in the top left if not in EU and is Pacific Time

They switched to every 10 minutes from 20 and yeah omg can you build stones fast, and in turn gear up rapidly.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_HU7Z-oUCNu4MC6gHch26yPa0DMj0SaeEEQsCrCUoHI/htmlview?pru=AAABdfDcm8U*RIqfXUZ_lpgUMplGcSN4Ag#

mklinic

xpsync said:

@mklinic

I'm same as Iselin, i came back for Classic stayed for BFA and haven't played since cata.

Gearing up can be quick af, the link below has the bosses loc and times, next in line are marked in red, you'll need to refresh the page to update next boss and click the NA in the top left if not in EU and is Pacific Time

They switched to every 10 minutes from 20 and yeah omg can you build stones fast, and in turn gear up rapidly.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_HU7Z-oUCNu4MC6gHch26yPa0DMj0SaeEEQsCrCUoHI/htmlview?pru=AAABdfDcm8U*RIqfXUZ_lpgUMplGcSN4Ag#

I'm not so worried about how quickly I can gear up/level up as you've always been able to get to a reasonable point fairly quickly in the game except maybe in classic (or maybe I was just slow back then). 

My commentary was less about "how" to come back and more about the trailer not really giving me the "why" to come back. @FrodoFragins mentioned some additional content that, when combined with the cinematic, might give me a better picture. That said, I guess I was spoiled by past cinematics. This one looks pretty but otherwise, just doesn't seem to have much substance (imo) and doesn't really compare to those past cinematics (again, imo).

xpsync

tbh i don't have any knowledge going into an expansion, on purpose, i don't want to know it inside out. Jailer? Mah? f i don't know? i'll find out when i get there.

Same as BFA i had zero clue what the f was going on, after playing the expansion, now i do.

(for me) it's like asking someone to tell me the entire story of this novel, then say ok great thanks now i'll go read it, wtf?  makes zero sense right.

Give me an obfuscated trailer any day to entice me to know more!

mklinic

xpsync said:

tbh i don't have any knowledge going into an expansion, on purpose, i don't want to know it inside out. Jailer? Mah? f i don't know? i'll find out when i get there.

Same as BFA i had zero clue what the f was going on, after playing the expansion, now i do.

(for me) it's like asking someone to tell me the entire story of this novel, then say ok great thanks now i'll go read it, wtf?  makes zero sense right.

Give me an obfuscated trailer any day to entice me to know more!

If that's what you got out of my criticism, then I must have done a really poor job articulating my view..

I'll refer back to the WoTLK trailer which set the scene pretty good without giving away the story. This is closer to the BC cinematic, but even the BC one was more coherent to me.

I had to go back and check as, while writing this, I got curious as to whether the WoTLK cinematic might have been an outlier for the expansion I had played. In my opinion, BC was closest to this one where as Cata and MoP gave you a bit more info to go on. Still, I don't feel any of the cinematics ever gave enough info so as to spoil the stories the expansion contained while still giving you a better reference point as to how/why you're involved.

Maybe I'm just sitting here talking about "back in my day..." Like I said in the opening, I was on the fence as to whether to jump back in with this expansion. The cinematic was pretty, but didn't "entice me to know more" as you put it. 

This is just my take on it though and not trying diminish other people's enjoyment of it. Not even trying to paint myself as representative of any larger opinion (just speaking for myself). If it did the trick for anyone else, then more power to them.

Just my thoughts. I feel like I'm starting to come off as completely negative about the trailer and that's not my intent. As I said, it's a pretty trailer and I'll add that they've always made aesthetically great trailers.

xpsync

mklinic said:

xpsync said:

tbh i don't have any knowledge going into an expansion, on purpose, i don't want to know it inside out. Jailer? Mah? f i don't know? i'll find out when i get there.

Same as BFA i had zero clue what the f was going on, after playing the expansion, now i do.

(for me) it's like asking someone to tell me the entire story of this novel, then say ok great thanks now i'll go read it, wtf?  makes zero sense right.

Give me an obfuscated trailer any day to entice me to know more!

If that's what you got out of my criticism, then I must have done a really poor job articulating my view..

I'll refer back to the WoTLK trailer which set the scene pretty good without giving away the story. This is closer to the BC cinematic, but even the BC one was more coherent to me.

I had to go back and check as, while writing this, I got curious as to whether the WoTLK cinematic might have been an outlier for the expansion I had played. In my opinion, BC was closest to this one where as Cata and MoP gave you a bit more info to go on. Still, I don't feel any of the cinematics ever gave enough info so as to spoil the stories the expansion contained while still giving you a better reference point as to how/why you're involved.

Maybe I'm just sitting here talking about "back in my day..." Like I said in the opening, I was on the fence as to whether to jump back in with this expansion. The cinematic was pretty, but didn't "entice me to know more" as you put it. 

This is just my take on it though and not trying diminish other people's enjoyment of it. Not even trying to paint myself as representative of any larger opinion (just speaking for myself). If it did the trick for anyone else, then more power to them.

Just my thoughts. I feel like I'm starting to come off as completely negative about the trailer and that's not my intent. As I said, it's a pretty trailer and I'll add that they've always made aesthetically great trailers.

I know yours, you want a reason to play.

"There is evil and you're going to vanquish evil." Same reason for every game really.

Meh, you're making a mountain out of molehill.

tbh it's not the greatest trailer, pretty much sums it up. It shows some of the variety in the xpac, different atmosphere, and how it's so not the old wow anymore.

mklinic

xpsync said:

I know yours, you want a reason to play.

"There is evil and you're going to vanquish evil." Same reason for every game really.

Meh, you're making a mountain out of molehill.

tbh it's not the greatest trailer, pretty much sums it up. It shows some of the variety in the xpac, different atmosphere, and how it's so not the old wow anymore.

To be fair; I'm just as happy vanquishing good. Or vanquishing nothing and just building such as Boundless (or Creativerse for non-MMO). I don't think my reaction to one trailer really tells you much about me aside from what I look for in this particular game which isn't necessarily the same for every game.

Not sure how elaborating on my view of the cinematic is making a mountain out of a molehill. I'm just participating in discussion. If anything, I'm expressing how much of a molehill the cinematic was for me when I would have liked for it to have been a mountain.

Otherwise, I don't see anything in this trailer that says it not the old wow anymore. Or really that differentiates in that sense. Each cinematic has added a new 'theme' to the game that might as well not be the 'old wow.' I think Cataclysm is probably the only one that can claim to have not been the 'old wow' with the legacy zone changes and such (from MoP and previous at least).

I'm glad you're enjoying it and not trying to take anything away from that. Sorry if I'm coming off as argumentative. Reading back my posts, I feel they are coming off as more critical then intended. They should probably be read more as a *shoulder shrug* then anything more invested.

Kyleran

Sigh...if only MMORPGS were as exciting to play as their trailers make them out to be.

Life is a grand illusion.

xpsync

@mklinic

and anyone really. Nice prep going into SL might help you out, it helped bring me up to speed.

bcbully

Worst WoW cinematic ever by a long way