DesMephisto Interview - The Cinematics of World of Warcraft

DesMephisto Interview - The Cinematics of World of Warcraft
DesMephisto is interviewing Terran Gregory and Marc Messenger about the cinematics of World of Warcraft.


  • The team did not anticipate the popularity of Zappy Boi. They were already working on the Old Soldier cinematic when his popularity took off.
  • Cinematics have the power to help more obscure characters enter the limelight, such as Mathias Shaw in Battle for Azeroth.
  • Dragonflight is meant to be a homecoming. It is meant to be a breath of fresh air after the tension of Shadowlands. It will definitely have threats, however.
  • The goal was to make Watcher Koranos an "every-man" that we could relate to.
  • When the cinematic for Dragonflight was being created, the community was not discussing the idea of dragons being the theme of the next expansion.
  • The cutscenes involving us defeating N'Zoth largely came about from player feedback of wanting to be more included in the defeat. A lot of people don't like when you defeat a boss only to see things like "Thrall getting the credit."
  • An 18 year old game presents unique challenges to adapting cinematics.
  • The team refined the cinematics during Shadowlands to allow the player to be utilized more in cutscenes. The cutscenes for the judgement of Sylvanas were the fruits of that labor. They were all done in real-time while allowing the player to be featured.
  • The team will continue to iterate on cutscene technology.
  • Dragonflight will also have a prelaunch cinematic series similar to Warbringers and Afterlives.
  • The ocean in the cinematic is not glowing from Azerite, but simply bioluminescence from the world waking up.
  • The Watcher on the throne in the cutscene is NOT Tyr. Tyr died at Tirisfal.
  • The camera angle dictated how they went about showing that the throne watcher was destroyed, and losing an arm was a good way to show how much of a bad shape he was in.
  • The Saurfang cinematics fit the narrative at the time, but it was also a big gamble. Utilizing these type of cinematics again could happen in the future, but no plans to do so in the immediate future.
  • Cinematics have gotten longer simply because they have become narrative scenes instead of just trailers.
  • Cinematics will be longer when it's needed for the cinematic development.
  • Behind the scenes of cinematics that include your character, you are actually seeing a clone of your character. Shadowform not being shown in these scenes might be a bug.
This article was originally published in forum thread: DesMephisto Interview - The Cinematics of World of Warcraft started by Stoy View original post
Published on 2022-04-29 08:58 PM
27 Comments
Comments 27 Comments
  1. ExtremelyCrusty's Avatar
    What N'Zoth cinematic? I only remember a 25 second video that was garbage
  1. Nork's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Thestrawman View Post
    So if Magni was in the PCs position the cutscenes would be great right? Because otherwise the issue with the cutscenes isn't the player character.
    Probably, but the whole concept was wrong. No cinematic should have any of us in it, and whoever craves to see his character as the protagonist, he must know that he's got a childish behaviour. "I WANNA BE IN THE CINEMATIC! MY CHARACTER IS IMPORTANT! IT'S NOT FAIR!!!"
  1. Austilias's Avatar
    Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
    The Saurfang cinematics fit the narrative at the time, but it was also a big gamble. Utilizing these type of cinematics again could happen in the future, but no plans to do so in the immediate future.
    Code for: We don't want to spend big money on CGI cinematics for any cinematics again apart from expansion trailers, and we want to use our crappy-looking in-game/game engine render cinematics instead.
  1. HitRefresh's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Austilias View Post
    Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
    The Saurfang cinematics fit the narrative at the time, but it was also a big gamble. Utilizing these type of cinematics again could happen in the future, but no plans to do so in the immediate future.
    Code for: We don't want to spend big money on CGI cinematics for any cinematics again apart from expansion trailers, and we want to use our crappy-looking in-game/game engine render cinematics instead.
    They probably thought having a cinematic for each patch would bring in more players or something.

    Maybe it would if they were presented in more of a trailer way than a lengthy dialogue/you have to have context for what is going on kind of way.
  1. CataclismicSunrise's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Nerph- View Post
    Curious if this was a US only thing. I pretty much didn't hear anyone talk about Zappy Boi on the EU servers I played on.
    who knows, man. the only references to zappy boi i heard - i fucking hate that name, btw - was in shitty wowhead articles.
  1. Ophenia's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Thestrawman View Post
    So if Magni was in the PCs position the cutscenes would be great right? Because otherwise the issue with the cutscenes isn't the player character.
    Well, as said in that video summary (didn't watch the full thing), having the player-character in the cutscene automatically lowers down its quality. If we had had Magni instead of the PC but with a much higher cutscene quality (with different angles, better animations, voice over), then indeed maybe it would have been significantly better, even if it would have remained the same in terms of events happening.

    We can only speculate though. But imo having such a bad quality for a end-expansion cinematic was atrocious. If we at least had a higher-resolution version of the kamehameha, maybe that would have been an Okay-ish cinematic instead of a terrible one.

    --

    Overall that's disappointing that they've decided to now follow the Saurfang-quality cinematics after BfA. Especially when I expected some of them during Shadowlands after their high-quality models they've used in the very short Shadowlands add featuring Zovaal and other leaders just for it to be limited to that, a tv spot
  1. Vandren's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by draugril View Post
    The Dragon Isles have been a point of discussion for an expansion setting for the entire history of the game. Not to mention the hundreds of threads talking about playable drakonids, a dragonsworn class, and the like.


    The community was definitely talking about dragons prior to them starting on this cinematic. They just weren’t listening.
    Amen to this. Not to mention there is no way in hell WoW expansions are not planned out many entries in advance. I mean I am happy they are finally doing the Dragon Isles but thinking this was some grand case point of Blizzard listening to the community is laughable.

    Quote Originally Posted by Nerph- View Post
    Curious if this was a US only thing. I pretty much didn't hear anyone talk about Zappy Boi on the EU servers I played on.
    It wasn't much of a thing period. It was a forced meme started by I believe Taliesin. I barely even saw it mentioned on the official forums after SL actually launched
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