Where are the CGI cinematics?

[Grimbold21]

Who knows? The fact that they're hiring people for the cinematics team might say smth

https://www.artstation.com/jobs/V3Po...ampaign=digest

[Val the Moofia Boss]

After BFA, Blizzard has realized that huge marketing pushes can't save WoW.

When WoW first came out, you had advertisements featuring Chuck Norris that were instrumental in pushing WoW into the mainstream. Ofcourse, times were different. Playing games online with other people was a novelty and facebook hadn't taken off yet. The environment was ripe for WoW to explode. Also, the game was actually good and had staying power. Then Cata happened and WoW began to decline.

With WoD in 2014, there was a renewed marketing push for WoW. There was that taxi car that was bisected by Gorehowl in the middle of Time Square. Lots and lots of prerendered cutscenes that were constantly advertised in the trailers. Lots of cable TV ads. Comics drawn by Alex Horley. The Lords of War shorts. Etc. The marketing push worked and WoD had humongous launch numbers, but since the game didn't have staying power those numbers plummeted like a rock over the course of the next three months, infamously leading to Blizzard refusing to publish the official sub numbers because of how embarrassing it was.

With BFA, we got another huge marketing push. Same problem as WoD: lots of people came for launch but didn't stick around because the game was bad. Also, it's no longer 2004. The smartphone generation isn't growing up to check out WoW. They're playing Fortnite. Marketing isn't going to bring them in unless you fundamentally change WoW. The age group for WoW already knows about WoW, and they're not coming back unless the game is fixed. Or they are just not interested in WoW at all.

Since Blizzard refuses to fix their game so that people will actually stick around, then the cost of the marketing pretty much boils down to how much profit they would make just off of launch box sales alone, vs how much more profit they might make if they spend their marketing budget on other projects.

[Nootz]

Who knows? The fact that they're hiring people for the cinematics team might say smth

https://www.artstation.com/jobs/V3Po...ampaign=digest

That link specifically references call of duty.

[GR8GODZILLAGOD]

I’d personally rather them move resources used for the heavy cgi cinematics and have more of the in-engine ones for the game.

[DeltrusDisc]

I thought I remembered a blue post that confirmed that Old Soldier cinematics would have an equivalent in coming expansions. But so far only the Shadowlands announcement cinematic and like a weird teaser thing have been shown.

Are we expecting one at the end of the Sepulcher?

Sir, please, Blizz devs are hurting right now. How dare you expect them to do their job at all!

[AwkwardSquirtle]

I thought I remembered a blue post that confirmed that Old Soldier cinematics would have an equivalent in coming expansions.

Can you find that Blue Post? If memory serves, they were asked if we'd get more like Old Soldier going forward, and the answer was "Not necessarily, we'll do it when it feels right. Don't expect it."

[Skirdus]

In retrospect the Shadowlands CGI teaser just baffles me. They made a CGI model for the Jailer (in his OG form), the Winter Queen, Denathrius, and Margrave Krexus, and yet where are we now?

• Krexus is dead, having been killed off-screen 10 minutes into the Maldraxxus storyline.
• The Winter Queen isn't any more relevant to 9.2 than any of the other Eternal Ones, not to mention her story was kind of already told via pre-rendered cutscenes.
• Denathrius was "killed" at the end of his raid and now lives in his sword. Given the story of 9.2 and its focus on the first ones we probably won't be seeing him anytime soon either.
• The Jailer traded out his BDSM gear for some DK questing plate, so now they'd have to make a completely new CGI model for him if they had another CGI cinematic planned with him in it.

So yeah, I have no idea what the hell they had planned initially, but I don't think we'll be getting anything like the "Saurfang" series for Shadowlands unfortunately

[Mardux]

I'd hope so, but we also know Shadowlands has been largely abandoned now.

You wanting people to believe your conspiracies doesn't actually mean they are true or that people actually believe them.

[Easo]

Gotta agree, they made CGI models for covenant leaders just to show them for couple of seconds? Doesn't seem like a good investment. Cuts would explain it.

[Souflikar]

It's a shame we haven't seen any. CGI cinematics and Warcraft music are always high quality and done very well. We could have used some of that "high quality" over the last year.

[TheFirstOnes]

COVID, prolly. My assumption is that they were most likely planning something for Zovaal, with them slowly revealing his backstory and whatnot, similar to the whole Saurfang shit with his decent into rebellion, but then COVID happened.

[Mardux]

After BFA, Blizzard has realized that huge marketing pushes can't save WoW.

When WoW first came out, you had advertisements featuring Chuck Norris that were instrumental in pushing WoW into the mainstream. Ofcourse, times were different. Playing games online with other people was a novelty and facebook hadn't taken off yet. The environment was ripe for WoW to explode. Also, the game was actually good and had staying power. Then Cata happened and WoW began to decline.

With WoD in 2014, there was a renewed marketing push for WoW. There was that taxi car that was bisected by Gorehowl in the middle of Time Square. Lots and lots of prerendered cutscenes that were constantly advertised in the trailers. Lots of cable TV ads. Comics drawn by Alex Horley. The Lords of War shorts. Etc. The marketing push worked and WoD had humongous launch numbers, but since the game didn't have staying power those numbers plummeted like a rock over the course of the next three months, infamously leading to Blizzard refusing to publish the official sub numbers because of how embarrassing it was.

With BFA, we got another huge marketing push. Same problem as WoD: lots of people came for launch but didn't stick around because the game was bad. Also, it's no longer 2004. The smartphone generation isn't growing up to check out WoW. They're playing Fortnite. Marketing isn't going to bring them in unless you fundamentally change WoW. The age group for WoW already knows about WoW, and they're not coming back unless the game is fixed. Or they are just not interested in WoW at all.

Since Blizzard refuses to fix their game so that people will actually stick around, then the cost of the marketing pretty much boils down to how much profit they would make just off of launch box sales alone, vs how much more profit they might make if they spend their marketing budget on other projects.

Yeah, WoW didn't first come out in 2011 like you claim. Not sure who gave you that idea or why you chose to believe them instead of taking 2 seconds to find out WoW was "first released" about 7 years before that Chuck Norris commercial.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Yeah, WoW didn't first come out in 2011 like you claim. Not sure who gave you that idea or why you chose to believe them instead of taking 2 seconds to find out WoW was "first released" about 7 years before that Chuck Norris commercial.

This is the second version of his wow advertising speech the first one he said they didn’t do any big marketing before wod and the game pushed it self by word of mouth. Looks like he updated it to include pre Wod stuff but still didn’t actually check any of the details.

[Zentail]

You wanting people to believe your conspiracies doesn't actually mean they are true or that people actually believe them.

I didn't know that the single most common belief among every single person in all of WoW (except you) was considered conspiracy. I'm fairly certain you're unaware of what that word means. Did you not see all the dev interviews about 9.2 and their responses on the future of SL, or rather the lack of one? lol

Look at the date. Look at the SL release date. Look at us just now seeing 9.2 announced. Release isn't just around the corner. Either the entire team is working on future content that isn't this expansion or Blizzard has removed all resources from WoW altogether.

[Archmage Alodi]

Maybe COVID interfered with having people in the studio for motion capture.

[Gadzooks]

If they did have some planned I wouldn’t be surprised if who ever they hired to make them got delayed by COVID and with there own in house delays they scrapped the idea.

They make them in-house, Blizzard has a completely separate division that does all of the high end animation. That's the division Christy Golden actually works in.

I would guess a couple of things:

1 - They're busy on Diablo 4 and Overwatch 2 cinematic.
2 - They're limited to what they can do, because things like motion capture are hard to do at home. I would bet their pipeline was severely impacted by covid, over many other departments, as they need the motion capture systems, high end workstations, and render farms to make them. You can't make that level of quality on a laptop or home gaming computer.

Diablo4 has gotten several high end renderings done since Covid hit, so they're getting them done, albeit very, very slowly, I would bet. I would not be surprised if several were planned, and scrapped, like you said.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

They make them in-house, Blizzard has a completely separate division that does all of the high end animation. That's the division Christy Golden actually works in.

ah, most company's makes this stuff inhouse (riot games for example) so I wouldn't think blizzard would.

[Sarethion]

Diablo4 has gotten several high end renderings done since Covid hit

The only new cinematic I've seen (since the initial announcement) was the Rogue trailer, which was done in-engine. Was there anything else?

[Devilyaki]

They still rendering the fruit bowl give it some time.