Anyone else thought the Dragonflight trailer was underwhelming?

[Enter Name Here]

another thing that bothers me more than it should: how the f did the dragons return fast enough to catch the watcher mid fall?

inb4 bronze dragonflight timey-wimey solutions

[Nerovar]

The recycled WotLK cinematic they showed afterwards was more exciting than this.

There's just no drama here. We are told that this stone guy needs to fix the mechanism so the dragons can return. We don't know why the Dragons have to return, we don't know what any of the stakes are, there's no villain or imminent thread introduced to us, no real character moment etc. it's just really, really bad from a storytelling point of view.

If you want to see a good "low stakes" cinematic that does everything this cinematic did but better then rewatch the MoP cinematic.

[Zulggun]

Not the best trailer, but a good one nonetheless.

The art was on point and I was happy to see the watchers. I loved their clicking movements, really felt like they were made of stone. I love how imposing they look and how fundamentally "good" they are, the one in the trailer risking his life to fix things with very little hesitation.

In contrast, the trailer for Shadowlands made me legitimately angry, and to this day I consider it the equivalent of watching someone beat an old man. So they couldn't really do worse than that.

I am puzzled however, who is the green dragon in the trailer? When we see Alex, Nozdormu, Kalec, there is also a green dragon flying in. It might be one of the horde of dragons that soon follow, but it might be the new green aspect. Or can Ysera come back?

I believe Ysera is bound to shadowlands now so it's most likely Meritha, her daughter leading green dragons.

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another thing that bothers me more than it should: how the f did the dragons return fast enough to catch the watcher mid fall?

inb4 bronze dragonflight timey-wimey solutions

Why would they show dragons waking up, eating breakfast and taking a bus to reach the Dragon Isles when they hear the call? The pacing of the feature presentation is a thing that matters.

[Kralljin]

Why would they show dragons waking up, eating breakfast and taking a bus to reach the Dragon Isles when they hear the call? The pacing of the feature presentation is a thing that matters.

I could imagine a cinematic around a Dragon being asleep, then once a the beacon lights up, opens his eyes wide, roars and starts flying towards it.

You could even time it up with the narration going "Azeroth has awakened" to establish a parallel between Dragons and Azeroth.

[Zulggun]

I could imagine a cinematic around a Dragon being asleep, then once a the beacon lights up, opens his eyes wide, roars and starts flying towards it.

You could even time it up with the narration going "Azeroth has awakened" to establish a parallel between Dragons and Azeroth.

Sure, but that' would be totally different trailer then. I wouldn't mind that to be honest, but we already had Deathwing "waking up", why not try something new?

[Kralljin]

Sure, but that' would be totally different trailer then. I wouldn't mind that to be honest, but we already had Deathwing "waking up", why not try something new?

Deathwing was hardly sleeping, he was chilling in Deepholm and the Twilight's Hammer reforged his armor.
I think there's a slight difference between a Dragon erupting from the very earth and a dragon flying towards a beacon.

Nevermind the fact that we also had a story about some Island / Isles being hidden in the mist for 10.000 years.

[Asrialol]

Worst cinematic they ever did.

You must've missed the Wrath one.

[Eurhetemec]

IMO the real problem is Wow's storyline has been exhausted. The major behind the scenes villains have all been killed, we've had countless secret and unknown islands pop up... let's face it, the game is old as hell. Blizz is kind of going the Simpsons route where they are trying to squeeze as much profit out of this as possible and the novelty of WoW has grown quite stale because of this.

Whilst I don't disagree, the Simpsons, god help us all, still has a shit-ton of viewers. I tried watching a recent season on Disney+ and I was just like "What the fuck..." honestly, that has degraded way worse than WoW. I can enjoy SL, even if I don't love it, but modern Simpsons? Unwatchable. Painful. Ooof.

But if they want to move forwards, well what they really need is WoW2, ideally after Warcraft 4 (which might well see the end of the Horde and Alliance and different factions emerging), but some kind of significant time-skip.

Failing that, to move forwards they probably need something like this - a reset, a breather. Time to stop and think about what they're doing, and to start building up new arcs, new villains, etc. I don't think the ageing WoW fanbase will handle it well, but even if they did an amazing WC4, so many people here are ancient grognards now that they're inevitably going to be grumpy old men about it. It's been nearly 20 years. No-one, not even Blizzard, really expected it to make 10, not at launch. But maybe they can reach a newer fanbase, or appeal to the people who aren't hopelessly negative curmudgeons.

[Dnusha]

Worst cinematic they ever did.

I dunno it seems pretty original to me.

[Magenugget]

In my opinion it's the worst WoW cinematic together with MoP. Not visually of course, they did a fantastic job as always.
But in terms of feeling, it just didn't feel like WoW at all. It felt generic, from the setting and music down to the Disney face and mini emotional arc of the stone guy (would have been way cooler to me if he just stoically climbed the tower and then fell to his death, shattering on the ground next to the remains of other shattered wardens). At least they should have shown the humanoid form of Alexstraza to remind people that this is in fact a WoW expansion.

It felt like they outsourced it to some other studio and said "so a stone warden wakes up and has to climb a tower then dragons happen".

[Mendzia]

The art and music, as always, fantastic, but without further context, it seemed a bit dull as a story beat.

My thoughts exactly.

[Magenugget]

another thing that bothers me more than it should: how the f did the dragons return fast enough to catch the watcher mid fall?

It happened because that's what usually happens in the plethora of super hero movies that the current devs are clearly obsessed about. The how doesn't matter, you might also ask why there wasn't a staircase or magic elevator for the stone guy and why he could only barely close the thingy when that was his only purpose. Don't think about it because it just gets dumber.

[RickJamesLich]

Whilst I don't disagree, the Simpsons, god help us all, still has a shit-ton of viewers. I tried watching a recent season on Disney+ and I was just like "What the fuck..." honestly, that has degraded way worse than WoW. I can enjoy SL, even if I don't love it, but modern Simpsons? Unwatchable. Painful. Ooof.

But if they want to move forwards, well what they really need is WoW2, ideally after Warcraft 4 (which might well see the end of the Horde and Alliance and different factions emerging), but some kind of significant time-skip.

Failing that, to move forwards they probably need something like this - a reset, a breather. Time to stop and think about what they're doing, and to start building up new arcs, new villains, etc. I don't think the ageing WoW fanbase will handle it well, but even if they did an amazing WC4, so many people here are ancient grognards now that they're inevitably going to be grumpy old men about it. It's been nearly 20 years. No-one, not even Blizzard, really expected it to make 10, not at launch. But maybe they can reach a newer fanbase, or appeal to the people who aren't hopelessly negative curmudgeons.

I agree, giving Wow a break so they can come up with storylines that feel fresh seems like the right move. I think blizz would rather just keep releasing underwhelming expansions that still make money though, but taking a break, doing warcraft 4, and setting up the right story line for WoW 2 would absolutely be the right move and would probably make more money in the long run anyways.

[DarkAmbient]

Worst trailer they have ever done. Was very hyped about seeing it today but watching it was so underwhelming.

Agreed. I don't think it was terrible per se, but it was definitely their least remarkable. I get they're trying to dial down the existential threat but that doesn't mean the trailer has to be dull.

[Unholyground]

They wanted to make a straight forward cinematic that isn't giving away the main villain instantly.

[kappalol]

The more a watch it the more I like it. Cinematic doesn't have to be hype as fuck and have action etc. it should show new expansion which it did. There doesn't have to be some lore reveal like SL one. When you think about MoP cinematic which was great nothing happened there also. it just showed pandas and panda island.

[cocomen2]

Watcher was cool 9/9 (hope for playable version... who i am kidding.. they would cost some raid tier); but dragons looked so Disney, and acted like cats who plays with mouse.Just add there some Princess, and we can make it Frozen 4.

[Schmilblick]

The Worst of Warcraft.

[Danenglish]

In my opinion it's the worst WoW cinematic together with MoP.

I agree, but this one is arguably worse in my opinion. One of the things I disliked about the MoP trailer, was the comedic undertones, but that's such a subjective thing, and I know that humor has always been a big part of the Warcraft Universe, just typically not in the cinematic trailers for World of Warcraft. Now, this new Cinematic, somehow manages to be incredibly vague, and yet, it in no way makes me yearn to learn more, no real mystery is set up. All of that, is in my opinion, of course.

[Haladrian]

So many people joking about hello kitty island over the years and it finally happened, WoW for the new generations I guess