Midnight 12.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Raetary]

Imo, what drags the Midnight cinematic down is mostly the last bit when the army walks up the steps.

Them just slowly and casually walking into the frey is not selling the urgency of the moment, and i really hated the tonal shift with that crappy music.
Those shitty camera shifts were also incredibly amateurish and weird.

All that paired with Liadrins and Lor'themars shitty one liners is not working out at all.

[Aucald]

Ranking WoW main cinematics, I'd throw my hat in the ring with:

1.) Classic - nostalgia or no, there's no WoW cinematic that completely sums up the experience of WoW like the OG.
2.) WotLK - the first cinematic to transcend "video game cinematic" and truly come across as quantified art. Equal parts haunting, poetic, and ironic all at once.
3.) Legion - action-packed and triumphant, almost movie-like in its pacing and feel.
4.) Shadowlands - who can't appreciate a cinematic epic showdown given the full treatment?
5.) WoD - a storied moment of Warcraft history given cinematic treatment, then quite epically subverted down an entirely new path.
6.) MoP - few cinematics really encapsulate the scope of their expansions quite like this one, embracing both the grit of war and the fundamental search for inner peace.
7.) BfA - a fine cinematic that seems to touch on all the right areas of the conflict the expansion will explore, a call to arms for both factions to fight to the death.
8.) Dragonflight - a call to mystery and adventure from across the ages.
9.) TBC - a classic, and yet somehow lacking save for its ending.
10.) TWW - a bit more sedate and expository than you'd expect from a cinematic trailer, feels more like a cutscene with full cinematic gloss.
11.) Cata - same issue with the TBC cinematic, but less impactful. I would expect more from Deathwing.

I still haven't decided where the cinematic for Midnight fits in the ranking of WoW cinematics, but it will likely ultimately fall somewhere around the middle of the pack.

[Nymrohd]

I've liked The War Within announcement cinematic with Anduin and Thrall. Especially because of how the writing is just right, a few callbacks, no rainbow-friendship filled peptalk, it goes to the essential and then the music drops on us with the visual of Gorribal. It's simple, clean and impressive visually.

I never understand why people like the BfA cinematic so much. It is almost the opposite of this one. The Sylvanas monologue makes no sense

It's not even foreshadowing, we've already explored this topic in depth in Pandaria. It has nothing to do with the battle happening in the cinematic, it's just feels like random gibberish of someone not even sure what they're doing or if they're supposed to commit to starting a war.

TWW cinematic is amongst the weirdest, you don't understand what Xal is doing, you don't understand the power of the void elementals, you completely forget that Blood Elves are a nation of Archers and Mages before being a nation of paladins, every character not being a major figure is a footman... Do you even know your elves Blizzard? At least BfA showcased the infamous troll shaman.

Blizzard shouldn't have a ton of cinematic work in their pipeline with only Diablo IV and WoW to cater, maybe they could invest more in WoW like they've tried to during BfA.

Sylvanas would make perfect sense if this was an actual faction war and not a plan to feed the janitor of hell.

[Joshuaj]

Imo, what drags the Midnight cinematic down is mostly the last bit when the army walks up the steps.

Them just slowly and casually walking into the frey is not selling the urgency of the moment, and i really hated the tonal shift with that crappy music.
Those shitty camera shifts were also incredibly amateurish and weird.

All that paired with Liadrins and Lor'themars shitty one liners is not working out at all.

The Light was simply aura farming. It does that a lot, and idk why.

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Maybe Progenitor Light is the type of mf that likes cool entrances, and its influence took that aspect of it, idk LMAO.

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Ranking WoW main cinematics, I'd throw my hat in the ring with:

1.) Classic - nostalgia or no, there's no WoW cinematic that completely sums up the experience of WoW like the OG.
2.) WotLK - the first cinematic to transcend "video game cinematic" and truly come across as quantified art. Equal parts haunting, poetic, and ironic all at once.
3.) Legion - action-packed and triumphant, almost movie-like in its pacing and feel.
4.) Shadowlands - who can't appreciate a cinematic epic showdown given the full treatment?
5.) WoD - a storied moment of Warcraft history given cinematic treatment, then quite epically subverted down an entirely new path.
6.) MoP - few cinematics really encapsulate the scope of their expansions quite like this one, embracing both the grit of war and the fundamental search for inner peace.
7.) BfA - a fine cinematic that seems to touch on all the right areas of the conflict the expansion will explore, a call to arms for both factions to fight to the death.
8.) Dragonflight - a call to mystery and adventure from across the ages.
9.) TBC - a classic, and yet somehow lacking save for its ending.
10.) TWW - a bit more sedate and expository than you'd expect from a cinematic trailer, feels more like a cutscene with full cinematic gloss.
11.) Cata - same issue with the TBC cinematic, but less impactful. I would expect more from Deathwing.

I still haven't decided where the cinematic for Midnight fits in the ranking of WoW cinematics, but it will likely ultimately fall somewhere around the middle of the pack.

"I would expect more from Deathwing"

And it shows him causing Tsunami's, breaking parts of the world, etc by simply waking up...

[Pheraz]

Cinematic ranking for me:

1. Cataclysm, I just love the voice and cuts and when he lands in storm wind
2. Wrath, even though I hated the xpac the cinematic was just perfect
3. BFA, as others have said, perfect moment for a trailer, very nice cuts and everything important is shown
4. Vanilla
5. Legion, the hype was too real
7. Dragonflight I loved the breath of fresh air
8. Midnight, it could be higher, if we would have seen precisely who comes out of the sunwell and if we didn't have two scenes with liadrin praying
9. SL, I think they perfectly portrayed Sylv, even though at this moment I knew that the setting would be nonsense
10. Mop
11. TBC
12. WoD, everything WoD is bad, they very paper of the DVD boxes went bad the moment time traveling orcs were printed onto it


Since we knew quite much about midnight it wasn't too much of a shocker. But I'm really curious what happens in tlt

[Ersula]

Oh brother this is awful - why the fuck are we retreading faction tension again it's been resolved

It really hasn't. Basically none of the underlying tensions were resolved. Despite how the narrative framed it, they weren't really at peace when Sylvanas burned Teldrassil. Everyone's agreed they like peace but any reasons for fighting that weren't directly related to Sylvanas never got resolved.

Personally, I don't like how the franchise revolves around war but also takes a blanket stance that war is bad. War is bad is a good moral but if your topic is war & want to discuss war in fiction, you wouldn't be racing to end those wars as fast as possible. Actually give your characters things to do in that war instead of boiling it down to one central war criminal.

[Nymrohd]

It really hasn't. Basically none of the underlying tensions were resolved. Despite how the narrative framed it, they weren't really at peace when Sylvanas burned Teldrassil. Everyone's agreed they like peace but any reasons for fighting that weren't directly related to Sylvanas never got resolved.

Personally, I don't like how the franchise revolves around war but also takes a blanket stance that war is bad. War is bad is a good moral but if your topic is war & want to discuss war in fiction, you wouldn't be racing to end those wars as fast as possible. Actually give your characters things to do in that war instead of boiling it down to one central war criminal.

Independence wars are wars. Civil wars to remove dictators are wars. War can be a tool for freedom. The issue is for a war to be a better thing than peace, there needs to be a villain who won and has stayed in power first. We had that precious few times in Warcraft; Suramar campaign was exactly that. Azj'kahet could have been similar but it did not land imo because it happened too fast.

[Auxis]

So now that we know what Xal is (a void elemental/entity of some high ranking), do you think the old god mural in Azj-kahet is still relevant (ie, an entirely new entity we haven't heard of/SOMEHOW is Xal's fleshy body) or is it a dropped story thread/old asset pre- Metzen return?

[Aucald]

"I would expect more from Deathwing"

And it shows him causing Tsunami's, breaking parts of the world, etc by simply waking up...

Which still comes across as weaksauce, IMO. Maybe it's the whole thing with Cata's cinematic having to come on the heels of WotLK's, which was just a masterpiece comparatively, making Cata feel more like a stumble. It's hard to really pin it down, but for me, it just fails to sell the threat of Deathwing beyond "big dragon flies around and shit blows up." Someone made a pretty compelling reshoot storyboard of the cinematic, obviously lacking Blizzard's famed graphical fidelity, that started with Deathwing being disturbed by the subvocal whispers of the Old Gods as he slumbered in Deepholm before a close-up on one of his blazing eyes as it opens. Then he slowly stands and stretches his wings with a umbral halo of shadowflame pouring out from him, melting the area around Deathwing's Fall in Deepholm for us to see later. He slowly begins to ascend, picking up speed, shattering the World Pillar as he flies upward and outward, then going back to a wide shot of Azeroth itself, scarring and burning with his rampage onto the surface, which transitions into the Cata logo for the expansion.

That, I feel, would've been an awesome way to both introduce and reintroduce Deathwing as a character.

[Skildar]

Somewhere during the Gamescom I believe they've tried summing up the story so far and explained that the Nemtharion's artefact retrieved by Iridikron was created with the help of the goblin. Was there any information regarding this prior to today? I just thought why not letting Gallywix tend to it's restoration as he's manipulated Azerite, Kajamite and made sketchy dealings with many forces in the past (Brokers included). But I had not realized that this was in a sense their heirloom as well.

[Aucald]

So now that we know what Xal is (a void elemental/entity of some high ranking), do you think the old god mural in Azj-kahet is still relevant (ie, an entirely new entity we haven't heard of/SOMEHOW is Xal's fleshy body) or is it a dropped story thread/old asset pre- Metzen return?

Xal'atath is already shown to be a masterful shapeshifter, as with her impersonation of Archmage Drenden to infiltrate and ultimately destroy Dalaran. I've no doubt she could masquerade as an Old God-like being if she needed or wanted to. No idea if that's what the mural in Azj-Kahet is depicting, really, or if it's just artistic license depicting the Nerubians' former subservience to the Old Gods and their more direct minions.

[Santandame]

And I fully believe Metzen will retcon Yrel being "evil", simply because it was another Afrasiabi fuck you against women. And WoD was still under Metzen aswell, they actually hyped up Yrels "Jean D'arc" arc alot back than. Maybe they use her as an example how the LIGHT can be evil, but we get a redemption arc as she realizes exactly that and once again helps us instead.

I think you mean Joan of Arc. Jean D'arc was Joan of Arc's brother.

[Aucald]

Somewhere during the Gamescom I believe they've tried summing up the story so far and explained that the Nemtharion's artefact retrieved by Iridikron was created with the help of the goblin. Was there any information regarding this prior to today? I just thought why not letting Gallywix tend to it's restoration as he's manipulated Azerite, Kajamite and made sketchy dealings with many forces in the past (Brokers included). But I had not realized that this was in a sense their heirloom as well.

There was speculation in Dragonflight that the Dark Heart was an early prototype for the Dragon Soul, Nelthrarion's first fumbling in an attempt to create a veritable superweapon artifact he could use to enhance or amplify his powers. Khadgar relates this in the pre-release event for TWW during "The Harbinger" quest-chain:

The Dark Heart began as a relic hidden away in the Forbidden Reach. We believe it was similar to the Dragon Soul. Perhaps a prototype rejected by Deathwing?

Iridikron stole this relic and traveled to the far past alongside the Infinite Dragonflight, to a time when the world was ruled by primal dragons and the Aspects were not even yet the Aspects. He then infused the relic with the power of Galakrond, a powerful primal dragon who nearly devoured the entire world.

And so the Dark Heart was created. But Iridikron did not keep the relic for himself. Instead, he gave it to an ally. A figure we know only by name. The Harbinger. (Source)

The connection to the Dark Heart involving the goblins is actually found in Undermine, in Noggenfogger's journal:

This device is amazing. Allegedly one of Deathwing's prototypes, but I can see ancient goblin work in it. Rumor is our people used to work for him thousands of years ago.

Under different circumstances, this would beat a primo gig.

I see why Gallywix can't fix this thing. His science is good, but he's all brute force. Shove in more power, concentrate more Black Blood.

But the power in this thing isn't a healing power, it's volatile. It seems... angry? We need a catalyst. Something that can stabilize the energy the device is powered with until it can fix itself.

I have tried countless balms and elixirs, and I'm running out of ideas. I got too much to lose if I can't fix the damned thing. It'd be compelling work if the stakes weren't... I gotta find a way. (Source)

[Lady Atia]

I think you mean Joan of Arc. Jean D'arc was Joan of Arc's brother.

I did indeed haha. It's Jeanne d'Arc in the original, pronounced as ʒan - hence the typo.

[Golden Yak]

Would much rather have there been a questline that explored that, maybe finding an old lair of Deathwing hidden in Undermine, really dug into that lore.

But at least its somewhere, I guess.

Man, it would've been cool if the House of Chrome had been the site of these old experiments, with Gallywix upgrading and overhauling it into his final lair.

[Jaggler]

Would much rather have there been a questline that explored that, maybe finding an old lair of Deathwing hidden in Undermine, really dug into that lore.

But at least its somewhere, I guess.

Man, it would've been cool if the House of Chrome had been the site of these old experiments, with Gallywix upgrading and overhauling it into his final lair.

"Deathwing lair" is the new "troll raid". Every expansion just gotta have one.

[Raetary]

"Deathwing lair" is the new "troll raid". Every expansion just gotta have one.

Deathwings true crime was buying up all the real estate.

[milkmustache]

Wasn't the connection between the Dark Heart and the Dragon Soul brought up during the Harbinger prologue questline in Dragonflight, which is what lead to a bunch of assumptions around TWW announcement that we'd inevitably get to Undermine? I agree they could have maybe done a bit more to reinforce that idea in Undermine itself, though.

[Lady Atia]

Deathwings true crime was buying up all the real estate.

Deathwing was alpha tester for Housing.

[Super Dickmann]

I am glad WoD won. It really is the best cinematic. I saw it on a best videogame cinematics of all time montage like 6 years after WoD released

Rightly so, what it and BFA have over pretty much any other cinematic is that it's unmistakably Warcraft, as @Nymrohd said, in a way that on a very surface level SL's and even Legion's really aren't. If you know Warcraft, it is better, the callback where Garrosh saves from his son in the exact same shot as Grom killing Mannoroth in WC3 is great, but even if you have only the most basic idea you'll like it. Wrath's cinematic is very solid if you already know what you're getting into, which is why it can get into the kind of slow pace and dramatic irony that wouldn't work otherwise. If I were rating based on how someone who's not a fan might look at it, that would dump it down a notch or two and bump BFA and SL one further, but the expectation of a WoW expansion is that it's WoW fans playing it, so it wins.

In that vein, as @Skildar and @Aucald imply, another thing I didn't get into but that makes TWW's so bad beyond being a derivative clipshow is that it misses what makes the Classic one and to an extent the TBC one work - it's showing you, the player, in the many characters you could be and how the game could feel. On second thought, TWW in fact has less to do with those, but is closer to that SL promo cinematic with the different realms, except that one is higher budget and actually features some solid compositions, whereas TWW has that weird interpretative dance segment and Xally going on about stuff that you can only follow if you play the game, and if you do play the game you know she's giving a bog standard villain monologue.

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Yeah check this, its almost as if the LK (as in, the position, no matter which character occupied it) is/was one of the most popular villains of the franchise, and almost as if it was originally hyped up to be a pretty big big deal that there "always had to be a LK", and almost as if the 2 previous xpacs apparently started building him up again to be an important character. Only for every single one of those things to be chucked in the bin, in one cinematic.

People werent really annoyed about Bolvar being shafted, they were annoyed about the LK being shafted. Bolvar was just the medium.

As others have already covered defending the SL cinematic on a technical and trailer level I'll bite the bullet and throw my hat in on the story front, both for Bolvar and Sylvanas.

For Bolvar, losing the hat is really the only way he could go. Much as I think his Legion variation was the best version of the LK since Ner'zhul in WC3, he's still just the LK, i.e he fulfills the same role. Him holding a sword of Damocles over Azeroth for its own good isn't that different from Arthas holding back the Scourge until he raised the PCs as a plot beat, and any expansion he'd helm as a baddie would just be a worse Wrath, lacking all the build-up with no gimmick attached. In turn, he couldn't do anything as a support character that wasn't already being done by the Ebon Blade. For the (at the time hated) plot beat of there always being needing to be a Lich King to work, that gun needs to fire and we need to see what happens when there's no LK, and the bedlam Terenas was on about. Anything else would be bound to be a worse repetition of what we already got.

More importantly, since she's maining it, the cinematic is the best Arthas parallel they did, as it wasn't overwritten monologuing tripe or smarmy dialogue. Sylvanas ended Wrath and started her post-Cata arc by helping attack Arthas with a squad and the PC, losing because the LK was much stronger than she was, running away and then being absentee to his defeat. She shows back up at the top after, finds that even that was pointless since there's some nobody on the chair she can't even hurt and then even trying to get closure by chucking herself off the cliff finds her in the pit of hell. The SL cinematic is that in reverse, Sylvanas goes in alone, because she's already sacrificed and divested herself of everyone else, as Arthas did when he went up the stairs, she's the one who, as a result of this, easily overcomes the nobody who bears the symbol of what she went through and then where in the same spot Arthas killed Ner'zhul but kept the symbol, she leaves the man alive but breaks the symbol. Instead of leaping off of ICC into hell, she opens the sky to hell and brings it to earth. Despite the 50-ton weights put on BFA, it manages to bring her entire post-Cata story full circle and leads into a story of what her doing all this does, what a rampant scourge and the gates of hell being open does to the 'regular world', what it means that Tirion etc. hid that an Alliance regent was holding the Scourge up to this point and so on.

Of course, none of that happened, what it was actually all about was a carfire about magic robot sorting machines and her being tricked by a giant Bald Man, the Scourge being free was ignored except for one Redridge quest and that blood elf post-story questline and Bolvar could have his role replaced by a camera on stilts and it would change nothing. But as a direction and as a continuation for both characters involved and the LK hat in general, it flows well and I don't see any easily available natural direction that wouldn't just be repeating beats done before and better.