I'm glad I didn't try to watch the Midnight expansion reveal live, because from the sounds of it they abused WoW's popularity to the maximum possible extent this time - which is to say, they knew that people were primarily watching for WoW, so they crammed in two hours of Call of Duty ads and the like beforehand to keep everyone online.
I did hop over to the official WoW YouTube channel later to watch the announcement videos and... huh.
Back when the Worldsoul Saga was first announced, I wrote the following: "I applaud their long-term thinking for planning the next three expansions in advance, but to be honest I'm not sure it was a good idea to reveal all this to the public, as by doing so, they've basically spoiled their big BlizzCon reveals for the next several years."
I think the Midnight reveal has proved my theory correct in so far as I've never seen so many people react with a kind of "meh" attitude to a new expansion announcement. There are always those who'll love it no matter what and will be hyped, and there'll always be those who hate everything Blizzard does no matter what. But those in the middle can be swayed either way, and I've never seen this much apathy from the masses before.
There are probably a number of different reasons for that, but I reckon the fact that everyone already knew roughly what was coming must have been a major contributor. "It's gonna be about the void and about elves, something something Silvermoon." So when the trailer showed us elves fighting to defend Silvermoon against the void, that was at best exactly what everyone expected, and at worst a bit of a let-down in the sense that people wanted more (as MMO players always do the moment you tell them about anything).
There was something else about the trailer though. I liked it well enough, but something felt ever so slightly "off".
At first, I thought it was just the fact that Liadrin had been given a new haircut. Seriously, the first thing I did after watching the cinematic for the first time was google pictures of Liadrin's current player model, because I kept thinking "She didn't always have a tight braid, did she?" - and no, she did indeed not; they are giving her a new haircut for Midnight which will be reflected on her in-game model as well.
However, when looking around to find out whether anyone else had the same reaction, I actually found a lot of complaints about the trailer's visuals, which I believe is a first. In the past, even if players hated a trailer for what it conveyed, it was pretty much universally agreed that it was still impeccably animated at least. Not with this one! I don't think all the criticisms are necessarily equally valid, but let's just say that after people pointed out that Liadrin in this looks more like the Elven Hero from Elder Scrolls Online or Tauriel from the Hobbit movies than a Warcraft elf, I haven't been able to unsee that.
After comparing to the Battle for Azeroth trailer (which does feature a similar situation including a city siege), I also found it noticeable how many unique characters were featured in the BfA cinematic - while Sylvanas and Anduin are the focus, we also get shots of Saurfang, Zekhan and Greymane, as well as a number of different "generic units", from undead archers to dwarven riflemen. In the Midnight trailer, we have exactly three focus characters and everyone else is an indistinguishable melee soldier covered from head to toe in armour like they are a bunch of stormtroopers, which I hadn't really picked out before.
I think the biggest thing though is that the pacing/scripting feels slightly off and fails to reach a proper climax. I'd say it's fine for most of the cinematic actually, but when Liadrin returns with the help from the Sunwell it ends too quickly without letting us fully feel the triumph, while also just getting plain confusing because the help are also just a bunch of armoured mooks. I've looked around online and even the most passionate lore nerds are unsure of who these are actually supposed to be (though there are seemingly a million theories, from Guardians of the Ancient Kings to the Army of Light to the Arathi to representations of us, the players).
The gameplay reveals suffered from a similar mix of "well, we knew that was coming" and muddled messaging. Yes, housing is a big deal, but we've known about that for almost a year, and there's been a constant drip-feed of more details since then. You can't expect people to suddenly gasp and be super-excited about hearing the exact same thing again.
I also used to think it was kind of funny how they'd include things like "level cap increase" or "new dungeons" as major expansion features to be excited about, but this time they didn't and it was actually kind of confusing. I saw people ask questions like "Will there actually be a level increase this time?" (yes) and only later found out all kinds of interesting stuff that they didn't actually put into the features trailer, such as that Valeera Sanguinar will be the new delve companion or the major changes coming to transmog (huge!).
My personal takeaway is simply that Midnight will continue the War Within, which was kind of what we knew was going to happen. I'll be happy to buy it because I'm enjoying my time in retail right now, but I'm not sure it really delivered in the hype department the way these expansion announcements are usually expected to.
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Coming from a purely Alliance character, Xal'atath was the only character I recognized in the video. Return to Quel'Thalas? Say what? It's where? My take is: it's a Horde Expansion. Fine enough, but I have a level 10 Undead Hunter. She's my highest level Horde character, ever. I guess she's my main, now? What are all my Alliance characters going to do to level up to 90? Those were my impressions. I'm sure the deep dive panels this week will answer all my questions. Atheren
ReplyDeleteThat's funny because I've also seen people complain about the "continued Alliance bias" - I guess elves don't really count as Horde for some? 😄
DeleteI heard that parts of Silvermoon will be accessible to Alliance as well. And also that it was confirmed that the help from the Sunwell was the Army of the Light. Not a fan of how slowly they are drip-feeding these reveals; it's kind of confusing...
Perhaps it’s a continuation of the effort to have Horde and Alliance work together, fight together. Learn each others history. Could work! Atheren
Deletedo they also count level cap decreases as features.
ReplyDeleteRight now my main is still theoretically sitting in the legion capital city at 120 right where I left it. I have zero idea where it will appear if I actually log on but I won't be 120.
Was the reset a tent-pole feature? No. Was it just another QoL change/feature? Yes. The reasons were well explained at the time. If you want to see the ridiculousness of letting numbers just keep growing all you need to do is look at EQ2 and how big numbers can get.
DeleteThere's no theoretical about the level your main is at. All the characters were converted in that patch and no character still sits at the old levels. Your main should be in Dalaran, but would get a quest to restart in Stormwind with new, appropriate gear and a cleared quest log if you want to accept it.
I'm 'meh' about the cinematic, but I don't like Xal'atath so that works against the cinematic. The change in Lady Liadrin is disappointing, but not surprising.
ReplyDeleteBlizzard has been using other games as inspiration for characters recently. The first time I really noticed was the dwarf lady in the Dragonflight flying cinematic. She very much copied the look of Aloy from Horizon Zero Dawn. Which isn't a horrible thing since Blizzard has often been imitative, but much more polished in the past. The thing is this sort of copy is a bit too obvious and on the nose.
I'll buy the Epic edition as I like the added goodies, plus the 3 days early access was really nice with TWW. Not having to deal with flooded starter zones made that part more enjoyable. Early access housing, too, is nice. :)
The difference with the "ESO elf accusation" is that ESO is also tied to Microsoft, so the suspicion turns from mere copying to "they laid off their own cinematics team and made the same team that does the ESO trailers do this one". While perhaps oversimplified, I can't say for certain that this is wrong.
DeleteWhat hits close to home for me is that my own employer has been going through a similar process of a small, scrappy company that did a lot of unique things that people appreciated being bought out by a global mega corp, which then leads to all the really outstanding features being sanded off in favour of internal efficiencies and cost-savings, until the final result is... not bad exactly, but largely indistinguishable from other brands. And I definitely feel we're seeing a bit of that at work here.
I haven't decided which edition to buy yet. I went basic for War Within but I'm kind of tempted by the extra goodies that come with the upgrade this time, even though I don't like the whole early access thing out of principle.
A combined cinematic team is possible, but I thought Blur did the ESO ones?
DeleteThinking about it, I'm finding that the more I've just enjoyed playing the game the less I've been hooked on the stories and the cinematics. I think my dislike of BfA and Shadowlands story directions kind of burned out my enthusiasm for expansion story hype. The last trailer I was really excited about was that silly 'reverse time' reveal of Wow Classic -- and that was mainly that I knew we'd be getting to see places long missed. Before that, the Wrath trailer was the one that most excited me.
As far as early access goes, I can see that. It's just since it is available and I personally like a few less people in a zone when I'm leveling I don't mind taking advantage of early access. It's a bit more enjoyable for me when I'm leveling and chatting with friends and guildies. But then I'm much more a filthy casual these days. :)
I’m trying to let more information come my way, but after watching the developer “panel” with Hazzikostas and Hamilton, which deep dived more into places and characters I know nothing about…feeling I’d skip this expansion if it weren’t for housing. I’m guessing I’m not the only one. I’m surprised release isn’t till quarter 2 of 2026. I was thinking much earlier. The elves in the video are very ESO. Also, Xal’atath’s features are very different than usual. They’re hard, sharp, angular. Funny, they don’t get the one recognizable character right. This might be one of those keep the popcorn handy disasters.
ReplyDeleteAtheren, of course :)
ReplyDelete