Skip to Content

WoW.com has the latest on the upcoming WoW: Cataclysm expansion!

AOL
MAIL

Posts with tag wow-video-guide

WoW Moviewatch: I am Vengeance

by Michael Gray Mar 19th 2010 at 12:00PM

I am Vengeance is one of the Rise to Power contest winners for the United States. Created by Malamenz, I am Vengeance is the story of a blood elf who done got mistreated. As you might expect from such an antagonist, he's got some rage and angst, and he's looking to go get some payback.

Malamenz created the majority of the movie in Fraps, which is a tradtional and time-tested method for machinimators who are just getting started in their craft. The voice over was clean and easy to understand, even if the production was all narrated from a first person point of view. The story is pretty straightforward and most of the audience shouldn't have much trouble picking it up quickly.

Congratulations to Malamenz on winning the Rise to Power contest. Here's hoping we see you to continue to explore creating machinima.

Interested in the wide world of machinima? We have new movies every weekday here on WoW Moviewatch! Have suggestions for machinima we ought to feature? Toss us an e-mail at machinima AT wow DOT com.

Filed under: WoW Moviewatch

WoW Moviewatch: A Dead Bug's Life

by Michael Gray Mar 18th 2010 at 12:00PM

Today we feature the last of the European winners for Alienware's Rise to Power contest. A Dead Bug's Life is the creation of Erunno and Frozen DeathKnight, two of the luminaries who regularly post over on the Myndflame site. You should remember Erunno from his outstanding work with The White Drake, a movie that helped redefine visual storytelling in Wrath of the Lich King machinima.

In contrast to the silent narrative in The White Drake, this Rise to Power movie had a great deal of dialogue. It displayed an amazing amount of wit and light-hearted characterization between the Lich King and Anub'arak. My favorite line was when Arthas complains how much fun it is to "constantly ressurect an oversized roach." I don't want to discuss the ending of the movie, since it would definitely give a significant spoiler. But let's say an old, ancient foe of the Alliance returns to join the Lich King's army.

A Dead Bug's Life is a beautiful movie. The graphics are intriguing and well done, seamlessly integrating to the story. You can really see how A Dead Bug's Life won its prize.

Interested in the wide world of machinima? We have new movies every weekday here on WoW Moviewatch! Have suggestions for machinima we ought to feature? Toss us an e-mail at machinima AT wow DOT com.

Filed under: WoW Moviewatch

WoW Moviewatch: Welcome to the Deadmines

by Michael Gray Mar 17th 2010 at 12:00PM

The third European winner of the Rise to Power contest was Xcross, who submitted the comedic song and dance number Welcome to the Deadmines. The "story" of the video is fairly simple. A group of adventurers show up to the Deadmines to get their dungeon running happening. When they're just about ready to go, Van Cleef welcomes the adventures to his home with a little performance.

Xcross did some absolutely amazing work here. This video is just fantastic. The song is catchy and clever. It's very well performed, and includes all our favorite characters from the Deadmines. The graphics in the video are amazing. The choreography captures the flavor of this Monty Python-esque performance, spotlighting each performance with grace and aplomb.

My hat's off to Xcross. While I don't believe every video needs fancy graphics, Xcross has shown exactly how practiced machinimators can use their techniques to vastly enhance their films. The music was absolutely amazing. You can easily see why Welcome to the Deadmines was so well received.

As a last note, if some of the lyrics seem a little confusing, you should remember that we're all going to enjoy the Heroic Deadmines in Cataclysm.

Interested in the wide world of machinima? We have new movies every weekday here on WoW Moviewatch! Have suggestions for machinima we ought to feature? Toss us an e-mail at machinima AT wow DOT com.

Filed under: WoW Moviewatch

WoW Moviewatch: Beware of the Baby B

by Anne Stickney Mar 16th 2010 at 12:00PM

Michael Gray is still feeling a bit under the weather, and I have heard no news on the status of the puppy, so! Today's offering is another of the winners of the Alienware Rise to Power contest! Beware of the Baby B is a charming little three minute story by Olibith, who we've featured before numerous times on WoW Moviewatch. Much like the other Rise to Power winners, it's a pretty jaw-dropping movie in terms of effects and production.

Beware of the Baby B is a tale about a baby beholder with a big appetite, and what happens when said appetite gets entirely out of control. The visual effects are, as always with Olibith's work, really well done -- there were only a couple of lines of voice work in the movie, but really that's all it needed. I liked the variation in shots from the eyes of critters, and the eyes of Baby B -- I've never seen a non-combat pet look quite as horrifying as it did here! The loading screen gag in the middle also cracked me up.

While I'm used to seeing... spicier stuff from Olibith, this departure from the usual entertaining norm was an awfully sweet, endearing little film, with music taken from the game that suited the whole piece quite nicely. As with the other winners we've highlighted so far, it's immediately obvious why the film won. Congrats to Olibith -- now take that fancy computer and make us some more movies to watch!

Interested in the wide world of machinima? We have new movies every weekday here on WoW Moviewatch! Have suggestions for machinima we ought to feature? Toss us an e-mail at machinima AT wow DOT com.

Filed under: WoW Moviewatch

WoW Moviewatch: Farinar Presents: Oswald's Amazing Story of EVIL!

by Michael Gray Mar 12th 2010 at 12:00PM

This is another entry into Alienware's Rise to Power contest. Farinar Presents: Oswald's Amazing Story of EVIL! is the story of a squirrel in Elwynn Forest who is tired of the abuse he receives from passing adventurers. After seeing a campaign poster for the king of Stormwind, the squirrel decides to take steps to defend itself in the future.

This video was hilarious to me, and is the first comedy entry we've seen in the Rise to Power contest. Farinar did some amazing stuff with this video. One moment in particular stuck out to me. When the squirrel lights the fuse on his rocket ship, you'll notice the action is entirely implied by the scene framing. You obviously don't see the squirrel holding the match, just the tip touching the fuse. This kind of clever framing is one of the ways skilled machinimators like Farinar manage to make their videos have so much action, even while working within the limitations of WoW's models.

My only sad moment during the video is when the squirrel becomes a cybernetic killing machine. I was really looking for a Dath Vader moment when it screams, "Noooooooo!" I guess it makes sense that didn't happen, but I still would have giggled like a madman.

Interested in the wide world of machinima? We have new movies every weekday here on WoW Moviewatch! Have suggestions for machinima we ought to feature? Toss us an e-mail at machinima AT wow DOT com.

Filed under: WoW Moviewatch

WoW Moviewatch: The Shadow of Dawn

by Michael Gray Mar 11th 2010 at 12:00PM

The Shadow of Dawn was the entry to Alienware's Rise to Power from Blackhand Pictures. The story is essentially about a human Alliance member who gets sucked into the Lich King's web of tyranny, only to eventually be freed by Tirion Fordring at the Battle of Light's Hope Chapel.

The video is absolutely gorgeous. While some of the footage is either a recreation or a filming of in-game events, the entirety of this piece is just amazing to watch. Varath did a great job of creating interesting, captivating scenes. The voice acting is solid. The human voice was convincing in its tenor. The narration had a fantastic pace; it was neither so slow that I lost interest, nor so quick that I couldn't keep up.

My only criticism of the piece is that the subtitles were off. It wasn't anything too horrible, but the use of language could probably have gotten a second edit. The small misses in language was a little distracting in what was otherwise such a great piece of work.

Interested in the wide world of machinima? We have new movies every weekday here on WoW Moviewatch! Have suggestions for machinima we ought to feature? Toss us an e-mail at machinima AT wow DOT com.

Filed under: WoW Moviewatch

WoW Moviewatch: I Play as a Chick

by Michael Gray Mar 10th 2010 at 12:00PM

Work Warning: This video has WoW models in their underwear, and sexually suggestive themes.
I Play as a Chick is one of those videos that come with amazing coordination and collaboration between artists. Yumfries, Sharm, Wick, and Tradechat got together to create this epic piece of work, and the final product is absolutely amazing. While I can't say I'm at home in the rap genre, even I could easily acknowledge the great work these folks have produced.

The video is awesome. It's been a while since the production values of a music video were so astoundingly high that I felt someone had raised the bar, but Yumfries has definitely accomplished that with I Play as a Chick. The graphics never got boring or stale, and they seemed to constantly be creating new scenery. Even if some of the video was a bit racier than some viewers would prefer, the artistry that went into it is clear.

The song itself was equally good, with creative lyrics and an overall playful tone. The "narrative" of the song has a playful ending, with a certain tongue-in-cheek acknowledgement of the subject matter's ridiculousness.

Interested in the wide world of machinima? We have new movies every weekday here on WoW Moviewatch! Have suggestions for machinima we ought to feature? Toss us an e-mail at machinima AT wow DOT com.

Filed under: WoW Moviewatch

WoW Moviewatch: Raid Eats 2: Cake!

by Michael Gray Mar 9th 2010 at 12:00PM

Bullworth is now following up the hit machinima Raid Eats with Raid Eats 2: Cake! He's certainly tipping his hat to other games (and maybe the recent announcement about Portal 2) with his subject matter, as he assures his loyal viewers that the cake is absolutely not a lie.

I actually think the sequel is better than the original Raid Eats. The camera work and storyline seems to flow a little more naturally, and the voice acting feels like it's stepped up a notch. The video is short and fun, and pleasant to watch. It's certainly not high-end story based machinima, but Raid Eats 2: Cake! is a lot of fun.

I like the segmentation and pop-in work Bullworth is doing. He does a lot to add meta-commentary by dragging in recipes from the side of the viewing screen, and I appreciate that extra little emphasis it places on his plot.

Interested in the wide world of machinima? We have new movies every weekday here on WoW Moviewatch! Have suggestions for machinima we ought to feature? Toss us an e-mail at machinima AT wow DOT com.

Filed under: WoW Moviewatch

WoW Moviewatch: How to Win at Professions

by Michael Gray Mar 8th 2010 at 12:00PM

Wowcrendor's back with another installment of his satirical How-to series. This episode is focused on the wide world of crafters and gatherers, with How To Win At WoW Professions. Don't worry -- it's really hard to actually win at professions, so you can think of this videos as something more like "how to get the most out of it."

My favorite bits of this video actually highlights one of my personal issues with crafting. At the opening of an expansion, crafted items are really quite important. They help you bootstrap yourself into the new raiding content and give you a little bit of a leg up. Late in the expansions, however, crafted gear is rendered almost irrelevant to progression. (Or, at least, only mildly relevant, and even then they rely on getting raiding reputations to even make the better gear.)

While I understand there are balance concerns around making profession gear as good as raiding gear, I'd still like to see more crafting items released as professions move on. Wrath was okay for that; here's hoping Cataclysm is even better.

Interested in the wide world of machinima? We have new movies every weekday here on WoW Moviewatch! Have suggestions for machinima we ought to feature? Toss us an e-mail at machinima AT wow DOT com.

Filed under: WoW Moviewatch

WoW Moviewatch: Scarlet Toy

by Michael Gray Mar 5th 2010 at 12:00PM

Scarlet Toy was Greyfoo's entry into the Rise to Power contest. It tells the story of how Herod came to join the Scarlet Crusade, and what he really thinks about his situation. It's a fairly interesting way of characterizing the weapon-master of the Scarlet Monastery, and I applaud Greyfoo's creation.

According to Greyfoo, the contest rules kept him from busting out many fancy machinima tricks. He picked Herod as the subject of his film because its someone his in-game character could actually impersonate. He created the entire video by using Fraps, which should appeal to the machinima purists out there. He used two accounts to create the film. One character (a rogue) was the "camera" for the film, while the other was the "actor."

Greyfoo does say he felt rushed when it came to songwriting and recording, which might be why some of the audio sounds little grainy to me. However, Greyfoo did a pretty good job with the music. If he gets the chance, I'll be interested to see if he does another recording to clean up whatever issues he had.

Interested in the wide world of machinima? We have new movies every weekday here on WoW Moviewatch! Have suggestions for machinima we ought to feature? Toss us an e-mail at machinima AT wow DOT com.

Filed under: WoW Moviewatch

WoW Moviewatch: ROFLBear Promo

by Michael Gray Mar 4th 2010 at 12:00PM

The ROFLBear Promo is a short, promotional video for Myndflame's upcoming ROFLBear series. It's a brief advertisement for their new daily machinima show, to help get the word out that ROFLBear will be starting soon in the spring. In case you've been living under a rock, Myndflame is the mad-scientist machinima house behind the Illegal Danish series. Their work is always funny, creative, and interesting.

ROFLBear is going to be a daily series, with five new episodes each week. This is an incredibly aggressive and ambitious schedule, of course. If each new episode of ROFLBear is as fun as this promo, though, we should probably expect ROFLBear to become a huge, new force in the World of Warcraft community. No one else is offering this kind of daily video content, which would mean Myndflame is once again forging new territory. I'm very excited for the group, and wish them great success in this new effort. It looks great so far.

Take some time and check out the Myndflame site for more information.

Interested in the wide world of machinima? We have new movies every weekday here on WoW Moviewatch! Have suggestions for machinima we ought to feature? Toss us an e-mail at machinima AT wow DOT com.

Filed under: WoW Moviewatch

WoW Moviewatch: Gilnean Like Me

by Michael Gray Mar 3rd 2010 at 12:00PM

Gilnean Like Me is the newest movie by legendary machinima creator Gnomechewer. It is the story of an army of Forsaken who seek to raze Gilneas, only to discover something far more vicious than they were expecting. This video is absolutely astounding and is a lot of fun to watch. The visual work by Gnomechewer is riveting, and the way he lets his story unfold is clever and perfectly paced.

I think this kind of story is going to be more common when Cataclysm is released, but I'm glad Gnomechewer is helping to lead the charge. His instinct for visual techniques brings a lot of moodiness and horror to the tale of Gilneas, and helps frame the story of Greymane for new-to-lore audiences. If you have a friend who asks about the story of Gilneas, I think this movie is a great place to get them started. It not only shares bits of the story, but it communicates the genre of the lore.

Check out Gilnean Like Me, and let us know what you think!

Interested in the wide world of machinima? We have new movies every weekday here on WoW Moviewatch! Have suggestions for machinima we ought to feature? Toss us an e-mail at machinima AT wow DOT com.

Filed under: WoW Moviewatch

WoW Moviewatch: Where in the WoW is George?

by Michael Gray Mar 2nd 2010 at 12:00PM

Where in the WoW is George? is the result of a Masters project focusing on machinima. We don't know much about the project's requirements, so it's impossible to evaluate it in terms of that assignment. However, we can definitely look at the film on its own merits.

The video is created entirely from stills or in-game footage. There's not a lot of the model changing, filtering, or framework that characterizes so much of contemporary machinima. I actually find the purity of in-game footage refreshing occasionally, and the method works out for this kind of quick-cut humor.

The jokes themselves are pretty funny, and kept me interested through the movie. They're simple, fast gags, and everyone performing in this video is obviously having a lot of fun. That kind of love-for-the-show can go a long way toward endearing an audience, and that certainly happened with me.

Rumor has it the creator scored the highest marks possible on their Masters project, so I wish them sincere congratulations.

Interested in the wide world of machinima? We have new movies every weekday here on WoW Moviewatch! Have suggestions for machinima we ought to feature? Toss us an e-mail at machinima AT wow DOT com.

Filed under: WoW Moviewatch

WoW Moviewatch: Release me

by Michael Gray Mar 1st 2010 at 12:00PM

Release me is an interesting bit of machinima. It's the work of Nagrandify, who isn't exactly new to moviemaking. I'll admit I'm not as familiar with her work as I'd like to be, but I'll be working to pick up my familiarity after enjoying this video. It's a music-based piece that breaks from the norm by focusing on a draenei and a human. The pairing is enjoyable, especially since it's not one you see very often.

I had trouble fully understanding the story of Release me. I definitely got the hint that there was some kind of romantic trouble, but the details were fairly obscure to me. The ending was a little strange, too. I guess the draenei was "released" to become a dragon, and thus toasted her ex-lover? I don't know, I could be trying to read too much into it.

I enjoyed Nagrandify's music choice. The song was interesting and seemed to suit the imagery pretty well. And even if the story of the video was a little obfuscated, the imagery was solid and intriguing. Great job!

Interested in the wide world of machinima? We have new movies every weekday here on WoW Moviewatch! Have suggestions for machinima we ought to feature? Toss us an e-mail at machinima AT wow DOT com.

Filed under: WoW Moviewatch

WoW Moviewatch: Alliance vs. Horde: Episode 3

by Michael Gray Feb 26th 2010 at 12:00PM

It's been quite a while since we've heard from BroncoTV, but it seems like they're getting back into the swing of making machinima. They're re-honing their skills with the release of Alliance vs. Horde: Episode 3. Similar to the other Alliance vs. Horde series, this episodes features a quick punchline between a member of each faction.

I'm not sure the humor is quite as strong as previously, since so much of the success was based on the character interaction. That being said, BroncoTV's returning effort shows the same knack for tongue-in-cheek humor as always. Their video is quick, clean, and crisp.

Welcome back to BroncoTV! I hope to be seeing more from you, since you've always been a strong favorite.

Interested in the wide world of machinima? We have new movies every weekday here on WoW Moviewatch! Have suggestions for machinima we ought to feature? Toss us an e-mail at machinima AT wow DOT com.

Filed under: WoW Moviewatch

Breaking news Feed

Featured stories Feed

WoW Insider Show

Subscribe via iTunes for our latest show.

Hot Topics

Put WoW.com headlines on your site
Follow WoW.com on Twitter
Find us on Facebook

Upcoming Events

Event	Date
Call to Arms: Isle of Conquest	3/5 - 3/8
Call to Arms: Arathi Basin	3/12 - 3/15
Call to Arms: Eye of the Storm	3/19 - 3/22
Call to Arms: Alterac Valley	3/26 - 3/29

Getting started with Wrath

Guide to Wrath Reputation Rewards

Wrath Guides and Galleries

WoW Class leveling guides

Around Azeroth

Around Azeroth

WoW Moviewatch

I am Vengeance, or something like it.

Featured Galleries

Plushies in the Wild

Plushies in Captivity

Rob Pardo @ GDC: Making A Standard and Sticking To It

Gryphon Hatchling and Wind Rider Cub plushies

GM Island and the Player Jail

Patch 3.3.3 PTR: PvP Legacy Armor, Weapons and Mount Changes

Patch 3.3.3 PTR: New toys

Cataclysm models and doodads

Patch 3.3.3: New models

Categories

Massively

Big Download

Download Squad

Engadget

Joystiq

Joystiq Xbox

© 2010 Weblogs, Inc. All rights reserved. WoW.com is a member of the Weblogs, Inc. Network.

Privacy Policy, Terms of Service, Notify AOL, AOL News