Friday, December 01, 2017

Battle for Azeroth Trailer


The next WoW expansion, Battle for Azeroth, was revealed at Blizzcon, and the cinematic trailer made its debut.

We make the standard observation that it is not as good as the Wrath trailer. But it's still quite good, and honestly, is a lot more understandable than the last couple of trailers. The graphics are excellent as always.

It's got some good moments for both factions. Sylvanas reminds everyone that she's the Banshee Queen and discovers Horde pride. Anduin, on the other hand, has a really cool helm, and realizes that healers win battlegrounds, thus putting him ahead of 80% of PvP players.

As for the theme of the expansion, way back in 2009 I wrote a post on The Nature of War, and I think it still holds up today. I don't think Blizzard can make this work without fully committing one side as the aggressor.

I do hope Blizzard doesn't make Jaina Proudmoore into the bad guy though, and butcher her character like they did to Fandral Staghelm. Her perspective is interesting, and I don't think it's wrong.

7 comments:

  1. While I'm not interested in the expansion itself, I also thought that this trailer was the best one they've done in a while. Specifically, my issue with many of the most recent ones was that they don't give the player anything to relate to; they just show some NPCs do their thing, kind of leaving the casual player with the question of what any of this actually means for them.

    At least here we have a clear appeal to faction pride and a message that fighting the other faction will be a big thing in the next expac.

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    1. That's true. The last couple of trailers have been a little opaque as to what exactly is going on. This one is super-obvious: Horde vs Alliance.

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  2. That young blond boyband member is the leader of the alliance now? Woof. Game even has welfare characters now it seems.

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    1. Eh, Blizzard has spent some time over the last 3 expansions fleshing out his character. Plus, he was the human prince of Stormwind, and his father, the King, was killed at the beginning of the current expansion. The King is dead, long live the King.

      It's actually a lot more sensible than the leadership changes that have happened on the Horde-side.

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    2. That "welfare character" has been in the game since Vanilla! Know your lore, Syncaine. ;)

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  3. Blizzard is never going to commit to one side being the aggressor. They don't want the players of one faction to feel 'bad' about the choice they made. I'm sure at the end of the expansion we'll be back to a balance again (Horde having Kalimdor and Alliance having Eastern Kingdoms). The Old Gods will have manipulated things again so that we fight and we _supposedly_ again learn the lesson of needing to work together. :/

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    1. Yeah, that's probably correct. I think the expansion after BfA will be a "work-together" expansion like Legion is.

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