World of Whorecraft: Battle for Asseroth

[Zeriel]

Then again directors rarely make a movie great if everything else about it sucks, so eh.

ESB

Stands for?

 

[Rivmusique]

Empire Strikes Back

 

[Metro]

Everything else about ESB sucked? No.

 

[Wilian]

No, ESB was great movie all in all, a true landmark in history of cinema. But it came from very humble origins that is original Star Wars, which while entertaining, was mostly the stereotypical adventure flick in space that simply came out at right time to change the history. Admittably, the opening is still probably one of the greatest ever, especially on big screen.

ESB, thank to it's director and cast that wasn't afraid to speak out their opinion really iterated on the idea of darker second act and is about as perfect as movie can get from the grounds it came from.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

No, ESB was great movie all in all, a true landmark in history of cinema. But it came from very humble origins that is original Star Wars, which while entertaining, was mostly the stereotypical adventure flick in space that simply came out at right time to change the history. Admittably, the opening is still probably one of the greatest ever, especially on big screen.

ESB, thank to it's director and cast that wasn't afraid to speak out their opinion really iterated on the idea of darker second act and is about as perfect as movie can get from the grounds it came from.

I don't think it's entirely fair to put it all down just to Kershner. Lucas was also at the top of his game as a producer when making the film, for example (say, like when DGA tried to put the heat on Kershner, Lucas personally took care of the money needed to make them fuck off). It's really a case of everyone involved getting their A-game on.

 

[Wilian]

I don't think it's entirely fair to put it all down just to Kershner. Lucas was also at the top of his game as a producer when making the film, for example (say, like when DGA tried to put the heat on Kershner, Lucas personally took care of the money needed to make them fuck off). It's really a case of everyone involved getting their A-game on.

That is true, my later view on Lucas might have intervened with my capability of seeing overall picture. The main-point however was that Star Wars itself as a movie was fairly stereotypical adventure fantasy flick set in space but simply came out during right time with great FX for the era, while ESB is truly a masterpiece where everything simply clicked together and I put a lot of value on it for the director. I think there was this some good quote somewhere when Lucas wanted to meddle in more where the director outright said "Tell me what you want me to do and I'll do it, but don't get in my way how I do it" or something like that.

And this comes from perspective of total SW nut. Hell, I'm the kind of person that can forgive and enjoy even the prequel trilogy just because it's Star Wars. I was practically grown on it.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

I'd still say you're selling the first film really short. There's a whole level of energy it has that only rare few films possess, and Luke turning off the targeting system is the best part in the original trilogy.

 

[Wilian]

I probably am. Just rewatching it and I have to admit I was under-estimating it now that I'm presenting it with the scrutiny it deserves.

That scene with Luke gazing at twin suns just strangles me every time.

 

[Mangoose]

I agree everyone was on their A game for the original trilogy. Especially considering Lucas directed A New Hope. It was the rest of the crew telling Lucas to shut the fuck up in Episode IV that made it good. If Lucas actually was allowed to have his way as a director it would've been a shit movie. I agree that his role is a producer and he was good at it, and he needs to stay only a producer and not meddle with the actual film.

Original script (written by Lucas) for Star Wars was to have wookies piloting X-wings, lol.

 

[Lerk]

I just wish Lucas would stop meddling with what he began. I hate what he did with the new editions of the original trilogy, they didn't need a lot of superfluous FX shoehorned into them, it just ended up detracting from them as a whole. I don't have high hopes for the new trilogy, Han Solo at 70 is not going to be fun to watch given how lame Indy was in that fucking awful fourth film.

As for the prequels, they had brief shining moments of greatness but overall they showed that Lucas belongs nowhere near his IP on celluloid. Three of Lucas` greatest crimes against his own franchise occur during them: midi chlorians (terrible), the demystification of Boba Fett (WHY DID WE NEED TO KNOW), and putting a lightsaber into Yoda`s hands (downright embarassing)

That scene with Luke gazing at twin suns just strangles me every time.

The moment that most affects me in the entire original trilogy is when Luke gives up on raising his X-Wing from the Dagobah swamp, before Yoda does it effortlessly. John Williams' score is perfection in that scene.

"I don't believe it."

"That is why you fail."

Goosebumps. Every single time

 

[Wilian]

Well I would considering fucking up Anakin's backstory and creating some Chosen One scheme would top the crime thing quite easily..

 

[Lerk]

Well I would considering fucking up Anakin's backstory and creating some Chosen One scheme would top the crime thing quite easily..

Well to me that's so obvious it doesn't really need saying, it's the main reason the prequels are so reviled. It was always going to be difficult to impossible to get it right, though. We should never have seen Anakin as a podracing tween, and while I think Hayden Christensen was not sympathetic in the least (therefore no pathos, and no tragedy) he's decent in the third film. The damage to Anakin's character was irreversible by then though. Christensen gets a lot of flak for his portrayal but he had a bad director and terrible script hobbling his efforts.

 

[Wilian]

I think all prequel actors get too much flak for what they did. I personally consider McGregor's portrayal of Obi-Wan very good with the awful and limited material he had for example. And a lot of the actors either previously or after have shown they can do good acting in movies of all sorts.

Prequels were just built and written in such manner no matter how good you really were, it wouldn't have fixed anything. I still dig Ewan McGregor's Obi-Wan. He was perfect fit for the role. Just wish the movies would've been what they deserved to be.

 

[Mangoose]

Rest of the actors are fine, Hayden Christensen sucks. The script was bad, yes, but he had a weak and whiny voice and he also was shit at portraying any kind of inner strength and charisma in terms of non-verbal acting.

 

[Wilian]

On WoW news, Blizzard just posted a blog about their "same-face issue" for the new character models:

Hello, and welcome to Artcraft! I’m your host Chris Robinson, art director of World of Warcraft, and today we’re going to tackle something I know a lot of you have been looking forward to: facial customization options.

When we began working on the updated character models, we knew it would be a huge project, and we weren’t sure we could do it all at once. The idea originally was that a few races would be available at launch, and all the others would be patched in throughout the course of the expansion. While it wouldn’t have been ideal to see a mix of lower-quality and higher-quality models running around side by side, it did seem like the most realistically achievable solution at that time. Since then, though, we’ve committed ourselves to getting all of the original character models in by launch. It’s been a monumental challenge for us, but we think the effort is worth it, and the finish line is nearly in sight.

Our next big focus is doing justice to the facial options. With the original models and their simplistic geometry and low-resolution textures, a lot of facial expressions were simply painted on. Now that we’ve moved to higher-polygon models with lips, teeth, and fully articulated faces—not to mention higher-resolution textures—recreating those same facial options isn’t as simple as painting them onto a flat surface. Previously, to get a sneer out of a model, you’d just paint a sneer on its face, and that was that. To do it correctly now—and make it look great—we have to fully pose a sneer, create a custom texture, and mesh that base pose with all of the existing emotes and animations.

These more detailed face customization options were also originally part of our earlier “update-as-we-patch” rollout plan. Our initial idea was to release the new models with their base face, and then add additional options in updates over the course of the expansion. Again, that plan was based on the sheer amount of work involved in creating what are effectively all-new races (art-wise) on top of all of the art a big expansion like this one generally requires. But stepping back, we came to the conclusion that it just wasn’t going to be a good experience to have everyone playing with the same face geometry and a slight texture change, not knowing what their character would really look like until some later patch. In the end, we decided it would be best to tackle all of a race’s facial options at once. Up to this point, you’ve seen one facial geometry set, but very soon you’ll start seeing more finished products for each option in upcoming beta builds.

The original Dwarf model (left) has his teeth painted directly on his upper lip to give him a snarl. With the new models, which have fully modeled and textured teeth, a simple paint job just isn’t an option—it would look terrible. In the middle, you can see what that same sneer looks like right now in the beta test; on the right is what you’ll see in an upcoming beta build.

On the left, we have a pair of original Orc faces. The second column represents what you’re seeing right now in the beta build, showing texture variation but the same facial geometry. The third column shows a posing rig to demonstrate how we’re customizing each of the face appearances further. On the far right, you can see the final product.

We’re working hard to ensure all of the updated character models have the high level of quality you expect from us, and that we expect from ourselves. This revamp is a truly enormous project that we care deeply about, and we know you feel the same. We’re looking forward to seeing all of these new, high-quality, awesome-looking models running around Azeroth, and we hope you enjoy seeing the characters you know and love in a whole new light.

Thanks for reading, and see you next time!

 

[Angthoron]

You forgot this gem:

Starting in Talador, you'll soon start seeing quest bangs on the world map for major quest lines that you are eligible for but don't have in progress. Other zones will follow shortly after.

This system is designed to act as a backup mechanism should you fall off of a quest line for some reason. While it is not terrible if you're guided to content this way, it is still our preference that we lead you there smoothly through the quests themselves, and only have this as a backup should you miss something.

We're very interested in hearing feedback on this system as you start to experience it. Also, if you somehow miss a major quest and end up depending on these map bangs to lead you back, we'd still love to hear about those too so that we can look to reduce the chances of missing them.

Thank you for your help with this. We hope you enjoy this new feature.

 

[Wilian]

That wasn't part of the Artcraft blog :p

 

[Echo Mirage]

Blizzard are rushing the hell out of Warlords content. And I don't think they even care. Blizz knows they are going to get a massive initial subs loss from people who just will not like what has happened with their favourite classes. And from others who never bothered to read up about the stats squish anyway. So they may as well just add the bare bones of the expansion, so by the time people return mid expansion, all the bugs and unfinished content will have been forgotten.

 

[Israfael]

ThI don't really get why they are so hell-bent on catering to the new players and people who apparently are too casual to care about improving their gameplay because they dont have time/ have 'real life'/kids/w/e and yet have time to spend 10 hours in LFR queues and inside those 'raids'. I loathe to agree with old farts like Gevlon the goblin (who quit wow few years ago), but these two categories of people (along with 14 y.o. 'core gamers' in EA's interpretation) are not staples of the MMO market. Somehow we managed to learn things the hard way and no one really quit over the fact that there was no quest compass, target markers and other stuff in the games, including vanilla WoW.

Whatever blame was put on the Ghostcrawler, he actually listened to the beta-testers and players, and the current team of developers should do that as well. If they dont do that and everything stays as it is now (butchered and not really well-thought out), many top players can quit the game. On MMO-champ, Aladya of Method expressed extreme dissatisfaction with the current state of holy paladin on beta and noted, that he'd rather quit the game instead of adapting to the degenerate playstyle they created.

 

[Avellion]

Lulz Blood Elf models will not be updated. Here I was thinking that those models is what the 14 year old boys wanted to see updated the most.

Is it just me who finds it downright sad that the thing Blizzard seems to be pushing the most with this expansion pack is new character models? You know those things that will be covered up in a suit of armor and a helmet anyway.

 

[Metro]

Blizzard are rushing the hell out of Warlords content. And I don't think they even care. Blizz knows they are going to get a massive initial subs loss from people who just will not like what has happened with their favourite classes. And from others who never bothered to read up about the stats squish anyway. So they may as well just add the bare bones of the expansion, so by the time people return mid expansion, all the bugs and unfinished content will have been forgotten.

Rushing? Hasn't it been over a year since the last Pandaria raid was released?

 

[Wilian]

Rushing? Hasn't it been over a year since the last Pandaria raid was released?

You can still rush even if your content is late. They've been removing and postponing a lot of promised WoD content and features just so they can push it out faster.

 

[Metro]

That's not called rushing that's just called being a shitty lazy company.

 

[Revenant]

^. For a company whose monthly income amounts to tens of millions of US dollars from WoW subscriptions alone, Blizzard has a really, really shitty support and product development rate. How hard must it be to hire a lot of competent people in such circumstances?

 

[Angthoron]

Why bother when you can, like, not bother.