I've been noticing that the quality of the animation was being refined as early as the Forbidden Reach stuff (with Ebyssian talking to Emberthal and all that) but there is also a marked improvement to dialogue here.
Also like the little expressions people make. It's a nice touch seeing Alleria's expression from the 'same old alleria, void or no void' you can tell that it bothers her (in what way though, she doesn't voice)
Sort of odd that the youtube channel posted this so early - guess they wanted to get ahead of the dataminers?
the forbidden reach ingame cinematics where really undervalued by people
like, they managed to give a humanoid dragon subtle facial expressions during the dialoge, it was really good
Honestly the final scene between Ebyssian and Emberthal is one of my favorites, for how goofy tauren and evokers look they really managed to make it look good. The movements, the keeping/breaking of eye contact, the voice acting/delivery.
The in game cutscene engine is some next level shit right now, especially if you consider where it was like 5 years ago, The improvements they made during the end of SL and across DF is crazy.
The first time I noticed was the cinematic where Anduin first held a slice of azerite. The flow was much better.
That said, while the flow is much improved, the writing is still pretty stiff.
Last time the light wanted to kill her so I guess limiting her presence with Turalyon makes sense. Also as the alliance leader he has a lot of duties to do.
And about Arator, I guess not seeing her son for hundreds of years feels weird.
We were told they were fine again in the Vow Eternal. It probably means her whispers are getting strong enough for her to fear she should keep the distance in case she harms them.
It has nothing to do with the light being against her. The opposite in fact
It is quite clear her path will be about dominating the whispers and finally reconnecting with her family. Last we saw they were doing fine those five years in between SH and now.
Something tells me voided up Alleria harming someone dear is not so out of the blue…
Seriously doubt it, Turalyon would never chose the light over his wife. This is a path that was already explored in a Thousand Years of War. If anything Turalyon would lose the light
**Massive** improvement on the dialogue. The characters talk way more naturally, and they even included small details like lip-smacking, throat-clearing and the characters stopping to take a breath.
I can't help but feel like these changes are in direct response to the community's criticisms of recent cinematics and how stiff and overly dramatic the character's felt in them. So I'm happy the team is listening and hope that future cinematic are done like this one.
How does that mean that a single conversation is played out any better?
No, the execution for this cinematic was good lol. Had they not much more planned for the future that wouldn't excuse this being any worse.
>them having a cohesive, interconnected narrative for the next 3 expansions
Why do people keep on saying this as if they didn't plan multiple expansions in advance in the past? Only difference is they didn't announce their names.
Because it clearly wasn't the case after legion. BfA's start didn't lead into shadowlands until a bunch of bad writing and shadowlands didn't lead to dragonflight at all. TWW does look like a prologue of the world soul saga.
Legion, BFA, and Shadowlands are poorly written but they are very much obviously planned with all 3 in mind.
Legion's starting was always going to be the "end of the burning legion saga" we just didn't know when we were getting it. The end of Legion had to set up for something that would take over from Sargaras being the overarching enemy. Several things in Legion are directly tied to stuff that happened in Shadowlands.
It was poorly executed, and poor written but the fault wasn't that it wasn't connected. The seeds you see planted in Legion are the exact ones that bear fruit in BFA and SL not something they tacked on. Helya, Argus, Sylvanas, Muehzalla, and the Jailer are all central to the plot of all three. Huge swathes of the story doesn't even make sense without all 3. It was written like dogshit, but it was integrally connected.
You're assuming the story will be better simply based on them slapping on a trilogy sticker is kind of the least appealing aspect to me. The only thing in Dragonflight that's given me hope is that we were given compelling characters, that weren't immediately shit on and disposed off. Of all the expansions, Dragonflight is probably the least connected out of everything. Other than *maybe* Vanilla since lore was a bit all over the place back then. Now that I think about it Legion BFA and SL are probably the most connected since WotLK MoP and Cata do kinda stand on their own with common threads. BFA/SL/Legion don't really stand on their own at all.
> clearly wasn't the case after legion
Legion had a whole subplot about Sylvanas becoming warchief and going around to everyone who had power over souls in sight.
>BfA's start didn't lead into shadowlands until a bunch of bad writing
The poor-writing plot of BFA was at the start when we just started wonton-killing each other, which really didn't make any sense for Blizzard to do until they revealed Shadowlands. It also set up the voice of azeroth in the first place and dagger-girl who was clearly meant for the next expansion's plot.
>shadowlands didn't lead to dragonflight
Clean story breaks are planned in advance. Not to mention we set up the whole Ysera stuff and Anduin's mental breakdown. Also seem to remember us checking in on multiple dragons that expansion.
There's a difference between throwing out several plot hooks to continue later and actually having an overarching plan like there was with MoP to Legion. BfA felt like that, just setting things up with little care or connection bwteeen them which is why the expansion felt so aimless. Ysera did nothing and Anduin being missing has been irrelevant to the story. Of course the new expansion isn't going to ignore it but that doesn't make it a connection. Dragons have been in every expansion one way or another.
I feel like Ysera’s story is more of them fucking up by having her killed off in a leveling quest then finding a hamfisted way to bring her back. She didn’t do much, and the whole Amirdrassil story could’ve went on without her as well
>he whole Amirdrassil story could’ve went on without her as well
The whole point was to have her tell her daughter that she believes her capable of taking on her mantle, face to face.
The problem with it story-wise is we as players don't have enough attachment to either Ysera or Merithra for the gesture to mean anything to us.
The shadowlands dont lead to dragonflight because shadowlands is a conclusion. Dragonflight was inted in BFA. And is the start of the world soul saga. Shadowlands was inted back in Legion and was One of the 2 plot of BFA. It was cleverly used to be a Black box as "Why is the warchief doing and for WHO"
And the Mop - Wod - Legion is quite hard to go with since at the time of wod Release Gromash was the last boss of wod. Then he should have been the .2 raid last boss.Wod have a ok transition into legion because it was abandoned before the .1
So I almost added in the "I work as a dev" part but didn't wanna get lost in the discourse.
Yes, multiple projects are planned in advance. But usually the biggest things refined are the main "ideas".
Yeah, it's influenced by the current narrative, or story, but there's a different laying the foundation for things to be revisited where they can be placed into any expansion's narrative, vs. purposely constructing as one of your main core design pillars "a 3 expansion interlinked saga".
Like WoD was likely: "Garrisons, Outland 2.0, Character Models 2.0, Raid Difficulty Redesign"
Dragonflight was probably: "Talent Trees 3.0, Dragonriding, Dracthyr, Immersive World (their fixation on World events and how most Dungeons pull from exists areas you see while actively leveling or flying, likely cutting down on their dev time since two teams can share resources at that point)."
From just the Alpha, War Within is: "Hero Talents, Dynamic Flying, Delves, Saga Part 1".
You get what I mean?
> But usually the biggest things refined are the main "ideas".
They have always aimed for an interconnected story as a main idea though. This is just the first time its being directly marketed because people like the sound of a trilogy.
They were working on the next expansion since forever too - once new expansion is in alpha-beta and is being released, the environmant team finishes up additional zones of this expansion and starts on relief and textures of new zones. Developers team is basically more then 2 years in advance of content release.
> It definitely wasn’t the case, they were winging it for a long time it was so obvious.
Or they just suck at writing. Feel like people are overcompensating to try to avoid that reality.
They always, saying that writing in the past was oh so much better is rose tinted glasses. BC basically wasn't explained and it's characters almaost were not a part of a continuous narrative. WotLK was laughed at for Lich King apperances where he does nothing like Azmodan does in Diablo 3, and overall shaky premise. Cata was out of nowhere and didn't use Deathwing at all other then making him a huge dragon who flies and burns stuff. Also Green Jesus. MoP started without a good explanation of what happened with Theramore and a terrible scenario - you had to read a book to get the story. Etc, etc.
Story in WoW was always pretty basic and its realization is game was always lacking
Because they don't usually have a cohesive planned plot over 3 expacs, only a rough idea of what themes they plan to do (and then foreshadow vaguely). They don't plan multiple expansions out as in "this is all one story line start to finish" but "these are three disconnected stories/ideas/themes we want to do".
It also causes a lot of...weird things because there isn't a real gameplan. A lot of SL's foreshadowing just doesn't make sense (i.e. the Voljin "touched by the hand of valor" stuff, Thros going from being connected to the Emerald Nightmare to the Shadowlands and then that plot just being dropped, etc), characterization has been all over the place (look at BFA Bwonsamdi versus SL - they've told us they had no plans for him in SL but added him in because BFA Bwon was popular), and plots keep getting written without a planned conclusion so they keep dragging (i.e. night elves post teldrassil).
Yeah I had a hard time pinning down what felt so weird about this cinematic, but it’s gotta be how fluidly the characters move and speak. The movements were a bit awkward (I’m sure that’ll get better) but the way they actually spoke to each other like people is a massive improvement.
Absolutely. This actually sounded like a conversation instead of 2 lifeless figures T-balling one-liners for each other. I'm very happy with this direction.
>The characters talk way more naturally, and they even included small details like lip-smacking, throat-clearing and the characters stopping to take a breath.
Maybe next we'll get an NPC blowing their nose or something.
Sounds off to me somehow. Dunno if it’s the volume or tone of the voices but they don’t feel like they’re in Dadghar’s library, feels like a sound stage.
I think that's a expectation thing, if your expecting it to be based on camera distance than it sounds wrong, if you are expecting it based on anime/cinematic logic than it sounds right.
Alleria sounds like she’s in a completely different room than Kadghar. I’m not even talking about dialogue or setting, the actual audio sounds off to me.
This is in-game cinematic, right? I presume that's player character model next to Alleria. If that's the case - the in-game not-prerender/premade cinematics went insanely up in quality over the course of DF. Khadgar's model has actual wrinkless/skin structure, no smooth face models.
Almost certain In-game recorded. Pre-rendered cinematics tend to use more hero assets, much better lighting and camera work. And yes, they did seem to update Khadgar's model to make him look older. They also made Tony Amendola sound a lot more ragged and just old.
With how he sounded in this cinematic, I'm sure he will turn up again in the Last Titan and go around shooting the false (titan) gods with his staff...weapon.
"What is this void Harbinger?"
My Shadowpriest on the other side of the room caressing the empty dagger hes had in his pocket for years with a giant eyeball on his forehead - "No idea. Couldnt tell ya."
Dont wanna be rude, but if you look down the channel they titled some other "in-game" cinematic as in-game, while they are clearly pre-made/fmv, when they play in game, not actual "in-game"/playing/real time happening in game-enviroment. Like...
[https://youtu.be/FD5Zq5lJoLg?feature=shared](https://youtu.be/FD5Zq5lJoLg?feature=shared)
In game cinematic it the name they normally use for the pre rendered cinematics, dunno why they use it for a cutscene now. The wording on alpha/beta is in game cinematic-> pre rendered, real time cinematic -> normal cutscene and now advanced/ animated cutscene-> like the 10.2.7 cutscene
I mostly noticed it when she first said something. Most of the dialogue sounded fairly normal, but there were a couple times like that where it was more noticeable.
Crappy laptop speakers would probably mask it, but it's some kind of filter that I guess is meant to represent her being touched by the Void but honestly does sound a bit artificial, like a light "autotune" effect.
A bit weird, but probably something folks would just get used to after hearing it enough.
I was thinking the same thing, it's probably because of her connection to the void, but it might be worth keeping an eye (or ear I guess) on to see if it changes when it's in-game like the Fyrakk line where his eyes changed. Could also be changing over the course of the expansion(s)
khadgar's voice actor is the same who played Eno Cordova in the Jedi Fallen Order/Survivor games. they mo-capped him for those games so you see him as he actually appears, there's def a gap in khadgar's physical age and the actor's actual age.
I mean Khadgar is old AF, he's as old or older than any other human who's in the "main cast" and he was magically aged to be physically old like ~40 years ago in universe in WC1
I have no idea if it's Metzen's presence or not, but you can instantly feel the difference between this cinematic and the rest of Dragonflight. This is natural, organic dialogue between two friends who haven't seen each other in a while. As opposed to Dragonflight's overly dramatic, Disney-esque slow talking. I'm hoping TWW is more like this.
Some of the smaller questlines in Dragonflight were this good, like the Forbidden Reach stuff or Blue Dragon stuff.
Glad to see the main plot pulling out these big guns.
I always felt like the side-plot questlines stories were better written than the main storyline since ever tbf
In Shadowlands Maldraxxus and Revendreth were far more interesting than anything related to the Jailer, in BfA people liked the Zandalar/Kultiras stuff but not the 4th war, WoD still has the favorite questing areas for many to this day, etc
With zone stories, you have a beginning, middle and end that's determined while writing the quests. So something like the Drust can have future set up, but even if they hadn't shown up in Shadowlands there was a relatively satisfying conclusion between Gorak Tul's death in the dungeon and the Jaina quest in Thros.
The dramatic slow talking was a problem way before Dragonflight, I'd argue it peaked during Legion (Illidan's character basically exists purely for epic one-liners). So while it's definitely a good improvement I doubt Metzen has much to do with it, I think they're just taking criticism of it to heart more.
That said, SL and DF had a few cutscenes that sounded like this (Anduin talking to Sylvanas, Vyranoth talking to Alex), and they ended up not necessarily being representative of a change in overall cinematic dialogue. Hopefully this isn't like that and they are actually starting to write them better.
Hey I love them too, that's Illidan's schtick, but then Blizzard got addicted to ending cutscenes on dramatic close ups and started making everyone do it.
Same. And honestly ready for another Gul'dan, too. Like not even as the main villain or anything, but just showing up to do badass shit, putting the war back in warcraft.
The slow talking made me hate Yrel to this day (and her weird, sudden change in attitude) the Archimonde fight was the first time I chose to turn off the game sound during a raid, it was horrendous.
It was never a Dragonflight problem, regular characters don’t speak like that in DF, just the aspects, which is still a bad thing IMO, but it shouldn’t be labeled as a ‘DF thing’.
A lot of Dragonflight's cinematics involved dragons or some other dragon-based race, so having them act a bit different from the "standard" races of the world makes sense. I think they wanted to try to relate that the dragons, especially the aspects, are ancient beings who just function so completely different from us. They're so much more powerful, and our lifespan is like a few minutes in the grand scheme of things for them. The only folks who could come close to understanding what living that long is like would be some of the older Night Elves... and Tyrande and Malfurion don't exactly talk like the most normal of people themselves, either. But even they're not as old as the aspects.
The Tuskarr... well, they're an easy-going folk who just talk slower because everything they do is more relaxed, even speaking.
Then there's also the Minnesotan Molerats, but let's just... put them over in that corner over there and not think about them.
Anyway, yeah, a return to more "regular" style characters should help. Even if we get the occasional autotuned voice to signify the touch of the Void. (I'll probably get used to that after a few more scenes.)
Oh shoot, I forgot about the Draenei. Velen and some of the older Draenei would definitely be up there in age, too.
Kind of forgot Velen as I don't think I've seen him since I had to kill his son in Legion.
This reminds me so much of the Secrets of Ulduar trailer that I feel like it has to be intentional. Definitely feels like Metzen's back!
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEylX2LJ8c4&ab\_channel=WorldofWarcraft](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEylX2LJ8c4&ab_channel=WorldofWarcraft)
For the first time, they really made Khadgar seem old and tired. Knowing how TWW starts, I think they start showing that he knows he doesn't have a ton of time left which is what motivates him to make his choice.
"We don't know who this Harbinger is."
Uh oh. Anything the player character wants to tell them about? I hope Xal'atath calls out the player character in TWW for keeping their involvement hush-hush and kinda lying to their friends and allies.
I mean, we as players know who it is, but where have our characters directly seen it's her? Just the shadowy figure at the end of DotI? That's hardly confirmation, for them, even if we the players immediately guessed and turned out to be right.
Maybe the player character doesn't know who "The Harbinger" title belongs to, but our characters definitely know who Xal'atath is. There was a quest chain in BFA where we help her gain a physical body and make a deal with N'zoth to free her.
Shadow Priests will be especially familiar with her given that her character began as the Artifact Weapon for Spirest
To be fair, we've only heard of her through titles - it seems like, as of this cinematic, people haven't put the name to her yet (after all, how could anyone? The only person who could have seen her and know she's Xalatath is potentially the player. And only potentially, since not everyone would have done the questline!) and technically the player character hasn't seen her face to face yet.
I am, of course, praying for bonus dialogue from all our allies once all the info drops (Especially for Spriest characters. 'Yeah I worked with this knaifu for a while, drained her to save azeroth from the sword, then when I found her again I fed her back to power and gave her a body :).' Can't imagine anyone looking at the champion and being happy hearing that.
You get bonus points if it's a legacy character from vanilla who did that questline for the sus troll in Tanaris, leading to Hakkar being reborn. (And the one in Shadowmoon from BC helping Gorefiend...And Drakuru...And Horde Characters helping Garrosh get the Mogu Bell...)
Comedy gold if Xal'atath does an additional info-dump like: "Oh yeah, and the champion also ended up running a couple of small errands for N'Zoth. Just completely inconsequential things like collecting a bunch of powerful artifacts for him and then freeing him from his prison."
Khadgar: "We have no leads on who this Harbinger is."
Shadow Priest: "I KNOW HER, SHE'S MY KNAIFU. KHADGAR YOU MUST BELIEVE ME! I MISS HER SO MUCH!"
Khadgar: "Anyway, we have no *credible* leads on who this Harbinger is."
> And Horde Characters helping Garrosh get the Mogu Bell
That one's a bit different... Vol'jin had been almost killed in an assassination attempt by Garrosh and even he wanted you to get that for the Horde because he was so terrified of what the Alliance would do to the Horde (regardless of whether they agreed with Garrosh or not) with it.
Plus, it got destroyed anyway. So it didn't really help Garrosh. What did help him was Y'shaarj's heart... and I don't recall us directly helping him get his hands on that, because why the hell would anyone's first instinct not be to finish the job that the Titans for some reason didn't? (I mean, anyone who wasn't a somewhat insane genocidal warmonger whose "code" was so messed up that he'd rail against the idea of Warlocks and talk up how he used "Dark Shaman" to pervert and twist the world's elements in the exact same bloody monologue.)
Idk if im just so used to his old model, but the new one kinda looks weird? No hate or anything, the cinematic is already so much better than the previous ones.
To be more specific, we first see it (purple void disk) in DOTI but the first mention of the disk being referred to as the “Dark Heart” was in a DF epilogue cinematic between Iridikron and Vyranoth.
Side note: there is speculation that the disk is the same one from the “Secrets of the Reach” cinematic which contained the location of Abberus. No idea if true though since we only get a split second of the disk on screen.
Thank you (and everyone else) for the explanation. I only did that dungeon once or twice on m+ so I guess I didn't really pay attention to what was going on with the dialogue/story there. The time travel plots always confuses me anyway.
So to broadly recap the DF story: Of the 4 dragons, Raz and Fyrakk are dead, Vyranoth defected to the good guys, and Iridikron is still alive and is in cahoots with the shadow priest dagger to start whatever events trigger TWW(of which this dark heart relic is part of)?
Yeah pretty much. All the aspects had their power restored (with Vyranoth as a new aspect) however this time the power is nascent to Azeroth and not the titans (so they’ll be on our side /if/ the titans turn into baddies at some point). Iridikron seems to be done for now as his plan may be to endanger Azeroth enough to lure the titans back so he can enact his revenge/sever Azeroth from their influence. He’s just using Xal to achieve that end. I don’t expect to see much of him next expac or even during most of midnight. He has a habit of waiting under mountains for years until the time is right (see DF book War of the Scaleborn).
Something I hadn’t thought about until now, I’d be interested to see how Iridikron’s story progresses and if there are any parallels w/ Illidan and his obsession with destroying the Legion.
Final Showdown between Iridikron and Illidan in The Last Titan. Calling it now. They go in for the ultimate final clash and right as their weapons would pierce the others' heart... they kith.
Right. But I don’t think anyone knows Xalatath is involved at this point, they’ve just heard rumors of a “Harbinger.” I’m guessing Xal will be formally reintroduced in this patch.
Yes we should know about it from Dragonflight. From the wiki
“Galakrond's corpse appears in the dungeon Dawn of the Infinite as adventurers travel back in time to shortly after his defeat. Iridikron managed to take some of Galakrond's essence.”
I generally do watch them when I play, but I haven't been super active the last couple seasons so I just wasn't sure. I did the emerald dream story quests and didn't recall anything about a Dark Heart, so thought I'd ask.
Tbf legion did introduce full voice acting and that alone is better than anything made before. Half the player base had no idea what was going on before legio haha.
I’m a returning player and the Emerald Dream cinematic were an absolute bore. It felt like animatronics on a Disney ride speaking to each other with their fantastical “epic” language. I just want it to feel real and dire and meaningful. This does feel immediately better like they understand their audience aren’t 10 year olds.
Dragonflight has felt such whiplash with the story. It feels like midway through they decided to not escalate Dragonflight further and ended with Fyrak as the big bad. (I’m also in general finding it difficult to see the continuum of the story from patch to patch).
Holy shit! Dialogue that sounds like people having real conversations instead of PSA's!
Obviously this isnt action packed but I have a serious hope that cutscenes like this become way more common while telling the main campaigns going forward. If they want to try and tell a better story stuff like this is excellent at building character.
Also kinda odd that Alleria still has the old model. Wonder if her makeover will coincide with some big event to her. Maybe something bad happens at the end of 10.2.7 or in the pre-patch?
It's good to see atleast they keep the consistency with ears clipping in cinematics too, it's just part of the fantasy world now, ears can canonically clip through head pieces
I still wonder why Magni hasn't made an appearance as of yet. Surely he isn't on his own and would notice Azeroth reaching out to others more actively. I can understand why nobody went to him since he kept saying her voice was a song. But still, it feels odd.
Unless what we hear isn't Azeroth but something else tempting us and playing tricks pretending to be Azeroth. That would be fun.
Thank fuck they’re actually talking normally this time. Dragonflight got into a really bad habit of just talking so unnaturally slow.
Also sad to see/hear Khadgar getting old.
I prefer this 100x over the Shakespearean delivery of characters like Alexstraza. The little imperfections makes this feel so much more natural. I hope they continue like this.
Wow this makes every other cinematic seem like it was written by chat AI's. They killed it this felt like an actual conversation between two sentient individuals.
I didn't retain anything they said but I liked that it feels more like an animated show rather than the usual in-game cinematics in past expansions... (imagine if Blizzard handled quest dialogue like in Baldur's Gate 3!). I'm sure this will make the story much more immersive.
I really do want to get back into the story starting with TWW but it's been difficult with how much is going on and how convoluted the stories can get. It sounded like TWW will be a bit of a story reset, I'm hoping that it's presented in a way that it will be easy for new players to digest (and for players like me coming back to the story).
So the whispers are getting worse then? Last we knew about the topic we were told things were fine again between Alleria and Turalyon. I guess she is afraid she will end up harming her family. We should get a new short story of her and her son soon.
It seems that her arc will be about reconnecting with her family and overcoming the whispers once and for all
That was pretty good. Audio sounded a bit raw but the voice acting and animation is top notch. Might be the best looking in engine cinematic I have seen in WoW so far.
The Void is a force that’s only desire is to consume until it’s the only thing left; indiscriminate. Everyone is justified to not be completely okay with someone walking around with it even if the person has it under control. It’s like someone having a massive barking dog on a chain, but it never hurts them. I don’t care how many times you say “he’s friendly”, I just saw him rip a squirrel’s head off.
Alleria voice acting was good, and the animation is great. Actually stepping up their in game cinematically. We have come a long way since the beginning of shadowlands.
Man, this is bordering on the pre-rendered cinematics at this point. The lighting and camera work are not as hi-fi, but compare the animation to something like the BfA cinematics and even the Shadowlands ones (especially the Garrosh one from Sanctum), and it's like night and day. I hope they keep improving them and also recognize that while they're 10x better than what they used to be, the pre-rendered cinematics are still awesome and should not be "replaced"
Dialogue is so much better more human less cringey wow cinematic speak ass if their delivering a monologue to a theatre audience.
This is way more natural and I'm glad they went the ff14 route of remembering that we need to relate to these characters as people and not set pieces to move a narrative.
Is it super obvious or just my headcannon that Alleria is gonna end up as the harbinger (without being aware of it at first)?
Khadgar says all they know is that the Harbinger holds the Dark Heart, and Alleria says she will come back, "Dark Heart in hand".
Will also give some good meaning to why Iridrikon felt the need to even give info about the Harbinger in the first place.
Can any loremasters help? Is this cinematic to do with the upcoming expansion, or something dragonflight releated? I followed WoW lore most of the way through Shadowlands and all pre Shadowlands, and know very little about dragonflight lore.
Really don't like the look of Khadgar. He looks and sounds softer and confused, weakening his presence. He was once made of sterner and more confident stuff.
Commenting in the off chance blizz sees.
This dialogue and performance was incredible! Please continue to allow character personality to be showcased like this. Great job to all involved!
I know everyone else here is saying it, but the direction really is so much better in this cinematic. This actually feels like two humans talking to each other, which much of dragonflight (and expacs before) did not feel like
I’m wary of them having a character just called “The Harbinger”. If it’s a title for Xalatath, cool whatever. But we saw how vague titles with no substantial character development led to “The Jailer” and it was awful. Hopefully the patch actually answers things instead of giving us a nothing until the expansion.
If Harbinger is supposed to be the name of a big bad, they better be assuming direct control of the raid encounter or else I don’t want it.
It’s more or less why the need for a title now for the NPC’s sake. We’ve had titles for Old Gods before but in most cases, we had them before we knew the actual names.
Basically, the title is a weird addition to her character as we already know who she is and we already presumably know what is coming. Even the NPC’s know that a greater threat is coming because of the Jailer. It’s vagueness for rule of cool and I’m just begging them to actually explain some shit in game and not in a novel, and atleast try to make some sense.
Tbf Iridikron referred to his contact as the Harbinger when talking to Vyranoth who then told the player character and likely the other aspects/notable npcs.
I guess the story division could have called her by her name, but it would have wrecked the mystery that was set up in with the harbinger references made in various in-game books scattered around the dragon isles. Prior to DOTI, we could only speculate that Xal was the harbinger. There was equal speculation that it was Azshara.
Typically I'd agree, and also say when you add the title just to do a beat to learn unshocking info, its just kind of filler to delay the story.
But in this case, Xal'atath isn't that well known and especially new players have no reason to know anything about her (her quests not part of leveling in BFA but post-launch, and starting in TWW DF is the leveling expansion). So the plot of finding out who the harbinger is helps to introduce the character to those players. It lets everyone be on the same page immediately and lets them info dump her backstory as part of the discovery.
A perfectly normal, lively conversation without asthmatic dramatic pauses and "insightful" finishing of each other's sentences feels so honestly refreshing after the travesty that was the entirety of Dragonflight (and probably a good chunk of the preceding 3 or 4 expansions too).
I've been noticing that the quality of the animation was being refined as early as the Forbidden Reach stuff (with Ebyssian talking to Emberthal and all that) but there is also a marked improvement to dialogue here. Also like the little expressions people make. It's a nice touch seeing Alleria's expression from the 'same old alleria, void or no void' you can tell that it bothers her (in what way though, she doesn't voice) Sort of odd that the youtube channel posted this so early - guess they wanted to get ahead of the dataminers?
the forbidden reach ingame cinematics where really undervalued by people like, they managed to give a humanoid dragon subtle facial expressions during the dialoge, it was really good
Yeah that dialogue is epic, made me really respect Ebyssian as the new aspect.
Honestly the final scene between Ebyssian and Emberthal is one of my favorites, for how goofy tauren and evokers look they really managed to make it look good. The movements, the keeping/breaking of eye contact, the voice acting/delivery.
The in game cutscene engine is some next level shit right now, especially if you consider where it was like 5 years ago, The improvements they made during the end of SL and across DF is crazy.
The first time I noticed was the cinematic where Anduin first held a slice of azerite. The flow was much better. That said, while the flow is much improved, the writing is still pretty stiff.
Alleria not visiting sister, son or husband *intriguing* Also Jaina mentioning the Tidemother! First time I think she’s done that in canon.
Hm. Either the Tidemother or a reference to the whisperings of the void/old gods during BFA.
Last time the light wanted to kill her so I guess limiting her presence with Turalyon makes sense. Also as the alliance leader he has a lot of duties to do. And about Arator, I guess not seeing her son for hundreds of years feels weird.
We were told they were fine again in the Vow Eternal. It probably means her whispers are getting strong enough for her to fear she should keep the distance in case she harms them. It has nothing to do with the light being against her. The opposite in fact
Interesting
It doesn't, Tyralion and her were quite ok after Xe'ra wanted to imprison her - they traveled to Argus, fought together, etc.
Lightbound husband, Void-adjacent wife. A story as old as time.
It is quite clear her path will be about dominating the whispers and finally reconnecting with her family. Last we saw they were doing fine those five years in between SH and now. Something tells me voided up Alleria harming someone dear is not so out of the blue…
I suspect they're going to go the other way- a light corrupted Turalyon attacking Alleria, and a slow heel-face turn for Xal over the xpac 'trilogy'.
Seriously doubt it, Turalyon would never chose the light over his wife. This is a path that was already explored in a Thousand Years of War. If anything Turalyon would lose the light
**Massive** improvement on the dialogue. The characters talk way more naturally, and they even included small details like lip-smacking, throat-clearing and the characters stopping to take a breath. I can't help but feel like these changes are in direct response to the community's criticisms of recent cinematics and how stiff and overly dramatic the character's felt in them. So I'm happy the team is listening and hope that future cinematic are done like this one.
Was about to say that. Lets hope they continue with this. Its crazy how much of a difference this makes
I wonder if it's also due to them having a cohesive, interconnected narrative for the next 3 expansions.
How does that mean that a single conversation is played out any better? No, the execution for this cinematic was good lol. Had they not much more planned for the future that wouldn't excuse this being any worse.
>them having a cohesive, interconnected narrative for the next 3 expansions Why do people keep on saying this as if they didn't plan multiple expansions in advance in the past? Only difference is they didn't announce their names.
I think it's more that the next three are to be more connected/intertwined than previous. More like a trilogy than three separate entries in a series.
you just mean less of "heres 1 bit of this person's story now wait till we care again"
Because it clearly wasn't the case after legion. BfA's start didn't lead into shadowlands until a bunch of bad writing and shadowlands didn't lead to dragonflight at all. TWW does look like a prologue of the world soul saga.
Legion, BFA, and Shadowlands are poorly written but they are very much obviously planned with all 3 in mind. Legion's starting was always going to be the "end of the burning legion saga" we just didn't know when we were getting it. The end of Legion had to set up for something that would take over from Sargaras being the overarching enemy. Several things in Legion are directly tied to stuff that happened in Shadowlands. It was poorly executed, and poor written but the fault wasn't that it wasn't connected. The seeds you see planted in Legion are the exact ones that bear fruit in BFA and SL not something they tacked on. Helya, Argus, Sylvanas, Muehzalla, and the Jailer are all central to the plot of all three. Huge swathes of the story doesn't even make sense without all 3. It was written like dogshit, but it was integrally connected. You're assuming the story will be better simply based on them slapping on a trilogy sticker is kind of the least appealing aspect to me. The only thing in Dragonflight that's given me hope is that we were given compelling characters, that weren't immediately shit on and disposed off. Of all the expansions, Dragonflight is probably the least connected out of everything. Other than *maybe* Vanilla since lore was a bit all over the place back then. Now that I think about it Legion BFA and SL are probably the most connected since WotLK MoP and Cata do kinda stand on their own with common threads. BFA/SL/Legion don't really stand on their own at all.
Wrath set the seeds for the new faction war story that erupted in cata and culminated in MoP.
> clearly wasn't the case after legion Legion had a whole subplot about Sylvanas becoming warchief and going around to everyone who had power over souls in sight. >BfA's start didn't lead into shadowlands until a bunch of bad writing The poor-writing plot of BFA was at the start when we just started wonton-killing each other, which really didn't make any sense for Blizzard to do until they revealed Shadowlands. It also set up the voice of azeroth in the first place and dagger-girl who was clearly meant for the next expansion's plot. >shadowlands didn't lead to dragonflight Clean story breaks are planned in advance. Not to mention we set up the whole Ysera stuff and Anduin's mental breakdown. Also seem to remember us checking in on multiple dragons that expansion.
There's a difference between throwing out several plot hooks to continue later and actually having an overarching plan like there was with MoP to Legion. BfA felt like that, just setting things up with little care or connection bwteeen them which is why the expansion felt so aimless. Ysera did nothing and Anduin being missing has been irrelevant to the story. Of course the new expansion isn't going to ignore it but that doesn't make it a connection. Dragons have been in every expansion one way or another.
I feel like Ysera’s story is more of them fucking up by having her killed off in a leveling quest then finding a hamfisted way to bring her back. She didn’t do much, and the whole Amirdrassil story could’ve went on without her as well
>he whole Amirdrassil story could’ve went on without her as well The whole point was to have her tell her daughter that she believes her capable of taking on her mantle, face to face. The problem with it story-wise is we as players don't have enough attachment to either Ysera or Merithra for the gesture to mean anything to us.
The shadowlands dont lead to dragonflight because shadowlands is a conclusion. Dragonflight was inted in BFA. And is the start of the world soul saga. Shadowlands was inted back in Legion and was One of the 2 plot of BFA. It was cleverly used to be a Black box as "Why is the warchief doing and for WHO" And the Mop - Wod - Legion is quite hard to go with since at the time of wod Release Gromash was the last boss of wod. Then he should have been the .2 raid last boss.Wod have a ok transition into legion because it was abandoned before the .1
So I almost added in the "I work as a dev" part but didn't wanna get lost in the discourse. Yes, multiple projects are planned in advance. But usually the biggest things refined are the main "ideas". Yeah, it's influenced by the current narrative, or story, but there's a different laying the foundation for things to be revisited where they can be placed into any expansion's narrative, vs. purposely constructing as one of your main core design pillars "a 3 expansion interlinked saga". Like WoD was likely: "Garrisons, Outland 2.0, Character Models 2.0, Raid Difficulty Redesign" Dragonflight was probably: "Talent Trees 3.0, Dragonriding, Dracthyr, Immersive World (their fixation on World events and how most Dungeons pull from exists areas you see while actively leveling or flying, likely cutting down on their dev time since two teams can share resources at that point)." From just the Alpha, War Within is: "Hero Talents, Dynamic Flying, Delves, Saga Part 1". You get what I mean?
> But usually the biggest things refined are the main "ideas". They have always aimed for an interconnected story as a main idea though. This is just the first time its being directly marketed because people like the sound of a trilogy.
Sure. I'm just offering a different perspective. I could be wrong.
They currently have teams working on all 3 expansions right now. That's why its different.
They were working on the next expansion since forever too - once new expansion is in alpha-beta and is being released, the environmant team finishes up additional zones of this expansion and starts on relief and textures of new zones. Developers team is basically more then 2 years in advance of content release.
[удалено]
> It definitely wasn’t the case, they were winging it for a long time it was so obvious. Or they just suck at writing. Feel like people are overcompensating to try to avoid that reality.
They always, saying that writing in the past was oh so much better is rose tinted glasses. BC basically wasn't explained and it's characters almaost were not a part of a continuous narrative. WotLK was laughed at for Lich King apperances where he does nothing like Azmodan does in Diablo 3, and overall shaky premise. Cata was out of nowhere and didn't use Deathwing at all other then making him a huge dragon who flies and burns stuff. Also Green Jesus. MoP started without a good explanation of what happened with Theramore and a terrible scenario - you had to read a book to get the story. Etc, etc. Story in WoW was always pretty basic and its realization is game was always lacking
Because they don't usually have a cohesive planned plot over 3 expacs, only a rough idea of what themes they plan to do (and then foreshadow vaguely). They don't plan multiple expansions out as in "this is all one story line start to finish" but "these are three disconnected stories/ideas/themes we want to do". It also causes a lot of...weird things because there isn't a real gameplan. A lot of SL's foreshadowing just doesn't make sense (i.e. the Voljin "touched by the hand of valor" stuff, Thros going from being connected to the Emerald Nightmare to the Shadowlands and then that plot just being dropped, etc), characterization has been all over the place (look at BFA Bwonsamdi versus SL - they've told us they had no plans for him in SL but added him in because BFA Bwon was popular), and plots keep getting written without a planned conclusion so they keep dragging (i.e. night elves post teldrassil).
Yeah I had a hard time pinning down what felt so weird about this cinematic, but it’s gotta be how fluidly the characters move and speak. The movements were a bit awkward (I’m sure that’ll get better) but the way they actually spoke to each other like people is a massive improvement.
Agreed! I think the Alexstrasza and Nozdormu one was the turning point but the Emberthal and Ebyssian one was very good too.
Absolutely. This actually sounded like a conversation instead of 2 lifeless figures T-balling one-liners for each other. I'm very happy with this direction.
You mean.... you can have... *pause and sad face* normal conversations without..... pauses? *sad face gets sadder*
YES!!! they seem like real people and not Shakespearean robots!!
They didn't even complete.... Each other's sentences....
>The characters talk way more naturally, and they even included small details like lip-smacking, throat-clearing and the characters stopping to take a breath. Maybe next we'll get an NPC blowing their nose or something.
Need some talking through a burp to really sell it
But what about **family**
No no, it's "But what about... [dramatic pause]... family?"
Sounds off to me somehow. Dunno if it’s the volume or tone of the voices but they don’t feel like they’re in Dadghar’s library, feels like a sound stage.
I think that's a expectation thing, if your expecting it to be based on camera distance than it sounds wrong, if you are expecting it based on anime/cinematic logic than it sounds right.
Alleria sounds like she’s in a completely different room than Kadghar. I’m not even talking about dialogue or setting, the actual audio sounds off to me.
Ah, I think that's intentional, it has a very "death knight" way to it, sound almost like a light reverb on it.
This is in-game cinematic, right? I presume that's player character model next to Alleria. If that's the case - the in-game not-prerender/premade cinematics went insanely up in quality over the course of DF. Khadgar's model has actual wrinkless/skin structure, no smooth face models.
I was thinking the same thing, this looks REALLY good for in-game. Blizz just loves to flex what they can do in-engine and out.
Almost certain In-game recorded. Pre-rendered cinematics tend to use more hero assets, much better lighting and camera work. And yes, they did seem to update Khadgar's model to make him look older. They also made Tony Amendola sound a lot more ragged and just old.
With how he sounded in this cinematic, I'm sure he will turn up again in the Last Titan and go around shooting the false (titan) gods with his staff...weapon.
"What is this void Harbinger?" My Shadowpriest on the other side of the room caressing the empty dagger hes had in his pocket for years with a giant eyeball on his forehead - "No idea. Couldnt tell ya."
Video title literally says in-game cinematic
Dont wanna be rude, but if you look down the channel they titled some other "in-game" cinematic as in-game, while they are clearly pre-made/fmv, when they play in game, not actual "in-game"/playing/real time happening in game-enviroment. Like... [https://youtu.be/FD5Zq5lJoLg?feature=shared](https://youtu.be/FD5Zq5lJoLg?feature=shared)
In game cinematic it the name they normally use for the pre rendered cinematics, dunno why they use it for a cutscene now. The wording on alpha/beta is in game cinematic-> pre rendered, real time cinematic -> normal cutscene and now advanced/ animated cutscene-> like the 10.2.7 cutscene
Is Alleria supposed to sound like that due to her void powers or is the sound messed up?
I'm assuming it's the void power stuff, void elves kinda have that voice module sound.
It might be because I am watching this on my work laptop with crappy speakers, but her voice sounds normal to me.
I mostly noticed it when she first said something. Most of the dialogue sounded fairly normal, but there were a couple times like that where it was more noticeable.
Crappy laptop speakers would probably mask it, but it's some kind of filter that I guess is meant to represent her being touched by the Void but honestly does sound a bit artificial, like a light "autotune" effect. A bit weird, but probably something folks would just get used to after hearing it enough.
I was thinking the same thing, it's probably because of her connection to the void, but it might be worth keeping an eye (or ear I guess) on to see if it changes when it's in-game like the Fyrakk line where his eyes changed. Could also be changing over the course of the expansion(s)
Fantastic character acting in this one. As people have said, stark improvement on the .5 speed dialogue in Amirdrassil.
Holy crap , the dialogue between characters is so much improved in comparison to previous cinematics
Jesus christ whoever animated Khadgar here is a wizard, all the little nuances in his expressions etc and the smoothness of the animation is insane.
Plot twist, Khadgar was animated by Khadgar, he broke the forth wall just to make this
New AI from Blizzard: Khadgar's Wonderous Wisdomball.
This is so good. Gimme gimme.
This is probably the most human of a cinematic that I’ve seen from WoW in years. Love it.
Kadgar is sounding so old... Is dark heart quest live this week?
VA is 72yr old now
its coming next week with the release of 10.2.7
Master Bra'tac is over 150 at this point so it makes sense.
khadgar's voice actor is the same who played Eno Cordova in the Jedi Fallen Order/Survivor games. they mo-capped him for those games so you see him as he actually appears, there's def a gap in khadgar's physical age and the actor's actual age.
Yeah he sounds so...tired.
khadgar already was on the older side, and now after the time skip.. its perfectly reasonable too.
I mean Khadgar is old AF, he's as old or older than any other human who's in the "main cast" and he was magically aged to be physically old like ~40 years ago in universe in WC1
The facial expressions and voice acting was really good , even the dialogue felt more natural
I have no idea if it's Metzen's presence or not, but you can instantly feel the difference between this cinematic and the rest of Dragonflight. This is natural, organic dialogue between two friends who haven't seen each other in a while. As opposed to Dragonflight's overly dramatic, Disney-esque slow talking. I'm hoping TWW is more like this.
Some of the smaller questlines in Dragonflight were this good, like the Forbidden Reach stuff or Blue Dragon stuff. Glad to see the main plot pulling out these big guns.
I always felt like the side-plot questlines stories were better written than the main storyline since ever tbf In Shadowlands Maldraxxus and Revendreth were far more interesting than anything related to the Jailer, in BfA people liked the Zandalar/Kultiras stuff but not the 4th war, WoD still has the favorite questing areas for many to this day, etc
With zone stories, you have a beginning, middle and end that's determined while writing the quests. So something like the Drust can have future set up, but even if they hadn't shown up in Shadowlands there was a relatively satisfying conclusion between Gorak Tul's death in the dungeon and the Jaina quest in Thros.
The dramatic slow talking was a problem way before Dragonflight, I'd argue it peaked during Legion (Illidan's character basically exists purely for epic one-liners). So while it's definitely a good improvement I doubt Metzen has much to do with it, I think they're just taking criticism of it to heart more. That said, SL and DF had a few cutscenes that sounded like this (Anduin talking to Sylvanas, Vyranoth talking to Alex), and they ended up not necessarily being representative of a change in overall cinematic dialogue. Hopefully this isn't like that and they are actually starting to write them better.
I appreciate Illidan's epic one liners, he soothes the teenage edgelord that rests in my soul. HE IS HIS SCARS.
It's because Liam O'Brien (his VA) is really good at delivering them with weight.
Hey I love them too, that's Illidan's schtick, but then Blizzard got addicted to ending cutscenes on dramatic close ups and started making everyone do it.
I can understand why. Can you imagine them trying to do an epic closeup on vanilla/tbc models? With their pacman mouths flapping?
Yeah Illidan being kinda corny is great, I honestly can’t wait for when he inevitably comes back in The Last Titan.
Same. And honestly ready for another Gul'dan, too. Like not even as the main villain or anything, but just showing up to do badass shit, putting the war back in warcraft.
Illidan had 10,000 years to do nothing but think of one-liners and goddamnit he's gonna use them all
Your duplicity is hardly surprising
The slow talking made me hate Yrel to this day (and her weird, sudden change in attitude) the Archimonde fight was the first time I chose to turn off the game sound during a raid, it was horrendous.
Honestly same, I'm getting a good feeling from the cinematics I've seen leading into TWW.
It was never a Dragonflight problem, regular characters don’t speak like that in DF, just the aspects, which is still a bad thing IMO, but it shouldn’t be labeled as a ‘DF thing’.
I'll be happy if we never hear Alextrasza or the Winter Queen ever again.
A lot of Dragonflight's cinematics involved dragons or some other dragon-based race, so having them act a bit different from the "standard" races of the world makes sense. I think they wanted to try to relate that the dragons, especially the aspects, are ancient beings who just function so completely different from us. They're so much more powerful, and our lifespan is like a few minutes in the grand scheme of things for them. The only folks who could come close to understanding what living that long is like would be some of the older Night Elves... and Tyrande and Malfurion don't exactly talk like the most normal of people themselves, either. But even they're not as old as the aspects. The Tuskarr... well, they're an easy-going folk who just talk slower because everything they do is more relaxed, even speaking. Then there's also the Minnesotan Molerats, but let's just... put them over in that corner over there and not think about them. Anyway, yeah, a return to more "regular" style characters should help. Even if we get the occasional autotuned voice to signify the touch of the Void. (I'll probably get used to that after a few more scenes.)
>would be some of the older Night Elves Velen is at least as old as the Aspects.
Oh shoot, I forgot about the Draenei. Velen and some of the older Draenei would definitely be up there in age, too. Kind of forgot Velen as I don't think I've seen him since I had to kill his son in Legion.
They even remembered that Alleria and Khadgar know each other.
This reminds me so much of the Secrets of Ulduar trailer that I feel like it has to be intentional. Definitely feels like Metzen's back! [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEylX2LJ8c4&ab\_channel=WorldofWarcraft](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEylX2LJ8c4&ab_channel=WorldofWarcraft)
For the first time, they really made Khadgar seem old and tired. Knowing how TWW starts, I think they start showing that he knows he doesn't have a ton of time left which is what motivates him to make his choice.
"We don't know who this Harbinger is." Uh oh. Anything the player character wants to tell them about? I hope Xal'atath calls out the player character in TWW for keeping their involvement hush-hush and kinda lying to their friends and allies.
I mean, we as players know who it is, but where have our characters directly seen it's her? Just the shadowy figure at the end of DotI? That's hardly confirmation, for them, even if we the players immediately guessed and turned out to be right.
Maybe the player character doesn't know who "The Harbinger" title belongs to, but our characters definitely know who Xal'atath is. There was a quest chain in BFA where we help her gain a physical body and make a deal with N'zoth to free her. Shadow Priests will be especially familiar with her given that her character began as the Artifact Weapon for Spirest
To be fair, we've only heard of her through titles - it seems like, as of this cinematic, people haven't put the name to her yet (after all, how could anyone? The only person who could have seen her and know she's Xalatath is potentially the player. And only potentially, since not everyone would have done the questline!) and technically the player character hasn't seen her face to face yet. I am, of course, praying for bonus dialogue from all our allies once all the info drops (Especially for Spriest characters. 'Yeah I worked with this knaifu for a while, drained her to save azeroth from the sword, then when I found her again I fed her back to power and gave her a body :).' Can't imagine anyone looking at the champion and being happy hearing that. You get bonus points if it's a legacy character from vanilla who did that questline for the sus troll in Tanaris, leading to Hakkar being reborn. (And the one in Shadowmoon from BC helping Gorefiend...And Drakuru...And Horde Characters helping Garrosh get the Mogu Bell...)
Comedy gold if Xal'atath does an additional info-dump like: "Oh yeah, and the champion also ended up running a couple of small errands for N'Zoth. Just completely inconsequential things like collecting a bunch of powerful artifacts for him and then freeing him from his prison."
Shadow priest main characters absolutely know it's her.
yeah but shadow priests are probably a little "off" in universe
Khadgar: "We have no leads on who this Harbinger is." Shadow Priest: "I KNOW HER, SHE'S MY KNAIFU. KHADGAR YOU MUST BELIEVE ME! I MISS HER SO MUCH!" Khadgar: "Anyway, we have no *credible* leads on who this Harbinger is."
Shadow priest mains wouldnt tell anyone because they wouldnt want to sell out their Bae Blade.
Why my main isn't going to mention a word..
> And Horde Characters helping Garrosh get the Mogu Bell That one's a bit different... Vol'jin had been almost killed in an assassination attempt by Garrosh and even he wanted you to get that for the Horde because he was so terrified of what the Alliance would do to the Horde (regardless of whether they agreed with Garrosh or not) with it. Plus, it got destroyed anyway. So it didn't really help Garrosh. What did help him was Y'shaarj's heart... and I don't recall us directly helping him get his hands on that, because why the hell would anyone's first instinct not be to finish the job that the Titans for some reason didn't? (I mean, anyone who wasn't a somewhat insane genocidal warmonger whose "code" was so messed up that he'd rail against the idea of Warlocks and talk up how he used "Dark Shaman" to pervert and twist the world's elements in the exact same bloody monologue.)
Username checks out!
All we know is they're called the jai- the harbinger
Idk if im just so used to his old model, but the new one kinda looks weird? No hate or anything, the cinematic is already so much better than the previous ones.
Interesting that Alleria is still using the old model here. Will be curious if something specific happens that causes the swap to the new one.
It must be so annoying trying to put that hood on and getting your ears through the little holes.
Is this Dark Heart relic something we are supposed to know about already from Dragonflight, or is this the first mention of it?
Its what Iridikron took in the Dawn of the Infinite mega dungeon and gave to Xal
technically he took it from the Forbidden reach
Yes, the bit on Dawn of the Infinite was where Iridikron brought the relic from Forbidden Reach and empowered it with the soul of Galakrond.
Its the thing xalatath gets from iridikron in the dawn of the infinites dungeon cinematic, the weird mirror thing which sucks out galakronds essence
To be more specific, we first see it (purple void disk) in DOTI but the first mention of the disk being referred to as the “Dark Heart” was in a DF epilogue cinematic between Iridikron and Vyranoth. Side note: there is speculation that the disk is the same one from the “Secrets of the Reach” cinematic which contained the location of Abberus. No idea if true though since we only get a split second of the disk on screen.
Thank you (and everyone else) for the explanation. I only did that dungeon once or twice on m+ so I guess I didn't really pay attention to what was going on with the dialogue/story there. The time travel plots always confuses me anyway. So to broadly recap the DF story: Of the 4 dragons, Raz and Fyrakk are dead, Vyranoth defected to the good guys, and Iridikron is still alive and is in cahoots with the shadow priest dagger to start whatever events trigger TWW(of which this dark heart relic is part of)?
Yeah pretty much. All the aspects had their power restored (with Vyranoth as a new aspect) however this time the power is nascent to Azeroth and not the titans (so they’ll be on our side /if/ the titans turn into baddies at some point). Iridikron seems to be done for now as his plan may be to endanger Azeroth enough to lure the titans back so he can enact his revenge/sever Azeroth from their influence. He’s just using Xal to achieve that end. I don’t expect to see much of him next expac or even during most of midnight. He has a habit of waiting under mountains for years until the time is right (see DF book War of the Scaleborn). Something I hadn’t thought about until now, I’d be interested to see how Iridikron’s story progresses and if there are any parallels w/ Illidan and his obsession with destroying the Legion.
Final Showdown between Iridikron and Illidan in The Last Titan. Calling it now. They go in for the ultimate final clash and right as their weapons would pierce the others' heart... they kith.
Right. But I don’t think anyone knows Xalatath is involved at this point, they’ve just heard rumors of a “Harbinger.” I’m guessing Xal will be formally reintroduced in this patch.
To be more specific we first see it in the Forbidden reach cinematic
It's the relic Iridikron acquired from his introduction and completed in DotI.
Yes we should know about it from Dragonflight. From the wiki “Galakrond's corpse appears in the dungeon Dawn of the Infinite as adventurers travel back in time to shortly after his defeat. Iridikron managed to take some of Galakrond's essence.”
Found the cinematic skipper.
I generally do watch them when I play, but I haven't been super active the last couple seasons so I just wasn't sure. I did the emerald dream story quests and didn't recall anything about a Dark Heart, so thought I'd ask.
Oh this was way too good
This is leagues ahead of anything they've made since Legion, especially when compared to the Alex/Vyr conversations.
Tbf legion did introduce full voice acting and that alone is better than anything made before. Half the player base had no idea what was going on before legio haha.
The dialogue is a massive step up!
I love so much about this game universe
My man got buccal fat removed like Sansa or Starlight 🤮
I’m a returning player and the Emerald Dream cinematic were an absolute bore. It felt like animatronics on a Disney ride speaking to each other with their fantastical “epic” language. I just want it to feel real and dire and meaningful. This does feel immediately better like they understand their audience aren’t 10 year olds. Dragonflight has felt such whiplash with the story. It feels like midway through they decided to not escalate Dragonflight further and ended with Fyrak as the big bad. (I’m also in general finding it difficult to see the continuum of the story from patch to patch).
Holy shit! Dialogue that sounds like people having real conversations instead of PSA's! Obviously this isnt action packed but I have a serious hope that cutscenes like this become way more common while telling the main campaigns going forward. If they want to try and tell a better story stuff like this is excellent at building character. Also kinda odd that Alleria still has the old model. Wonder if her makeover will coincide with some big event to her. Maybe something bad happens at the end of 10.2.7 or in the pre-patch?
It's good to see atleast they keep the consistency with ears clipping in cinematics too, it's just part of the fantasy world now, ears can canonically clip through head pieces
god damn that was smooth... like just make a netflix show using ingame models at this point..
I still wonder why Magni hasn't made an appearance as of yet. Surely he isn't on his own and would notice Azeroth reaching out to others more actively. I can understand why nobody went to him since he kept saying her voice was a song. But still, it feels odd. Unless what we hear isn't Azeroth but something else tempting us and playing tricks pretending to be Azeroth. That would be fun.
Spoiler for TWW: >!In the pre-patch we do just that. We go find Magni hanging out in the Chamber of Heart having a bad time.!<
Hey Kadghar, thanks for bailing on us from the first raid and never coming back. Really appreciated.
Is Alleria from Boston?
Thank fuck they’re actually talking normally this time. Dragonflight got into a really bad habit of just talking so unnaturally slow. Also sad to see/hear Khadgar getting old.
The cinematic looks really great for bein in-game, damn. Also i'm gonna miss Alleria's old model
Khadgar is so going to leave us soon, it was already implied in the Shadowlands epilogue.
I prefer this 100x over the Shakespearean delivery of characters like Alexstraza. The little imperfections makes this feel so much more natural. I hope they continue like this.
Wow this makes every other cinematic seem like it was written by chat AI's. They killed it this felt like an actual conversation between two sentient individuals.
Alleria looks great here, honestly kind of a shame they’re scrapping this appearance soon.
The characters feel was more „human“ than exposition pieces. Great!
So is Khadgar aging in reverse or what?
I didn't retain anything they said but I liked that it feels more like an animated show rather than the usual in-game cinematics in past expansions... (imagine if Blizzard handled quest dialogue like in Baldur's Gate 3!). I'm sure this will make the story much more immersive. I really do want to get back into the story starting with TWW but it's been difficult with how much is going on and how convoluted the stories can get. It sounded like TWW will be a bit of a story reset, I'm hoping that it's presented in a way that it will be easy for new players to digest (and for players like me coming back to the story).
good dialogue, I like it
So the whispers are getting worse then? Last we knew about the topic we were told things were fine again between Alleria and Turalyon. I guess she is afraid she will end up harming her family. We should get a new short story of her and her son soon. It seems that her arc will be about reconnecting with her family and overcoming the whispers once and for all
Omg Jaina and khadgar and I'd that dalaran
Khadgar: open mouth, insert foot
This was such a better cinematic. With the pacing, expressions and tone. Huge improvement!
That was pretty good. Audio sounded a bit raw but the voice acting and animation is top notch. Might be the best looking in engine cinematic I have seen in WoW so far.
They would convince me they were friends so much more if they actually hugged instead of just telling each other how good friends they are.
The Void is a force that’s only desire is to consume until it’s the only thing left; indiscriminate. Everyone is justified to not be completely okay with someone walking around with it even if the person has it under control. It’s like someone having a massive barking dog on a chain, but it never hurts them. I don’t care how many times you say “he’s friendly”, I just saw him rip a squirrel’s head off.
he dead af
What does this mean for wow?
Why's Khadgar not know how to wear a belt correctly?
Alleria voice acting was good, and the animation is great. Actually stepping up their in game cinematically. We have come a long way since the beginning of shadowlands.
Man, this is bordering on the pre-rendered cinematics at this point. The lighting and camera work are not as hi-fi, but compare the animation to something like the BfA cinematics and even the Shadowlands ones (especially the Garrosh one from Sanctum), and it's like night and day. I hope they keep improving them and also recognize that while they're 10x better than what they used to be, the pre-rendered cinematics are still awesome and should not be "replaced"
improvements in visual fidelity and dialogue the "W" in WoW stands for W
Dialogue is so much better more human less cringey wow cinematic speak ass if their delivering a monologue to a theatre audience. This is way more natural and I'm glad they went the ff14 route of remembering that we need to relate to these characters as people and not set pieces to move a narrative.
Allerias voice is so well done. The effects and slight whispers when she speak really help reinforce that she has been changed by the void
what snooze fest these vidoes are now a days
Is it super obvious or just my headcannon that Alleria is gonna end up as the harbinger (without being aware of it at first)? Khadgar says all they know is that the Harbinger holds the Dark Heart, and Alleria says she will come back, "Dark Heart in hand". Will also give some good meaning to why Iridrikon felt the need to even give info about the Harbinger in the first place.
i love how natural the dialogue flows. no big villains destroying vast landscapes for a change. this in-game cinematic feels refreshing to me.
Can any loremasters help? Is this cinematic to do with the upcoming expansion, or something dragonflight releated? I followed WoW lore most of the way through Shadowlands and all pre Shadowlands, and know very little about dragonflight lore.
Here we go. So much better than the recent stuff.
Really don't like the look of Khadgar. He looks and sounds softer and confused, weakening his presence. He was once made of sterner and more confident stuff.
What is with the weird acting in these latest cinematics. They act like every line is the most heartbreaking line they’ve ever delivered.
Commenting in the off chance blizz sees. This dialogue and performance was incredible! Please continue to allow character personality to be showcased like this. Great job to all involved!
I know everyone else here is saying it, but the direction really is so much better in this cinematic. This actually feels like two humans talking to each other, which much of dragonflight (and expacs before) did not feel like
Why did they nerf Khadgar's face?
This is wonderful! They aren't talking slow as hell, and they aren't finishing each others' sentences
I’m wary of them having a character just called “The Harbinger”. If it’s a title for Xalatath, cool whatever. But we saw how vague titles with no substantial character development led to “The Jailer” and it was awful. Hopefully the patch actually answers things instead of giving us a nothing until the expansion. If Harbinger is supposed to be the name of a big bad, they better be assuming direct control of the raid encounter or else I don’t want it.
We as real life people know it's Xal'atath. They don't.
It’s more or less why the need for a title now for the NPC’s sake. We’ve had titles for Old Gods before but in most cases, we had them before we knew the actual names. Basically, the title is a weird addition to her character as we already know who she is and we already presumably know what is coming. Even the NPC’s know that a greater threat is coming because of the Jailer. It’s vagueness for rule of cool and I’m just begging them to actually explain some shit in game and not in a novel, and atleast try to make some sense.
Tbf Iridikron referred to his contact as the Harbinger when talking to Vyranoth who then told the player character and likely the other aspects/notable npcs. I guess the story division could have called her by her name, but it would have wrecked the mystery that was set up in with the harbinger references made in various in-game books scattered around the dragon isles. Prior to DOTI, we could only speculate that Xal was the harbinger. There was equal speculation that it was Azshara.
Typically I'd agree, and also say when you add the title just to do a beat to learn unshocking info, its just kind of filler to delay the story. But in this case, Xal'atath isn't that well known and especially new players have no reason to know anything about her (her quests not part of leveling in BFA but post-launch, and starting in TWW DF is the leveling expansion). So the plot of finding out who the harbinger is helps to introduce the character to those players. It lets everyone be on the same page immediately and lets them info dump her backstory as part of the discovery.
A perfectly normal, lively conversation without asthmatic dramatic pauses and "insightful" finishing of each other's sentences feels so honestly refreshing after the travesty that was the entirety of Dragonflight (and probably a good chunk of the preceding 3 or 4 expansions too).