#0 - Nov. 1, 2010, 10:40 p.m.
Major, M-A-J-O-R nerd rage incoming.
I'm talking about the in-game ones, of which there are currently two, that play after certain events (in this case, after completing Return to Angrathar and killing the Lich King/examining the fountain in Dalaran)
They use game models. They use pretty boring, sometimes recycled musical scores with almost no dynamic change. There's some faults in the animations (EG, Arthas' cape moving through the ground). Just compare, say, the Orc Ending to Arthas' death. I feel kinda sad for Arthas, who, despite being a completely fictional character, I think deserves a better death. I watch the Night Elf ending every day and wonder why cinematics were so much better 7 years ago (yeah... yeah I'm pretty lame...).
So why can't this happen in WoW? Does it have something to do with the capability of WoW to play these videos? No. The in-game cinematics in WoW and the in-game cinematics in WC3 were both AVI files.
Not enough manpower? Understandable. But animation isn't really a dying industry (uh is it?) and is it not possible to hire a new team?
Not enough money? Lol.
Not enough time? I heard it takes somewhere around a year to make one of those videos. Yeah, that's rough. But you managed to make epic vids for SC2 and Deathwing (or us) shouldn't be dead/defeated for around a year, if not more (assuming Cata expansion rate is similar to Wrath).
Don't get me wrong; this game is great. Blizzard hasn't lost their potential in animation - while the cinematic previews don't have as much facial animation, they are still epic both musically and visually. This game is top of the line, and using cinematics from in-game models... well to be honest it's degrading to the game and storyline.
Anyways, /end nerdrage. Comments?