I woke up this morning at about 11:00 am (about 2 hours after the trailer was released) and immediately got on to see if like the big nerd that I am. I didn’t get on Twitter, Reddit or any other WoW news site so that I wouldn’t be biased to what anyone’s thoughts were.
I have to say that I like and dislike the trailer for a few reasons. The cinematic was absolutely gorgeous, I like it when Blizzard goes for the more realistic style of the art even though the game has a distinct cartoon style art while playing. It was easy to get immersed and the idea behind the cinematic was easy to follow. Horde v Alliance navel battle, Orc and Human get stranded on desert island, find each other and insue in life or death battle, Pandas stop them and give them a common enemy.
One of the reasons I didn’t like the opening cinematic is because those who don’t necessarily know the details of the opening story line that was given to us at Blizzcon will have more ammo that this expansion is going to be a comedic relief expansion with no dark elements to it at all. The Horde and the Alliance are finally having their big battle to end all battles and it is once again ruined by an outside force. The introduction to the Pandaren is completely comedic relief in the opening cinematic. He stops the life and death battle, takes back the ornament the Orc broke off of his temple and fixes it, Human and Orc give their best WTF face and the human hands the Orc a weapon so that they can fight the panda together.
The cinematic from there on out no longer has any heavy themes to speak of. They fight for another two minutes, the Pandaren has a quiet monologue, and then it is over. There’s obviously much more to the story that we already know about but all of the heaviness disepated once the Pandaren arrived which makes me worry. I’m sure I’m in the small minority who actually knows the beginning lore to MoP and the heavy themes that surround it but none of that was shown in the trailer for a larger audience to view. Instead of a tranquil view of Pandaria at peace I feel it would have been better if the Pandaren had panned to a group of Pandaren monks fighting a large Sha of Anger that had manifested from the Orc and Human fighting each other. Only a handful of people might have recognized or understood what it was but at least it would have given us something.
I also think it was a bad idea to have the Humans and Orcs both fighting against the Pandaren with no resolution to the battle other than defeat for both of the factions. If no one knew anything about the upcoming expansion, it’s lore, or any over arching story to World of Warcraft in general, they would think that the Horde and the Alliance were going to band together to defeat the Pandaren. No outside enemies were shown in the cinematic (when the opening cinematic generally feature or surround the antagonist of the expansion) other than the Pandaren. Although we are uncertain what exactly the enemy (other than the Sha and a few other woodland critters) is in MoP and who the final boss battle will be, it would have explained much more of the Orc, Human and Pandaren were standing side by side in awe at a Pandaren army taking down a large Sha to show the Pandas are not the enemy.
Although I have a lot of criticism I did like the cinematic overall. I understand that you can’t put everything into the opening cinematic and that some of the story had to be cut out or they want the quests to bring that lore to the eyes of the viewers. I also understand that not everything can be explained in a 5 minute video. I’m just concerned that our fears of a Pokemon and Pandas fluffy childrens expansion may be being realized here. Hopefully, I am proved wrong!
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