Sunday 17 June 2007

Driftings top Movies - A rundown in WoW videos ! PT1

OK time for the blog of all blogs! I went a bit overboard on the text side of things :)

PART 1 - WoW General Top Videos
PART 2 - Vashj & Local Community Videos

Well, these are just a few of my favorite WoW videos from over the years, please take into account the time of release for each of the videos and try to appreciate the quality:skill:entertainment ratio's for the time of release! For anyone who doesn't watch much PvP movies, you should definitely check some of these out if you want to be entertained, or just want to expand your horizon on movie making in general, I'll be including a lot more movie-related information within the coming weeks/months, so check this out!

These are all videos I hold close to me, for one reason or another. Some I have lots of nostalgia towards, others I just love for pure entertainment value, if you don't know some of the ones I mention below, I would recommend checking any of them out!

Laintime - The drakedog of warriors, if I'm allowed to make that comparison, very popular warrior who is known for his insane trinketswapping during fights and generally fast paced-playstyle. I'd rather he just played without them for some of his fights, although it has helped him win allot of fights, so i can't really argue. I was really tied as to which movie of his to pick, since he has multiple good ones, but I decided to go with his more recent offering. 2006's "LAINTIME"

Released 06-09-28
Link

Hector - Hector, a rogue of Magtheridon/Khadgars rage, made video editing with model changing a widespread thing, when it was regarded as something that wasn't cool to do, because alot of people at the time thought making a movie with a different character model would de-value the movie and perhaps how it related to you. It was more of an artform than a fun video to Hector, you could tell by the huge amount of effort he put into moviemaking, he had his own style of movies, you couldn't compare him to Grim movies because they are in a different category and a completely different vibe, the scene is set on longer, more enduring fights rather than downing your opponent in the blink of an eye.

One of the most entertaining rogue moviemakers out there I'd say, also one of the most underrated rogue moviemakers, his movies averaged out at around 30k a piece, should have been much higher. One thing that hector offers that most other movie makers don't, is an extreme consistency throughout all of his movies, one of the few authors who has done 5+ movies, and i'd recommend checking any of them out. I decided to go with his "Caped Avenger" movie, as its one of my personal favourites

Released 06-07-11
Pros: Top class editing, Enticing movies
Link

Grim - Total Annhilation, destruction, decimation, obliteration vibe Grim's vids gave off, don't get me wrong, his first movie was also excellent too, but this one definitely set a new benchmark for "pure pwnage" rogue videos, going 2 specs in the same video is risky and can sometimes ruin the consistency of a video, but I think it worked very well for this one.

Its quite funny really, if you asked me why his movies are so popular, there isn't any elements that stand out way above others, the editing isn't the best, the skills aren't incredible compared to other rogues out there, but there is definitely a style he puts forth in the movie that he knows is appealing to the masses. Word around the Internet is Grim 3 is coming soon, lets hope so. If you don't know about his video's, then were have you been the last few years?!

like he says in his WCM movie description
"This movie was made mainly for entertainment purposes and to show how rogues can trash pretty much anything when played right. Although I have noted that a minority of people did want to see the more skilled side of things, there were two reasons I did not show that side of my playing style. Firstly the small amount of the tricks shown in rogue movies over the period of WoW's history have been nerfed shortly after the films release (remember the frost reflector?)"

Pros: Overwhelming your enemies, Appealing to the masses
Released 06-09-07
Link

Voidim 2 - Mage against world? One man army? Definition of solo! Of course frost is easymode kiting spec, those 2v1's and 3v1's can look more than they're worth on "camera", but in actual play, its not that hard to do, regardless though, this is an excellent movie with a completely unique style. People say there aren't many "skilled" alliance mages making movies, in a way that works to their advantage though, it allows the ones that do make movies to be more easily-recognized and distinguishable from the thousands of unread horde mages.

Either way, Voidim has made 3 movies, all got the recommended, this one however is my personal favorite of the 3, music is also nicely used, uniqueness and has some Talib in it, not only that but his use of the RJD2 track works perfectly with the movie, a true example of how to blend music + video together resulting in a top notch movie! Nice use of frost/manapool/kiting, with a little trinket and spelldamage boost here and there, nonetheless great movie!

This is one great take on how frostmage movies should be made
Released 06-09-19
Link

Ming - I stumbled across this video by accident one day, I really enjoyed it and became a fan overnight, long before Ming was regarded as a "celebrity" across the WoW circut, this video was arguably his best to date, he might not be the best rogue out there, but he knows how to make a huge name for himself, this video combines his Chinese roots with his unique style, you know what to expect in his movies, particularly on the audio side of things, perhaps not the best blend of music and video, but at the time a very good video for the masses and a nice blend of playstyle and burst damage

Pros: Unique style, Unique take with the music
released 05-12-30
Link

* Albis 3 - The Mage who went Elementalist before it became widespread and regarded as a 'viable' option at the time, though it was always a good route to take, people didn't like it because of its inability to cast aoe. How much I would have loved to take frost/fire spec when AOE instant was 5points req'. I mean, how many elemental mages were there at this stage of WoW? I'm telling you it wasn't many, maybe 5-10% if that, I'd have taken elementalist and been in bliss if I knew then what I know now. This vid is pure cloud9 for me in mage vids, also in terms of showing you how entertaining this kind of movie can be with the right editing and playstyle. It made me look at it while i was r14 and think "shit, i need to rethink my game, and BADLY". This has got quick reactions, some nice skills combined with excellent editing, he's the complete all-round-package when it comes to video making. Where Albis excels is that he pushes all the right switches to make highly watchable movies, it dosent sway too much towards one direction, ie. just skill & boring video, or nice editing but no skill, its a perfect mix of the two, take into consideration that this vid was released in December of 05, I'd say it was one of the great vids for its time in terms of having that all round wow factor. One of my main inspirations for movie making is because of you Albis, and I thank you for it! I look forward to Albis 5

Pros: Quick Reactions, Excellent editing
Stage6 HQ Streaming
Streaming

Again, I really wish i could've had the privilege to spec elemental before icelance and icebarrier came into the elementalists equation along with level 70, but oh well, fire it was


Worthy mentions: Saerdna, Vurtne, Seksi, Pat, Otherguy, Corrupt

PS. This isnt meant as a "The following players are uber", just a unique take on the WoW community / Moviemakers whom influenced or inspired me with my own moviemaking.

And a big thanks to Warcraftmovies.com, who made a large majority of this possible for the masses to see :)

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

nice post, and i agree with you about these movies being among some of the best movies out there, although imo the list misses Stuck and other old school names such as Francis.

Anonymous said...

PvPriest where :D

Ddd said...

@Chi, funny you should say that, you are in pt 2 :P

PART 1 - WoW General Top Videos
PART 2 - Vashj & Local Community Videos

Anonymous said...

Pat as honorable mention? Laintime?

Shows you go purely for entertaining value...

Btw, you forgot Somethingawf: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1393677960885570768&q=somethingawf

Which is most entertaining clip ever.

Anonymous said...

Neylio 4.. Not the best editing, but great skills. And its tbc.

Anonymous said...

indeed those are great moviemakers but i will disagree on Ming, i stopped watching his videos after 1min playing :|

Hector was sick at making movies, sad he dropped the rogue and rolled lock :(

Grim's movies as u said where the most entertaining ones. He did blow a hell of cooldowns to kill people but nevertheless he did it with style that made it look awesome.

For rogue videos with more skill than editing check Happyminti.



-Koukos

Anonymous said...

Add Clazzi to the mage list as well^^. insane skills , i've never seen a pomer play like that before

Anonymous said...

@los... Laintime isn't only entertaining but he's probally the most skilled warrior ever to play WoW. Seriously. Too bad he's in the Korean army now :[

Anonymous said...

"The Mage who went Elementalist before it became widespread and regarded as a 'viable' option at the time"

Zarthustra and Saerdna were elementalist well before Albis' video.

Anonymous said...

@laintime, good to see that there are warriors that can kill mages, nice works, nice skills too.

@hector couldnt open that one

@grim woot does make want to level my rogue (and working on that).

@Voidim 2 hmmm YOU are better :)

@ming takes down a lot of low HP targets if you ask me does crit nice considering the time the vid was made.

@albris Truelly loved this one! espessially his remarks considering Pom pyro nabs!! :D Im going to find more vids from him :)

@part 2 where is part 2? cant find a link or so

Greets Star

Anonymous said...

aye, you gotta add Clazzi to the list; exceedingly skilled mage. I also really enjoy both the Unknown series and RedEyes (Kjaskar). I know they're both '3 min mage' spec, but these are both really very entertaining movies; Unkonwn's (Pathologist's) editting skills speak for themselve ;)