07-22-09

5 Reasons Why the World of Warcraft Movie will Suck

Despite yesterday’s major geekgasm news that Sam Raimi will be taking up reigns as director of the highly-anticipated movie World of Warcraft, I remain pessimistic.

The World of Warcraft movie will suck, and here’s why:

1. First, let’s get the obvious out of the way.  As a general rule, movies based on video games suck.

   Need proof?
   - Super Mario Bros. sucked
   - Resident Evil (all of them) sucked
   - House of the Dead sucked
   - Silent Hill sucked
   - Laura Croft: Tomb Raider 1 & 2 sucked
   - Double Dragon sucked
   - Mortal Kombat 1 & 2 sucked
   - Street Fighter (both of ‘em) sucked

   …I could go on, but this post would get very long very quick.

2. The actual World of Warcraft sucks nowadays.  And things are only going to get worse as Blizzard scrambles to maintain its revolving door player base.  Blizzard may claim to have somewhere in the neighborhood of 11 million subscribers, but for all the new people signing up, there’s a whole lot of veterans and hardcore gamers leaving Azeroth, who are disenchanted with many of Blizzard’s recent “fuck you” decisions that tend to favor its own pockets over those of paying customers.  With the new Star Wars MMO looming on the horizon, Blizzard knows it must milk the WoW cash cow for all its worth–in the form of paid faction transfers and overhyped expansions.
3. I like Sam Raimi, I really do.   But just watch Spider-Man 3, and various other films Raimi has fucked up.  When it comes to directing, he’s kind of a hack who’s fortunate enough to have cult status/geek cred with the Evil Dead franchise.  Sure he makes some damn entertaining popcorn horror movies, but is he capable of pulling off an epic fantasy film?  I hope his work on Legend of the Seeker isn’t an indication…  Check out Raimi’s over-saturated IMDB page, where he’s currently listed to have over 20 projects in production, including Spiderman 4.
4. It will be told from an Alliance perspective.  Snore.  I guess even outside the game the Horde gets no love.  That aside, there are a zillion possible storylines in the World of Warcraft upon which to base a movie.  Why choose lamestream Alliance?  I guess two million Night Elves can’t be wrong.
5. Last year, I included the long-rumored World of Warcraft movie on my list of Top 5 Most Anticipated Fantasy Films of 2009, which up until recently, Blizzard has maintained would be the film’s year of release.  (I hope they didn’t really expect us to believe that! ) So it wasn’t at all suprising to hear that World of Warcraft: The Movie is now slated for release in 2012.  TWENTY TWELVE!  Will WoW still be as popular three years from now as it is today?

Hope I’m wrong!

01-06-09

Temple of Storms + Levitate = Awesome

One of the best things about Levitate?  Jumping from extremely high elevations.  Tonight while questing in The Storm Peaks, I found a new winner: The Temple of Storms.  This place is so high up you can’t see the ground from the top.  Perfect.

Know of any other awesome places to jump?

11-29-08

The murloc suit: possibly the best quest ever.

Yep, that’s me dressed up as a murloc.

I know at level 75 I’m unfashionably late to be reporting how cool this level 71 quest is, but that’s what I get for playing WoW on one of the most heavily populated servers.  Now that the shiny newness of Wrath of the Lich King has had a few weeks to wear off, I can actually get the Borean Tundra quests done without them being camped as hell.

To pick up this quest, head to Winterfin Retreat in Borean Tundra and talk to King Mrgl-Mrgl.  He’ll start you on a chain quest beginning with Oh Noes, the Tadpoles! and ending with the actual suit part Surrender…Not!.  Tragically, the suit is only wearable in this part of the zone.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, here’s the back:

Gotta love the heart print underpants.  Not that I was looking…