What Makes a Great WoW Video?
8:58 AM
Posted by Reygahnci on Friday, May 16, 2008
I am an addict, true story. I will be sitting here at work, doing what I should be doing, checking the logs of some application server that had an unexpected peakaboo contest with the database server, and the database server forgot to move its hands away from its face again, leaving the application server singing (in what I perceive to be) the dulcet tones of "where did you go?" a la Portal. Then, it hits me: my poor ADHD-riddled brain decides that I am bored. There is nothing I can do about the situation other than give in and do something else; the database server can wait, it will probably come back any second anyway. So, what do I do? I venture over to the druid forums; my home away from home.
Same old garbage as usual. There are at least five threads complaining about how druids are the most overpowered class (funny... ferals are pretty gimp atm, but apparently if you can be resto, that's overpowering enough) in the entire game, which is comical to me because they are only powerful when teamed with a warlock, rogue, or warrior and only in the 2s bracket... interesting... must be the druids </sarcasm>. Following those insightful, and usually mistake-ridden (both of grammar, spelling, and logic), threads, we have the requests for help from the paladins and priests who believe that resto druids have it best and decided to reroll. "Grinding is soooooo terrible, what am I doing wrong!?" The answer is always "you are not yet level 20... once you are level 20 grinding will go faster." Then there are the threads that talk about the famous druids: Rueful, Trusty, Deep, etc. They basically are either gun-ho fans or critics of the aforementioned druids' playstyles and/or skills. Oh, and of course we have the latest release anouncement of Rawr, the druid outfitting and theory-crafting application (now available on Mac OS X).
But wait... what's this; a thread with "vid" in the title!? I am immediately intrigued and must see what this video is about. "Here is my video of my 2s team, resto+warrior in 2200+" Meh, boring, I know how all those fights go: don't get teamed against a good rogue+healer and slowly but surely kill your opponents via outlasting their mana pools. Oh, another video thread, let's see... "My 2s video, restokin+rogue." Ooooo, before restokin+rogue became amazing, this would peak my interests. Odd combinations playing oddly well is interesting enough to make me start the download.
This is why I love the Deep videos, he is an amazing cinematographer who captures great video, puts amazing music to it, and has wacky combinations. In season 1, he was a gladiator feral+marks 2s team... WHAT!? Yeah, that's right, hunter+feral and gladiator. His first video shows off his ability to win against nubs and against teams who played the s1 cookie-cutter teams well (pally+warrior). In season 2, he showed off his ability as feral+rogue, since hunters were somewhat extinct in the 2s circuit at that time. In season 3, he shows off 3 different play styles: he plays feral+rogue, restokin+hunter, and resto+rogue+hunter. I had seen feral+rogue from his last video, but he showcased it against the cookie-cutters of the day at 2200+ (warrior+druid, rogue+priest, mage+rogue, warlock+rogue). Then, he teams with his hunter from s1 (awesome) and tries restokin+hunter to great success against the same team-comps. Lastly, he faces off with the rogue and the hunter on a 3s team with him as a resto druid. The video is all paced well and set to amazing music.
This is what makes a great video. This ability to capture great video of one's exploits and put them together in a way that is both entertaining and interesting. Odd team combinations makes the videos interesting, and seeing a fluid flow of matches set to great music that follows the same theme makes the movie entertaining. This is why I started recording our spriest+warlock matches. Okay, so that combination was a popular build before the resilience-affects-dots-nerf, but now it is much harder to win as this comp. That is where my "I think people will be intrigued by this video" aspect comes from. Our team is no 2200 (not even 2000), but I think that we play well against most of the cookie-cutter-comps today, so it works out reasonably well. We tend to beat up on warrior+healer really hard, but we lose to warlock+healer. Additionally, we can occassionally take down a rogue team, but they are harder being immune to magic so much of the match. Now, I have about 8 great quality matches, but I cannot decide on the music or direction yet. So, hopefully I will get some inspiration from some more videos that I have been downloading while writing this post. Cheers.