Filed under: Machinima

Raegwyn, one of WoW Insider's favorite blood death knights (sorry, Daniel!), is at it again. The blood elf death knight of Onyxia (EU) holds a stunning array of previous solo kill achievements including The Lich King, Kael'thas Sunstrider (at level 80!), and two of the four bosses in heroic Stonecore. Now he's released a new video highlighting the ridiculously cool self-healing power of blood death knights -- except this time, rather than riding solo, Raegwyn brought along nine other blood death knight friends for an epic romp in Firelands. No healers, no DPS ... just 10 tanks.

Part 1 of their adventure has the band of blooders facing off against heroic mode Rhyolith, Alysrazor, and Baleroc. My favorite moment of the video is at 7:30, when all 10 players simultaneously pop their Army of the Dead right before the pull. Part 2 includes normal Beth'tilac, heroic Shannox, normal Majordomo Staghelm, and the fiesty firelord himself. Some of the fun moments here are watching the sole surviving death knight tank Shannox for his last few hundred thousand hit points, and marveling at the talent of these 10 players on the incredibly high-magic-damage fight that is Ragnaros.

As an enhancement shaman whose preferred form of making money is soloing old raids like Caverns of Time: Mt. Hyjal, Raegwyn's videos constantly both amaze and humble me. I get excited when I can manage to down Karazhan's chess encounter weekly, but Raegwyn is a player who constantly manages to push the boundaries of traditional playing, and I'm always excited to see what he has in store for us next. If you'd like to read more about Raegwyn's approach to soloing and what he considers to be the hardest aspects, check out Lisa Poisso's interview with him.

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Brace yourselves for what could be some of most exciting updates to the game recently with patch 4.3. Review the official patch notes, and then dig into what's ahead: new item storage options, cross-realm raiding, cosmetic armor skinning and your chance to battle the mighty Deathwing -- from astride his back!

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After Blizzard's machinima team stretched its wings with the inclusion of WoW's first in-game cutscene, The Wrathgate, players have expressed their praise and hope that more cinematics would be included in Warcraft in coming expansions. With the success of The Wrathgate, Blizzard included Arthas' end in cinematic form after his defeat on Icecrown. When Cataclysm released, both the goblins and worgen were treated to cinematics that transitioned the player from starting zone to a larger world with an epic cutscene and story. Now, the Dragon Soul raid and the ending of Cataclysm are marked with story cutscenes showing off Deathwing's anger, Thrall blasting Deathwing out of the sky and parachuting onto Deathwing's back. Even Cataclysm's twist ending got a cinematic.

Which cinematic was your favorite? The betrayal of the Forsaken at the Wrathgate still holds a very special place in my heart since it was the first time cinematics were done in WoW. It was a home run from the start. Watching Sky Captain Swayze and Ka'anu jump out of the Skyfire, along with my raid, also ranks high on the list of cutscenes for me, even if it's only a few seconds long.

What do you guys think? Vote!

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Brace yourselves for what could be some of most exciting updates to the game recently with patch 4.3. Review the official patch notes, and then dig into what's ahead: new item storage options, cross-realm raiding, cosmetic armor skinning and your chance to battle the mighty Deathwing -- from astride his back!

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Work warning: This video has some adult themes and scantily clad video game characters.

With Christmas ticking closer every day, we're starting to see some new holiday-themed machinima. We're also seeing the inevitable creep toward SW:TOR come around. It makes sense that someone would merge the two into a single machinima.

Kick back with a cup of coffee and watch a SW:TOR and a WoW player battle it out for which game will enjoy Christmas superiority. Gamebreaker knocked this out of the park; we can expect this to be a favorite for WoW and SW:TOR fans both. Absolutely.

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Interested in the wide world of machinima? We have new movies every weekday here on WoW Moviewatch! Have suggestions for machinima we ought to feature? Toss us an email at moviewatch@wowinsider.com.

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Spoiler alert: If you would rather check out these cinematics in game during the Dragon Soul raid, avoid clicking after the jump.

The Dragon Soul raid is finally here, and Deathwing's time is up. Now that brave heroes have thwarted Murazond's plans in the future, reclaimed the Dragon Soul artifact in the past, and escorted Thrall to Wyrmrest Temple in the present, it's time to put that bad boy to use. There are a total of four cinematics in the Dragon Soul raid, most of them 10- to 20-second transitional movies you get to watch as the action ramps up and Deathwing gets a face full of Dragon Soul.

Hit the jump for the three cinematics that are currently available to watch. We still have not seen the final cinematic, presumably Deathwing's ultimate demise, as of the writing of this article. Hopefully we will have it soon enough.

Spoiler alert: Do not hit the jump unless you want to be spoiled on these cinematics.

Happy Tuesday morning, everyone. CM Bashiok has already confirmed that patch 4.3 will going live today, after the traditional 3 a.m.-to-11 a.m. Pacific downtime. The patch may even be downloadable by the time you read this. With that in mind, it may be a good idea to spend this downtime getting ready and reading up on some of the week's news. To start, I'd strongly suggest you check our guides to the three new 5-man dungeons:

• End Time
• Well of Eternity
• Hour of Twilight

You'll probably be queuing up soon to get your first valor points, so make sure you're in the know. Beyond that, we'll have more patch 4.3 FAQs and guides for you as the day goes on, and you'll want to check our guide to patch 4.3 as well. Our usual roundup of the past week's news awaits you after the break.

This an older machinima, created by Baron Soosdon four years ago. Shake That! shows off what the bosses and NPCs do while servers are down for maintenance ... they shake that thing! This video came up in conversation among the hallowed halls of WoW Insider's news room, so we absolutely had to share it with our devoted fans.

Shake That! is a great machinima for hanging out with friends and getting your groove on. I've been putting together a Machinima Dance Party YouTube playlist lately, and now I'm going to stamp this video at the very top of it.

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Interested in the wide world of machinima? We have new movies every weekday here on WoW Moviewatch! Have suggestions for machinima we ought to feature? Toss us an email at moviewatch@wowinsider.com.

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As seen on G-TV was the entry into the Cataclysm commercial contest by Firebolt Productions. This is the tale of a pair of goblin products guaranteed to help make you irresistible to the ladies ... and to worgen. Respectively. If the product can make you the apple of every female worgen's eye, then I guess that's even better.

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Interested in the wide world of machinima? We have new movies every weekday here on WoW Moviewatch! Have suggestions for machinima we ought to feature? Toss us an email at machinima@wow.com.

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World of Warcraft is, first and foremost, a roleplaying game. It's not just a game; not just a story, but a blessed nexus of both that totally immerses you in another world. The quests you undergo set up and advance the story, and -- at least in Wrath -- major storylines are wrapped up with in-game cinematics. Arthas' death, the Wrathgate -- both are epic events in Wrath of the Lich King lore, and both are comprised entirely of in-game assets.

But are we being cheated? After all, the trailer to Cataclysm, in which Deathwing emerges to tear Azeroth asunder, is an epic piece of pre-rendered majesty. Shouldn't Blizzard offer us more pre-rendered video moments instead of what amounts to a well-produced piece of machinima?

On the official Blizzard forums today, in response to a complaint about the extended use of in-game cinematics (like the worgen in-game cinematic above), blue poster Zarhym talked about -- and defended -- Blizzard's approach to cinematics:

Blizzard - Better cinematics, please.

With the advent of in-game cinematics, in the case of Starcraft II, we were able to over triple the amount of cinematic storytelling compared to any previous Blizzard release. As mentioned by another poster, these moments, without in-game assets, would have been character portraits plus voice-over. Instead, they were able to be brought to life with a much more vivid realization by using in-game cinematics to help tell the story.

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The full text of Zarhym's post is available just after the cut.

It's no secret that we love Laura Shigihara, the composer for Pop Cap's amazing Plants vs. Zombies and now the voice of Cataclysm's singing sunflower pet. Shigihara has stepped into the WoW machinima world with her own original song and video, Blood Elf Druids, an adorable song making a plea to Blizzard for the inclusion of blood elf druids. Shout-outs to Tooga the turtle are pretty obscure, which makes it even more fun.

It's adorable, catchy and a great first shot at machinima. There's even a behind-the-scenes video posted here. If this is the quality of song we're getting for the first video, I cannot wait to see what's coming next. An orc ballad, perhaps? I can only hope.

Have you been interested in learning how people like Olibith create the amazing visual pieces that they do? Well, Olibith is now working on a series that will give you a guided tour on operating WoW Model Viewer and creating your own machinima. You can find it over at GameCreds. If you don't know Olibith, he's the guy who did Beware of Baby B. He knows what he's talking about.

You'll find this series enlightening on the ways of the mysterious machinimator, especially if you haven't fired up WoW Model Viewer before. It's a fascinating look into how Olibith creates his characters and animates them. I'm looking forward to later entries into the series and am already planning on creating a video using only the techniques Olibith describes.

I hope between Olibith's guides and Wowcrendor's Wowdirectors.com, we get to see a new wave of machinimators creating WoW films. It's a unique method of telling fan stories, and it's always been one of my favorite things about the WoW community. Good luck to everyone who takes this opportunity to learn!

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Interested in the wide world of machinima? We have new movies every weekday here on WoW Moviewatch! Have suggestions for machinima we ought to feature? Toss us an email at machinima@wow.com.

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If you've been living under a rock where you could never, ever see machinima or fan videos about the World of Warcraft, you might not know the name Wowcrendor. For those machinima-less folks, I'll quickly explain. Wowcrendor is what he calls a "WoW director." These are the devoted fans who take the time to create movies and machinima based on our hobby. (We have a column about it here on WoW Insider. I'm just saying.) Wowcrendor's work is usually especially well received because he consistently manages to nail a funny but loving tone in his videos. He clearly loves both the game and the game's community, even though they drive him up the wall. I've always secretly thought his videos were his way of releasing that anxiety without its blowing his head off via internal combustion.

Well, Wowcrendor also loves machinima. In order to help encourage new directors to join the scene, he's recently launched WoWdirectors. His basic idea is to provide a place for brand new machinimators to go and learn his craft. While community sites like Myndflame have existed for a while, Wowcrendor is hoping to bring his same sense of basics and story to the scene. He's building some how-to guides, critiques, and generally trying to get folks together to talk publicly about the machinima hobby.

Check out WoWdirectors and let them know what you think. Knowing the man as I do, I'm sure he'd be thrilled to have your feedback.

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Interested in the wide world of machinima? We have new movies every weekday here on WoW Moviewatch! Have suggestions for machinima we ought to feature? Toss us an email at machinima@wow.com.

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We featured the beginning of ROFLBear on Monday's Moviewatch. The ROFLBear show is a daily series of machinima videos created by the folks behind Myndflame. You can think of it as a daily WoW cartoon. They're finishing up this week's first run with the Anthem of the Crusader, a musical piece.

The reviews of ROFLBear have been somewhat mixed but mostly positive. I think as the series has been expanding its mythos, more folks are finding accessible comedy in the videos. There is an obvious variety of humor in the series, so I think most people will find something to their tastes over time.

One of the most interesting things about ROFLBear, though, is the sheer persistence and dedication devoted to the series by its creators. A daily machinima is not something that anyone should consider easy or simple. Myndflame has been working on these videos throughout 2010 to make sure they have enough material to maintain the schedule going forward.

This kind of daily content is a huge undertaking, as your intrepid WoW.com staff will tell you. I tip my hat to Myndflame and congratulate it on its first week. ROFLBear has been fun so far, and I look forward to what it is going in the future.

World of WarCrafts spotlights art and creativity by WoW players, including fan art, cooking, comics, cosplay, music and fan fiction. Show us how you express yourself by emailing lisa (at) wow (dot) com with your not-for-profit, WoW-inspired creations.

You're bound to have seen the ebullient Welcome to the Deadmines here already, in WoW Moviewatch, spicing up a WoW Rookie article or linked in an enthusiastic reader comment. What you haven't had yet is the chance to meet its talented 17-year-old creator, Swedish machinimist X-Cross, a.k.a. Adrian Drott, or Tìnkle of EU Argent Dawn-A. We spoke with the young winner of Blizzard's World of Warcraft Movie Contest: Rise to Power to learn more about his creative process, his collaborators and where we might see him pop up in the future.

World of WarCrafts: Winner of Blizzard's Rise to Power contest -- and you've only just turned 17! How long have you been making machinima, Adrian?

X-Cross: I started with machinima in the early summer of 2008, and back then I was 15 years old. The first machinima I did was made together with my cousin and a friend of mine. It was a horrible WoW parody of Pokémon that for some reason a lot of people found quite entertaining and funny. After that, we decided to continue making the episodes but stopped after the third, since I wanted to go over to a bit more "serious" machinima making after all the great feedback.

Today's video comes from long time machinima fan, first time machinima maker Bridin. His first story uses the most classic of action tropes. The main character is just your average guy, the bad guys show up, things get bad, and your average guy is driven to become not-so-average. It's simple, but it works. Come on, who doesn't like Die Hard?

Overall, Hero is very good as a first outing. The soundtrack is appropriate, as is the foley. The animation is as close to natural as WoW gets, though the moving characters set on a stationary backdrop is always a little jarring. That just comes with the territory though and will just get better with time.

If I were to give one piece of advice, I would suggest practicing with a less epic tale for the next go around. It's understandably hard to include intense action sequences and things of that sort when it's your very first go at machinima, but some of the events seem to happen a bit randomly because of it. Any resistance the Alliance put up was off screen, except for our hero being punted off of a seemingly abandoned ship. Deus ex Diabolus keeps our hero from eating dirt. Making these sequences a bit more smooth and sensical would add a lot to these stories. I look forward to Bridin's future work, and considering Hero comes with the prefix Warcraft Stories, I'm hoping that there's a whole lot more coming our way.

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Oxhorn has released a very special Christmas album focused on his WoW-themed music, called Oxhorn's Christmas for Geeks. The album is available both on Amazon and iTunes. Heck, you can even pick it up on Rhapsody and Napster. Oxhorn was pretty thorough to make sure that you could get the album by whichever route you like.

The album has a lot of classic favorites, as well as a boatload of new skits. My favorite is his new version of Hark! Hear the Wails. That has always been one of my very favorite songs by Oxhorn. It does, however, show the signs of being created much, much early in Oxhorn's career. It shows some of the rustiness and coarseness of an artist's early work, and really needed some tuning up. The new version did that fantastically.

Oxhorn's Christmas for Geeks has a resounding 18 tracks. It's split about evenly between skits and songs. I was actually quite impressed by the wide array of musical styles explored by this album. While the lyrics are obvious parodies of popular holiday songs, interpreted in a World of Warcraft style, I think Oxhorn has really done a great job of matching his lyrics to the Christmas theme.

Even if you're not going to rock out to Oxhorn's tunes, it's one hell of a gift for a fellow WoW player.