Now this was featured on WoW Insider's WoW Moviewatch and as a longtime fan of electronic music and WoWPairs I felt compelled to comment...

This was, in my opinion, awful.

The music has absolutely no relation with WoW (I was expected some kind of wow music or soundbite sampling I guess) and the dubstep itself was horrendous, not an exciting or interesting song at all. The video was completely irrelevant with basically a couple of simple animations cut and rewound to make it look like they're doing the timewarp. It's the pelvic thrusts that drove me insane (see what I did there).

If the song was halfway decent it could have carried the video, if the video was halfway decent it perhaps could have carried the song. Both are terrible and only emphasise the flaws in each other. It's a shame because WowPairs has produced some great stuff in the past but his recent efforts have been very poorly received. Perhaps he's trying to be experimental or edgy but his latest efforts end up being awful.  I say that with deep sadness as WoWPairs is someone I genuinely looked up to in wow machinima making and I always previously thoroughly enjoyed his work.  I hope a return to form is coming soon, although ultimately he may choose to experiment and keep trying new mixes.  Afterall with great risk comes great rewards, I just hope he doesn't drive his subscribers away before he hits the right note as wow machinima is in a pretty bad state as it is already without losing the talented giants we actually have.

By the way if you were listening for the bass drop, it's at 42 seconds. The drop is not exclusive to dubstep (as so many people new to electronic music seem to think) but is common amongst most types of electronic music and drum and bass. The distinctive thing about dubstep is the wobble bass.

If you'd like to hear some decent dubstep then try this

(although the progressive alesso mix version is much better imo)

also try out

(a very mellow dubstep that's genuinely brilliant).

I love me some bass whilst I'm having morning tea and toast XD

My second proper machinima video which recounts the (slightly embelleshed) tale of how our guild, Darkened, pwn'd the Lich King.  Seriously, this has been about a year in production as work, family and guild commitments have all impacted on how much time I've had to dedicate to this project.  So man many thanks to all my guildies who have waited so patiently for this.

This video may also be called "Runz learns different techniques in After Effects" as I try progressively more advanced effects as the video goes on.

Anyway, our guild is awesome and I just wanted to reflect that awesomeness as well as some of the fantastic guild personalities that we have. Big up to our guild leader Exclusivia.

Guild Website: http://darkened.wowstead.com

Many thanks to Video Copilot and http://www.youtube.com/user/Iaenic

Today is a great day, not only is Portal 2 out (OMG I am gonna have so much dimension bending fun after work) but I've also discovered a new Taurimovie collaboration machinima.  It features the vocal talents of PvPGurl (Gigi), Summergale and Shadowstepx.  Now say what you like about Gigi, she has been a very successful and influential figure in the world of WoW music (yes it's a genre now, just accept it).  A lot of people can just take her or leave; personally whilst I don't think this is her very best work it still had me clicking the replay button.  I found Shadowstepx (is this a new incarnation of Nation?) to have a great rap segment - as you might has guessed I'm not typically a massive rap fan being the reserved Troll of culture that I am but I really enjoyed Shadow's bit.  I'm undecided about Summergale's bit, it's not that there's anything wrong with it but after a seemingly long hiatus after the fantastic work she did on Ulduar with Cranius I guess I was expecting more (which is really my issue and not here's).  However Summer's solo at the end played out quite nicely.

Visually, this machinima is absolutely FANTASTIC.  Taurimovies is fast becoming one of my favourite machinimators.  His art style is absolutely fantastic and follows the standard set by such machinima greats as RedEyeLobine and Irdeem.  I really can't wait to see more of his stuff and I'd love to see how he achieves some of his effects because they're spectacular and clearly take a lot of hard work and clear direction.

Anyway, enjoy this, rate it, subscribe to their youtube channels and I hope you all have a smashing day filled with delicious Hobnob biscuits you can dunk into your Afternoon Tea.  And remember, the cake is a lie... unless you're running with me in which case the cake is plentiful and restore mana YUM!

In so many ways this video reminded me of those first tentative steps I took into Azeroth and the sheer unadulterated joy I had at exploring the world.  Yes, after many years playing we feel like we know the world inside and out, that nothing new surprises us anymore and that we've seen it all before.  But looking at this video it was a timely reminder that sometimes we haven't seen it all, sometimes we haven't even scratched the surface when it comes to everything that Azeroth has to offer, so thank you Zim I enjoyed this video a great deal.

OK again this is another old one from back in 2008, but my God man it's just so beautiful.  It's not just the wonderful special effects here, it's the art direction which tell such a powerful story without any words.  Personally I tend to prefer music videos (cos I like music) but I sat and watched this several times - I was just completely blown away by the skill and passion that Surgee threw into this project.  Surgee, I /salute you!

View Surgee's Channel here

Have a look at it...

I really really hope you guys enjoy, it took a lot of work over the past three weeks but if I can make you laugh at least once then it will have all been worth it.  What was the inspiration for this?  Well I found this song whilst I was idling over lunch at work and I laughed... I laughed hard.  But it also struck a cord because it reminded me of some people I knew and worked with, especially those in out tech department one whom was leaving.  I decided my parting gift would be a WoW animation of this song cos it would give him a tickle.  Six months later I still hadn't finished and the said tech had left and come back again to work with us in a different guise.  He did appreciate the vid even if it was 6 months late so that kinda made it all worth it, I didn't have to shell out for a proper leaving gift.  Win-win for everyone really.

I will put up a Machinima RSS Feed laters but for now I just wanted to share this with you guys.

Have a little look out for the cameos from some WoW Mage Bloggers and some blatant product placement for the Mana Obscura Mage Forums.  Which reminds me Gaz recently (at time of writing) released an obscurecast so have a listen to that too.  You can find it on iTunes just search for obscurecast; very good podcast I like its casual conversational tone.  It's almost like watching Parkinson... only almost though cos no-one is better than the Parkster.  Except Terry Wogan.  Eurovision is a sadder competition without Terry's silky smooth tones guiding us through it.

Anyway, GO LISTEN TO THE OBSCURECAST - I think that was my original point there.

As always please feel free to comment and enjoy watching the video :)

Yes I realise it's old, I realise Azerothian 6 doesn't exist anymore, I realise that many consider 'Belf Rap' a scourge on mankind but god damn, it is still just one of the most beautiful machinimas out there.  I think the singing is good, it's an intelligent parody of a classic D12 song that doesn't just replace words with WoW references, they make the song their own.  On top of all this it is just a gorgeous artist piece, the time and effort Red Eye Lobine has put into this really shows; the rendering, the shadows, the backgrounds (omg the backgrounds) and the ability to make the avatars seem somehow like people in their own right just makes this an absolute joy to watch.

In my own (very humble) opinon, this surpasses many machinimas that have been done before or since, including later works by PvP Gurl, Nhym and the Druidboyz.  It's a powerful demonstration that however good these artists may be individually, when they pool their creative talents into a project that they all really want to get behind then they create something where the love is just evident from start to finish.  That to me is what makes a great machinima.