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!

Well I stayed up until 3am to do it and had to be in work by 7:30am - but it's done at last.  The Mac Vs PC WoW Machinima Parody (say that really fast when pissed out of your skull) is up and ready for viewing.

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 :)

There's a lot of talk around the blogosphere lately about falling out of love with WoW, suffering burnout, declining interest and all that jazz.  I've been ummm-ing and ahhhh-ing about wading into this one; but this is not that post.  All I will say for now is that despite some short breaks to play Magicka, Batman and Shogun 2, I am still a dedicated WoW'er and I don't see that changing any time soon.   Whilst thinking about why it is I love WoW and what it was that got me hooked, I stumbled upon this wonderful machinima by Zimtower.

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.