WoW gameplay video

[DeeBye]

Using FRAPS, I've been recording some WoW gameplay video. I used VirtualDub to compress the video into something that I can share with you.

This video shows a trip I made from just outside of Sen'jin Village (1) heading north to Razor Hill (2) in the land called Durotar, which contains the main Horde city Ogrimmar (which is still further north from Razor Hill).


Durotar is just a small portion of the continent of Kalimdor. You can see it highlighted on the eastern shore here.


Kalimdor is just one of two main continents in World of Warcraft.


The trip took roughly 2 minutes, and you can see how very short of a distance I travelled relative to the size of the entire world. World of Warcraft is huge.

The video is encoded using the freeware and open source codec XviD. You'll need to make sure you have that codec installed before viewing it. It's 400 x 300, and runs at 15 FPS. I had to lower the quality quite a bit to keep the filesize down. The original uncompressed video is 255 MB (!). It looks a little jerky at some points, but that's mostly due to the "overhead" required by recording gameplay video with FRAPS.

This is my first attempt at video editting, so please bear with me if I screwed something up :)

(link disabled, sorry)

The video shows it somewhat, but the texture used on the road really looks great. It definitely has that "dried riverbed" look to it.

If my bandwidth is hit too hard with this, I may yank the file.

FUN FACT: At about the 1/3 mark, you can see a friendly fellow wave at me as I pass him by :)

[swirly]

Cool video, thanks for it. I do find myself wishing it had audio as well though. Audio would give a better feel for the atmosphere of the game. Looking at the FRAPS webpage I see that it meantions being able to capture both video and audio, but that it doesn't seem to be able to in the free versions. So that means either capturing the audio seperately from the video and merging the two, or using different software to do it all at once. I'm not entirely sure about all of the steps for either of those options though so I guess just video will have to do.

Anyway, cool stuff. Thanks again. : )

[FoxBat]

  So that means either capturing the audio seperately from the video and merging the two, or using different software to do it all at once.

Handling that syncing stuff is a pain. The sound really is nothing phenomenal anyway. -_-

[DeeBye]

I intentionally left out the audio because I figured it would just add more to the filesize and like FoxBat says, it's nothing special. Really, the only time that the sound is really good is when you enter a major city. They all have kind of a "theme song". The battle scenes have the obligatory "whack", "clink", "grunt" sounds that we've all heard a thousand times over.

The eerie ghostly sounds when you are a spirit after dying are also pretty cool. I'll try to remember capturing some video and audio of that sometime.

[swirly]

Thanks. Since I'm not in the beta I have no way of knowing such things. : )

[TPJ]

Did Blizzard finally OK the posting of in-game movies?

[me_irate]

I'm not really sure if it is allowed or not.

Here is a thread regarding movies on another board, and if they are allowed or not to post them. Blizzard had said movies were not allowed in the past, but in that thread people were wondering if the rule had been lifted or not as the rule is no longer posted in the forums. There was a long thread on it, and I'm almost certain blizzard would have read it. You would think they would have posted in the thread to clarify.

[TPJ]

Yeah, the 'do not post movies' thread that was stickied on the official beta boards has now been removed - but no post saying that they're now OK to post went up.

Grab a crayon and color me confused.

[--Pete]

Hi,

Well, the discussion here is pretty clear.

There was a restriction (or so they say, I never saw it). It's gone.

If nothing else, it's pretty stupid of Blizzard to think that everyone will visit their fora, much less read all the crap posted there. If they want to make a rule, then the ToS that you have to agree to each time you crank WoW up is the place where it should be. Not some forum that a user might or might not visit (and, having visited it, might or might not have the stomach to put up with the inanity). And if there is any restriction on videos in the ToS, I could not find it.

--Pete

[--Pete]

Hi,

Since I posted, Kat has replied to the thread I linked to above. Her post simply asked us not to make or release movies.

So, might be good manners to comply.

--Pete

[DeeBye]

Hi,

Since I posted, Kat has replied to the thread I linked to above.  Her post simply asked us not to make or release movies.

So, might be good manners to comply.

--Pete

Thanks for the heads up, Pete. Link editted out.

[Griselda]

Thanks for editing the link, DeeBye, so the Lounge doesn't get in trouble! :ph34r:

-Griselda

[DeeBye]

Thanks for editing the link, DeeBye, so the Lounge doesn't get in trouble!  :ph34r:

-Griselda

Believe me, the LAST thing I want to do is get the Lounge in trouble for something I did. I yanked the URL as soon as I read Pete's update.

I thought I waited a reasonable amount of time after the original "Do not post gameplay videos!" thread disappeared before I started this thread here. I assumed, like Pete did, that there was no longer anything specifically forbidding me from posting videos.

Oh well, at least I learned a little bit about video compression and I got to post a few WoW map screenshots. I was hoping that this would be a grandiose thread containg oodles and oodles of amazing awesome WoW gameplay video, but I guess not :(

[--Pete]

Hi,

It's a shame that they have that anti-video policy. I guess they have a reason, but I don't know what it is. Given that they have that policy, they should make it clear, instead of depending on a mods statement in the middle of a thread that's not even pinned.

Ah, well, better luck next time and thanks for the effort (and the video -- shh!) ;)

--Pete

[DeeBye]

Hi,

It's a shame that they have that anti-video policy.  I guess they have a reason, but I don't know what it is.  Given that they have that policy, they should make it clear, instead of depending on a mods statement in the middle of a thread that's not even pinned.


--Pete

Yeah, I'm a bit dumbfounded as to the reasoning behind the policy. I can't imagine why they do not want gameplay videos posted. They allow screenshots, and video is nothing more than a bunch of screenshots sequenced together.

I guess maybe they don't want compressed video of WoW circulating around. They might not want low-quality video viewed by prospective buyers, as it might give them the wrong impression about how WoW looks.

Ah, well, better luck next time and thanks for the effort (and the video -- shh!) ;)

If you saved any of that video, I urge you to delete it. Then you must do a complete system reformat, and run a giant magnet over your harddrives. After that, extract your drives and place them carefully in a tree shredder.

[--Pete]

Hi,

If you saved any of that video, I urge you to delete it. Then you must do a complete system reformat, and run a giant magnet over your harddrives. After that, extract your drives and place them carefully in a tree shredder.

Already done, and the case has been remelted and is now the body of a KIA :)

I'm logging on using that latest neural to cable connection. Works great, but those reboots hurt like hell.

--Pete

[NuurAbSaal]

Pete wrote:

I'm logging on using that latest neural to cable connection. Works great, but those reboots hurt like hell.

That's really a common problem. You should apply a hefty amount of peanut butter to the socket in your skull (I hope you didn't go for the other lower socket option, it gives the phrase "plug and play" a whole different meaning :blink: ). After peanut-buttering the socket, ingest the following: Two mexican chilis (whole), a bottle of olive oil (yes, the bottle with the oil in it) and a nice cup of coffee. Now position yourself on an anthill and plug in the cable. If you completed the aforementioned steps appropriately, you should have other things to worry about than reboot pain :)


I am sorry for posting so much crap here, but I'm having withdrawal symptoms (amazing, since I never played WoW). I hope this was good for a smile.

Greetings

Nuur

[Walkiry]

Yeah, I'm a bit dumbfounded as to the reasoning behind the policy.  I can't imagine why they do not want gameplay videos posted.  They allow screenshots, and video is nothing more than a bunch of screenshots sequenced together.

Well, at 15 FPS, 2 minutes, that mounts to 750 screenshots. If we asume some 20 Kb (ok for that size in JPEG format) each, we're talking 15 Mb worth of screenshots. And there isn't a lack of software that can display images one after another with little to no delay, I think I could put together a perl/Tk script for that.

Then again, it's probably hardly worth it if it coul get the LL in trouble ;)

As for the neural interface, I have several gadgets that use it. I've found that nothing makes the pain go away faster than three shots of Grappa. Then again, this method has the inconvenience of randomly scrambling the data each now and then.

[DeeBye]

Well, at 15 FPS, 2 minutes, that mounts to 750 screenshots. If we asume some 20 Kb (ok for that size in JPEG format) each, we're talking 15 Mb worth of screenshots. And there isn't a lack of software that can display images one after another with little to no delay, I think I could put together a perl/Tk script for that.

Heck, one could also just make a really large animated GIF.

This was actually on my "to-do" list. I wanted to look into methods of converting .AVI files into animated GIFs so I could show some of the characters getting down with their bad selves and getting jiggy with it. Some of the dances are hilarious, and would look great as animated GIFs.

Now I'm not so sure that I should even do that.