How much money was put into this again? I think everyone pretty muched touched on what is wrong with the documentary. If you are going to do something like this at least try to be more professional about it. You want to cater to a wide audience but instead you isolated the majority. Which is the worst possible direction to go when making any type of film.
Rennadrel, I do understand that in some raiding guilds this is acceptable within that group which of course if fine, but this was a documentary aimed at a wide audience. Hopefully any future films made will take into consideration that WOW is played by a wide variety of people, and clean it up some.
This looks like a pretty shoestring production. Impressive quality all things considered.Originally Posted by Zerothegreat
A lot of the opinions being expressed here, are complaining about explaining why "lich king was hard", why "raiding is hard", but think about it OUTSIDE of a raider. Someone who doesn't know raiding, isn't going to understand "DPS requirements" or "not spreading defile", it is completely off the way of someone who doesn't raid, especially someone who doesn't play wow. This movie was meant as a way to try to bridge the gap between non-gamers and gamers, and help they better understanding raiding. The complaints being displayed here would simply further discourage non-gamers from understanding what gamers do. I think if anything, and I've expressed this to Kevin before in prior conversations, is that they should've tried to show more about the personal lives of the raiders themselves, to show that they aren't just nerds who sit in a basement, and that they do have lives, do have families, friends, jobs, etc. Lore is a prime example of someone who has a family, a wife, a dog, does things outside of wow, is an all around nice guy, and is not socially awkward when presented outside of his gaming persona (he goes to launch events, blizzcon, etc).
Complaining about the livestream quality is kind of silly, livestream has bandwidth caps. Deal with it, want to see it in higher def? watch it now on the HD replay that's available for 72 hours.
Would picking "good looking gamers" really have helped with the documentary? I don't think anyone looked like a serial killer, and the average person is not going to look like fucking fabio here. I think being rude and attacking people who were willing to be a part of this documentary and put themselves out for criticism at such a shallow reason is kind of immature. Sorry, I'll make sure to suggest to KMJ next time he does a documentary to find a guild that consists of 10+ people who happen to raid together, who all rank 8+ on the hotness scale.
Stereotypes suck sure, but I don't think it's necessarily fair to base 10 peoples scenario and say this reinforces everyone's fears.
I wonder if they took into consideration that there are a lot of players that are under the age of 18. If their parents saw this how do you think they would feel about their kids raiding in WoW with people that talk like that?
As far as I can tell they bleeped everything, and 2, if you're a parent of a kid under 18, and you're letting him play WoW with other people, and you don't monitor him/her enough to know what he/she is hearing, you're being a terrible parent. If nothing else, this makes it more apparent to kids who may be lying to their parents.
My point was not to criticize the way people looked in this film, however the way they behaved was a whole different ball of wax. I understand the frame rate thing, and that was something that could not be helped. I suppose I should have gotten a clue when the film starts out with a guy going to the bathroom, wow I really want to see that. It would not have mattered to me if they looked like movie stars, it still would not have changed the filthy and crude language used in this film. Crude vulgar language, condescending remarks about women gamers being either really nice or bitches, this is not the type of stuff I want to hear in a documentary that is supposed to represent the WOW gaming community as a whole. There is no way most of us would share this film with family and friends. Can you imagine pulling this movie out for dinner and saying this is what I love to do in my spare time. Right about the time you pass the second helping of mashed potatoes, one of guys screams S__k my F__king balls, and we are getting raped. I don't thing so. It really is ashame because most of the film footage was really pretty good. All the good looks the world would not have saved this film.
What might have saved it, would be to edit out all the filthy language, condescending remarks about women gamers, and racial references to the n word.
WOW. I just finished the documentary and all I can say is: people, you got to stop the hating. I think there is so much negative feedback to this movie simply because this is not what people expected it to be, what they personally wanted this documentary to be. You haters want this documentary to be about yourself, about your own personal experience in WOW, a perfectly pristine and nostalgia filled memory and experience.
You want this documentary to be able your experience because you think it should be able your experience, because you think that your life and your story would be more interesting to present. You can’t see anything that distinguishes you and the people interviewed. They are not amazing athletes, super rich or super smart. They are just normal (yes, normal) people who play the game like we all do.
You have lost the ability to objectively assess the film, to appreciate it for what it is and not what you want it to be. It is a decent documentary about people, about their motivations in and out of game and about the enjoyment and sacrifices that they have encountered. Sure, the language on vent was a bit crude, but we all know that this is nothing non-common. It could have asked more out-of-the-box questions that are more challenging to answer. But at the end of the day, it is still a good documentary not about raiding, or ‘How to Kill Lich King Hard Mode’, or OMFG it’s only a 10 MAN RAID!!!?!>, it is not about you, it is about them. The people interviewed and their honest in-game experience.
Ok, a few general things:
1) Nasty Gamers: WoW players are a subset of gamers, gamers are a subset of people, people can be unpleasant. Deal with this.
Misogyny, homophobia and racism are rife within our various societies (not just the USA), and the distance/relative anonymity of the internet can (not necessarily "does", but merely "can") exacerbate the worst elements of people's behaviour. Take one example: Personally, I think Lore is aware his "girls in WoW" comment was more than a little over the mark. The idea is not to dogpile the guy for screwing up, we ALL screw up, the idea is that he recognises it (his comments afterwards make me suspect he does), but for him to go "Oh, ok, not cool. Note to self, don't do it again. Learn.". Which I think he did.
Anyway, Penny Arcade nailed this aspect of the web in this cartoon: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/3/19/
Remember this is a documentary, not an advert. A documentary shouldn't cover this stuff up. It is an unfortunate reality of our community that homosexual gamers or female gamers (for example) experience an enormous amount of unpleasant behaviour targeted at them. I've only been raiding on a quiet little EU RP server for ~6 months and the stuff *I've* overheard from otherwise intelligent, excellent gamers has amazed me. And I'm not a sensitive little flower!
Read around the internet a bit and you'll find a tonne of articles on why female/homosexual/racially diverse gamers frequently refuse to identify themselves or give too many personal details out. Even basic details like "I am a woman". Read about why compulsory Real ID was such a big deal. Hint: it wasn't because douchebags would be linked to their douchebaggery. Even though as I said above, anonymity helps but it's not the only criterion. Look at the pages of Facebook and you'll see people acting like utter morons under their own names. Pretending this stuff doesn't exist will not make it go away.
If parents see this documentary and think "Oh hell no, my kid is not playing that", then that is their prerogative. That's not the choice I'll make for my 2 year old son when he gets to gaming age. Hopefully when the ankle biter makes it to that age, if he's interested in that sort of thing, he'll be educated enough to cope (and combat) the less savoury elements of the game. Other people's mileage may vary. Pretending the gaming world is all ponies and rainbows is to prevent parents from having accurate information, and thus to reduce their ability to make an informed choice. That's a bad thing.
2) Addiction: It happens. With anything. Deal with it. I thought the documentary dealt with it in a pretty balanced way. Again, as with unpleasant gamers, this is a facet of what we do. Granted it gets exaggerated because of pearl clutching media concerns with any novelty (the waltz was deemed a harmful practice when it was first introduced to British society for example!), but the counter to this hysteria is not to pretend it isn't an issue for some minority of gamers. Again, informed choices require accurate and balanced information. If I were to advance any criticism it would be that no data was presented on this topic, but then perhaps that level of technicality was beyond the scope of the documentary.
3) Appearances: Really? Seriously? These people look like regular folks. They weren't any more/less well appointed than the academics talking about the game (i.e. non-basement dwelling people with real jobs of high status/attainment). I always wonder what the people commenting on the looks of others look like themselves. I'm guessing "not so hot" is the answer.
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If all viewers take from the documentary is "nasty gamers exist", "people be ugly", "{faint} NORTY WERDZ!" and "ZOMG they be talking about addiction AGAIN!" then I despair at the ability of people to watch something for even vague comprehension. The overwhelming message of the piece was that gaming in this way is simply yet another instance of human cooperative activity. Rife with the problems that that brings (like the highlighted unpleasantness and pitfalls) but also replete with value.
If you use this documentary to convince family members of the value of raiding and they focus on a naughty word (for example) then they are not focussing on the positive, or even the whole, picture. Look at the comments made about transferable/soft skills like organisation or rapid acquisition of technical data and its subsequent application in a "stressful" scenario for example. These are genuine benefits of this type of cooperative activity.
I play rugby a reasonable amount, and used to play a lot more (I'm now old and injured!). I could talk about "gym addictions" or substance abuse or misogyny, homophobia and racism in rugby. I could tell you about exactly the same negatives that occurred in rugby teams that were highlighted in this documentary and add to that a plethora of physical injuries. Don't even get me started on the appearances of some of these guys! I could also highlight the positives too. Any activity is going have similar concerns and benefits.
What I liked about "The Raid" was that it didn't shy away from both the good or bad. Could it have highlighted a huge number of other things? Sure. But to an outsider this documentary would be a good basic, start point. It deals with some of the media highlighted concerns that people who don't game might be vaguely aware of as occurring within gaming and it strongly conveys WHY people who do this type of gaming do it. If it's not my perfect all time wonder documentary then that's probably because I'm a fussy old git. It is a very good place to start people off though. Kudos!
It has become abundantly clear to me over the past couple of days that World of Warcraft players do not commonly watch documentaries, and thus are rather unfamiliar with what documentaries are.
"The Raid" is was not created to be an hour-long World of Warcraft advertisement. It was not created to suddenly convince the world that raiding is the best thing ever and you should all start doing it right now. It wasn't even created to serve as a tool to show your wife/boyfriend/parents/boss/whoever and go "See? It's completely normal!" (although in a lot of cases it can be used that way). It was created for one audience: those who do not raid and do not understand why other people raid, but are interested to learn more. That's what documentaries are.
Personally I thought the documentary was well done. There are absolutely things I would have done differently with it if I had been the one creating it, but overall I thought it served its purpose as an informational look into the world of raiding. I did want to address a few points that have been made though, particularly the ones that have been directed at me or Months Behind and not the actual creators of the film.
"Where did they dig up these people? Real raiders aren't like that." First of all, hi, welcome to TankSpot. I'm Lore. I'm responsible for most of the content that hits the front page. I'm really not one to talk myself up too much, but throwing that kind of question out while you're on this site is kind of ridiculous. As to the rest of the group - most of us that were featured in the documentary have been playing -- and raiding -- together since World of Warcraft was released. Myself, Malsynth, Urg, and Greyhammer in particular have all been on Eredar since the days of Classic and Molten Core.
It's very true that we're not every raiding guild. I do feel that the documentary was a little unclear about when it was talking about MB's mannerisms versus the mannerisms of the average raider. That said, you're never going to find a pre-existing, well-established raiding guild that accurately depicts every single raiding guild. Asking for such a thing is simply naive. And there are several very obvious reasons why trying to put together your own hand-picked group of "100% REAL RAIDERS" would just not work for such a project.
By the way, we're all employed or currently attending school (or both), and the only college dropout featured in the documentary is me.
Regarding the bit I said about women gamers - I wasn't terribly happy that that line went into the film, particularly in the manner it was presented. It was absolutely a dumb thing for me to say, but here's a little context:
- When I was being interviewed, the idea was still that this was going to be a short film to pitch the idea for the actual full-length film. We didn't know yet that this was going to BE the full-length film. Furthermore, Kevin is a good friend of mine that I've known for a while. So, I was being a bit more candid and a bit less careful with my phrasing than I would have been had I known that it was going to end up sprayed all over the internet.
- Remember, I was being interviewed. I was responding to a question, not simply going off on a rant about women, lol. I don't remember how the question was phrased exactly, but it was something along the lines of "Why do you think there tends to be drama surrounding women gamers?" Not exactly an easy question to answer if you're trying not to piss anyone off. I answered it as best I could based on my experiences, having dealt with quite a bit of "girl drama" during my years as a gamer and raider. None of that context really comes across in the film, it just looks like "We're talking about girls now. Here's what Lore has to say about girls!" which is why I wasn't particularly pleased to see that line in there.
- If you get past my poor phrasing and usage of the "b-word", and look at what I actually said, I honestly don't feel there was anything offensive in my meaning. I was simply stating that, in the online world, you don't come across many women (honestly, not many men either) who are just "kind of bad sometimes but also kind of good sometimes" or "kind of nice sometimes but also kind of mean sometimes." The scales of good player to bad player and nice person to mean person tend to tip heavily in one direction a lot more than they hover around the middle. That's really all I said, I just threw a dumb word in there that made the whole thing sound super harsh and is difficult for people to look past.
- Finally, it was over a year ago that I was interviewed. I actually don't remember offhand exactly when it was but I wouldn't be surprised if it was close to 2 (it's been a long while since my hair was that short). Basically, we learn and grow every day, and there have been quite a few days since that was taken. If I was put in that position again, I would answer differently (even if it was just some better phrasing).
Yeah Lore, I got that even if I screwed up getting it across. Actually I apologise for my own crappy phrasing above. I reckon you dealt with it pretty well though.
You need to play outside your little bubble. I would refuse to be in a guild that did not regularly use that kind of language. It is common place. As they said, you can say whatever you want on vent because no one outside that room of 25 people will ever hear you. Also, pretty sure the suck my balls comment was directed at the boss that they kept wiping too not at each other. How many times are you sitting at work wanting to leave and have one last thing to do and it is taking forever and you just want to scream "*** DAMMIT THIS ***** SUCKS I WANT TO LEAVE", I would wager to bet more than you are letting on from your little cursing rant.
I agree with Darksend in the sense that - there are plenty of people that behave this way - we all know it. Who you choose to associate with is your choice, but the documentary shouldn't be trying to paint everything as roses because that isn't the way things are.
I would also like to add my 2 cents in regards to Lore's comment. Firstly, I'm a girl (check the name for pete's sake) and secondly he is absoLUTEly right. All the other girls I've played with fall into those two overarching categories (B**** and nice) and occasionally the B will go on vacation to the nice camp and vice versa, but that's it right there. And within those categories there are varying levels of skill - although generally speaking the B's are usually pretty good at the game (it would just be weird to find a B who also completely sucks). Which isn't to say that nice girls **can't** also be good at the game, it just happens to be a rarer combination.
This is not meant to be a Hollywood production. It is a documentary, which is defined as "A movie or a television or radio program that provides a factual record or report". It is not meant to entertain or "cater to a wide audience" - it is meant to show the truth and imo, it hit the nail on the head for many in the community. Maybe it didn't cover everything or every type of raiding guild - but it wasn't meant to do that. I think it accomplishes what it set out to do.
I think this could have been a bit more in favour of World of Warcraft as an activity, I did feel it was a bit biased towards being somewhat anti-WoW, It would have been good to have more than just the one clip of Ciderhelm (although I can't remember if I fell asleep and missed something) because him explaining what raiding means, rewards and gives benefits to the players was what needed a little more emphasising. I also knew from the editing that context had been lost on some of the phrases said.
I felt the format was of good quality and overall there had been a lot of work put into the quality of the product, I had not watched the blizzcon trailer so was expecting something a bit more different (like seeing more of people playing a bit more, discussing tactics slipped into the edit).
I also understand that there is a whole lot of knowledge and jargon that simply couldn't be explained in the duration in a fashion that the viewer could take in. It was a monumental feat to be able to produce something of this quality and professionalism with next to no experience and pretty much people offering up services.
Now for the people that dislike this so intensely, I think you have some valid points but I also think it is a bit over-ambitious to try to promote raiding in a large manner as being a perfect activity, it is not. Especially when the game has been very hard I remember how much time I sank into WoW every day just to maintain being able to raid in Sunwell. Sure I gained a lot from those experiences but the time investment and commitment and risk (of almost messing up my degree) was huge. I think this documentary covered raiding in a fair manner, despite my criticisms.
Thank you for producing the first documentary on Dungeon Raiding I’m sure the collection of work will not go unnoticed and may be it will bring gaming culture to be eventually recognised in a more positive light. Well done and I wish you and all those involved with 'The Raid' all the best.
I think that I will play in my sand box and you can stay in your little sand box. Obviously many of us are never going to agree on whether the film showed gamers in a flattering light or not. My experiences with the game are apparently very different from yours. I did not like the film, and no amount of ranting about its merits will change my mind. Going point for point about the vulgar language in the film is pointless, some people think it is common place and others do not. At the very least the film should have had a mature rating.
Comment about the movie, fine. Discuss fine.
Start arguing and namecalling and attacking each other, and moderation will be put in play.
Play nice.
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I enjoyed it, and would love to see a longer "The Raid 2"
Is that "Revenge of The Raid" where the raid comes back meaner and nastier and one of our heroes, a main character, surprisingly dies to maintain dramatic tension? ;-)
So I am still watching it for the first time and honestly the first 30 minutes where crazy boring and I think that whole starting point should have been intertwined somehow into the movie or put at the end but the meat of the film its self really does show was raiding is about in its deeper meanings and not just going home to play a game in a dark corner. To bad the exposure of this film is going to be very limited just like almost all documentary.
Seriously I really need to download this film or buy it so I can send it off my family so they can stfu and stop questioning my tue/thurs/sun nights
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