Tonight's episode of South Park featuring World of Warcraft had its moments. There were some great jokes, Cartman made for a hilarious "leader" to the bunch, and the whole thing took some great shots at the gaming community. The machinema was great, too. The way they used whatever toolkit Blizzard game them was well done.

With that out of the way... why did they make this episode?

It was a commercial for the game. That's what I got out of it. I love World of Warcraft. I love South Park. I feel Parker & Stone sold out and made a 20-minute commercial for the game and threw in a little ribbing of the community in order to say "hey, it's not like we told people to rush out and buy it right away! We made FUN of it!" From a team that's done some brilliant social satire, I expected more. They could have done the episode without Blizzard's endorsement (and frequent logos) by alterring the name slightly and creating their own "ingame" sequences.

I could have done with more satire and less commercial.

There was more than a little ribbing of the community.

There could always be more.

So far the funniest part of the episode has been logging onto the Blizzard forums and seeing things like, "WTF?! Mocking Blow doesn't work in PvP! There's no aggro!! Get it right, South Park!!!"

That's priceless.

I had to laugh at myself while watching the episode. When Cartman said that, my first thought was "Mocking Blow does nothing in PvP," and then I laughed at myself for:

A) knowing that
B) thinking that

I stopped short at actually saying it out loud to my wife, realizing that I was exactly the sort the show was making fun of. :)

Now, people posting that on the forums is the height of irony, of course...which I am now guilty of!

-Bolty

I didn't catch myself and pointed out to my wife that one of the spells they said had an 8 second cast time was really an instant.

She is STILL laughing at me.

Maybe as a birthday present, she'll forget you ever said anything!

I already got my presents - and that wasn't one of them.

I'm not a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure they could use whatever they want (and not have to change the name) due to their right to satire. They wouldn't have gotten whatever toolkit they have... but they are professional animators, I'm sure they could make do.

Pimply fattys setting alarms to wake up and grind boars, so involved in the game they crap on their own mothers... I'm not sure how much more you need. It could have been more clever.

I did the same.

Another point of irony, half our raid wiping on Heigan because they were too focused on watching instead of dancing, right at the point when the blizzard execs are talking about how all the characters are going to die.

If it was clever, it wouldn't have been South Park.

I disagree. They've had some phenomenal satire and the reason I was disappointed was that I've come to expect much better. It just wasn't up to par with other works.

I liked it!

Absolutely hilarious! I usually don't watch South Park (here in Germany), but this was great

Does anyone know how, or from which website, I can store that online video clip on my harddrive (permanent) ?

I'm sure that the files shouldn't be too hard to find if you're looking for them

Are you allowed to link to copyrighted material, Arethor? Not wagging any fingers, just curious..

I saw the episode last night even though I
i. Have never played WoW
ii. Haven't watched South Park since season 2.

I thought it was great fun. What I liked most was the representation of the big fat nerd drinking energy drinks to stay awake long enough to harass people online. I recognised the prototypical non-emotive expressiveness of the nerd (and also the 4 boys) when heavily engrossed in the game.

I also appreciated the nuances in tone and voice in the kids for the final scene when they were really into the game. For anyone who's played a game which requires lots of repetition (Meph-runs in D2, xp-runs in Wow(?)), one becomes very jaded to the whole process. It's supposed to be a game; it's supposed to be fun, yet the monotonous tone of Cartman made it sound like playing the game was a bland, joyless chore. It's something I recognise in some parts of the gaming community, and I'm impressed that Matt and Trey have picked up on it... Perhaps they're gamers themselves?

edit for spelling: "Wagging any figures"? Sounds slightly pornographic...