Fan Videos

One thing I kind of miss about WoW is the community.

Wait, that kind of came out wrong.

One thing I really like about playing SWTOR now is that since the game is still relatively new, the community is smaller, more tight-knit and generally more enthusiastic about the game, at least from what I've seen. However, the downside to this is that people haven't had a chance to accumulate as much knowledge about the game yet (only today a guildie linked me to a forum thread from the beginning of March where someone was only just figuring out the maths behind how threat works in The Old Republic), or to get emotionally invested and creatively inspired by it. If you search YouTube for SWTOR videos (and judging by the myriad of related search suggestions I got, I'm not the only one doing that), the results are fairly bleak. Oh, there are plenty of videos there, but a huge amount of them are simply PvP videos or guides. Nothing wrong with those, but unless you're a hardcore PvPer these aren't really particularly entertaining. Comparatively, searching for WoW videos brings up a ton of beautiful machinimas, stories and songs, which are largely fun to watch even if you don't play the game (anymore).

Maybe this isn't a big deal for some people, but from my point of view this kind of sharing of creative works related to the game does a lot to help build community as well as serve as free advertising for the game. I remember when I had just started playing WoW back in 2006, I soon found myself digging through dozens of fan videos of the game, and while they weren't nearly as good as some of the stuff people come up with today, in terms of production quality at least, they were still greatly entertaining to me at the time and reinforced my feelings that I had chosen to play a game that was both fun to play and populated by fun people. Naked night elves dancing to YMCA in Ironforge? Hilarious!

So as I said, my search for similar SWTOR videos wasn't very successful, but I still wanted to share a couple of nice ones that I did find. These were basically my top three:

1. 12 Days of Christmas, WoW/SWTOR edition: This is a very professionally done machinima showing an undead rogue from WoW and a Sith assassin from SWTOR having a sing-off (sort of) in which they slag off each other's game in good-natured and very humorous manner. It's just a shame that the Sith remains anonymous and thus we can't search for more videos of him.

2. Goodbye Azeroth (I'm Gonna Be A Sith Lord): Not a machinima, but an original song about SWTOR. While I obviously can't relate to the desire to be a Sith Lord, I have to give mad props to a woman who writes and performs her own songs and does so well.

3. Bounty Hunter Blues: Gearing Up: This is a very simple video featuring some gameplay footage with a bit of voice-over and is only two minutes long, but the creator's self-deprecating humour made me laugh. Not to mention that if you've gone through the PvP gear-up process yourself, you're bound to be able to relate to a lot of it.

If anyone knows of any other well-made and entertaining SWTOR fan videos I'd be happy to hear about them!