First in flight

Taking a cue from the godzillions of fan films it's spawned, Blizzard released a video of the new flying mount the Netherdrake, set to debut in the upcoming expansion to the online megahit World of Warcraft. Utter machinima mayhem (machinima is a term for animation created from manipulated in-game footage), this movie is mostly silly jokes with a hint of gameplay thrown in to keep it relevant. Still, it depicts some crazy aerial acrobatics that make us that much more eager to get our hands on one of these sky-dominating dragonkin (fancy World of Warcraft-speak for dragons and their ilk... used here for effect though we know the Netherdrakes may not be true dragonkin - happy nerds?).

World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade is scheduled to become available this holiday season, and from what we've seen, it's rapidly nearing completion. Please forgive the underlying giddiness of this article... the prospect of flying one of these evil sky-beasts has had us floating around the office on tip-toe all morning.

August 30, 2006