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Most black dragons in this game breathe fire. Searinox is just special.
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Feb 6, 2018 20:14
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Poil posted:Well it doesn't exactly take amazing creativity to come up with that name for a dark mountain. Could be worse, we could be dealing with the Dragonmaw Clan. Note: there are no dragons on Draenor.
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Feb 6, 2018 20:32
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Cythereal posted:Could be worse, we could be dealing with the Dragonmaw Clan. Note: there are no dragons on Draenor. Of course, the 
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Feb 6, 2018 20:38
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I wasn't a fan of Azur's LP, but I could at least understand why he inserted fanfic characters - Warcraft 1 & 2 didn't really have anything like that, and you sorta had to imagine / personalize your own army leader. What's the point of doing this in a game that has actual characters in every stage?
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Feb 6, 2018 20:47
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Xander77 posted:I wasn't a fan of Azur's LP, but I could at least understand why he inserted fanfic characters - Warcraft 1 & 2 didn't really have anything like that, and you sorta had to imagine / personalize your own army leader. What's the point of doing this in a game that has actual characters in every stage? It's fun for him and provides a voice for his actions as random-sky-hand-of-power?
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Feb 6, 2018 21:41
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It also might entertain his readers. But yeah Xander, I agree original characters may not be as necessary to LP Warcraft 3. Maybe just extra original dialogue about the game from existing characters a la Jerusalem’s GTA-SA or 9gearCrow’s WKC LPs (my other 2 top screenshot LPs) would be enough. The way it’s done here in this LP is fine also.
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Feb 6, 2018 22:10
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Xander77 posted:I wasn't a fan of Azur's LP, but I could at least understand why he inserted fanfic characters - Warcraft 1 & 2 didn't really have anything like that, and you sorta had to imagine / personalize your own army leader. What's the point of doing this in a game that has actual characters in every stage? Uhh... Why does it matter? He said this is a narrative LP, those ain't against any rules.
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Feb 6, 2018 22:21
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SirSamVimes posted:Most black dragons in this game breathe fire. Searinox is just special. It's really baffling because he gives you a fire orb and his name is SEAR-inox... Xander77 posted:I wasn't a fan of Azur's LP, but I could at least understand why he inserted fanfic characters - Warcraft 1 & 2 didn't really have anything like that, and you sorta had to imagine / personalize your own army leader. What's the point of doing this in a game that has actual characters in every stage? Uh, I thought you played WoW. You should know who Thassarian is.
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Feb 6, 2018 22:39
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Fun fact: AI Paladins popping Divine Shield immediately is actually a change to their behavior that happened at some point during the patch cycle of Warcraft 3. In a completely unpatched game, AI Paladins will actually wait until they're almost dead to pop their Divine Shield. You can sort of see the mark of this in the cutscene where Uther faces the Blademaster; as soon as the Blademaster Image starts to attack, AI Uther pops his shield, which looks a little awkward in a cutscene. That's because he's not supposed to do so.
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Feb 6, 2018 23:22
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Like I said in the OP, the characters I'm using are actually characters that exist in universe. None of them are made up by me. FoolyCharged posted:It's fun for him and provides a voice for his actions as random-sky-hand-of-power? Long story short, basically this. People who know the game's story also know why I picked Thassarian specifically.
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Feb 7, 2018 00:35
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BlazetheInferno posted:Fun fact: AI Paladins popping Divine Shield immediately is actually a change to their behavior that happened at some point during the patch cycle of Warcraft 3. My initial read of that is that it's more of a nerf to them than anything else, since a fully-leveled Paladin can be immune for 45 seconds... Every minute.
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Feb 7, 2018 06:29
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Cuntellectual posted:
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Feb 7, 2018 07:10
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Regalingualius posted:My initial read of that is that it's more of a nerf to them than anything else, since a fully-leveled Paladin can be immune for 45 seconds... Every minute. Well, depends on whether you want them getting attacked, or do you want enemies attacking OTHER stuff that the Paladin can heal? Cause they started off only using it in emergencies, then got changed to use it at every opportunity. If we're speaking of the Paladin's personal survivability, it was a big buff to AI Paladins. And it certainly makes a certain future level more difficult in the process.
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Feb 7, 2018 12:35
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Speaking of nerfing... I read somewhere that they changed the rules for buildings at some point. Apparently, it was possible to extend a line of towers from your base to the enemy base, and then use them to pound them without risking any of your own units.
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Feb 7, 2018 16:09
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painedforever posted:Speaking of nerfing... I read somewhere that they changed the rules for buildings at some point. Apparently, it was possible to extend a line of towers from your base to the enemy base, and then use them to pound them without risking any of your own units. Ah yes, the C&C sandbag snake school of RTS.
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Feb 7, 2018 16:23
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painedforever posted:Speaking of nerfing... I read somewhere that they changed the rules for buildings at some point. Apparently, it was possible to extend a line of towers from your base to the enemy base, and then use them to pound them without risking any of your own units. I mean you can still do that. Humans in particular with their fast building ability are good at walking a peasant group over and walking in an enemy base with towers. No need to make a line of them to get there though and its defeated by a single siege unit.
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Feb 7, 2018 16:39
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THE BAR posted:Ah yes, the C&C sandbag snake school of RTS. I have no idea what that means. I'm assuming that's what it was called? It's basically another "King's Gambit" of RTS, like Zerg Rush, or Alpha Strike, something that works a couple of times, but then later only works on the computer (when it's not cheating) or inexperienced players. Anyway, it was called "offensive towering". Apparently they fixed something in Frozen Throne that made it not be as effective? Made towers too expensive, or made them too fragile?
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Feb 7, 2018 17:40
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I remember a nice video showing offensive towering against night elves in PVP, but I can't find it. I did find this though, and it's great. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2glIkzuCT4
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Feb 7, 2018 18:40
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painedforever posted:I have no idea what that means. I'm assuming that's what it was called? It's basically another "King's Gambit" of RTS, like Zerg Rush, or Alpha Strike, something that works a couple of times, but then later only works on the computer (when it's not cheating) or inexperienced players. No, he's not referring to anything that's done in any warcraft game: in the original command and conquer the AI had no idea how to attack sandbags, so a cheap strategy was to build a wall of them over to the AI's base and block them in.
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Feb 7, 2018 18:45
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SirSamVimes posted:Most black dragons in this game breathe fire. Searinox is just special. Something he ate......probably gnomes or something.
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Feb 7, 2018 19:43
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NewMars posted:No, he's not referring to anything that's done in any warcraft game: in the original command and conquer the AI had no idea how to attack sandbags, so a cheap strategy was to build a wall of them over to the AI's base and block them in. Also in the original C&C you could build other buildings in proximity to sandbags, which Westwood removed for Red Alert. So you could cheaply wall the AI in and then tower their base without them being able to do anything about it.
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Feb 7, 2018 19:45
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Towers were still good in TFT https://highper.ch/aoh/index.php
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Feb 7, 2018 19:55
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NewMars posted:No, he's not referring to anything that's done in any warcraft game: in the original command and conquer the AI had no idea how to attack sandbags, so a cheap strategy was to build a wall of them over to the AI's base and block them in. Yup. Trizophenie posted:Also in the original C&C you could build other buildings in proximity to sandbags, which Westwood removed for Red Alert. So you could cheaply wall the AI in and then tower their base without them being able to do anything about it. Yeah. Also, the AI could only build in preset spots, so you could put a sandbag where their turret or building just were, completely stumping its rebuilding efforts.
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Feb 8, 2018 09:50
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darealkooky posted:Towers were still good in TFT https://highper.ch/aoh/index.php Clan TOWA are heroes.
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Feb 9, 2018 21:20
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darealkooky posted:Towers were still good in TFT https://highper.ch/aoh/index.php A great read and fun memories. Some friends and I used to do a similar thing minus the towers at the start on the W3 map Sunrock Cove. It had 3 islands with gold mines and would each relocate to one ASAP.
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Feb 9, 2018 22:19
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Chapter VII - Jaina's Meeting & Ravages of the Plague Hello everyone and welcome back to Warcraft III. Today's update introduces the game's interlude chapters. These are just in-engine cutscenes that occasionally play in the liminal period between missions. Also after today, we're going to officially be a third of the way through the Human campaign! None of them are very long, but they more than make up for that with density.  I told you that Dalaran was right across the lake from the Capital City. 'Course I also neglected to mention that the lake is loving massive. It's wide enough that three different nations were able to claim territory along its borders. It doesn't line up well, but the valley where Arthas and Uther cleared the orc camp is just to the east. You can even see portions of it on the map here. And farther east from that valley is where Thrall set sail and left for Kalimdor. A lot of the early missions in this game are focused on this part of Lordaeron.   This building here is the Violet Citadel, the tallest spire in the magical city of Dalaran, and the building from which the Council of Six governs their nation and magical affairs in the wider world.  : You must be wiser than the king! The end is near!Is it any wonder nobody takes him seriously? Ultimately, yes he's right, but he sounds like a lunatic.  : Then I've wasted my time here.Antonidas is a member of Dalaran's Council of Six, and according to WoWpedia... "Leading archmage of the Kirin Tor and de facto ruler of Dalaran." So his refusal here is pretty final insofar as judgments go.  The Prophet turns into a crow and flies off.   : You can show yourself now Jaina. He's gone. : It's your inquisitive nature that I've come to rely on, child. That crazed fool's convinced that the world is about to end. Antonidas teleports himself and Jaina elsewhere.   : I've heard the rumors of plague spreading throughout the northlands. Do you truly believe that the plague is magical in nature?: It's a strong possibility. That's why I need you to travel there and investigate the matter.: The King has finally agreed to help investigate, and has sent his best man. You're to meet him near Brill.: Yes, master. I'll do my best.: I know you will child. Farewell. Well that was short and sweet. We're thrust immediately into the next cutscene. No points for guessing who this envoy of the king is.  Sometime between here and WoW, Brill gets retconned to be due north of the Capital City, on entirely the wrong side of Andorhol. There's no way to work out the differences between the two maps, and I guess it doesn't make a whole lot of difference in the end. What matters is that there's a village here, and we're gonna be looking around.   : Easy, Falric.: Jaina usually runs a little late.  : We must help her!: Stay your blade, Captain. She can take care of herself.  : Looks like you haven't lost your touch. It's good to see you again, Jaina.: You too, Arthas. It's been a while since a prince escorted me anywhere.: Yes, it has. Well, I guess we should get underway.  I tried to gif this, but even at 10 fps and as small and short as I could make it, it was still 5MB. : Our source believe the plague originated in the region north of here. We should check out the villages along the King's Road.  So you might notice something different in the top left. Allow me to zoom and enhance...  A portrait of our current hero has always been in the top left corner. You can click on it to quickly select them. But now we have a new portrait! Jaina is our second hero of the campaign, and is an Archmage hero archetype. She's only with us for a couple missions, though. So don't get too used to using her, even if she is pretty drat powerful.  This mission is another adventure style map, instead of a base building mission. Like other Blizzard RTS games, Warcraft 3 breaks up the standard RTS missions in all sorts of ways. So far we've had a pretty even split of base building and adventure maps, and while that will eventually change, there's even a lot of variety in the different base building maps. You can say a lot of things about Warcraft III, but never that it's boring or samey, and that's something that I really love about the game. Blizzard was really good at making RTS games until they stopped for some reason. Some combination of WoW, Hearthstone, and Overwatch all making Blizzard and Activision executives richer than the ancient kings if I had my guess. Also probably 'cause Starcraft II was generally poorly received by the esports community for whatever reasons.  Anyway, that's enough of that. Jaina, as you can see, starts at level 1, but will quickly catch up to Arthas. Like you saw in the cutscene, she can also summon a water elemental helper. Extra damage is always appreciated, if nothing else!  This map is incredibly linear, there's almost no side paths at all. But one of the few we can take is back the way Jaina came. She only killed one of the ogres attacking her in the intro, and the other ran away. Let's go take care of him.   There's actually three ogres laying in ambush back here. But between Arthas, Jaina, two footmen, the Captain, and her water elemental, we outnumber them two to one. Also one of them is very nearly dead. This doesn't go well for them at all.  So here's something neat. Starting in Warcraft II, and continuing through other Blizzard RTS titles, there's been neutral passive critters hanging around. They've been all over this LP in various screenshots. A deer here, a pig there, sheep all over the place... If you click on them, they make a cute noise and the portrait animates a bit. But what happens if you keep clicking on them? Like a bunch?  This is one of those "secrets" that GameFAQs likes to list on the Cheats & Secrets page for Warcraft III... that you can make critters explode by poking them. According to that page, you can only get this set of bracers by clicking the sheep until it blows the gently caress up. Even if that's not true, it's still fun to show off this once. Anyway, this is a Bracer of Agility. It improves Agility by a single point, which means that Jaina (who picked it up) is going to attack marginally faster now. Anyway, let's move on.   : Prince Arthas! There's something amiss at the bridge ahead!: We'll check it out. That's unfortunate.  : Milord, someone has destroyed the bridge from the far side of the river! There is another way to cross, but it is not as safe as it used to be.: We don't have any choice, we'll have to take our chances.: Yes milady. Good luck. Further up the road...  : Milord! If this is about taxes, I can explain!: What are you talking about?: N-nothing milord! Nothing.: Oookay then... Even farther up the road...  : Slaughter them all!: Bandits! Run! : Sack the town!: Not on my watch you're not! Once all the bandits are dead, this woman approaches us. : Oh, thanks so much! I have a reward for you.Fun fact. Her name is Splendora.  And she's very generous. A greater healing potion restores 500 HP to the hero that drinks it. Like all the other potions we're carrying around, we'll never use it and eventually leave it on the side of the road somewhere for something that gives a stat bonus. As you do. Still, it's the thought that counts!  Going north from the bandit encounter, we find the only sidequest on the map. : Milord, there is an ancient fountain shrine nearby. Legends say that its holy waters can restore health and heal grievous wounds.: That could prove to be useful indeed. The fountain is in the far upper left corner of the map. Right now we're just below the upper right corner. We'll eventually make our way over to it. But for now let's press onward.  In the Warcraft universe, if you're near water, then you're near murlocs. In drat near every mission we've had to enter water, we've fought them. The little fishy bastards are everywhere. Warning: that link above is to a song performed by Blizzard's in-house band.  The encounter is barely worth mentioning, except Jaina levels up from it. So let's take a look at her abilities.  Blizzard is extremely damaging in a large radius. With it, an Archmage can decimate entire armies. I'm also pretty sure that it doesn't discriminate between friend and foe, so anyone in that radius is gonna take a lot of damage.  Here's our first proper look at the water elemental spell. It lasts 60 seconds before automatically despawning, and deals a bunch of damage. At level 1, it deals far more damage than a footman, and it only goes up from there. It can even attack air units! There's no reason not to use this if Jaina is in combat with something.  I mentioned that Jaina is only controllable in a couple of missions. This skill right here is now I'm going to make the best use of her. She's going to be a mana battery for Arthas and his holy light spell. According to the wiki, at level 1 it restores 0.75 mana/sec, up to 2.25 at level 3. That adds up very quickly!  Yeah, that's the tiniest bit broken. With this skill you can reinforce a losing battle with a whole platoon of freshly trained troops backed up by a very powerful and pissed off archmage. Sadly we'll never get to see this in use.  Moving on, we find a couple murlocs guarding an island with a hut on it. Inside the hut we find more stat bonuses for Arthas! +1 strength, by the way.  There's murlocs all along the river. This shot here is just to show that. The update would get very bogged down if I showed every individual encounter. So expect me to gloss over them in the future. Nobody remembers Warcraft 3 for its encounters with Creeps on the map. Except for those poor souls who played the original DOTA releases, but they're weird anyway.  Finally we make it to the far side of the river and can continue investigating this plague.   : Lock your shields and defend yourselves. Their arrows won't get through!: Skeletons? Slay them all immediately! poo poo that's a lot of skeletons. Good thing, I guess, that we're their unexpected backup. It's also worth pointing out that these are friendly AI controlled footmen at the moment. So we can't directly control them.  : What were those creatures, Sergeant?: Undead, milord! This whole village has gone mad! We did our best to defend the villagers, but --: We'll get to the bottom of this. A new ability just got unlocked on all our footmen. They can defend like these gentlemen we just met. This greatly reduces the damage they take from ranged attacks. Gonna be honest, I'm never going to remember to use it. Something, something murderball... Arthas... holy light.  This is bad. This is real bad. The undead have set fire to this farm and something appears to be wrong with those stacks of hay. There's bugs flitting all around them.  Even worse, there's skeletons crawling out of the woodwork as we press on.  But just on the other side of the burning barns we finally reach the healing fountain. This projects healing in a small area around it to everything nearby, be it undead or not. : This must be the shrine that the old man spoke of. Any man who drinks from these Light-blessed waters will be healed. This fountain is a godsend in any mission you can find one in. It saves so much gold on retraining replacement units, and saves so much time getting injured units back to fighting condition.  A little ways back, we find the path continues south and... oh dear. That's really not good.  : It's as if the land around the granary is... dying.: Could the grain itself be plagued?: Let's hope not. Those crates bear the regional seal of Andorhal, the distribution center for the northern boroughs. If this grain can spread the plague, there's no telling how many villages might be affected.: Let's burn it to be safe.: No arguments here. We're automatically hostile to the granary. So let's burn it down!   It's probably not a good sign that it burns bright green, is it?  A little south of the granary, we find more skeletons slaughtering villagers and what appear to be necromancers controlling them. The necromancers can technically raise the dead villagers into more skeletons, but they don't get the chance.   : Greetings. We are priests from Quel'Thalas. We've come to help heal the land of this strange curse.: As always, the generosity of the elves is greatly appreciated.: You should know that there is a granary warehouse at the far end of this village. This evil blight may be evident there as well.: We'll check it out. The elven priests waste no time in healing the wounded troops. From here on, at least one priest will be a staple for any army we make. Even the small amount of trickle healing they provide will help immensely.  Priests can also cast Dispel Magic, which is great for removing enemy buffs. Like I said, these guys are gonna be part of every army I make from here on.  The mission is very nearly over at this point, and we finally get our second objective. Seems straightforward enough!  Burn down a granary warehouse. Seems simple enough!  : What the hell are you men shooting at? : We're blasting those damned skeletons, sir. This whole flaming village is crawling with them.: Well, I could use your help. We've got a warehouse to destroy at the end of town. And now it will be even easier. Mortar teams deal siege damage, which is the only damage type not resisted by buildings. So a couple of these guys can tear through an enemy base. Siege units can also destroy trees in a mere fraction of the time it took our peasants in the last mission.  Siege units technically deal area of effect damage to everything near the impact point of their shots. But that's what we have the priests for. Also that is a fuckton of skeletons. It's drat near the entire village we're fighting here.  Before we head back north, toward the warehouse, there's something worth grabbing to the south. +3 to Jaina's primary damage type is always nice, and all that's guarding it are a couple of skeletons.  Just a tiny bit north of where we recruited the mortar team, a cutscene takes over.  : I'm sorry I can't stay and chat, but... duty calls.  : Let's study it after we kill it, okay?  This creature is, fittingly, known as an Abomination. It's a freaking tank, and it can deal a lot of damage. It's the undead equivalent of the human knight unit.   Some standard ghouls are all that are between us and the warehouse. If the abomination was the undead Knight, then ghouls are the footmen analogue. We'll be fighting quite a few of them from here on out. : Destroy that warehouse... now! And just like that, we're done! It barely lasted 5 seconds with a mortar team firing at it.  : What was that? And who was that wizard dressed in black?: I believe that the robed man was a necromancer. Obviously, he and his lackeys are behind this plague.: I swear I've seen him somewhere before. He looked so familiar...: Well, it's a good bet we'll find him, and the answers we're looking for, in Andorhal.  This plague, and the fallout of what we learn in Andorhol, is going to be the focus of the rest of the human campaign. So sit tight, because poo poo is getting real! NEXT TIME: The Cult of the Damned
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Feb 12, 2018 21:53
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I've always liked those Captain units, even though they're just Footmen with better stats. Shame they're only for the campaign, and not available to buy.
THE BAR fucked around with this message at 22:23 on Feb 12, 2018 |
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Feb 12, 2018 22:21
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THE BAR posted:I've always liked those Captain units, even though they're just Footmen with better stats. Shame they're only for the campaign, and not available to buy. WoW also could not loving decide who that nameless captain guy was and split him up into three or four different characters. Ah, Jaina Proudmoore. Seen here in probably the last time she'll ever be happy in her entire life.
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Feb 12, 2018 22:24
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The captains are annoying when you have them selected together with footmen and activate defend.  DoubleNegative posted:
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Feb 12, 2018 22:36
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Important note about Kel'thuzad: He has the most silky voice in the game.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlXETkXY-GI warning: spoilers for a thing that happens to him in related videos.
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Feb 12, 2018 22:37
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Artillery units are my personal favorite type. Can't remember if the Orcs still have
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Feb 12, 2018 23:40
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Cythereal posted:WoW also could not loving decide who that nameless captain guy was and split him up into three or four different characters. That was because he was initially named in WoW at the same time the Arthas novel was being written and the author was unaware of the fact. So after some corrections he was split into two characters.
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Feb 12, 2018 23:46
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And then split into a third when making the Captain two characters posed it's own continuity snarls.
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Feb 12, 2018 23:55
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I think I'll save the Undead trivia for the (spoiler) Undead campaign for the most part, but I will say that originally Ghouls had 5 or so different models that would be randomly selected from, to help make the Undead feel like a proper horde of slavering zombies. Not sure why they ended up cutting that feature - It eventually made a return in Starcraft 2.
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Feb 13, 2018 00:01
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Brilliance aura and water elemental are all you really need out of Jaina in the campaign. Sure blizzard helps against the hordes of summoned skeletons you fight, but you have access to mortars and an upcoming unit. I also disliked the friendly fire issue. As for Jaina's ult, it is great, but you can get the equivalent as a consumable item in shops, which can be seen in pretty much all the campaigns. I think it has been on one of the maps already, but I am not sure. Someone correct me if I am wrong, but didn't blizzard also effect buildings?
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Feb 13, 2018 03:15
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Ah fountains of health, the most helpful things to make runs without losing units possible and less tedious.
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Feb 13, 2018 03:26
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Honestly, Blizzard still made fun RTS campaigns in Starcraft 2. All 4 campaigns (including Nova) were fun to play through, with all the different objectives, timers, and functions that no other company has managed to replicate so far. Shame that the multiplayer wasn't as fun, and that the story went downhill.
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Feb 13, 2018 03:55
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I always favored blizzard over water elementals. The campaign attacks you in waves on the regular and it saves a ton of your guys if you nail those enemy blobs with a blizzard on arrival. A lot of the campaign as I played it is finding a way to make a stable defense at no upkeep until you have enough tech and reserve resources to churn a pop cap army out of a half a dozen production buildings for a final push. Blizzard does a lot more for that water elementals that may or may not soak the hits.
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Feb 13, 2018 03:58
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DoubleNegative posted:
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Feb 13, 2018 04:28
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It's worth nothing that dispel magic also removes blight (the hosed-up black cracked terrain Kel'Thuzad and company are standing on in that cutscene). This has a bunch of mechanics that are going to be relevant in the undead campaign but for right now undead standing on it regenerate health faster which can translate into an extra hit or two to kill them, so getting rid of that can be useful against high-health targets like abominations.
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Feb 13, 2018 05:20
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