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My issue with Blizzard plots is that humans seem to get wrecked because their opponents are just SO MUCH COOLER than the human faction and its get boring.
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Feb 14, 2018 04:34
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Mooseontheloose posted:My issue with Blizzard plots is that humans seem to get wrecked because their opponents are just SO MUCH COOLER than the human faction and its get boring. According to the lore this statement changes with Warcraft 2 when Stormwind Knights push the Orcs' poo poo in. In the game that follows though, yes, Humans get their crap pushed in by the Bloodlust spell. Up until Ogre Mages/Paladins roll out both races are mirrors but then it takes two paths: If naval map: Humans win due to mage bombing with invisible transports. If land map: Orcs win due to Bloodlust.
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Feb 14, 2018 05:47
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Eeepies posted: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. Meh. The gameplay in HotS and LotV was kind of disappointing, because it basically was just watered down versions of the Terran one. SC2 got reamed in development.
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Feb 14, 2018 06:15
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Mooseontheloose posted:My issue with Blizzard plots is that humans seem to get wrecked because their opponents are just SO MUCH COOLER than the human faction and its get boring. Because the human campaign comes first, I think? I'd argue that the factions have different priorities and different playstyles, but I don't want to get into what (I think) each faction is about until we complete each campaign. Then we go hog wild on the factions. Honestly, I'm looking forward to the discussions then because I'm not good at games, and I haven't played much multiplayer, so I don't know much about balance, but I can infer what the devs may have thought each faction's metagame should be.
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Feb 14, 2018 06:58
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Cuntellectual posted:Meh. The gameplay in HotS and LotV was kind of disappointing, because it basically was just watered down versions of the Terran one. SC2 got reamed in development. 
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Feb 14, 2018 09:25
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About Arthas' and Jaina's relationship, I believe the most recent novel on the subject, the theramore getting magic-nuked one, presents it as Jaina seducing Arthas at a Hallow's End banquet somewhere and the relationship never going anywhere beyond that due to them being geographically separated with Arthas in Lordearon doing prince things and/or training to be a paladin and Jaina in Kul Tiras and later Dalaran doing magical studies. Alternatively somebody in either court realized the successor to the crown* sleeping around might cause some problems down the line when it comes to inheritance. *or at least being in a superposition of being both 1st and 2nd in line depending on whoever is writing realizes Calia Menethil exists or not. What was so bad about alpha Yrel? I only know that at one point she was alt-Velen's niece and that there was some unspecified "dark secret", presumably explaining why the Shadowmoon Clan wanted to sacrifice her and her sister so specifically.
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Feb 14, 2018 13:58
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Asehujiko posted:What was so bad about alpha Yrel? I only know that at one point she was alt-Velen's niece and that there was some unspecified "dark secret", presumably explaining why the Shadowmoon Clan wanted to sacrifice her and her sister so specifically. The first version of Yrel had her as Garona's mother - i.e. a sex slave gang raped until she was forcibly impregnated and then gave birth. Second version of Yrel had her as Velen's niece - only important because of her relation to a male character. Third version of Yrel had her as Maraad's wife - same issue. Fourth and final version of her made her a character in her own right who became prominent by her own merits. Like most plot threads from Warlords, Yrel's "dark secret" was abandoned and forgotten by the writers.
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Feb 14, 2018 15:00
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At obe point it was theorized that Yrel was Alt-Maraad (maybe she was conceived a second earlier, who knows what can alter the sperm race)
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Feb 14, 2018 15:43
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Chapter VIII - The Cult of the Damned Hello everyone, and welcome back to Warcraft III. Today's update picks up right after the last one. Arthas and Jaina are in hot pursuit of the necromancer, Kel'thuzad. There's nothing new to say about the map this time. Andorhal is one of the larger towns in Northern Lordaeron, and like Jaina said, is the grain distribution center for the north. If the plague is coming from here, then poo poo is going to get a lot worse before it gets better. So we'd better hurry.    : Let's not wait to find out! Attack! : drat these intruders! They must not interfere with the master's plan!  : I couldn't agree more.: Thassarian! : On it, my lord. Let's get to work, you lot! I want this camp ready within the day!   : The peasantry are hard at work, my lord. We'll shortly have a town hall, a barracks, and the start of a cluster of farms.: Well done.: That's not all. On the march up, I spoke with the mortar team. They've agreed to draw up plans for an engineer's workshop. They claim it will allow them to refine their cannons.: Excellent.: Give me a couple hours and I'll get you the plans for an arcane sanctum.: That would be most appreciated, my lady. The game gives us control with the buildings under construction, which is nice. So first things first, let's look at where we're situated.  In addition to the base entrance behind us, we have one to the west where all the troops are gathered.  There's another entrance over to the southeast. I won't say we're 100% safe from that direction, as I've seen the computer sneak in the odd attack from that way in the past. But for the most part we only have to worry about attacks coming from the west. The training wheels are off, but the game is still going easy for the time being. A few minutes pass... : My lord, our scouts have discovered another gold mine across the river to the west. They report it's guarded by murlocs and golems.: Is our current mine running low? : We're fine for right now, but we'll need to expand sooner rather than later.: We'll clear out the area once we have some men to spare. The early parts of most missions involve a lot of waiting. You're waiting around for buildings to be constructed, then you're waiting around for workers to get produced. More often than not, you're waiting for your workers to create enough resources to let you put whatever strategy you have into action. It's the nature of the beast when playing an RTS, but it's not really something you actively think about too much. Here watching myself play while occasionally pausing to grab screenshots, I'm left just staring at all the waiting involved.  The good news is that the timers are expertly staggered. As long as you've got several things going at once, there's always more to do while waiting. You're rarely left waiting for any one thing to happen. In this shot here, I've got peasants training in the town hall, footmen being produced in the barracks, a lumber mill under construction, and I'm fairly certain that an attack is coming in the next minute.  On top of all that, I'm also stockpiling enough gold to build a blacksmith. Funny thing is, I'm not even that good of a player. Instead of adhering to a strict build order that's timed out to the exact second, I'm building things as I need them.  The lumber mill, by the way, has several upgrades. I briefly mentioned them in the last update, but here they both are. Improved masonry will come in quite handy in the next several missions when attacks start coming more often.  And the other one... well, that's interesting. It lets our peasants carry more lumber, but look at the requirements. A keep?  On the bottom left of the Town Hall's command card, we find a little upgrade button. For a hefty chunk of gold and lumber, we can ugprade the Town Hall, which will allow us to build more complex structures, and allowing us to train more powerful units.  We'll save that for a little later, when we aren't so strapped for cash. I'm also fairly certain that it requires a blacksmith to even enable the upgrade in the first place. : I'm sending over a peasant to build some towers to guard the entrance of the camp.: Got it. We'll keep him safe.: This is also just so you know, but the town hall will soon be...: Look, I don't need to know every little move that you make. You're in charge of the camp. Leave its defense to me.: Yes sir... When you upgrade your town hall, you can't train any new workers. Existing ones can be converted to and from militia, however.  Once the keep finishes, we can finally make our workers more efficient at gathering wood. 100 gold is a paltry payment for carrying more lumber with each trip.  : Prince Arthas, we have a dwarven workshop under construction. We'll be able to train more mortar teams once it finishes. : That's the kind of update I like to hear! : Lady Proudmoore's arcane sanctum will also soon begin construction.: An arcane sanctum?: We'll be able to call in more priests from Quel'thelas. : The engineers at the workshop claim that soon our markmen will be able to attack from longer distances.: Good to know.Yes, technically you research long rifles at the barracks, but it only unlocks when you have a workshop.  : Jaina, take a couple footmen, the priest, and some riflemen. Go out the southeast side of the base, and find that other goldmine. It's somewhere to the east, but I don't know exactly where.: We'll find it, don't you worry.: When you do find it, let Thassarian know so he can send some peasants over to establish a mining camp. Probably overkill for a scouting group, especially with Jaina's new second level water elemental, but better safe than sorry.  Like I said earlier, this is still a very early game map. So there's not much on the east side at all. Just a handful of creeps and not a lot else. There's not even a second enemy base!  About the nastiest things out here are a group of forest trolls.  Though they do have a very nice reward!  On the base side of things, the arcane sanctum finally finishes, so now we can research adept training for priests. It makes them a little better in every way, and is decently cheap. So no reason not to snap that up!  You'd think you'd be safe leaving the scout group idling in the woods for 20 seconds. But while I'm taking care of stuff in the base, I get the "your forces are under attack!" notification, and find that a footman and a rifleman chased a gnoll into an obvious ambush. : You idiot! Why did you run off without us? : Sorry miss... : What were you thinking? Did you even think? : Ugh...: You nearly died running off on your own. Your whole job was to protect everyone else. Instead of doing that job, you chased after a gnoll in the woods. Even children know not to chase gnolls in the woods for precisely this reason!: But...: Shut up. No buts. Occasionally on maps you can find a goblin hut. These are merchants out in the world, and they sell stuff of dubious usefulness. In this case, a scroll of protection, a potion of mana, and a wand of negation.  If you remember the last base building map, the other reward that I chose to not go after was a wand of negation. This does very nasty things to the skeletons that necromancers revive.  A little north from the goblin merchant, we find the golems guarding the second gold mine.  One of the golems has a very, very nice reward.  : Thassarian? We secured the way to the other goldmine. We're ready any time you are.: Excellent timing! Just sit tight, and some peasants will be over shortly. : Miss Proudmoore, the peasants are on their way.: I'll have them build a mining camp when they arrive.  With the main entrance of the base being heavily defended by towers, I can spare Arthas and his men going out on a small patrol mission.  While out checking the nearby area, they run into the next enemy attack and Arthas levels up to 5, getting Rank 3 Devotion Aura in the process. So now he's even tankier!  : Thassarian, send me one of your peasants. I've found a natural chokepoint near the undead base, and it's giving me an idea. : Six towers, three on either side of this treeline. Funnel those undead bastards right into our waiting swords! : Yes milord. Meanwhile on the east side of the map, Jaina's group makes a similar discovery. The mining camp could be effortlessly defended by just fortifying the only means of entry into the nearby wetlands. But with six towers near the only undead base on the map, any units they produce will be far more interested in the nearby threat to go exploring.  : Arthas, the eastern bridge into Andorhal has been broken. There's no way in or out over here, and I see smoke on the horizon.: drat! Alright, thanks Jaina. Meet me over near the west side then. The map is smaller than it appears at first. Like I said, there's nothing on the eastern half but creeps. : Jaina, now that you're back, I'm gonna take command of the footmen. Can you handle the priests and riflemen?: Not a problem.A few minutes later, we finally have a large army.  Arthas has a half dozen footmen and a couple riflemen as backup.  Jaina meanwhile has two priests, two mortar teams, and a handful of riflemen to round things out. 18 units plus two heroes equals one very dead base.  Unlike the last base we leveled, this one actually has the full gamut of buildings, not just enough to produce attack squads.  Although the undead buildings are weird and offputting. There are lots of sickly greens and dead browns.  The bigest building is also attacking us.  But none of the buildings are a problem with two mortar teams raining down hell from afar.  Once the last building falls, we're free to enter Andorhal.  Although things don't look too good from here.   : Hello again children. I am Kel'Thuzad and I've come to deliver a warning. Leave well enough alone. Your curiosity will be the death of you.: Are you responsible for this plague, necromancer? Is this cult your doing? : What do you mean?: I serve the dreadlord Mal'Ganis. He commands the Scourge that will cleanse this land and establish a paradise of eternal darkness!: And what exactly is this Scourge meant to cleanse?  Neither Arthas nor Jaina are very smart. They just let him walk away.  With that talk with Kel'Thuzad, we finish the first quest.   : All the granaries are empty! The shipments have already been sent out. We're too late... In the middle of Andorhal is a cage. If you destroy it, you'll spawn a neutral ghoul enemy named Timmy. If you kill him, he'll drop a ring that increases all stats by one. I forgot to do this, but the reward isn't great anyway.  North of Andorhal there's another goblin merchant, in case you need some more items.   It's a straight line to Kelly T. The path there is guarded by several abominations and a few ghouls, but our army is more than enough for them all.  Say what you will about the undead, but their buildings are all freaky. This right here is a "slaughterhouse" and is responsible for creating those abonimations.  Also the whole time, Kel'Thuzad is sitting on his throne watching us dismantle his bodyguards.  He survives a microsecond past this screenshot.        NEXT TIME: March of the Scourge DoubleNegative fucked around with this message at 20:37 on Feb 16, 2018 |
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Feb 16, 2018 01:14
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There's a decent explanation for why the undead buildings all look so weird, too: they were designed by the Nerubians, a race of spider people native to the land where the Scourge is based. The Scourge has almost completely wiped out the living Nerubians by this point, and adopted their architecture for its own use. Sad part is, the Scourge are only about the third scariest thing to be found in that part of the world, but we'll get to that land in due time.
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Feb 16, 2018 01:31
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I thought the goblin shops always sold scrolls of town portals in the campaign. Huh.
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Feb 16, 2018 01:52
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Fun fact: if you have level 3 holy light, you can just blast Kel'thuzad and one shot him without even bothering with the abominations because statwise he's just an ordinary necromancer. Additional fun fact: Saying that the spellcaster training improves everything about them is an understatement. As well as increasing their mana, mana regeneration and giving them access to a new spell, it also increases their attacks damage. This meant that upgraded spellcaster units basically obsoleted standard ranged units like the rifleman. When the expansion came out it updated them and shoved them into a dedicated support role. The damage increase was removed, their base damage was lowered and an entirely new armour type called Unarmoured was added to the game for them that took increased damage from piercing and siege damage, making them very easily sniped by siege units.
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Feb 16, 2018 02:46
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No new units? Let's do the generic versions of the heroes we've been introduce to thus far for the Human army, the Paladin and the Archmage. Arthas is a Paladin. He has a different head, but basically the same sprite (hammer in hand, book on his side with a chain). The generic Paladin looks very much like Uther, brown and grey beard and long hair. Jaina is an entirely unique sprite. She is an Archmage. The generic Archmage looks like Antonidas, horse, white beard, the whole lot. I don't know if he plays any differently, owing to him being a larger sprite, but there you are. I don't think you get to hear the generic hero lines during the campaign. There's one more hero, but we won't be meeting him for a while. ****** Line time! Ready lines are used by units when they're produced. What lines are used when they're initially selected. Yes lines are used when they're given a move order. Attack lines are used when they're given an attack order. Warcry is used randomly for Attack when attacking hero characters. (Thanks to Drakenel for the correction) Pissed is what you get when you keep clicking a unit and it exhausts the What lines. Special is for builder units, and for certain special units, e.g. Uther, who is an AI-controlled character. Paladin: Ready
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Feb 16, 2018 06:29
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There are more paladin units defined in the editor the editor than any other hero, coming in at 9 variations including the generic paladin used in multiplayer. Of those only 1 shares an exact model with the generic paladin. However, other than Arthas, the only difference between most of them is the hair color. Uther's hammer and armor are also a bit fancier. Statwise, They are the same, except for two of them, who have slightly lower attack times for whatever reason. Regarding Antonidas, His stats(and model size) are literally the same as a generic archmage, except for an extra point in strength I don't think he has a combat role in the campaign, which is probably why he seems to be so similar Jaina is the same as Antonidas. I think the difference in strength is purely due to them being pre TFT characters, as archmage variations made after TFT have the reduced strength as well. lobster22221 fucked around with this message at 07:19 on Feb 16, 2018 |
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Feb 16, 2018 07:10
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Uh Lobby? Maybe you could get rid of that line altogether? The first spoiler, not the second. It's a pretty important plot twist, and I know that the game is old as mud, and there's WoW, but y'know?
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Feb 16, 2018 07:17
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painedforever posted:Uh Lobby? Maybe you could get rid of that line altogether? The first spoiler, not the second. It's a pretty important plot twist, and I know that the game is old as mud, and there's WoW, but y'know? Done. Sorry about that. I will be more careful to avoid major spoilers when giving editor information from now on lobster22221 fucked around with this message at 07:24 on Feb 16, 2018 |
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Feb 16, 2018 07:20
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painedforever posted:Uh Lobby? Maybe you could get rid of that line altogether? The first spoiler, not the second. It's a pretty important plot twist, and I know that the game is old as mud, and there's WoW, but y'know? I mean isn't that literally why spoiler tags exist? SirSamVimes fucked around with this message at 07:26 on Feb 16, 2018 |
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Feb 16, 2018 07:22
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SirSamVimes posted:I mean isn't that literally why spoiler tags exist? I kind of agree with painedforever though. Even though pretty much the whole world knows, there might be that one person who didn't. And it is easy to accidentally move your mouse over text when you are scrolling down. I've removed it just to be safe.
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Feb 16, 2018 07:28
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In the words of Saint Emelia, "The path of duty is often a stony one, made smoother by thought for others."
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Feb 16, 2018 07:36
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Sorry to nitpick but it bothers me: Andorhal. I'm mildy horrified that someone would play the game with such completionism that they'd have an optimized building order based on the speed of peasants gathering gold.
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Feb 16, 2018 08:03
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Valiantman posted:Sorry to nitpick but it bothers me: Andorhal. You should look into competitive starcraft. Part of the early game is how many workers to make, and the second at which to start making other buildings.
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Feb 16, 2018 08:15
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Did you guys watch that aborted LP of StarCraft II? That guy... he'd keep moving units to the back of the formation as they got damaged so that he wouldn't lose any. I mean, dear God Almighty, I couldn't conceive ever playing an RTS like that. It's a bit freaky to watch, I'll be honest. Rather like watching a contortionist... you can't quite look away, but it's so squicky at the same time, that you don't want to watch.
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Feb 16, 2018 08:44
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painedforever posted:Did you guys watch that aborted LP of StarCraft II? That guy... he'd keep moving units to the back of the formation as they got damaged so that he wouldn't lose any. I mean, dear God Almighty, I couldn't conceive ever playing an RTS like that. dude the age of mythology lp going on right now is going to blow your mind
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Feb 16, 2018 08:49
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It is Melth. I read his Civ 2 LP with great interest. That guy's one hell of a... I dunno what you'd call him. Rules mechanic? Is that right? I started watching his Age of Mythology LP, but I tuned out at some point because I didn't play a lot of it when it came out. I played some of Age of Empires, but eh. I think I liked Rise of Nations more, but that isn't saying much.
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Feb 16, 2018 09:14
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painedforever posted:Did you guys watch that aborted LP of StarCraft II? That guy... he'd keep moving units to the back of the formation as they got damaged so that he wouldn't lose any. I mean, dear God Almighty, I couldn't conceive ever playing an RTS like that. I miss that LP, I actually got better at Brood War watching how Raldan played 
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Feb 16, 2018 09:37
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If you give Arthas divine shield he can just run through the undead base, past the abominations and nuke Kel'thuzad into oblivion with holy light and hammer to the face.  You can always use the time when setting up your base to scout a little. I don't think WC3 has any moments where that triggers an enemy base to "wake up" earlier than intended.
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Feb 16, 2018 10:58
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painedforever posted:Did you guys watch that aborted LP of StarCraft II? That guy... he'd keep moving units to the back of the formation as they got damaged so that he wouldn't lose any. I mean, dear God Almighty, I couldn't conceive ever playing an RTS like that.
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Feb 16, 2018 14:43
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Are there any lore topics from the past 3 updates that anyone would like to see me cover for the lore corner today? Jaina Proudmoore, Arthas Menethil, Thassarian, dwarves, elves, Quel'thelas, and the plague all have more relevant places to discuss them. About the only thing worth discussing that isn't a Prophet style field of _______ is Andorhal. We're in the incredibly awkward part of the campaign where the elephant in the room won't happen for several more updates yet.
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Feb 16, 2018 20:36
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is the incredibly silly origin of humans too wow-centric?
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Feb 16, 2018 20:39
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AriadneThread posted:is the incredibly silly origin of humans too wow-centric? Well, it's also the origin of dwarves, gnomes, orcs, ogres, goblins, and draenei, so...
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Feb 16, 2018 20:55
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AriadneThread posted:is the incredibly silly origin of humans too wow-centric? I don't think the human origins are relvant too the wc3 plot, so I don't think it would be too spoilery. Somebody that knows WoW lore should confirm.
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Feb 16, 2018 20:57
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Cythereal posted:Well, it's also the origin of dwarves, gnomes, orcs, ogres, goblins, and draenei, so... i wasn't thinking quite that far back, but you're right
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Feb 16, 2018 20:59
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lobster22221 posted:I don't think the human origins are relvant too the wc3 plot, so I don't think it would be too spoilery. Somebody that knows WoW lore should confirm. It's not too spoilery, but there is a better place to discuss it. In this campaign, even!
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Feb 16, 2018 21:02
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DoubleNegative posted:It's not too spoilery, but there is a better place to discuss it. In this campaign, even! In that case I'll look forward to it. I never played WoW, and only know tidbits of lore beyond wc3. Even in wc3, I was more into custom maps so my knowledge is spotty.
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Feb 16, 2018 21:22
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I suggest discussing the Creeps we've seen so far. Or are there better points for that later on too?
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Feb 16, 2018 21:23
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achtungnight posted:I suggest discussing the Creeps we've seen so far. Or are there better points for that later on too? i wonder where the term 'creep' came from for them
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Feb 16, 2018 21:25
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Talk about Murlocs!
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Feb 16, 2018 22:34
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Blizzard is apparently in the process of doing a secret thing related to Warcraft III, likely to be either Warcraft III HD/Remastered or Warcraft IV. I personally doubt that it's HD/Remastered, considering that multiple SCII projects dedicated to remaking Warcraft III have been in motion for some time, but there's still a reasonable chance that it will be.
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Feb 16, 2018 23:51
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Siegkrow posted:Talk about Murlocs! Surprisingly for what are arguably WoW's mascots, there's very little lore surrounding murlocs. These little amphibious fish-people are an ancient race on Azeroth, of that there's no question, but while sentient they're not generally intelligent. Most murlocs are nothing but primitive hunter-gatherers, prone to attacking and eating anything they can find. They're intelligent enough to craft spears and other primitive weapons, even primitive armor on occasion, and build villages, but they've never advanced beyond that stage and have never developed a society more complex than a chieftain and his (or presumably her, but if female murlocs have ever been encountered no humanoid's been able to tell the difference) village. Being an aquatic race, some murlocs demonstrate a water-based form of shamanistic magic. While native to the deep oceans, murlocs can live in fresh water as well as salt, and can be found pretty much everywhere on Azeroth (and beyond, thanks to the Horde in TBC) with water. Murlocs are utterly irrelevant to the state of the world in Warcraft, they're a common nuisance around water that every race exterminates with prejudice, and the major aquatic race of Warcraft that we'll meet in due time likes to enslave murlocs as cannon fodder and menial labor. Their typical appearance is what we've seen here: nuisances to be slaughtered en masse in side quests. However, one population of murlocs that lived near the Vale of Eternal Blossoms in a past age were affected by the immense Titan energies of the water in the Vale and became a peaceful, intelligent, mystical race of fish-like humanoids known as the Jinyu.
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Feb 17, 2018 00:02
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Well I guess that saves me the trouble.
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Feb 17, 2018 00:06
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