|
lobster22221 posted:This has me thinking, necromancers are not undead right? If that is the case, why can they be damaged by holy light? Is that lore justified or is it just gameplay? That bugged me when I played the game but Necromancer and Acolytes (undead peasant equivalent) are damaged so I guess they are infused with undead energy somehow. Either that or the Light just hates them.
|
#
?
Mar 16, 2018 22:10
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 11, 2024 19:16 |
|
|
It's just a gameplay caveat. Even the meat wagons are technically undead despite mechanical overriding that.
|
|
#
?
Mar 16, 2018 22:47
|
|
|
necromancers are undead for gameplay reasons, same reason (albiet in the opposite direction) forsaken and death knights in WoW aren't undead
|
|
#
?
Mar 16, 2018 23:52
|
|
|
President Ark posted:necromancers are undead for gameplay reasons, same reason (albiet in the opposite direction) forsaken and death knights in WoW aren't undead I just imagined a ton of death knights using their control undead skill on each other and am now wondering why they decided I wasn't good enough to get that.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2018 00:09
|
|
|
It's been a while since we had one of these, eh? This is another lore recap! With the Human campaign now finished, this is a good time to look at concepts introduced since, geez, pretty much the start. There is a lot to cover, but not many good places to do so until now. So let's start at the top with... Dalaran - The Violet City, the Wizard nation-state in Lordaeron. It is situated on the shores of Lordamere Lake, almost directly across from the Capital City. At one point in its past, it used to be located on "Cross Island," an island named for its odd cross shape. But it was retconned between Warcraft II and III to just be located on the southern edge of the lake. It is ruled over by the Council of Six, who are the six most powerful mages in existence. As of the time of Warcraft III, Antonidas is the leader of the council and de facto ruler of Dalaran.  - Antonidas - As above, the ruler of Dalaran. Was the official envoy of Dalaran to King Terenas' council in the start of the second war, and pledged the city's loyalty to the King. After the second war, he put forth the theory that the lethargy of the orcs was due to a race-wide withdrawal from demonic magics. He is also Jaina's mentor. - Jaina Proudmoore - One of the most talented sorceresses in the world. She is the daughter of Admiral Daelin Proudmoore, the king of the seafaring nation of Kul Tiras. She was Arthas' old girlfriend, until he broke things off with her. She went to investigate the Plague on orders from Antonidas, and got embroiled in the beginnings of Arthas' downfall. She was last seen talking to the Prophet after the purging of Stratholme. Her story isn't yet finished. She has a much bigger role still to play. - Captian Falric - Close friend to Arthas since he was a child, he is a member of the Royal Guard. He's one of Arthas' lieutenants in his campaign to investigate the plague, and later to save Lordaeron. - Thassarian - A young man who joined up with the 1st Legion to serve his country. He accompanied Arthas to Northrend. In LP canon, he's the player stand-in, and the guy in charge of constructing and managing the bases.The Undead Plague - The necromancer Kel'Thuzad created the plague to eradicate all life in Lordaeron and eventually the world. Anyone who contracts the plague falls into a very deep sleep and dies, raising from the dead almost immediately as a member of the undead. These undead can further spread the plague by biting or clawing someone. Kel'Thuzad infected the Andorhal granaries with the plague, and then oversaw the distribution of the infected grain into caravans. The plague was stopped by Arthas when he burnt Stratholme and purged everyone who lived there.  - Kel'Thuzad - Former member of the Council of Six of Dalaran. Antonidas discovered him performing necromantic experiments and banished him from the city. Kel'Thuzad wandered for a while, and eventually found his way to Northrend where he met the Dark Lord of the Dead and was given a new purpose, to create an undead plague that would snuff out the life from Lordaeron. He was killed by Arthas outside of Andorhal, and his plague was eventually stopped.Stratholme - Non-canon RPG books claim that Stratholme's population used to be 25,000. It used to be one of the largest cities in northern Lordaeron, and was considered the jewel of the region. Arthas and his men massacred the inhabitants and burnt the city to put a stop to the undead plague. While he was ultimately successful, the price was extremely high. Northrend - The world's northernmost continent. The southern parts are boreal and quite beautiful, while the center and all of the northern parts of the continent are covered in glaciers and snow. There's also a weird tropical basin in the far west of the continent. It is from here that most life on Azeroth originated. The Origin of Species - Trolls are widely believed to be one of the only native species on Azeroth. Almost every thing else either descended from trolls, or were created in the laboratories of Northrend. This is going to take a bit to unpack so let's cover a little world history. The Titans - For a very long time, it was believed that the Titans came to Azeroth for whatever reason and decided to work their magic here. That's only partially true. It turns out that the planet itself is a nascent Titan, and that the rest of them are planets as well. They projected themselves onto Azeroth to set up a defense system to protect it. You see, one Titan went rogue and started an omnicidal campaign to wipe out all life everywhere for extremely stupid reasons. Seriously, don't ask. So the rest of the Titans found sleeping Azeroth and wanted to protect it from their insane brother. They set up laboratories all over Northrend to create golems that would carry out their will. These golems were made of stone and iron and all other manner of natural materials. They were humanoid in shape, in fact. With their jobs done, the Titans vanished and left in their place the Keepers. The Keepers - You know Norse mythology? Loki, Thor, Odin, etcetera? Yeah, the Keepers are all just Norse gods by a slightly different name. Archaedas, Loken, Thorim, Freya, Mimiron, Hodir, Tyr, Ra, and Odyn are all the known Keepers. They were imbued with the appearance and powers of the Titans, and were meant to lead their armies in battle against an evil that was corrupting Azeroth. Things didn't quite work out. The corrupting evils, known as the Old Gods, beat the keepers bad, and eventually enslaved one of them. Ulduar - Before the Titans left, they imprisoned one of the many Old Gods infesting Azeroth deep under Northrend, within a prison facility called Ulduar. In addition to leading armies against the Old Gods, the Keepers were also meant to keep an eye on the one imprisoned under Ulduar. Instead, this God, Yogg-Saron, enslaved the Keeper Loken who betrayed his brothers and sisters. Then to further mess up the Titans' plans, Yogg-Saron infected the golems with the Curse of Flesh. Thus were born the many races of Azeroth. Dwarves and Troggs were born from stone golems, while the Vrykul and eventually Humans were born from the taller stone and iron golems. Gnomes were born from clockwork automatons. The Vrykul - The primary inhabitants of Northrend are a race of giants known as the Vrykul. For the most part they've stayed in suspended animation for millennia, but they are the progenitors of modern humans. Some Vrykul were having mutant children that were much smaller than normal. Many of those mutants were killed, while others were taken away from Northrend in secrecy. Those mutant babies were the distant ancestors of humans. The Drakkari - The frost trolls of Northrend. Their empire is based out of Zul'Drak, a gigantic city north of the Grizzly Hills boreal forest. The fortress, Drak'Tharon Keep, marks the southern border of their territory. By the time WoW rolled around, they were losing a war with the undead and summoned their gods in desperation. But rather than appeal to the gods for help, the Drakkari ate them. They consumed the essence of the gods and in so doing damned their race permanently. There are no longer any living Drakkari.  - Muradin Bronzebeard - Uther taught Arthas everything he knows about being a Paladin. Muradin, however, is the one who taught him how to fight. He's the brother of King Magni Bronzebeard, the ruler of the Dwarves of Ironforge. He was believed to have been killed when Arthas claimed the Runeblade Frostmourne. It turns out, however, that he was just knocked silly and when he regained consciousness, he had lost memory of who he was. He was taken in by a clan of friendly Frost Dwarves living in Northrend, and eventually became their king.Dwarves - I was asked by popular request to cover everything there is to know about Dwarves. Originally there was a type of golem known as the Earthen. These Earthen were infected with the Curse of Flesh and eventually turned into modern Dwarves. There are three major clans of Dwarves... Clan Bronzebeard, The Dark Iron Clan, and Clan Wildhammer. Dark Iron Dwarves - When the old High King of the Dwarves, Modimus Anvilmar, died the three most powerful clans vied for control of Ironforge. The Bronzebeards eventually won with the help of the Wildhammers, and the Dark Irons were cast out because they were jerks. Eventually the Dark Irons, led by the sorcerer Thaurissan, tried to retake Ironforge by launching a surprise attack on the other dwarves. They were beaten. Badly. So Thaurissan retreated to his stronghold in the Redridge Mountains and tried to summon the great lord of fire to destroy his enemies. Instead, he summoned the actual Elemental Lord of Fire, Ragnaros. Ragnaros was fire incarnate, and was not pleased to be summoned to Azeroth. The act of his summoning was so destructive and violent that it destroyed most of the Dark Iron armies, a good portion of the Redridge Mountains, and actually created Blackrock Mountain. Wildhammer Dwarves - After the Dark Irons were banished from Ironforge, the Wildhammers left and settled in their mountain fortress of Grim Batol. When the Dark Irons surprise attacked the other clans, Grim Batol was attacked by the sorceress Modgud. They were able to kill her, but not before she cursed Grim Batol and rendered it permanently uninhabitable. They were forced to leave, eventually settling in a region called Northeron, as well as in the Lordaeron Hinterlands far to the north of Grim Batol. The Wildhammers have a close bond with gryphons, and the gryphon riders from the second and third wars are members of their clan. Clan Bronzebeard - The rulers of Ironforge, Clan Bronzebeard are traditionally what people think of when they imagine Warcraft Dwarves. Their city under the mountain is circular, with the middle being a gigantic forge, built above an open pit of magma. They're also deeply curious, one of the three Bronzebeard brothers, Brann, is the current head of the Explorer's League, a Dwarven organization dedicated to exploring uncharted lands as well as archaeology. It was presumably Explorers' League business that drove Muradin to Northrend to search for Frostmourne in the first place. Frostmourne - The legendary runeblade, and Arthas' signature weapon. Just claiming the blade lost Arthas his soul forever. Anyone slain by the blade has their soul added to the host inside. Arthas' Betrayal - After claiming Frostmourne and taking care of Mal'Ganis, Arthas wandered into the frozen wasteland of Northrend where he lost his sanity, and presumably his life. He was no longer human or alive when he returned to his base camp and slaughtered everyone he could find. His lieutenants he raised as powerful death knights, who then slaughtered the men under their command and raised them as the undead. Thassarian went out in search of Arthas and was instead found by Captain Falric, who killed him and raised him as a death knight. Some members of the expeditionary force escaped the massacre, but for the most part they were all killed. They then returned to Lordaeron to be received as returning heroes. Once home, Arthas murdered his father, usurped the throne, and turned the streets of the city red with blood. Every person killed was raised as an undead by either Arthas or one of his death knights. DoubleNegative fucked around with this message at 00:35 on Mar 17, 2018 |
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2018 00:18
|
|
|
President Ark posted:necromancers are undead for gameplay reasons, same reason (albiet in the opposite direction) forsaken and death knights in WoW aren't undead There was a time, back in the WoW beta, that player forsaken were classified as Undead. It was rather silly, gameplay wise. Paladins and priest were A Problem.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2018 00:20
|
|
|
Yaungol (which became the tauren and taunka) are also native to Azeroth.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2018 00:25
|
|
|
Warcraft's lore is such a glorious mess but I love every moment of it  Blizzard's post-Pandaria expansion storylines however, I can live without. They're desperate to get people invested in the tired faction war shtick and just keep pulling bigger and bigger shock moments to the point of tedium.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2018 00:27
|
|
|
President Ark posted:necromancers are undead for gameplay reasons, same reason (albiet in the opposite direction) forsaken and death knights in WoW aren't undead The same thing happens to some Necromancer npcs in WoW, however there was one necromancer boss in Naxxramas who I would say was correctly labeled as undead (KT froze his heart).
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2018 00:52
|
|
|
There's a few more 'minor' races that are actually (probably) native to Azeroth, like the Murlocs. Literally nobody knows where those actually came from, but by all accounts they've been around for longer than any historic record. There's also several tribes of walrus-people in Northrend who call themselves the Tuskarr - presumably they were never deemed important enough to get a convoluted backstory like everyone else. And, of course, there's dragons. Who can honestly make the claim that they're the only living things that were ever really designed to live on Azeroth originally.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2018 01:19
|
|
Arcomage posted:There's a few more 'minor' races that are actually (probably) native to Azeroth, like the Murlocs. Literally nobody knows where those actually came from, but by all accounts they've been around for longer than any historic record. There's also several tribes of walrus-people in Northrend who call themselves the Tuskarr - presumably they were never deemed important enough to get a convoluted backstory like everyone else. And, of course, there's dragons. Who can honestly make the claim that they're the only living things that were ever really designed to live on Azeroth originally. Not if you listen to Odyn when he goes on one of his "racist old drunken uncle" rants about dragons.
|
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2018 01:27
|
|
|
Goblins are natives as well, diminutive cave dwellers that were enslaved by Trolls until exposure to the weird Kaja'mite ore the Trolls were making them mine made them hyper-intelligent, letting them outwit and enslave the Trolls in turn. Brann Bronzebeard theorised that it might be connected to the Old Gods in some supplemental material but that hook's never been took up. Then the Kaja'mite started to dry up and the collective intelligence of Azeroth's Goblin population dropped while giving them a deep streak of praemiumania. Do any other Aqir besides the Nerubians show up? All three/four of their races are super cool.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2018 01:39
|
|
|
SteelMentor posted:Goblins are natives as well, diminutive cave dwellers that were enslaved by Trolls until exposure to the weird Kaja'mite ore the Trolls were making them mine made them hyper-intelligent, letting them outwit and enslave the Trolls in turn. Brann Bronzebeard theorised that it might be connected to the Old Gods in some supplemental material but that hook's never been took up. Nah, Chronicles 2 established that they're an experiment of Mimiron's.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2018 01:42
|
|
|
There's a billion minor races in this setting and I don't know if anyone cared enough to figure them out, but I might be wrong. Stuff like the gnolls, kobolds, murlocs...
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2018 01:42
|
|
|
Siegkrow posted:I'd point out that, in WoW, we still dunno if playable DKs are alive with a lot of necrotic energy or outright undead (excepting forsaken) I thought this was explicitly stated in the DK intro zone about them being the dead heroes who were rezed and enslaved by Arthas.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2018 01:46
|
|
|
Cythereal posted:Nah, Chronicles 2 established that they're an experiment of Mimiron's. Well drat that's boring. God forbid we have something the Titans didn't stick their dicks in.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2018 01:56
|
|
|
FoolyCharged posted:I just imagined a ton of death knights using their control undead skill on each other and am now wondering why they decided I wasn't good enough to get that. because it turns out priests and paladins having no-cooldown extremely strong anti-undead CC lets them clown all over undead players; early in the WoW alpha leveling advice for forsaken when they counted as undead was "find a zone where you can level at the bottom of a lake* and grind there because if a paladin or priest finds you, you are going to be hosed for hours" *at the time, their "hold breath longer underwater" was actually "hold breath underwater forever" SteelMentor posted:Well drat that's boring. God forbid we have something the Titans didn't stick their dicks in. good news, it winds up they stuck their dick in draenor too! President Ark fucked around with this message at 02:04 on Mar 17, 2018 |
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2018 02:01
|
|
|
Arcomage posted:There's a few more 'minor' races that are actually (probably) native to Azeroth, like the Murlocs. Literally nobody knows where those actually came from, but by all accounts they've been around for longer than any historic record. There's also several tribes of walrus-people in Northrend who call themselves the Tuskarr - presumably they were never deemed important enough to get a convoluted backstory like everyone else. And, of course, there's dragons. Who can honestly make the claim that they're the only living things that were ever really designed to live on Azeroth originally. Murlocs are supposedly evolved from the Gorlocs in Northrend, and Brann speculates the Gorlocs are the creations of a frog-based Wild God. There's a frog loa named Krag'wa the Huge showing up in the next expansion, he may be their progenitor.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2018 03:13
|
|
|
I wonder when they will make Morlocs a playable race...
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2018 03:38
|
|
|
President Ark posted:*at the time, their "hold breath longer underwater" was actually "hold breath underwater forever" As far as I remember this is backwards. Forsaken started WoW with 300% longed breath underwater, it got upgraded to 1000% at some point and then eventually they did just make it so Forsaken don’t breath underwater at all. A few other things, in no particular order; The Council was Six was meant to be an unknown group and the official leader/spokesperson of Dalaran doesn’t have to be one of them; Kel’thuzad is actually a pretty okay guy before he formed the cult of the damned, and he’s the reason the members of the Council of Six are now common knowledge; the reason Kel’thuzad started practicing Necromancy was because the Orcs had used it to great effect in the Second War and he didn’t want a third War where they knew nothing; he has a cat and was apparently very lonely, as he made a wish in the wishing well for someone to give him a hug; if Dalaran hadn’t exiled him the fall of Lordaeron probably would not have happened. Lastly WoW revealed that Kel’thuzad actually ran away when he discovered what joining the Dark Lord of the Dead would mean, and was hunted down and forced into service. Although by the time of the game it is voluntary.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2018 03:38
|
|
|
President Ark posted:good news, it winds up they stuck their dick in draenor too! They did? What about Draenor was titany?
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2018 05:27
|
|
|
Lord_Magmar posted:if Dalaran hadn’t exiled him the fall of Lordaeron probably would not have happened. It probably would have been delayed, not stopped, I'd think. Kel'thuzad's "Dark Lord" would've found another pawn eventually. Luckily he didn't need to 
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2018 07:05
|
|
|
Lord_Magmar posted:-he has a cat and was apparently very lonely, as he made a wish in the wishing well for someone to give him a hug- ...So who ended up giving him a hug?
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2018 07:36
|
|
|
At what point did these things become part of the lore anyway? Some of the trollish stuff must have come out of this particular game. The backstory of the Orcs and Humans came from this and the previous games (though again, the question is, how much?). And the last faction, whom we won't get to until the very end, they came from this game as well, right?
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2018 08:02
|
|
|
The wc3 manual mentioned Titans creating Azeroth. It might have also name-dropped the curse of flesh, but I might be remembering that wrong. It certainly didn't say what it was, hence my ignorance. Orcs being rounded up into internment camps was a large part of it, as well as an unknown lethargy after they were captured. Thrall then saves them and decides worshipping demons was probably not a good idea, so they take up shamanism. A lot of the wc3 manual contents beyond that would be spoilers. I'm not 100% sure of how much of it has been retconned at this point. I'm also almost certainly forgetting things that could be said without spoilers.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2018 08:12
|
|
|
Ibblebibble posted:They did? What about Draenor was titany? The Magnaron, who in turn created the Gronn, then the Ogres and from there the Orcs. All because when one of the Titans came to Draenor, he noticed that plant-people and their gods were going to overrun everything on the planet eventually, and thus decided something needed to be done about that. The rest is history.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2018 08:29
|
|
|
Jalak posted:...So who ended up giving him a hug? Nobody, Kel'thuzad is a lonely old man whose only true friend was a cat, who was kicked out of his home city for trying to study something to help future generations. His backstory is actually really pitiful, because opposed to Arthas fall being one of pride and hubris and vengeance; Kel'thuzad just wanted people who cared and a way to help the world, and then the Scourge got to him and the rest is history, as they say. Jaina probably knew him a little, given Dalaran is not actually very big and doesn't have a huge population to begin with.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2018 09:08
|
|
|
Curse of Flesh didn't pop up as a real thing until around WotLK. Though in classic the Earthen > Dwarf was still a known thing without a specific name.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2018 10:51
|
|
|
McTimmy posted:Curse of Flesh didn't pop up as a real thing until around WotLK. Though in classic the Earthen > Dwarf was still a known thing without a specific name. That's a Tolkien thing, I think. However... So, in Nordic mythology (which is the source of our modern "dwarf" mythology), very little is said about the height of dwarves. It's possible that it's another thing (along with the height of leprechauns) that Christianity changed, altering mythological races into literal "little folk". Anyway, I bring up Nordic mythology because although that's where we get the first connection between dwarves and their skill in smithing (they were responsible for the forging of the chains to hold the Fenris wolf using the sound of a cat's footfall, the beard of a woman, the roots of a mountain, the sinews of a bear, the breath of a fish and the spittle of a bird), we also get the first Dwarf <-> Earth connection. Alviss ("All-wise") is a master dwarf smith who wishes to marry Thor's daughter, but is kept talking so long, that he's turned to stone by the rays of the sun. A funny thing is, is that dwarves and elves seem to be interchangeable in Nordic mythology, both "races" given the same attributes. Sorry, too far off-topic?
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2018 12:20
|
|
|
painedforever posted:
Up to OP, but I'd argue constrasting and comparing raceses seen in warcraft lore and other media/mythology is interesting and looking at what Blizzard may have based things on could help speculate where Blizzard plans to go with a storyline(Taking the rest of a given story into account). Obviously that information is not useful by itself for such a purpose, but it is fun to draw parallels, Technically it might get away from the rest of warcraft 3, but we are also still talking about dwaves, who are also no longer relevant other than basic units showing up in human armies. lobster22221 fucked around with this message at 15:09 on Mar 17, 2018 |
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2018 15:06
|
|
|
DoubleNegative posted:Thassarian went out in search of Arthas and was instead found by Captain Falric, who killed him and raised him as a death knight. So, wait. Did Thassarian die at Falric's hands, or did Falric die at Thassarian's hands? "Him" isn't very clear here.
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2018 03:33
|
|
|
Kith posted:So, wait. Did Thassarian die at Falric's hands, or did Falric die at Thassarian's hands? "Him" isn't very clear here. The first one. "Captain Falric, who killed him" doesn't make any sense if Captain Falric is the one getting killed.
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2018 04:03
|
|
|
DoubleNegative posted:The Keepers - You know Norse mythology? Loki, Thor, Odin, etcetera? Yeah, the Keepers are all just Norse gods by a slightly different name. Archaedas, Loken, Thorim, Freya, Mimiron, Hodir, Tyr, Ra, and Odyn are all the known Keepers. They were imbued with the appearance and powers of the Titans, and were meant to lead their armies in battle against an evil that was corrupting Azeroth. Things didn't quite work out. The corrupting evils, known as the Old Gods, beat the keepers bad, and eventually enslaved one of them. Not sure if this is a mistake or was retconned, but as of the current lore, the Keepers actually defeated and contained the Old Gods, albeit just barely. And the reason the Titans created them and appointed them to lead their armies was because they were afraid that if they tried to take direct action against the Old Gods, they could end up harming the planet and the still-developing Titan in the process. At one point during the war, things were actually looking pretty dire for the Keepers, so the Titans did step in to help... and while they managed to swing the tide in their favor, it did have catastrophic results, as they'd feared.
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2018 17:45
|
|
|
Yeah, the reason the Ulduar Keepers are corrupted by WoW, and they’re the only ones, is that the prison they lived on top of wasn’t perfect and the whispers of that particular old god reached them. Starting with Loken, and from him they subvert the entire Ulduar Keeper Force, although the raid involves beating sense back into them. Loken is perks-killed because he was fully corrupted. They also don’t have the appearance of the Titans, they were just empowered by them, and in Ra-Den’s case got a bit of Aman’thul’s Soul when Sargeras went nuts and murdered the rest of the Pantheon a little bit.
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2018 17:48
|
|
|
Chapter XIV - Trudging through the Ashes Hello everyone and welcome back to Warcraft III. I really like this animation, so I had to include it. Don't worry if you can't quite read what it says. Given the presence of the lich there, you can probably make an educated guess at what our second proper campaign is.  Welcome to the Undead Campaign, the Path of the Damned. This is probably my favorite campaign in the game.  That's a lot of text that can be difficult to read, so here it is repeated... "The Lich King's plague of undeath has spread through the Capital City and into the outskirts of Lordaeron. Shocked and disheartened by the loss of their beloved king, the forces of Lordaeron were scattered by the ravenous undead warriors. Now, Lordaeron is but a shadow of its former glory - and Prince Arthas has yet to be seen..." Also time for some map chat. Vandermar Village no longer exists in modern Warcraft. There's not even a set of ruins to commemorate where it used to be... it's just gone. It looks to be situated somewhere between the Capital City and Andorhal, but there's nothing but open ground between the two now. Its placement suggests it used to lie past a camp called "The Bulwark" which can be found where the mountains get the most narrow to the east of Capital City. The warcraft wikis suggest it could be a place now called Deathknell, which is the newbie zone for WoW's undead race. My only issue with that is that Deathknell is to the west of Capital City, nestled in the mountains between it and the western coast. Oh well, past today we won't have to think about it ever again. So who even knows!    : What trickery is this?  : Congratulate me? : By killing your own father and delivering this land to the Scourge, you have passed your first test. The Lich King is pleased with your... enthusiasm.  : Who even is this Lich King?: The Lich King is the master of the undead. It is his whispers you hear through Frostmourne.: How did you--: It is my job to know. Now come, we have much work to do and very little time in which to do it.: Then I'll make do without a soul. What is the Lich King's will?  So yeah, welcome to the Undead Campaign. Once again, Arthas is our main character. We're back to level 1, however. All those juicy items we had in the Frostmourne mission are now gone. Arthas is now a Death Knight, which sounds badass. Let's take a closer look at his new skills.  The Death Knight is basically the undead version of the Paladin. Their basic ability, Death Coil, does the exact same thing. The only difference is that it can damage any type of enemy!  Death Coil upgrades the same as Holy Light did. At level 3 being able to deal 300 guaranteed damage to any enemy makes the Death Knight a really powerful hero.  I'm sure there's some high level strategy for Death Pact that makes it invaluable. I just don't see it myself. At max level you can turn a 330 HP Ghoul into 990 HP worth of healing. I won't be touching this skill until level 8 when I have no other points to put into anything else.  Unholy Aura is a really great ability. Just being near Arthas will make everyone move faster and passively regenerate more health. 30% additional movement doesn't sound like a lot, but with it Arthas will be able to zip whole armies across the map in a fraction of the time.  I'm pretty sure in all my years of playing this game I've never once intentionally used Animate Dead. It sounds really powerful! I can think of a few situations in the campaign where this would be invaluable. I'll try to give it some use in the LP.  We also get access to the basic undead unit, the Ghoul.  Compared to the Footman...  Ghouls deal slightly more damage, have less armor, have less health, and are marginally cheaper to produce (140 gold vs 160). They're also infinitely more useful than Footmen, and can more or less keep themselves in good health with Cannibalize. These guys are meant to be disposable shock troops. You train a bunch of them and throw them at your problems en masse.  Moving on... Tichondrius is technically the second undead hero. But he's never once playable in the campaign. In fact, we won't be getting another controllable hero for quite a long time.  This mission is another linear path. It has a few quick detours, but there's no mistaking the way you're supposed to be going.   : Greetings, great lord. Our master, Kel'Thuzad, told us that you would come.: Kel'Thuzad? How could he have known that--: Be wary. If the townsfolk see your undead minions, they'll call the local guards to stop you. This is the major gimmick for the level. Villagers are all over the place, and they'll run for help the second they see Arthas or a ghoul. So this is actually a sneaking mission.   : Help! The undead! Sound the alarm... : Prince Arthas! ARM YOURSELVES! : My life for Ner'zhul!: Who is Ner'zhul?: Ner'zhul is the Lich King!: Hmph. Sounds like an orc name to me. : Seek out the local graveyards. Those buried there will serve you well. Seems simple enough!   : Greetings my lord. Allow me to be your eyes and ears. There are many enemies ahead.: Won't they be able to see you?: I can't be seen unless I will it.: Good to know.We get a new unit here. This puff of smoke is the Shade. We won't be able to make our own for a couple missions yet, but these guys are pretty useful. They fill the same role that Observers did in Starcraft, namely being invisible and being used as scouts. They're about as useful as well. You should just assume that the AI knows where your invisible units are at all times, but can't prove they're there unless a detector can see them. This also makes them completely useless against human AI opponents. (That is to say AI opponents playing as humans.) Because mortar teams can learn a flare ability that shows everything in its area of effect. If the AI has mortar teams, expect them to reveal your shades more or less on cooldown. Because this is a stealth mission, the AI is going to pretend it can't see us moving the shade around. So let's scout around with it.   : There is a small square just ahead. There are three humans walking a slow patrol around it. There's also a mounted commander.: A knight... I'd better sneak past them.   : I count three acolytes hiding nearby. One is just behind some trees to the west, another is working at the lumber mill to your south, while the third is outside of a house to the southwest.: Very well, I'll rescue them first. : I live only to serve, great lord. : The damned stand ready.: I recommend taking the long way around to reach the last acolyte. The knight will kill you if you don't. There are a lot of villagers over here. So you have to be really careful.  Or just use death coil, which one shots any villager you target with it.  : I bow to your will. There are actually two ways to go here. One is the obviously signposted one, while the other is somewhat hidden. Take the obvious path and...  Two knights and three footmen come to congratulate you on a job well done. If this happens, just run far enough away and they'll eventually leash.  The right way to go is the shallows that blend in really well with the river, and is almost certainly obscured by the fog of war. Obviosuly.  : Beware. There are villagers everywhere inside the town.   : A blond prettyboy is beating up a fat man while a group of idiots stand around and cheer.: I'm going to do the world a favor by killing both of them. : Must... feed... If you get spotted by a villager and he successfully gets to a guard, then a bunch of them run to investigate the spot where you were seen. If that happens, just hang back and wait.  For those keeping track, this is the 8th acolyte, counting the one that showed up near the Fight Club reference.  Just east of the last acolyte, and past the patrolling knight, is the sidequest graveyard right on the main path.  But don't forget the 9th acolyte hidden in some shadows just before it.  Arthas gets XP for each cultist sent back, which is really nice. We get the first point in Unholy Aura with this first level.  : I'm in luck. These graves were dug recently... Arise in the name of the Lich King! We get two more ghouls and three skeletons for bringing Arthas to a location that was right in our way.   By the way, all the acolytes we've rescued are hanging out with Tichondrius and casting runes at him.  There's a large gate in our way to the final part of the level. But first, there's a lot of black over to the west. Let's scout it out...  A town hall, some peasants, a few villagers, an acolyte...    Four acolytes in total, some bandits, and a tiny settlement.   : Say your prayers! : Bandits! Run! If you're into the Drakengard thing, there's a couple children in this mission that aren't invulnerable. You monster.  These bandits all cause poison damage. For some reason this hurts the undead.   The Spider Ring increases agility by 1. Not really useful for Arthas, but better than nothing I guess.  Anyway, moving on. After you break the gate down, these footmen start chasing an acolyte. I believe they'll actually kill him if they catch up. He makes 14, by the way. This mission is very nearly over!  The last section is a huge town area. There's a lot of villagers everywhere.  The north center has a cathedral and four villagers, plus the two patrolling footmen and a knight hanging out. Getting seen here is gonna lead to a bad time.  Another knight to the south of the first acolyte...  I drew the two patrolling footmen away by luring them over with a skeleton.  They're not dangerous with this many undead, but drawing them into a more advantageous spot is not a bad idea regardless.  Basically here I started to abuse the quirks of the "you were spotted" system. So I can get rid of troublesome blue villagers and draw the guards to specific spots. Someone more clever than I am could lead knights into traps this way, I'm sure.  The next acolyte is south of the cathedral, and only a couple villagers in the way.  #17 is in the southeast corner of the village...  : Kill 'em all!Moving Arthas just past him caused a couple guards to rush off.  I apparently didn't see #17 while playing. So these four are 17-20. The three footmen are supposed to be guarding them, but the first two were kinda jumpy. So instead it's Arthas, four ghouls, and a skeleton beating one footman to death.  There's a 22nd acolyte to the far north, but we don't need him.  : The damned stand ready.: I live only to serve.: My life for Ner'zhul.: I bow to your will. A nice easy mission to ease us into the undead campaign. From now on there is 100% less sneaking around and 100% more kicking rear end.  Here's a final glamor shot of 20 acolytes chilling with Tichondrius.  : Lordaeron lies in ashes. What good are these cultists to us now?: They will aid you in your next undertaking.: And what's that?   NEXT TIME: Digging up the Dead
|
|
#
?
Mar 20, 2018 16:09
|
|
|
One useful way of using deathpact is with necromancers. Raise up some skeletons, and the only thing you really lose is mana. Ghouls are another okay target. You might be able to use it on units raised by animate dead, but I don't remember. Animate dead is nice in the campaign because the units raised are invulnerable, so you can use it if you need to retreat and still want to kill some buildings or units. That said, unholy aura is incredible, and deathcoil is great for damage. The healing is nice for some missions where your resources are more strained, like the one you just did.
|
|
#
?
Mar 20, 2018 16:38
|
|
|
Jesus this thread makes me nostalgic for all the time I spent playing custom WC3 maps on Battle.Net way back. The editor was far less intuitive than Starcraft's(which was simple enough that I could make reasonably complex maps when I was 14), but also so much more powerful in terms of what it could do.
|
|
#
?
Mar 20, 2018 17:56
|
|
|
PurpleXVI posted:Jesus this thread makes me nostalgic for all the time I spent playing custom WC3 maps on Battle.Net way back. The editor was far less intuitive than Starcraft's(which was simple enough that I could make reasonably complex maps when I was 14), but also so much more powerful in terms of what it could do. I loved the wc3 editor, it was more complicated than starcraft's, but still easy enough to figure out. The gui coding was perfect most of the time(JASS was better because of local variables and the ability to avoid memory leaks), and was relatively intuitive. The ability to create custom objects instead of just modifying existing units was an enormous boon. Literally you just chose a base unit and modified it. There were some restrictions that definitely made things harder(No way to turn a unit based on a unit into a hero, not all abilities had all fields, flags were set and could be renamed at most, but the editor did not reflect the modified values), but it was still really flexible. I think starcraft 2 is where the editor got too complicated for its own good. Scripting was fine, and the power rivaled an entire game engine, but creating new units and such was the least intuitive tasks I have ever seen. If you had access to free assets, your time would be better spent making your own game. There was a small "custom terrain" scene that I really liked that created some beautiful screenshots within the wc3 engine. I'll see if I can find some if anyone is interested.
|
|
#
?
Mar 20, 2018 18:15
|
|
|
Fun fact: Not all of those bandits inflict poison. Only the "Assassin", the guy throwing spears actually inflicts poison. However, he has a small AI quirk that causes his to switch targets with every attack to spread poison to as many targets as possible! This is also true of the Gnoll assassin unit with poison arrows.
|
|
#
?
Mar 20, 2018 19:12
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 11, 2024 19:16 |
|
|
You can have the ghouls attack the trees north of Tichondrius to clearcut a path to an item. I don't even remember what is up there, but it's almost assuredly not worth it.
|
|
#
?
Mar 20, 2018 19:15
|
|