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Purple was the magical kingdom whose name has slipped out of my head.
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May 26, 2022 11:58
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Admiral Joeslop posted:Purple was the magical kingdom whose name has slipped out of my head. Dalaran
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May 26, 2022 12:00
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Torrannor posted:Dalaran OH Man, Dalaran is something that can get SEVERAL lore posts in itself for how much bullshit its involved in plotwise You can also pick WHICH Dalaran you want to go to in WoW
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May 26, 2022 12:05
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Yeah, WC2 is from the same era as Starcraft 1 where different team colors for the same race are used to represent different political factions. Warcraft 1 actually does this as well on a smaller scale, which we'll see in due time.
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May 26, 2022 12:18
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AtomikKrab posted:OH Man, Dalaran is something that can get SEVERAL lore posts in itself for how much bullshit its involved in. Totally destroying Dalaran as the Horde is probably my favorite level in WC2.
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May 26, 2022 12:51
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Thanks to this thread getting me nostalgia-y, I've been replaying Warcraft 3 and... while it isn't, you know, the absolute apex of good writing. I feel like Prince Arthas' corruption, as the result of multiple smaller events, eventually culminating in willingly damning himself, actually feels subtle and well-delivered compared to, well, everything that comes after in terms of things being corrupted. It kind of feels like it's the only time there isn't just a jug of Juice That Makes You Corrupted on display and everyone either gets baptized in it or takes a big swallow, where it's like... believable. Am I alone in this? Possibly the other lore dumps in this thread combined with having suffered through 2/3rds of Starcraft 2, have just completely dumpstered my level of expectations for Blizzard writing.
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May 26, 2022 13:11
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PurpleXVI posted:It kind of feels like it's the only time there isn't just a jug of Juice That Makes You Corrupted on display and everyone either gets baptized in it or takes a big swallow, where it's like... believable. Am I alone in this? 1)Arthas is an idiot 2)Mal'Ganis is a slightly lesser idiot who nonetheless gets screwed by his superiors in an extremely obvious way 3)Uther is not an idiot, which you don't exactly expect from a paladin Of course, all of that has probably been retconned by now.
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May 26, 2022 13:34
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PurpleXVI posted:Thanks to this thread getting me nostalgia-y, I've been replaying Warcraft 3 and... while it isn't, you know, the absolute apex of good writing. I feel like Prince Arthas' corruption, as the result of multiple smaller events, eventually culminating in willingly damning himself, actually feels subtle and well-delivered compared to, well, everything that comes after in terms of things being corrupted. There's a reason Warcraft 3 is looked back upon fondly and it goes beyond good gameplay.
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May 26, 2022 13:56
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Natural 20 posted:There's a reason Warcraft 3 is looked back upon fondly and it goes beyond good gameplay. I mean personally I always thought the basic gameplay was kind of garbage and only really got excited for the UMS maps on Battle.Net.  I also really disliked the story when it first came out because of its orc retcons and its addition of more elves. I think it's more that what comes after makes a lot of it look... a lot less garbage.
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May 26, 2022 13:58
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PurpleXVI posted:I mean personally I always thought the basic gameplay was kind of garbage and only really got excited for the UMS maps on Battle.Net. I only have three problems with WC3's campaign gameplay: 1. My favorite Alliance hero is only available in two or three missions. 2. I don't think you ever use my favorite Undead hero in the campaign at all. 3. My favorite night elf hero isn't until Frozen Throne.
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May 26, 2022 14:35
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PurpleXVI posted:Thanks to this thread getting me nostalgia-y, I've been replaying Warcraft 3 and... while it isn't, you know, the absolute apex of good writing. I feel like Prince Arthas' corruption, as the result of multiple smaller events, eventually culminating in willingly damning himself, actually feels subtle and well-delivered compared to, well, everything that comes after in terms of things being corrupted. By comparison, the other corruptions in the series tend to be completely out of nowhere and don't make sense for the character. MagusofStars fucked around with this message at 14:48 on May 26, 2022 |
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May 26, 2022 14:44
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Aside from everything story-related, my issues with the Warcraft 3 campaign are mainly... "Tutorial Campaign," that thing a lot of RTS games do where you don't actually get to play any real missions because every mission feels like a tutorial for some new unit or mechanic. Pathfinding issues, I feel like half my issue was wrangling units getting stuck on each other and having trouble navigating map terrain that was too narrow for their giant space marine proportioned clunky bodies. Way too many active abilities you were almost guaranteed to never be using. Every loving unit needed an active ability, I think each faction had like two that didn't have one. Yeah I'm sure that precise use of the Footman's "Defend" ability was what marked out an elite Battle.Net player, but if you claim you even remember that ability existed in the campaign, I will call you out as a liar. Side mechanics like subquests that felt like the aspects of a more RPG-heavy game(what we first heard about, part of my disappointment with the Warcraft 3 we eventually got was that the original presentation sounded SO much wilder, with a persistent-across-missions base and a focus on going adventuring with heroes) and which then get more or less completely forgotten outside of the first three tutorial missions.
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May 26, 2022 14:46
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MagusofStars posted:No you're not alone in this and it's not just low expectations. Arthas' corruption is legitimately well done. His actions all make sense and flow in a logical progression. Arthas views it as his duty to protect his people and stop the Scourge, but he's young, impulsive, and inexperienced. He's given way too much authority and autonomy in dealing with the plague and is too naive to realize that Kel'Thuzad and Mal'ganis are playing him. So every step of Arthas' fall - from the Culling to rushing after Mal'Ganis to burning his own ships to accepting Frostmourne, all of it is understandable when you consider Arthas as a character. Or are retroactively added in to sidestep some actually morally difficult writing in other games. Kerrigan in SC1? A tool of the Confederacy, then a tool of Mengsk, then a tool of the Overmind. Kerrigan in BW? Queen Bitch of the Universe and loving every second. Sure, she pissed off her One True Love, but she gets to call the shots now! Then the last minutes of WoL has the 'real' Kerrigan tell Raynor to keep fighting, effectively absolving her of all her sins because she wasn't really in control of her actions the entire time, so Raynor can save his girlfriend and have it be 100% morally justified. BisbyWorl fucked around with this message at 15:16 on May 26, 2022 |
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May 26, 2022 15:14
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I'll dig into this in WC3, but to try to nip this line of conversation: WoW actually doesn't really retcon anything significant about WC3. It recontextualizes a lot of the game, and heavily expands on many events and characters' motivations and backstories, but the core story of Warcraft 3 (Reign of Chaos, at least, Frozen Throne less so) has been left almost entirely untouched. If there's a sacred cow in Warcraft, it's Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos, and no one at Blizzard has yet made that particular hamburger.
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May 26, 2022 15:20
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Cythereal posted:If there's a sacred cow in Warcraft, it's Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos, and no one at Blizzard has yet made that particular hamburger. Except in terms of how they re-released it as Warcraft 3: Reforged, so there's still plenty of time for them to go even further.
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May 26, 2022 16:09
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Anaxite posted:Except in terms of how they re-released it as Warcraft 3: Reforged, so there's still plenty of time for them to go even further. Reforged was abandoned and left to die long before it was released. There's little danger at present. In any event, there should be an update this weekend. Fingers crossed my new screenshot system and file backups will work properly. We'll even be seeing one of the few canon events from the human campaign.
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May 26, 2022 16:21
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PurpleXVI posted:Thanks to this thread getting me nostalgia-y, I've been replaying Warcraft 3 and... while it isn't, you know, the absolute apex of good writing. I feel like Prince Arthas' corruption, as the result of multiple smaller events, eventually culminating in willingly damning himself, actually feels subtle and well-delivered compared to, well, everything that comes after in terms of things being corrupted. Now it has been twenty years since I played it, and you might well be right that Prince Arthas's fall feels more natural. But I remember playing the campaign and thinking "this character is terrible." My firm memory of that character is that at some point Arthas confronts a demon, and gets a A+ villian's exposition from him. Like the demon not only explains his plan in full, he answers follow up questions and even tells Arthas the names of some creatures he can follow up with. Arthas then looks at him and says "What are you planning really?" I died of laughter. Not great that at some point Arthas meets this demon later after being corrupted, and the demon says "lol I corrupted you" and Arthas is basically "oh well, I EVIL NOW, HAHAHAHAHA"
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May 26, 2022 16:44
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Nebakenezzer posted:Now it has been twenty years since I played it, and you might well be right that Prince Arthas's fall feels more natural. But I remember playing the campaign and thinking "this character is terrible." My firm memory of that character is that at some point Arthas confronts a demon, and gets a A+ villian's exposition from him. Like the demon not only explains his plan in full, he answers follow up questions and even tells Arthas the names of some creatures he can follow up with. Arthas then looks at him and says "What are you planning really?" I died of laughter. 
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May 26, 2022 18:09
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BisbyWorl posted:Or are retroactively added in to sidestep some actually morally difficult writing in other games. Considering what they did with the fanatical Protoss faction in Legacy of the Void, they totally could have left Kerrigan the way she was, personality-wise, with just a few dialogue changes. Tychus will still die because he has orders from Mengsk, Jim still gets to be a hero because he cripples the Queen of Blades, Kerrigan still has a soft spot for him and Matt because they weren't ultimately responsible for what happened at New Gettysburg. Instead of the stupid lovey-dovey crap, we could've still had a Kerrigan regaining her power and rebuilding her swarms to kill Mengsk, then a lot of awkward "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" scenarios leading into taking on Amon and the hybrids. I'm sorry, this is a Warcraft LP. Someone mentioned earlier that all the major WC3 female protagonists got done dirty? What'd they do to Tyrande?
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May 26, 2022 20:23
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Aces High posted:What'd they do to Tyrande? I'll cover this in detail in WC3, but long story short: she went through a patented Blizzard 'woman goes insane with grief and rage because she's an emotional woman (after surviving an act of genocide), acquires supreme magical power, does nothing with it, and then surrenders that power after a big story arc about how hatred and vengeance only hurt people and it's important to forgive and heal so that renewal can happen.' If leaks and datamines are to be believed, we just barely avoided beating her up (and possibly killing her) for purples. We already did the same, non-lethally, to Jaina and Sylvanas. Cythereal fucked around with this message at 20:31 on May 26, 2022 |
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May 26, 2022 20:26
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Cythereal posted:I'll cover this in detail in WC3, but long story short: she went through a patented Blizzard 'woman goes insane with grief and rage because she's an emotional woman (after surviving an act of genocide), acquires supreme magical power, does nothing with it, and then surrenders that power after a big story arc about how hatred and vengeance only hurt people and it's important to forgive and heal so that renewal can happen.' I breathed a guarded but audible sigh of relief when the Dragonflight trailer didn't position Alexstraza as the expansion's villain. ...yet, at least.
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May 26, 2022 21:13
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Cythereal posted:Reforged was abandoned and left to die long before it was released. There's little danger at present. This is true. Basically the reason Reforged ended up walking back on so many of its initial promises is because they started up, announced the project, and then got told that because the Corporate Assholes don't think it'll be a Billion Dollar Success, it's not worth putting any effort into, and it got basically no budget to do any of the things they'd just announced, and also by the way hurry it up we want to release it now, who the gently caress cares if you're not done. And then the Classic Games team that was attempting to work on it post-release got disbanded. There has been literally no team to do the work anymore since... what, less than a year after it launched?
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May 26, 2022 23:16
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Poil posted:Those were two different demons, dreadlords to be precise. Hahaha, fair enough! That was the prince's response, though, I swear Aces High posted:Considering what they did with the fanatical Protoss faction in Legacy of the Void, they totally could have left Kerrigan the way she was, personality-wise, with just a few dialogue changes. Tychus will still die because he has orders from Mengsk, Jim still gets to be a hero because he cripples the Queen of Blades, Kerrigan still has a soft spot for him and Matt because they weren't ultimately responsible for what happened at New Gettysburg. I actually thought the terran campaign was pretty good, especially for BLizzard. Kerrigan's campaign is a *hard* swerve back to blizzard standard. First you have Kerrigan going from kickass Brood War back to being a human by magic maguffin, and then choosing immediately to undo that decision for a lie that her arch-enemy's propaganda machine told, and then a weird dive into some quite suss noble savage stuff. The point where Kerrigan breaks Raynor out of a maximum security prison, and he still had a gun, and it was loaded is when I gave up holding the story to any sort of standard. Was it foolish of me to expect the story of someone who's in charge of a telepathically slaved, I don't know, macro immune system to somehow involve freedom? For a moment I actually thought they were going to reference My Life to Live [1962] to explain the plot, but man, that was foolish in a few different ways. I just finished playing through Starcraft 2, and the Protoss campaign *mostly* works, but I noticed the Sith Protoss are an annoying aside to everything else, and Kerrigan and her special destiny gets put on hold at a certain point. After finding the Xel'nauga (sp?) dead, Kerrigan just spends the rest of the campaign just chilling on the edge of the void while the Protoss do all the heavy lifting defeating space satan. I get why that is, I'm just pointing out how poorly the fated one subplot actually works in the game. While I'm complaining, Space satan's taunts are frequently lame, even nonsensical. Like the dude is straight up "I'm gonna reset all creation so I'm personally in control of it, but how dare you fight me on this?!?" He also does a lot of taunts where he calls you vicious (?) hypocritical (?) and a bunch of other things I never thought I'd hear space satan say. "Fair?! Who's the loving space satan here?!
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May 27, 2022 00:28
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Human 4 recorded, with another windows key mishap near the end but after the mission was already done. Oh well. Remapping that key didn't seem to take. It was also an utter snoozefest compared to Orc 4. Compare:  
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May 27, 2022 00:51
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Cythereal posted:Human 4 recorded, with another windows key mishap near the end but after the mission was already done. Oh well. Remapping that key didn't seem to take. Looks like Alliance Bias to me!
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May 27, 2022 00:58
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Phrosphor posted:Looks like Alliance Bias to me! You also get a hero unit. At the end of the dungeon crawl. When in my case I'd already killed every single enemy on the map.
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May 27, 2022 03:13
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Nebakenezzer posted:I actually thought the terran campaign was pretty good, especially for BLizzard. Kerrigan's campaign is a *hard* swerve back to blizzard standard. First you have Kerrigan going from kickass Brood War back to being a human by magic maguffin, and then choosing immediately to undo that decision for a lie that her arch-enemy's propaganda machine told, and then a weird dive into some quite suss noble savage stuff. The point where Kerrigan breaks Raynor out of a maximum security prison, and he still had a gun, and it was loaded is when I gave up holding the story to any sort of standard. Wings of Liberty had a lot of really good moments and if you excise the stupid Kerrigan-Raynor romance stuff (or just reframe it as an older Jim reminiscing about "the good times" before Mengsk hosed over the entire sector) you don't fundamentally need to change anything. Tychus is still under orders to make sure Kerrigan dies, Raynor is a big drat hero in the eyes of Terrans everywhere because the Broods are now decimated and Kerrigan is a prisoner. Then in Heart of the Swarm you jettison all that poo poo with her pining after Jim and just have her rebuild the swarm so she can finally kill Mengsk. As it is, she doesn't really act any different when she's chilling with Abathur and Dehaka in terms of being ruthless and acting like she did in Brood War. Though perhaps get rid of the really dumb "primal Zerg" thing too
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May 27, 2022 03:35
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It's been a very long time since I've played, but don't you get one or two priests in this one? That alone makes it easier.
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May 27, 2022 03:35
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Just wanted to say this is probably my favorite current ongoing LP (definitely including my own). I personally played way too much Warcraft 2 but didn't like the direction of 3 so I left the series there. I am very scared at what I've read of the lore so far. Very, very scared.
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May 27, 2022 04:50
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The sith protoss (specifically Alarak) are the best thing about LotV imo
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May 27, 2022 06:38
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Cythereal posted:I'll cover this in detail in WC3, but long story short: she went through a patented Blizzard 'woman goes insane with grief and rage because she's an emotional woman (after surviving an act of genocide), acquires supreme magical power, does nothing with it, and then surrenders that power after a big story arc about how hatred and vengeance only hurt people and it's important to forgive and heal so that renewal can happen.' Oooh, you didn't even mention "hush, Tyrande". That said, I didn't get the impression that we're supposed to think that her going insane with grief and rage was because she's an emotional woman at all. You're being very uncharitable here. She goes insane with grief and rage after she acquires supreme magical power, as a direct consequence of getting that magical power.
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May 27, 2022 07:14
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It's been 18 years, I'd be surprised if there's any WC character who hasn't been a dungeon/raid boss at this point
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May 27, 2022 07:17
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Aces High posted:Wings of Liberty had a lot of really good moments and if you excise the stupid Kerrigan-Raynor romance stuff (or just reframe it as an older Jim reminiscing about "the good times" before Mengsk hosed over the entire sector) you don't fundamentally need to change anything. Tychus is still under orders to make sure Kerrigan dies, Raynor is a big drat hero in the eyes of Terrans everywhere because the Broods are now decimated and Kerrigan is a prisoner. Then in Heart of the Swarm you jettison all that poo poo with her pining after Jim and just have her rebuild the swarm so she can finally kill Mengsk. As it is, she doesn't really act any different when she's chilling with Abathur and Dehaka in terms of being ruthless and acting like she did in Brood War. Though perhaps get rid of the really dumb "primal Zerg" thing too There's a lot of stupid poo poo about Starcraft 2. Raynor pining for a mass-murdering war criminal who killed some of his friends and allies in the past, having an entire campaign about de-zerging Kerrigan and then the next one is about re-zerging her, etc. but the worst part is absolutely everything about the loving "primal zerg" retcon. The original zerg weren't NOBLE SPACE DRAGONS, they were gross worms and slugs that lived in animals' spinal fluid. Zerus wasn't a JUNGLE HAPPYLAND, it was a blasted volcanic waste. I hate it. I hate it so much. I couldn't even move on to the Protoss campaign after that because I knew it was just going to make me angrier and there'd be loving space elves or some such poo poo.
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May 27, 2022 09:49
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I don't think Starcraft 1 said much about where the Zerg came from at all, did it? All SC2 retconned was some kind of EU fluff. The Protoss campaign in SC2 annoyed me the most, largely because the Terran campaign introduced the cool and fun character of Selendis, who spent the entire Protoss campaign as a mind-slave while the plot focused around standard elf characters until Alarak shows up. And even Alarak isn't really interesting, he just chews the scenery in a really fun way.
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May 27, 2022 10:09
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SirSamVimes posted:The sith protoss (specifically Alarak) are the best thing about LotV imo I can't help but interpret their portrayal in Covert Ops as a retaliation against people ignoring all of LotV's big epic heroes chosen by destiny or whatever in favour of a side character.
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May 27, 2022 10:11
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Tenebrais posted:I don't think Starcraft 1 said much about where the Zerg came from at all, did it? All SC2 retconned was some kind of EU fluff. It was 100% spelled out in the SC1 manual: Worm dudes from lava planet, live in spinal cords and can control creatures they "ride" in that way, Xel'naga hosed with them to give them a hive mind and see what would happen.
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May 27, 2022 10:12
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PurpleXVI posted:It was 100% spelled out in the SC1 manual: Worm dudes from lava planet, live in spinal cords and can control creatures they "ride" in that way, Xel'naga hosed with them to give them a hive mind and see what would happen. And if you want the exact wording: SC1 manual posted:The Xel’Naga were more successful with
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May 27, 2022 10:19
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I believe there was even more to it than that. The starcraft manual was way big and covered pretty much 100% of each race's history pre-game. Like that paragraph right there is just part of what it said all about the zerg. Which reminds me of another amazing series of patented blizzard retcons: all that stuff about the overmind in 2 that went one way and then the other.
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May 27, 2022 10:21
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I don't really have an attachment to SC1 so I was largely fine with De-zerging Kerrigan in SC2. I think there's a really compelling story to tell of a human Kerrigan asking the question of "to what extent am I in control of the Zerg and to what extent are they in control of me?" Both from a literal standpoint, they might be influencing her mind psychically and from a metaphorical one where her entire life going forward is hugely influenced by what she did as Queen of blades. And you know there's an empowering story there in the realisation that she is in control but that also means she's responsible for what she previously did. Or that the relationship isn't about control but cooperation. Like maybe we gain an understanding that the Zerg aren't just faux Tyranids or whatever. Instead girl just loses Jim and immediately goes off the deep end and jumps in Zerg goo to become the queen of blades but more green. That 90% of the campaign can be beaten on brutal by building roach hydra and a moving across the map also kinda sucks.
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May 27, 2022 12:15
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I am not going to LP Starcraft after this, in case anyone was wondering. I don't even own Legacy of the Void or Covert Ops. I do have ideas about what I might LP after this, but this project is a formidable task as it is. Strategic Sage posted:Just wanted to say this is probably my favorite current ongoing LP  Torrannor posted:You're being very uncharitable here. Well, yeah. These are the writers who had Thrall tell Jaina that she needs to settle down with her boyfriend and have a family when she was enraged about surviving being at ground zero for a nuclear strike that destroyed her city and killed all of her friends. Said boyfriend broke up with her later in the same book because 'she was being unreasonable.' Of course I'm going to be uncharitable towards Blizzard, especially regarding how they write women. I've been uncharitable towards Blizzard since the first post of this thread, and I don't intend to stop unless Blizzard gives me a very good reason to. Cythereal fucked around with this message at 13:31 on May 27, 2022 |
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May 27, 2022 12:24
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