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Natural 20 posted:That 90% of the campaign can be beaten on brutal by building roach hydra and a moving across the map also kinda sucks. anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 14:42 on May 27, 2022 |
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May 27, 2022 13:33
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Cythereal posted:
I'm pretty sure they didn't break up in that book, I think one of the lore guys mentioned on twitter that they broke up off screen sometime before BfA. Probably because BfA was their attempt to rehabilitate Jaina after all the dumb poo poo they did to her between MoP and then, and her dating a dragon was one of the many, many things people did not like about the direction her story took.
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May 27, 2022 14:25
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Wow, all those gripes about wc3 and no one mentioned the general lack of enemy variety in the base campaigns. You're in campaign 3/4 before one playable faction even shows up! You literally never get to fight them in the first two campaigns. And the orcs are under represented too so the first pair of campaigns becomes the human and new faction #1 bonanza.
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May 27, 2022 14:57
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Cythereal posted: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. This is fine, and you were upfront about it in your very first post. But I'm just going to point out the instances where I think you're too harsh on Blizzard for the benefit of "neutral" readers. I hope that's okay. I really enjoy your LP so far overall, and I always feel like a bit of civil discussion/disagreement about WoW lore is fun 
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May 27, 2022 15:02
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I’m saving the majority of my WC3 gripes for when we get there. Jaina- they probably thought it’d be cool for her to date a dragon and then weren’t ready for fans to think otherwise. But that’s no excuse. Women & Blizzard- I had previously thought Blizzard’s worst sin with a female character was giving a lot of good development to Leah in Diablo 3 and then totally making none of it matter in the worst way possible. Read Wikipedia or Tv Tropes for specifics, I will not encourage playing the game and I don’t want to say more about it, it was that bad. That there are worse things they’ve done makes me disappointed but not surprised. achtungnight fucked around with this message at 15:09 on May 27, 2022 |
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May 27, 2022 15:03
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FoolyCharged posted:Wow, all those gripes about wc3 and no one mentioned the general lack of enemy variety in the base campaigns. You're in campaign 3/4 before one playable faction even shows up! You literally never get to fight them in the first two campaigns. And the orcs are under represented too so the first pair of campaigns becomes the human and new faction #1 bonanza. We're about 1/3 way through WC1 (Human 4 will go up this weekend assuming nothing goes wrong) - 12 missions per campaign. Then we have all of WC2 to get through, including Beyond the Dark Portal. Then we have WC3. I don't at all mind all this talk of WC3 or Starcraft, just bear in mind that we have a long way to go and I do intend to discuss future games when I get there.
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May 27, 2022 15:14
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FoolyCharged posted:Wow, all those gripes about wc3 and no one mentioned the general lack of enemy variety in the base campaigns. You're in campaign 3/4 before one playable faction even shows up! You literally never get to fight them in the first two campaigns. And the orcs are under represented too so the first pair of campaigns becomes the human and new faction #1 bonanza. Campaign 2 is a loving SLOG in wc3. Only 1 usable hero for 80% of it, only 2 missions with a second and you don't even get any use of their third hero. You get some cool cinematics for the opening and closing of the campaign but otherwise it is the worst part of the game for me
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May 27, 2022 15:57
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achtungnight posted:Women & Blizzard- I had previously thought Blizzard’s worst sin with a female character was giving a lot of good development to Leah in Diablo 3 and then totally making none of it matter in the worst way possible. Read Wikipedia or Tv Tropes for specifics, I will not encourage playing the game and I don’t want to say more about it, it was that bad. That there are worse things they’ve done makes me disappointed but not surprised. 
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May 27, 2022 17:05
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I love this LP and the discussion of all the dumb poo poo Blizzard and Activision have been up to lore wise.
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May 27, 2022 17:23
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FoolyCharged posted:Wow, all those gripes about wc3 and no one mentioned the general lack of enemy variety in the base campaigns. You're in campaign 3/4 before one playable faction even shows up! You literally never get to fight them in the first two campaigns. And the orcs are under represented too so the first pair of campaigns becomes the human and new faction #1 bonanza. I'm fine with the night elves showing up so late in WC3. It really sells the otherworldiness of Kalimdor when you meet this entire new race that is entirely unlike anything you've seen before and that even stands out from common fantasy fare at the time
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May 27, 2022 18:04
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SirSamVimes posted:The sith protoss (specifically Alarak) are the best thing about LotV imo -Yes, but that's irrelevant. Tenebrais posted: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.
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May 27, 2022 21:02
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This thread is great already and still going places. I never played WC1 but spent some formative years playing WC2 to death, and then 3 was 3. Every couple of years I subscribe to WoW to catch up on what I've missed and usually love one third, spend too much time thinking about the missed potential for the second third, and shake my head and try and forget the last.
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May 28, 2022 01:49
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Human 4: The Calling Canon Note: This mission is a canon event!  Tell me, Isidora. You said you make observances to the Light but distrust its priests. Do you believe in the Light? I believe that it can grant many remarkable powers to those who worship it. Why? Do dragons worship the Light? No. We know very well who made us. But you withdrew from sacking Kyross... to follow a prophecy. Commander Anduin Lothar. Knight Commander. Regent of Stormwind. Missing for almost two years, and widely presumed dead. And my brother. Did you believe in this mission? I had my doubts. I knew that things like this were known to the clerics, and I believed that if there was a chance Commander Lothar was alive, we owed it to him. He was also your predecessor as Regent. Yes. I was only given command after it was decided by the nobles that he was dead. An appointment you certainly made the most of. We're in the Dead Mines again.  At the time, I didn't let myself hope that it was true. And when Llane told me that he'd ordered you to see to his rescue, but that you didn't enter the mines yourself... Pictured: the reason this mission was a cakewalk. Five footmen, five archers, and three clerics with Healing already researched. I didn't like sending the men in there without me, but an officer with a broken leg would have been an unacceptable risk. Horses won't go in there, and even though I'm much better with a bow than I am with a lance or sword... No. I trained the men well, and I had to trust them while I established a defensive perimeter outside. So you could get drunk in your command post, I assume. I beg your pardon? Validormi herself said you were meant to die in a drunken bar fight six years ago. I'm not surprised you found an excuse to avoid going into the mines. ...Do you really think so little of me? Should I not? Your own father, one of Llane's dukes, called you a disgrace to the family. My brother, formerly your mentor in the Brotherhood of the Horse, called you given to reckless bravado. My husband told me that he only appointed you as Regent with heavy misgivings that you might lose the war. You weren't even at Embershire when the orcs destroyed your home and killed your family! ... You're a warlord, Isidora Turan, bloody-handed and iron-souled, and do not confuse my acquiescence to Llane's choice of successor for accepting or liking you. You might very well be the leader Stormwind needs right now, but that is a damning indictment of our circumstances. Not the same map as Orc 4, but the same ogres and the same tactics. Do you know why I wasn't at Embershire, Taria? No, but I can guess from your history. I was off with half our family's troops on a cull. The Steppes are filled with spiders the size of horses, and even bigger wolves. We regularly have to thin their numbers so settlers can farm and mine in peace. Then a scout brought word of raiders coming up from the south, out of the swamps. Why didn't you go back? Word of the invasion hadn't reached us yet. I thought it was just a gang of brigands, or perhaps a gnoll warband. No threat to Embershire. As the duke's daughter and commander of the mission, I made the call to continue with our mission as normal. And then...? By the time we made it back to Embershire, the town was already lost and my father's head was on a pike, visible from the road. My troop... regrouped with the fleeing citizens.  This is why the clerics make this map so much easier. Whatever chip damage the ogres do, the clerics can just immediately heal. None of us had heard the name 'orc' before that day. I grouped the fleeing refugees into an organized convoy and marched for Redridge. I'm surprised you didn't attack the orcs. I was very, very tempted. But... But...? Things... feel different when you're at war. Not like the conflicts with the gnolls and trolls. Something inside me that day... I don't know whether it fixed or broke. Did you know I've never killed an orc, Taria? Really? I've always been too busy at a map table. Or giving orders. I'm a very good shot with a bow, especially on horseback, but... there's always been something more important to do. Another reason this map was so much easier is that the ogres felt far more aggressive on this map despite there being fewer of them than in Orc 4, and no slimes. Most ogres on this map obligingly charged out of the fog and got gunned down by my archers. I haven't gotten drunk since that day. Or slept with a tart. I can confirm from looking at her timeline. There's a not insignificant chance she sleeps with one or both of us in the near future, however. Funny, but I'm being serious. Taria, not a day goes by when I don't wonder what might have happened if I'd taken that scout's report seriously. If I'd been a more responsible leader, a more respectable daughter, before then. Isidora, if you had returned to Embershire, you very likely would have died as well. I remember something my nursemaid taught me. An old thing, from Gilneas.Dirt and stones, these are my bones I am the guiding hand, a servant of the land Only time may measure my worth, for mine is the limitless strength of the earth  Either most of this map is empty, even these dead ends, or the ogres that start here aggroed remarkably early and suicided into my formation. She was a family servant my mother brought with her from home. My mother... she taught me that our lives, our strength, our power, are merely borrowed from the land. This power we have as nobles is not our own, but a power held in trust and faith for the land we return to in time. ...I didn't know any of this about you. Validormi - did Llane? Not in the specifics. Your husband, though, was a frighteningly good judge of character. That's what Varia said. It seems to run in the Wrynn line. He married you and named your brother the Knight Commander of Stormwind's armies, did he not? The extra tile of range on human archers comes in handy, too. Orc spearmen do an extra point of damage, but archers being able to get in more hits before the ogres make it to melee makes a difference on a map like this. I'm flattered by your implication, but our relationship made a lot of political sense. House Lothar is an old Arathi family. If you're looking for any kind of pure-blooded Stormwinder, Validormi, you're on the wrong balcony. Oh, I'm laughing for entirely different reasons. There's a very specific reason why Medivh told Llane that marrying you was a good idea. Do tell. I think it's funnier if I don't. You're a clever woman, Taria Wrynn. You figure it out. Nothing else interesting happens until I get up here. Don't take her taunting seriously, Taria. If she has half the powers she claims to, I think she's just loving with us. Great. Now there's two of you. Well that's interesting.  Gonna take a wild guess here.  Hooray!  And a bunch more!  Culminating in the man himself, the first hero unit I've seen in WC1. He has a unique sprite and everything. Incidentally, while I don't think it gets mentioned again, the Libram of Divinity that Lothar was down here looking for is seen in WoW. While the original is a very particular holy book of great power, it seems to have a bunch of non-magical mass-produced copies in the future. By all evidence, it seems to be a Paladin 101 textbook, and in a now-removed quest the draenei paladins remark that they also have a book called the Libram of Divinity that's very similar to the human version, so the book's contents presumably come straight from the Light.  With Lothar and his men rescued, all that's left is to bring Lothar back to the map entrance. With WC1 pathfinding. Yeah.  Arrows conveniently point the way, and then I gently caress up.  Isidora... thank you for saving my brother. Of course. One interesting coda to this affair, while my strike team was sweeping the mines they took an orc prisoner amongst the ogres. A young woman who claimed to be Blackhand's daughter. Griselda?! I didn't think to check! You took her alive? When she said she was Blackhand's daughter I instructed that she be treated with the utmost care. She told us far, far more about the Horde and its operations than all the documents and prisoners from Kyross put together. ...I need to talk to someone right now. Excuse me. ... ... Now that she's gone, I know Anduin needed a long time to convalesce. Oh I'm sure he was back in fighting shape soon enough. Uther tended to him personally. Uther? The priest with the Lordaeron ambassador? ...Am I missing something here? You really don't know? What do - You can't be serious. It's true, your highness. Isidora, has anyone ever called you a truly appalling woman? My father. My mother called me, and I quote, 'a disreputable, slovenly, and thoroughly unmarriageable young roustabout.'
Cythereal fucked around with this message at 13:07 on May 28, 2022 |
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May 28, 2022 13:04
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Uncle Lothar Wants You! I hadn't planned to do this until Warcraft 2, but since I talked so much about the man himself, I now present the first of a type of lore post I'll be making more frequently in the future.  Sir Anduin Lothar, Knight Commander of Stormwind Lothar (almost exclusively referred to in the lore by his last name, both because that's the only name he got in Warcraft 1 and to avoid confusion with the other man named Anduin in Warcraft, who was in-setting named after this man) is probably the single most important human character in Warcraft prior to Warcraft 3. He was Prince, later King, Llane Wrynn's best friend, Prince Varian Wrynn's mentor, the commander of Stormwind's military during the First War, and the supreme commander of the entire Alliance military during the Second War. And in the movie, Llane's brother in law (Chronicles did not confirm the movie's assertion that Taria is Lothar's little sister, but I'm rolling with it for the purposes of the human campaign narrative). During the First War, however, Lothar spent almost two years, out of the five the war took, as a prisoner, per this mission I just played. It is extremely hard to fit the missions of Warcraft 1 into the canon timeline in any kind of smooth order, but to me the general picture is clear: Lothar was initially Llane's regent and Stormwind's highest military commander in the war before his capture, and the human PC is appointed to the position in his place after it's concluded that Lothar must be dead. Although you save Lothar in this mission, the human PC remains in command - perhaps because Lothar's injuries keep him on the sidelines for the rest of the war. As far as the actual canon story of the games go, Llane seems to have taken direct command of Stormwind's armies after Lothar's capture and orchestrated his rescue, at which point Lothar immediately returned to command of the army. And, well, the orc campaign is canon so Lothar spends the rest of the war failing and getting beaten by his arch-enemy Orgrim Doomhammer (the PC of the orc campaign in Warcraft 1).  Lothar would get his rematch with Doomhammer in Warcraft 2, and as we'll see in time, Lothar wins round two but at the cost of his own life, struck down in single combat by Doomhammer even as Lothar's troops won the actual battle. In the lore, Lothar is a character described almost entirely in superlatives. He's the greatest warrior in human history, the most charismatic leader, the noblest soul. He was beloved by everyone on his own side, and respected greatly by his enemies as a worthy opponent. He mentored kings and was considered an equal by archmages. He's even the last known descendant of Thoradin, the first human king (well, him and Taria if you count her), though no one seems to consider him royalty. King Varian Wrynn would name his own son after Anduin Lothar. In fact, it's hard to get a handle on Lothar as a character at all. We know virtually nothing about his personal life beyond his friendship with Llane and Medivh, and his mentorship of Varian and a character we'll meet in Warcraft 2 named Turalyon. For a long time when working on this update, I thought Lothar was outright a commoner given that part of his backstory specifically talked about him becoming a knight first as a humble squire and rising through the ranks, eventually being knighted. Then I encountered a reference to him growing up in Stormwind's royal court, so I ultimately decided that knighthood in Stormwind must work like Bretonnia in Warhammer where every noble is a knight but then there are knights. While there's nothing wrong with just having a cool old guy in a story, as a writer I find the complete lack of personality and texture to Lothar's character rather disappointing, if par for the course for Blizzard. As for my joke about Lothar and this fellow named Uther Lightbringer being lovers? There is not, of course, anything to suggest that either Anduin Lothar or Uther Lightbringer is queer, but by the same measure, there’s nothing to suggest that they’re not. Both men lived long and accomplished lives, and without ever marrying, having children, or even dating as far as the lore has ever established. Am I inventing a Turkish bathhouse where none exists? Probably. There’s just as much evidence for that, though, as there is for positing that there’s a dog who isn’t barking. So I say, why not? I'm just saying, if 9.2.5 or Dragonflight suddenly introduces the never-before-heard-of child of one or both characters or mentions them having wives, I will assume that someone at Blizzard read my LP, panicked, and decided that they absolutely must establish that these men were straight. 
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May 28, 2022 13:05
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Yeah, you don't have much to go on about Anduin Lothar, apart from his friendship with Llane Wrynn, and the... business with Medivh. He's such a non-character in that way. We'll meet the more interesting people later. Shadowlands actually made big stride for queer representation, what with the gay Night Warrior and putting a trans person in charge of judging all the dead, so I figure they wouldn't panic as much when reading your LP. I'm really looking forward to WC2. Iirc, reconciling the expansion's two campaigns shouldn't be difficult at all. Beyond the Dark Portal was great, and had a lot more heroes than base WC2, including some of the most prominent people in Warcraft lore.
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May 28, 2022 13:25
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I was laughing out loud during much of this gameplay update. Paladins do lay hands on themselves and each other, you know. I wouldn’t be surprised if Blizzard leaves the situation as is with Lothar. He seems to have too little characterization for them to care. Or maybe I’m wrong. Having a wife and kids doesn’t prevent a man from being gay or bi, so it doesn’t matter. The character development for our heroine was great too. achtungnight fucked around with this message at 13:37 on May 28, 2022 |
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May 28, 2022 13:32
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Cythereal posted:As for my joke about Lothar and this fellow named Uther Lightbringer being lovers? There is not, of course, anything to suggest that either Anduin Lothar or Uther Lightbringer is queer, but by the same measure, there’s nothing to suggest that they’re not. Both men lived long and accomplished lives, and without ever marrying, having children, or even dating as far as the lore has ever established. Am I inventing a Turkish bathhouse where none exists? Probably. There’s just as much evidence for that, though, as there is for positing that there’s a dog who isn’t barking. So I say, why not?
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May 28, 2022 13:42
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Fun fact about Lothar's hero unit in WC1: He has a bunch more armor and damage than a Footman, but less max HP. None of these numbers are shown in-game, but you can look them up.
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May 28, 2022 15:42
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Cythereal posted:It is extremely hard to fit
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May 28, 2022 16:45
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Now that's just wrong.
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May 28, 2022 17:11
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It all fits smoothly into a Jeremy Orcearimy to be fair.
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May 28, 2022 17:51
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One interesting thing I noticed about Lothar, reading about him while researching this update: he's described in superlatives starting as early as Warcraft 2's manual, but if you pay attention, the man only wins one unambiguous victory in the entire RTS saga - he's canonically the one in command of the strike that kills Medivh. Every other battle he's canonically in command of during the RTS series, he either outright loses (the Dead Mines expedition in WC1 that got him captured, which wasn't even against the Horde, and, uh, all the rest of Warcraft 1), or he gets killed and it's his second in command who carries the day (Warcraft 2). Almost every single noteworthy battle that he actually, unambiguously won, is an invention of the books: the Stormwind/Gurubashi war previous to WC1, the Gnoll Wars, and the Horde's first assault on Stormwind before the events of WC1 itself. He is apparently a very good strategic level commander - he's the Alliance PC's boss in Warcraft 2 - but if you wanted to you could by all the available evidence make a good case for Lothar having a severely overblown reputation only exaggerated by the people of Stormwind desperately trying to cling to some kind of hero after the First War, or perhaps that by the time of the First War he's starting to slow down from age and isn't the battlefield commander he once was. achtungnight posted:The character development for our heroine was great too. I actually wrote pieces of that before I ever posted the first human mission in this thread, albeit edited them to fit them in here. And Validormi is probably just giving Isidora poo poo about her reputation and past behavior rather than seriously intimating that she's going to become physically intimate with one of them...
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May 28, 2022 18:38
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These dungeon crawl missions were always one of my favorite parts of Warcraft. It's really no wonder I went on to get into RPGs more than RTS games. It's too bad you only get Lothar and the other prisoners at the end after you've probably killed all the enemies already, but at least it didn't turn into an escort mission where you have to babysit Lothar all the way to the exit.
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May 28, 2022 20:05
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Just want to say that I am loving the hell out of this thread and not sure how I missed it earlier. Thank you Cythereal for putting it together. Also as to the reason for Blood Elves not being able to be Warriors, that was because at the time races were hard capped at how many classes they could be, 6. Death knights were a special case since all of the then races could be them, but the hard cap was not lifted until Cataclysm when the races could have any number of class combinations they wanted.
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May 29, 2022 03:30
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Cythereal posted:One interesting thing I noticed about Lothar, reading about him while researching this update: he's described in superlatives starting as early as Warcraft 2's manual, but if you pay attention, the man only wins one unambiguous victory in the entire RTS saga - he's canonically the one in command of the strike that kills Medivh. What I'm getting out of this is that Lothar is the Heraclius of Warcraft
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May 29, 2022 03:58
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Cythereal posted:
This is one of the best parent to child insults I've ever heard. Beautiful.
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May 29, 2022 04:54
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Cythereal posted:He is apparently a very good strategic level commander - he's the Alliance PC's boss in Warcraft 2 - but if you wanted to you could by all the available evidence make a good case for Lothar having a severely overblown reputation only exaggerated by the people of Stormwind desperately trying to cling to some kind of hero after the First War
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May 29, 2022 08:00
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stryth posted:This is one of the best parent to child insults I've ever heard. Beautiful. Here's an earlier draft of that little exchange: quote:
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May 30, 2022 02:29
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Orc 5: Raiding Party So I was wrong, there is one mission that frames the orcs as being on the defensive - albeit in the context of the orcs establishing an aggressive forward base that triggers an immediate counterattack, the orcs are still strategically on the offensive.  Kind of puts Lothar in context. For all his reputation as a strategist, the orcs maintain the initiative throughout the entire First War.  At least this time the mission brief is clear about the objectives.  I question how we got here.  I have a rather sizable starting force...  ...And a nearby town under attack, including the first appearance of human knights in this game and two new orc buildings.  Predictably, saving the town is easy enough but the two new buildings are destroyed in the fighting.  Gold mine immediately to the west.  The humans attack regularly, but mostly in the form of a lone knight charging the base. Much like in the last mission, a single melee unit however tough is vulnerable to getting tarpitted on my own melee units and burned down by the spearmen in the back. Knights (and raiders, I checked the wiki and they have identical stats) are tough and strong, but will get dragged down quickly when outnumbered like this.  A second gold mine to the east.  I rebuild the kennel first, but it turns out that the kennel alone does not let me produce raiders. It does have an upgrade to give raiders what will turn out to be a significant speed boost - doubly notable given how slow units in this game tend to be.  A third gold mine far to the northeast.  A bridge north, guarded by a gank squad of archers. Yeah, my spearman does not make it out alive.  A second scout discovers a second bridge to the west, confirming that this map is divided in half by a river. While this human town is not identified, the river and this being the Red Ridge Mountains confirms that this is Lakeshire, or the site of what will become known as Lakeshire later.  The blacksmith holds damage upgrades for my melee units, and durability upgrades for all my forces. It also unlocks raiders at the barracks, presumably in combination with the kennel. The gold costs are significant, though: 750 for the first upgrade and 1500 for the second, just like the mill's upgrades for spearmen.  Raiders aren't cheap, either, but they're a flat improvement over grunts in every stat. They also don't cost lumber. In fact, only spearmen do of my combat units, so unless I want to get necrolytes, and I don't, I have a big enough lumber stockpile that I can allocate my peons purely to gold.  Good thing I scouted those extra gold mines earlier.  Probing north shows the western bridge to be lightly defended. Clerics are annoying, but no amount of healing is going to save a lone archer getting hit by two raiders and half a dozen spearmen for long.  Then reinforcements show up, and I've learned a healthy respect for how much damage archers can do.  And then the archer squad guarding the eastern bridge comes out to play as well.  It's a costly battle, but I think two things saved my bacon here: I had waited to start my raid until I had fully upgraded my forces, and the humans being split between two directions meant that they couldn't concentrate their forces effectively. That many archers all firing on one target would have melted anything in my army, but dispersed, neither force had enough muscle to be decisive.  This knight, presumably one of the AI scripted regular attacks, also could have been a real problem had he joined in the fight. Instead he came too late and was promptly turned into a pincushion.  At this point I'm wondering if that was the big counterattack the AI always seems to launch when it senses that its base is in danger, so I start to probe forwards and find Lakeshire.  Nope, the AI does have some troops left.  But between my numbers and my upgrades, it's just not enough. Lakeshire is done for.  They do manage to pick off my last raiders in extremis, but with the barracks destroyed the humans are crippled.    I make more raiders just to speed the clean-up along. This time, there were no random patrols off in the woods to hunt down.   That was clean and surprisingly easy - not especially quick, because upgrades are so expensive and take a while to research, but I've felt like the orc missions in general have been notably easier than the human missions aside from the previous dungeon mission for each side.
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May 31, 2022 11:52
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I've Got Magic Hands We've been seeing clerics and necrolytes for a while now, so let's talk magic in Warcraft and how it works.  Warcraft, in general, takes the side that magic is something that everyone has the potential for but not many people pursue it as a career. Magic in any form is consistently shown to take several years of training to get any good at, and all forms of magic have the potential to be very dangerous to the user. Among both humans and orcs, sorcerers of all stripes - and this includes what you might think of as divine magic in addition to arcane, by all evidence there's legitimately no difference between the source of power a sorcerer wields in Warcraft - tend to cloister themselves off in orders and secret societies. Among the humans, this mainly comes in the form of the Church of the Holy Light (a very thinly veiled version of Catholicism) and the Kirin Tor, an order of mages based in the kingdom of Dalaran who act as something of an international wizards' guild and are dedicated to collecting and preserving magical knowledge, and training new wizards responsibly. Among the orcs, shamanism is now largely extinct but was previously mainly a master-and-apprentice sort of affair outside the Shadowmoon clan, a clan dominated and lead by mystics and magi. In the modern Horde, the Shadowmoon Clan still exists but is still on Azeroth. Instead, the Twilight's Hammer clan teaches much of the Horde's arcane knowledge and firepower, and the Shadow Council is a conclave of warlocks manipulating the Horde from behind the scenes. All forms of magic in Warcraft fundamentally stem from manipulating the energies of the planes.  We'll start in the middle.  Shamans invoke the six elements to work their magic, and are often strongly associated with spiritual traditions of ancestor worship (how this jives with the modern Shadowlands, no one's explained). Most shamans specifically require the cooperation of powerful elemental beings to do their work, though shamans can use the energies of the plane of decay to torture and coerce the other elements into doing their bidding - this is usually considered an evil act in the setting, though the Horde's most consistently forgotten member race teaches it as standard practice. Shamanism is usually shown as a spiritual and religious tradition in Warcraft, but not always: goblin shamans are usually portrayed as working with the elements as purely business, with negotiated contracts, and the shamans of Kul Tiras see it as an informal arrangement of swapping favors. Shamans are primarily a phenomenon of the modern Horde, as befitting shamanism's portrayal as 'primitive' and evoking the imagery of various pre-Christian religions, but a handful of Alliance races still practice shamanism, most notably the dwarves. Recently it's been revealed that shamanism still survives in one human culture, the island nation of Kul Tiras, though they don’t seem to recognize the term ‘shaman.’  Monks are almost exclusively a pandaren phenomenon, though in WoW the tradition has begun to spread among most of Azeroth's races. Monks channel the elemental plane of spirit to strengthen their own bodies, enhance their speed and agility, heal injuries, and brew magically potent concoctions that further enhance their physical capabilities. Yeah, these are Shaolin monks without shame or apology, with a particular emphasis on the drunken master variant.  The Light is the dominant religion of the Alliance races, and in the modern Horde is mainly worshiped by various ex-Alliance powers. Beyond being portrayed in the Alliance as a cheap Christianity knockoff, it's never been clear what the Light is or how its power is granted. People in Warcraft have been seen using the power of the Light when they worship the Light directly, when they worship some other deity or divinity, when they understand prayers et al as simple magical evocations with no spiritual belief required, when they're forcibly draining the life energy of a Naaru, and when they're a meat puppet controlled by unholy forces even as their mind is free. It's not clear how much the Light is a force that various beings can manipulate and command, and how much the Light is a deistic force that has a will and intelligence of its own. Priests can be found in almost every race in Azeroth, but no matter what they worship they tend to wield the power of the Light (or its opposite, see below). Paladins are priests with a lot of martial training. You know what a fantasy paladin is, and Warcraft paladins are exclusively based on the Light as their religion. At the time of the RTS games, paladins are an almost exclusively human phenomenon, and not a widespread one at that, being innovated only within human lifetimes in the kingdom of Lordaeron. A very rare few high elves and dwarves have taken an interest in this new discipline, which will become more common by the time of WoW. However, there is one power on Azeroth that's had paladins for a long time already: the great troll empire of Zandalar, where an order of sacred warriors dedicated to Rezan, the Loa of Kings, have wielded the powers of paladins for ages. There's also been some evidence that night elves have trained holy warriors of their own for thousands of years, but as of yet night elf paladins are not playable and their history is unclear. In general, the line between ‘priest who fights’ and ‘paladin’ is a distinctive but arbitrary one in Warcraft, and there are numerous examples in the lore of warrior priests who aren’t paladins.  The Twisting Nether, the realm of chaos, is a source of immense power. This power, being chaos, tends to drive its wielders insane or just kill them, but some people find that it's worth the risk. Most significantly to Warcraft, the magic of the Twisting Nether is also the magic of demons and the Burning Legion, and the two are often conflated. They're not necessarily the same, though, and the fundamental power of the Twisting Nether seems to be entropy and elemental destruction in its purest form, tearing dimensional rifts open and surges of green fire that burn away flesh and soul both. This magic isn't necessarily evil, as confirmed by recent lore, but evil people do tend to be drawn to it. Warlocks are those who learn to use this magic, and almost invariably how to summon demons. This in turn almost always leads to the warlock getting dominated themselves or just eaten, and for much of Warcraft's history warlocks have been shown to be a purely and inherently evil group. This is foul, dark magic of the worst sort and cannot be used for good. The Horde at this time is not-so-secretly controlled by a cabal of warlocks known as the Shadow Council, and the study of fel magic is strictly outlawed within the human nations of Azeroth. By the time of World of Warcraft, though, this changes. Warlocks by the time of WoW's third expansion have become such a common sight in both the Alliance and the Horde, played such an important role in victories over many dire threats, and so rarely succumbed to madness and treachery, that they've legitimately won some degree of public acceptance in Azeroth, with King Varian Wrynn legalizing the practice within the Alliance. Many cultures in both factions still abhor fel magic, but in the fluff you can indeed see a publicly licensed warlock with a bound demon walking around the streets of Stormwind.  The magic of death is of course necromancy, and you know how this works. Necromancers are not, at the time of writing, a playable class in WoW, and the practice is still outlawed in almost every culture and nation on Azeroth. At the time of the RTS games, necromancy is only openly practiced among the orcs, courtesy of the Dreadlords in the Burning Legion (who, remember, are actually spies from the afterlife and not demons at all) teaching orcs how to do it. Until Warcraft 3, necromancy and fel magic are often conflated in general, both being filed under the general heading of 'dark magic.' In the Alliance, necromancy is mostly a thing of secret dark wizards and the like. About one thousand years prior to Warcraft 1, the first true human necromancer appeared on Azeroth, an advance scout of the Burning Legion, and left such a trail of destruction that she created the haunted wasteland known as Deadwind Pass. However, as of the Shadowlands expansion, it's been established that the unholy necromancy widespread in Azeroth is actually a perverted offshoot of the real deal. Almost all necromantic lore and power known to the peoples of Warcraft was taught by the Dreadlords, who passed on a version tainted by the power of domination magic, a separate discipline of power that is exactly what it sounds like. Necromancy that does not draw on domination magic, and is not inherently evil, does exist and is possible, but at the time of writing little has been established about this 'pure' necromancy beyond that the pre-corruption Shadowmoon clan of orcs on Draenor, and possibly the Drust clan of vrykul native to Kul Tiras, might have practiced it. Death Knights as depicted in most of Warcraft are actually the second generation of unholy warriors to bear that title. The first generation, we'll see in Warcraft 2. The second generation, though, are warriors raised into undeath by the most powerful necromancers and liches who are both capable necromancers themselves and marry this dark magic with their own skill with the blade. Some of these death knights broke free from the Lich King's grasp, forming an order known as the Knights of the Ebon Blade, who see themselves as Azeroth's damned protectors, shouldering burdens that the living can not or will not. In modern times in Warcraft, the Ebon Blade have become a relatively accepted part of Azeroth society, and even find willing recruits among the recently dead. Many of these latest death knights see it as a chance to continue their duty in death, or a second chance to atone for mistakes that they made in life.  The magic of the Void is the magic of darkness, insanity, and Cthulu in general. Like fel magic, void magic has been confirmed to not be inherently evil, but it sure does creep people out and almost all known Void entities are extremely hostile to reality. Not helping matters is that most shadow priests and void mages are certified nutters screaming about the end of days and sprouting tentacles and eyes where tentacles and eyes really shouldn't be. As such, we don't know much about the Void or void magic, even though there's a playable race in WoW defined by being altered by the energies of the Void. The only class in WoW that uses void magic is the shadow specialization for priests. However, there’s also one curious religious tradition shown to call themselves priests, and use a mix of void and water magic. These are the tidesages, the dominant religion of the human nation of Kul Tiras, and they seem to be somewhere between priests and shamans in terms of capability.  As there is no cosmic plane of order (as far as we know at the time of writing), 'true' arcane magic is the magic and energies of the Twisting Nether, refined and purified into a much safer package that's less likely to drive you insane or destroy the world. It is, in general, your traditional do-anything-not-covered-elsewhere 'pure' magic and can even control elemental energies and bind elementals without a care for the elementals themselves like shamans do. Perhaps most significantly, the magic of the arcane is the magic of time and space. Fel magic can rip holes in reality, but arcane magic can create safe and stable portals between not just different locations but different times, or accelerate the flow of time. Mages are of course the primary users of true arcane magic, and are primarily found among the Kirin Tor of humans and the Twilight's Hammer of the orcs.  Finally, the magic of life itself is heavily tied to the Emerald Dream on Azeroth, and to a wide variety of poorly defined nature spirits. Life magic is almost always depicted in spiritual terms, and is not widespread among any races we'll meet in Warcraft until Warcraft 2 (trolls and their Loa are somewhere between this and shamanism), and won't play a significant role until Warcraft 3. The wielders of life magic are called druids, and we won't see any until Warcraft 3. Druidism is known but rare among trolls, and among humans is only practiced in the isolated nations of Gilneas and Kul Tiras. Among all these societies, druids are held to be strange and mysterious, their spiritual and magical traditions poorly understood and spooky to most. Druidic magic is most famously in Warcraft the magic of shapeshifting into animals, but also controlling plants and animals to do your bidding, traveling in dreams, and invoking the power of the stars themselves. In fact, outside of a couple of races we won't meet until Warcraft 3, most druids are known to outsiders simply as witches, and druidism is known to take a toll among those who try to learn its secrets but aren't up to the task. Druid initiates sometimes lose their minds to the animal the first time they shapeshift and can never turn back, and that's not even the worst outcome. The werewolves that haunt the misty moors and dark forests of Gilneas are a product of druidic magic gone horribly wrong, and the Drust of Kul Tiras learned to interweave the magics of life and death to horrifying effect.
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May 31, 2022 11:53
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Priest versus paladin is primarily Do I use the LIGHT to zap people at range versus Do I use the LIGHT to hit people upside the head with divine fury in melee. Warcraft 2 reasoning for paladins was "our priests were squishy lets make them knights as well as priests" AtomikKrab fucked around with this message at 12:20 on May 31, 2022 |
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May 31, 2022 12:02
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Cythereal posted:
I'm not sure how relevant this is, but using the power of the moon and the stars, like balance druids do (and NE priests used to do) is associated with the arcane.
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May 31, 2022 12:20
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Torrannor posted:I'm not sure how relevant this is, but using the power of the moon and the stars, like balance druids do (and NE priests used to do) is associated with the arcane. That is weird and ambiguous poo poo I'll deal with when I do a more detailed post about druids in WC3. It's been hinted both ways, it might be arcane magic, but it might not but is classified as arcane damage in WoW for mechanics purposes.
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May 31, 2022 12:23
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I seem to remember this WC1 mission as being the one where I realized that spearmen were the main unit of choice for most situations, after bouncing off several times trying to use the new raiders, I just put a blob of spearmen at each bridge and suddenly no one was crossing them. How competent is the AI at rebuilding their bases? In later games they can be annoyingly good at springing back from just a single peasant, but I don't recall how competent they are in WC1.
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May 31, 2022 12:50
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PurpleXVI posted:I seem to remember this WC1 mission as being the one where I realized that spearmen were the main unit of choice for most situations, after bouncing off several times trying to use the new raiders, I just put a blob of spearmen at each bridge and suddenly no one was crossing them. I've never played wc1, but from what I've heard this is the general consensus. Especially since they seem to require less wrangling of the ui than melee dudes.
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May 31, 2022 14:47
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PurpleXVI posted:How competent is the AI at rebuilding their bases? In later games they can be annoyingly good at springing back from just a single peasant, but I don't recall how competent they are in WC1. The AI is very quick on the draw to have workers start repairing buildings, but in every map so far that's meant that the workers get shot full of holes. I haven't yet had an actual failed base assault. FoolyCharged posted:I've never played wc1, but from what I've heard this is the general consensus. Especially since they seem to require less wrangling of the ui than melee dudes. This is my impression so far. Also helps a lot that they're much faster than other units except fully upgraded raiders/knights.
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May 31, 2022 18:12
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Memories of WC2- attack a building, the enemy automatically sends peasants to repair it and rebuild it if it gets destroyed. And they’re bad at dealing with multiple buildings under attack. So sending multiple squads to different buildings is a good idea. They will prioritize barracks over farms, however. You should do the same.
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May 31, 2022 20:34
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The concept of goblin shamans as being elemental brokers who make deals with elemental spirits was fun and I roleplayed my own gobsham as being a businessman who negotiates with elementals on behalf of others. Got a problem with earth elementals attacking your oil drilling site? No problem, I'll get them off your back and I'll also get you exclusive drilling rights so the elementals will attack ya competitors! Sure, I'll take a fee but it'll save you money over paying adventurers to put them down in the long run!
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May 31, 2022 22:48
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SirSamVimes posted:The concept of goblin shamans as being elemental brokers who make deals with elemental spirits was fun and I roleplayed my own gobsham as being a businessman who negotiates with elementals on behalf of others. Me I played my Warlock as part of the Dalaran magical outreach program as the current professor of demonology and "Introduction to safe usage of Fel magic"
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May 31, 2022 23:35
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achtungnight posted:Memories of WC2- attack a building, the enemy automatically sends peasants to repair it and rebuild it if it gets destroyed. And they’re bad at dealing with multiple buildings under attack. So sending multiple squads to different buildings is a good idea. They will prioritize barracks over farms, however. You should do the same. I like the AI bringing its workers to one place, it's much more efficient to slaughter them that way. I've also recorded Human 5 (I tend to record maps a few days in advance of posting updates) and can confirm that the AI will indeed try to rebuild structures. And after consulting with a few people, in light of this thread enjoying the narrative I've been doing for the human campaign, I have decided that I will be going full disaster lesbian with Isidora. Brilliant military leader. Probably not the best judgment regarding women. Edit: It just doesn't feel right that I got a lower score for Human 5 than Orc 5. 
Cythereal fucked around with this message at 02:17 on Jun 1, 2022 |
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Jun 1, 2022 00:50
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