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BlazetheInferno posted:Also, despite Frozen Throne introducing the Goblin Tinker hero, the Hero and associated model was never used in the campaigns, even here. Gazlowe, like every other named Goblin in Warcraft 3, was simply represented by yet another Trio of Goblin Sappers, despite being an individual entity, and not a team of three. One of the small details I do appreciate about Reforged is details like this, so Gazlowe now has a Tinker-style rig. That's because the Tinker wasn't there at first, it was added in a later patch, much like the second and third acts of this campaign.
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Jan 28, 2024 22:52
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Cythereal posted:
I find this amusing because Rokhan actually has a unique voice set, while Rexxar - the guy with all the dialogue - uses the generic beastmaster voice.
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Jan 28, 2024 22:53
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Tenebrais posted:That's because the Tinker wasn't there at first, it was added in a later patch, much like the second and third acts of this campaign. Huh. Forgot about that. Yeah, that'd explain it.
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Jan 28, 2024 22:59
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Interesting note: warcraft 3 in general was apparently supposed to be more like this kind of thing, or maybe closer to the spellforce games than the straightforward if hero-centric rts that we got.
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Jan 29, 2024 05:58
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NewMars posted:Interesting note: warcraft 3 in general was apparently supposed to be more like this kind of thing, or maybe closer to the spellforce games than the straightforward if hero-centric rts that we got. Honestly, when someone mentioned far earlier in the thread that some of the hero characters were based on D&D characters they played as, a good number of things clicked into place.
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Jan 29, 2024 07:44
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Cythereal posted:The point of view that someone in the thread offered, that goblins are only destructive when at war, rings false to my ears. Anyway, harpies bother playable races in WoW in Kalimdor regularly (Bloodfeather as a name was later reused for a group wiped out by the night elves in Cata for trying to nest in Teldrassil). Their home for generations is Stonetalon, but they expanded across the continent and are likewise aggressive to the tauren. The orcs don't speak of them well but I don't think this is one of those cases where "if only the tauren would set them straight" really applies. Craptacular! fucked around with this message at 09:04 on Jan 29, 2024 |
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Jan 29, 2024 08:55
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NewMars posted:Interesting note: warcraft 3 in general was apparently supposed to be more like this kind of thing, or maybe closer to the spellforce games than the straightforward if hero-centric rts that we got. Yeah, I remember being SO excited for the original pitch we heard about in previews while it was being developed and feeling kind of let down by the eventual result since I've always been more of an RPG person than an RTS person.
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Jan 29, 2024 09:35
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Tales from the Infinite: Dreams We Conceive An empire of bronze crept out from Stormwind. Validormi had told Isidora Turan everything about Katrana Prestor and her family. The Black Dragonflight, the Old Gods, the Void. For Isidora to wed Katrana, as her political instincts and sexual hormones told her to, would risk disaster. It was not absolutely certain to happen, but the risk was great. Unwilling to place Stormwind at risk of subversion by the Black Dragonflight, Isidora had looked for other options and chose the very voice of warning in the first place. Like most bronze dragons, Validormi had maintained a comfortable cover identity, in this case a magister of the Kirin Tor. Enough dragons lived in that city under their visages to say oh yeah we know her, even though no one on the Council of Six had ever heard of this talent at divination who was now marrying the newly crowned King of Stormwind. Validormi's foreknowledge of the future paid handsomely for Stormwind. An elf of the Kirin Tor was no one's idea of a suitable match for the uncertain new king, but Validormi's wise counsel won over most of them. There was, inevitably, a brief rebellion in the north by House Prestor and their allies in the Dark Iron clan of dwarves, but that was dealt with quickly enough when a word in the right ear taught the mages of Stormwind to be alert for the Void's touch. An expedition to Kalimdor under the leadership of Queen Validormi found the former Guardian of Tirisfal, Lady Aegwynn, and wrangled her into coming to Stormwind to oversee the dissolution of the rift that had been at the heart of the Dark Portal. A gift of magic preserved the human woman whom Validormi had come to love, Isidora Turan reborn in bronze scales and long life. For decades and centuries it went, Validormi using her foreknowledge of the future to guide humanity with a hidden hand. In time, the magisters even began experimenting with reversing the Curse of Flesh. And yet... and yet... This timeline was doomed to failure. For all the prescience of what had become Validormi's Infinite self, this new course for Azeroth did not lead to Azeroth's awakening and she did not know why. She had done everything right, and yet that precognition had not been enough. That iteration of Validormi, an Infinite dragon at the heart of a clockwork empire, died cursing the fractal probabilities of existence. For all her labor, for all her good intentions, in the end the best she had done was turn the southern realms of humanity into a retread of the Mogu Empire. Validormi's Infinite self sighed and fizzled out of existence in a puff of maligned possibility. In the golden timeline, the bronze dragon winced at her mirror. This was why they were called the Infinite Dragonflight, in the end. Each change only opened the door to more change. One new possibility made countless more by the observer's very knowledge of that possibility. By investigating Isidora's victorious timeline, Validormi had opened her eyes to countless more possibilities arising from that flashpoint, the change winds blowing the sands of time across Azeroth's weave of possibilities. One only had to ask the Iron Horde about that, proof that for all the bronze dragons' foresight their abilities were restricted to Azeroth herself and could not directly see any other world or plane of existence. Or at least that was the going theory among the workaday offices of the flight. A goblet of export-grade Suramar arcwine, the bottle stamped with High Brewmaster Thalyssra's personal seal of approval and tax marks from the United Empire of Pandaria, soothed Validormi's frustration. That little thread of a timeline had been a delightful discovery for the dragonflight. Queen Azshara's conquest of Pandaria and unification of the kaldorei and pandaren empires had, of course, ended in apocalyptic war and tragedy sooner rather than later, but for a brief period of time they had worked wonders. This was part of why Validormi had ultimately obeyed Nozdormu's dictates and abandoned Isidora to her canonical death long before the First War. Here, at least, was a timeline where there was what seemed to truly be a good to make all their sacrifices worthwhile, and an authority that let Validormi deny her own agency and responsibility in events. No, it wasn't her fault or failure for not helping, as the raven-haired War Leader had insisted, it had all been for the greater good. Saying that all of that wasn't Validormi's job, that she was following the wisdom of those greater than her, was of course coward's talk, but moral cowardice was not an uncommon feature of the bronze dragonflight. Not for the first or late time in her life, Validormi cursed having been born with this power over time, this awareness of what could have been.
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Jan 29, 2024 14:46
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I hate this Cold Equations poo poo. If the Bronze Dragonflight kept people from changing things for the worse, I'd be kind of okay with it but "any attempt to make things better will always make them worse" infuriates me. Hell, I might even like it if the official line was that the Bronze were cowards, but Blizzard has always presented them as 100% correct.
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Jan 29, 2024 19:14
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Hell, if you really want to cram in a Jailer style "everything was the result of my manipulation mwahaha" plot, this is where to do it. Some power hiding all the possible successful futures, so the lovely current timeline that benefits them seems like the only remaining path.
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Jan 29, 2024 19:22
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Tendales posted:Hell, if you really want to cram in a Jailer style "everything was the result of my manipulation mwahaha" plot, this is where to do it. Some power hiding all the possible successful futures, so the lovely current timeline that benefits them seems like the only remaining path. FF13-2 did this, and I thought it was an amazing move from an otherwise meh story. Once you finish the story you can go back and collect alternate endings that you previously missed. Once you collect them all the reward is the big bad coming down to make fun of you and explain there is no alternative, and that the story you saw is the canonical ending.
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Jan 29, 2024 19:31
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Ego Trip posted:I hate this Cold Equations poo poo. Isn't the canon now that the future that the Bronze Dragonflight is working towards is one where the Titan Azeroth awakens? Which, now that they're embarking on an Azeroth-focused storyline, feels like they're writing themselves into a corner. Because if Titan-Azeroth awakening brings everyone into a post-singularity utopia, then the game's story is done. On the other hand, if a planet transforming into a god turns out to be a bad thing for those living on it, it's going to make a lot of characters we have been told are very wise look like complete dumbasses.
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Jan 29, 2024 19:40
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SirPhoebos posted:Isn't the canon now that the future that the Bronze Dragonflight is working towards is one where the Titan Azeroth awakens? Yup. As a rule, I personally despise time travel as a setting element (anyone who read my Star Trek Online LP can attest to that!) except in settings where it's the main focus. As an addition to a setting, I feel like time travel is one of those things where it tends to raise a lot more questions than it ever answers, and tends to invoke a whole lot of navel gazing about 'the greater good' and 'the way things should be.' Because if time travel is possible, and can indeed change the past (which it can in Warcraft, there was an orc in the War of the Ancients via time travel), then you're staring down the barrel of 'Why didn't the bronze dragons prevent Arthas' fall/Azshara's corruption/Theramore/Teldrassil/etc' ad infinitum. My regular readers probably know that I loathe trolley problems with a passion, and notions of 'the greater good' and 'I had to do this' as a result. Validormi was a fun plot device for the very limited context I used her for in this LP, but I thought I'd poke a bit of fun at alternate timelimes. My thought process was to highlight the limitations of the bronze flights' precognition, as well as Validormi herself just potentially loving things up, and it's all meaningless anyway because Isidora is an OC who's never going to be mentioned in WoW.
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Jan 29, 2024 19:48
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Ego Trip posted:I hate this Cold Equations poo poo. The line as of Dragonflight is that they are patsies. They keep the timeline the way it is and assume better things aren't possible because the Titan Overlord Of Time told them so, and they assumed the Titans are their benefactors and would never have their own agenda. Their big plotline in the expansion was about moving away from that limited thinking and reconciling with the Infinite Flight EDIT: Oh crap, this isn't the Lore Thread. My bad.
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Jan 29, 2024 19:52
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Sanguinia posted:The line as of Dragonflight is that they are patsies. They keep the timeline the way it is and assume better things aren't possible because the Titan Overlord Of Time told them so, and they assumed the Titans are their benefactors and would never have their own agenda. Their big plotline in the expansion was about moving away from that limited thinking and reconciling with the Infinite Flight Worth noting, that "reconciling with the Infinites" thing involved humoring one of them and trying to change an event in the past. Only for, once again, Blizzard to present the Bronze's side of things as... 100% correct. Every attempt to change that past event makes the outcome worse.
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Jan 29, 2024 19:56
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Sanguinia posted:EDIT: Oh crap, this isn't the Lore Thread. My bad. True. This thread is far more active.  There's only one game in recent memory that I felt used time travel in a dramatic and emotional way I found satisfying, and it had nothing to do with Blizzard. Cythereal fucked around with this message at 20:09 on Jan 29, 2024 |
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Jan 29, 2024 20:06
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Hot idea for next WoW expansion : someone ("who?" there's a line) tries to change the past, there's a fight over it, and time travel breaks so we don't have to talk about it ever again.Cythereal posted:True. This thread is far more active. Feel free to tell. aside, Cythereal posted:Different areas are filled with centaurs, quilboars, harpies, murlocs, kobolds, bronze dragons, crabs, and thunder lizards. ...Don't remember jack from day of the dragon, but it was already out by TFT time - didn't it establish that dragons are not animals, and are not necessary dicks? I mean, the game thinks that harpies are always chaotic evil, distasteful as it is, but shouldn't killing bronze dragons, even by the morals of the setting, not be a good thing?
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Jan 29, 2024 21:02
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Gun Jam posted:8 critters, 6 of 'em are capable of having a conversation with us about it. Hell, the first human campaign of base WC3 had in mission 2 a sidequest to kill Searinox, a younger black dragon who talked to you when you went to hunt him for your first magic orb. Searinox was pretty awful and merited stopping, but dragons have been established as sapient beings in-game for a while now.
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Jan 29, 2024 21:13
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Good to know that they rescued the lore 15 years later.
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Jan 29, 2024 21:13
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Cythereal posted:True. This thread is far more active. Ghost Trick is the only time travel story that needs to exist.
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Jan 29, 2024 21:23
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Tendales posted:Ghost Trick is the only time travel story that needs to exist. I mean, c'mon, make a bit of space for Chrono Trigger, too. But yeah, Ghost Trick absolutely owns bones.
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Jan 29, 2024 21:36
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Gun Jam posted:Feel free to tell. Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous. One of the story routes in that game builds up to letting you travel back in time to kill the fantasy equivalent of baby Hitler, and that story route asks: can you in fact do it? The new timeline that will result is almost - but not absolutely - certain to be better, and for an utter certainty you will prevent the equivalent in this metaphor to WW2. You know for a fact that not everything will be better, some people truly showed their best selves in crisis and tragedy brought some people together who otherwise never would have met. And you will, fundamentally, be killing an innocent person before they've done anything wrong. You know for a fact that they will, but they haven't yet. So, can you bring yourself to do it and change history like that? Yes and no are both equally valid ways to end the story, and I feel that story works because that story shows you exhaustively why you would consider doing it - and why you might not. The whole dramatic tension of the story is based on building up to whether you are going to play God like that. I have never felt like such a complete bastard for saving so many people in a video game.
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Jan 29, 2024 21:39
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That reminds me of the finale of Bastion, which makes sense seeing as it's one of the better methods of using time travel as a storytelling device.
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Jan 29, 2024 22:11
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Outer Wilds is another good one, it's similar to Bastion in that it's about letting go and facing whatever may come.
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Jan 29, 2024 22:24
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Horde 1: Terminal Approach, Part Two While checking in with Drek'thar is an optional objective, I elect to do so.   Something must be riling them up. Let's investigate the ridge and see if we can find any clues. Oh, and if you find any of their eggs, I'd love to study them.Finding the eggs is an optional quest, but I didn't realize and so skipped over it.  A passage has opened in the northeast. Drek'thar joins you in this part, he's a full level 10 farseer with the complete regular farseer kit.   Humans? What could they be doing here? We allied with the humans at the Battle of Mount Hyjal. Our two races have been at peace ever since. Still, it's strange that they would venture so far into our lands.Yup, the story is treating Durotar as being orc lands now and forever, rightfully theirs despite them only being here for about six months.  No, our warchief signed a non-aggression pact with the humans. Destroying their holdings could lead to open war. For now, we must put down the raging lizards before they cause any more harm. We'll have to deal with the humans later.Ahahahahaha. Yes, the orcs are getting upset that someone else has shown up in lands they've claimed and started cutting down trees. When this is not only what started the orcs' war with the night elves in Reign of Chaos, it's what restarts the orcs' war with the night elves in WoW, leading the night elves to join the Alliance. gently caress. YOU.  Oh, so now it's a tragedy when someone's doing it to you for a change?    Back in the main story path, the local orc commander asks Rexxar to kill every last quillboar in the area.  That is not a joke. In the caves, which are for some reason the Ashenvale tile set, there's a sidequest to hunt down and exterminate every single quillboar on the map.   Are those... satyrs? What could they possibly be doing here? I have no idea, and Rexxar was not the type to take prisoners to find out.  Rude. You are rewarded for your ethnic cleansing with a free skill point for everyone.   The mission's going to treat the identity of these humans as a mystery, but anyone who remembers the Reign of Chaos prologue, or even just the human national colors from Warcraft 2, can guess what's happening.   I heard about the human ships, Warchief. What are your orders? I want you both to head back to that watch post and keep an eye on the humans. We can't let this situation escalate out of control. What if they're hostile? I'd prefer that the humans remain unharmed. But, if they prove hostile in any way, you have my permission to slaughter them.Now, make no mistake. I'm not rooting for the humans in this mission. As you can probably surmise, the humans are here to be raging assholes.  The human scum will pay dearly for this! Blood for blood. Life for life. Lok'tar ogar!I just find it - almost certainly unintentionally - hilariously ironic that the orcs, without a shred of self-awareness, get so righteous and angry the moment somebody else treats them the way they were just treating other people.   Orcs! We've been followed! To arms, men, to arms! Come, human dogs! Taste the wrath of the Horde!Thrall signed a peace treaty with Jaina and the forces under her command, but there are other nations yet who have signed no such treaty.  WoW players probably knew this already, since this campaign figures so heavily into WoW's story, but these are marines from Kul Tiras (remember, the Horde razing Kul Tiras and implicitly killing Grand Admiral Daelin Proudmoore in Beyond the Dark Portal is non-canon).   drat it, Daelin. It's not like him to pull a stunt like this. Not the Daelin Proudmoore you knew, perhaps. Crisis and loss in war may have brought out the best in you, but the same is not true of the Grand Admiral. Hmmm.  Pardon, boss-man, but if the humans be comin' from the sea, my tribe in the Echo Isles could be in danger, too! Don't worry, Rokhan, you have my word that I won't let anything happen to your people. I have an urgent mission for you, Rexxar. The human fleet poses a serious threat to the trolls that live on the Echo Isles. I need you to take a zeppelin to the islands and warn the trolls about what's happening. If you can, try to convince them to join us on the mainland.While the orcs settled in the badlands of Durotar, the Darkspear trolls settled on the islands off Durotar's coast. The Horde has laid claim to a broad stretch of central Kalimdor, from the fertile plains of Mulgore to the hot savannah of the Barrens to the rocky wasteland of Durotar and the tropical jungles of the Echo Isles. This territory remains the Horde's adopted homeland (sucks to be any of the non-tauren native peoples of these lands) to this day.  Your capacity for forgiveness, Isidora Turan, is both rare and extraordinary. Onyxia told me of the mercy you showed Griselda, Blackhand's daughter, in your timeline. Here you forgave Onyxia herself. You have said that hatred and grudges do you no good and accomplish nothing. Take it from a Venthyr, Isidora, be your actions from idealistic compassion or cynical apathy, there aren't many who would do what you have done. Daelin Proudmoore's heart is as generous and bountiful as the sea itself, and no less given to tumult and wrath. Mobs in the Echo Isles map are different from elsewhere: mur'guls, revenants, Stormreaver orcs, hydras, and crabs. Oddly no naga that I was expecting.  Meet Vol'jin, son of chief Sen'jin who died in the prologue campaign. He's another candidate for 'WC3 character done dirtiest by WoW.' In this case, largely out of neglect, Vol'jin spent most of WoW's story just sort of there as Thrall's buddy until he was made Warchief at the end of Mists of Pandaria, where he was well-received and generally liked by everyone in-setting and out - even the Alliance's leadership agreed that Vol'jin was a good and trustworthy man, and Vol'jin in the books was a remarkable diplomat. Then he was killed off after a single expansion as Warchief to make room for Sylvanas Windrunner. At least in death he's becoming the new troll loa of kings and patron of Zandalari paladins?  You have little chance of defeating such a force on your own, Vol'jin. You should evacuate your tribe to the mainland and unite with the warchief's forces. Though I hate to be abandonin' our homes, your plan be a wise one. However, we got to destroy those battleships before our evacuation can begin.Yup, we're back to the war crimes as an excuse to reignite the faction war.  We have no flying mounts, Vol'jin. We'll be useless at sea. Won't be a problem, mon. Now, this be feelin' a bit strange.Bat riders are a new Horde unit for TFT, a late-game air unit effective against big targets like ships, steam tanks, frost wyrms, and chimeras.  I wasn't surprised when I heard about this. Disappointed, but not surprised. Thrall and Jaina only made peace because my son yelled at them during the Legion's invasion. You think Medivh could have persuaded Daelin to make peace with the Horde? No but I could have used the laugh from seeing him try. In their new forms, the heroes all have new abilities.  Your goal is to sink the battleships, but it's worth it to sink the frigates first since they can attack air units and the battleships can't.  In order to signal the evacuation, you gotta light the five signal braziers scattered across the islands. When you be done, the rest of me tribe will set sail for the mainland. But be careful mon - there be worse things than humans in the jungles. Something on your mind, prisoner? What you said about Isidora and forgiveness. Father, for all his faults, once told me that a leader is defined by doing what others can, but will not. Their actions inspire others to follow. That's a sword that cuts both ways. True enough. When he was lucid, I believe that Father was a great leader. And how often was that? By the time I was born, rarely. Sea giants are the main opposition in this part. Another sentient native people.  Is it wrong of me, that I treasure those moments? Even now? Those glimpses of Father as a man in control of himself? Not at all. Very few people, Onyxia, are truly evil and without virtue. Even soaked in the power of the Old Gods, I think you desired love. Every living thing should be loved by their parents. It is only natural that you wanted to be loved by Neltharion and that you tried to love him in return. But Deathwing... But Deathwing. And here's where my screenshot recording screwed up and I didn't realize it until after. In brief, Thrall sent a messenger to the humans who agreed to a meeting with Thrall at midnight and told Thrall to come alone. Rexxar thinks this is a trap and persuades Thrall to let Rexxar - mister 'I have watched the other races. I have seen their squabbling, their ruthlessness. Their wars do nothing but scar the land and drive the wild things to extinction. No, they cannot be trusted. Only beasts are above deceit.' - go in his place.  Greetings, humans. It's about time you showed up. What the - this ogre can't be the orc warchief! And you are not Jaina Proudmoore. Jaina? Why would you think she would be - bah! Enough of this drivel! We'd hoped to corner your wretched warchief, but you'll have to suffice! Strike! Assassins! I knew this was a trap! Just in case you didn't get the hints that these are Kul Tirans.  Foolish beast. You have... no idea what's coming for you. It's... only just beginning. SEE, THRALL?! SEE?! Rexxar, I've written a letter to Jaina Proudmoore asking her to account for all this madness. I want you to infiltrate her base on Theramore Isle and deliver this to her personally. You can count on me, Thrall. But, I may need help bypassing the humans' defenses. I've chartered a zeppelin to take you to the Darkspear tribe's new village. Once you get there, Vol'jin will see to it that you get the help you need. Good luck, Rexxar. The future of Durotar is in your hands.And on that cliffhanger, the mission ends. The rest of this campaign was DLC that came later.  Find a happy place, find a happy place... Cythereal fucked around with this message at 04:24 on Jan 30, 2024 |
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Jan 30, 2024 04:00
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Invincible Today's subject, the fate of Arthas.  While the end of the undead campaign in this game hints at Arthas and Ner'zhul merging into a single entity, in truth what the books and WoW settled on was that Arthas and Ner'zhul turned out to not be good head-mates and fought a battle inside Arthas' mind, along with a human boy named Mathias Lener who represented the last remnants of Arthas' humanity. Arthas killed them both, ejecting the remnants of Ner'zhul's soul into the Shadowlands (and straight into the Maw, where the tormented remnant of Ner'zhul became a raid boss), and the book credits this moment, when Arthas seized the full power and identity of the Lich King, as the moment when Arthas' physical body finally died. As a display of finally sealing his power as the Lich King, Arthas carved his own frozen heart out of his body and cast it into the depths below Icecrown. For most of the next several years, Arthas focused his efforts on consolidating the Scourge's grip on Northrend. While the armies of Illidan, Kael'thas, and Vashj had been driven back, Arthas knew it was only a matter of time until someone else tried again. Arthas constructed a vast fortress at Icecrown Glacier, and a dense network of fortifications on the approach. Lordaeron, Arthas left under the rule of Kel'Thuzad as his viceroy but did little to reinforce while he was busy in Northrend. In the long term, though, Arthas had come under the complete control of the Jailer without Arthas' knowledge, and in the depths of Icecrown Citadel was an immense drill and arcane engine designed to wound and draw forth the life force of the nascent Titan Azeroth herself.  In general, most of Arthas' actions up until the Icecrown Citadel raid can be summed up as MUHUHAHAHA! and deserve no further commentary. Arthas' actual evil plan in WoW was pretty straightforward: since he could raise his fallen soldiers endlessly, killing the forces of the Scourge was an inherently futile war of attrition. But, supremely confident in his invulnerability and seemingly endless power, Arthas got the idea to let the united forces of Azeroth think they were winning the war. Arthas let them come, let the heroes invade Icecrown Citadel itself, and waited until the heroes of Azeroth gave him a pretty good fight. Then Arthas killed everyone in one stroke and laughed at Tirion Fordring, the arch-paladin he'd captured. You see, Arthas' plan was to find the strongest champions of Azeroth this way, kill them, and raise them as new undead, followed by all the Scourge that the forces of Azeroth had thought they'd defeated. Unfortunately, lux ex machina struck and the Light freed Tirion, who shattered Frostmourne with a blow from his own super duper sword and freed all the souls within Frostmourne. Terenas Menethil resurrected the player characters and all of Arthas' victims held him down while the heroes struck the final blow. Arthas' death, while the preceding fight had been kind of silly and the whole thing hinged on said lux ex machina, was surprisingly heartfelt as Terenas' ghost held his son in his arms and reminded him of that first lesson: that no king rules forever. They faded away, and most involved expressed a hope that whatever good had been left in Arthas would find peace.  It did not. Because Steve Danuser, a traumatized Kyrian!Uther the Lightbringer dropped Arthas' soul into the Maw within the Shadowlands in a moment of rage and pain because in that moment of weakness Uther couldn't bear the thought of Arthas getting a chance for redemption after all that he had done. All according to the Jailer's plan. Instead, most of Arthas' soul was consumed to make a super-duper runeblade that mind-controlled Anduin for a couple of patch cycles until players beat the poo poo out of Anduin and destroyed the mourneblade Kingsmourne (yes, really), leaving just a tiny fragment of Arthas' soul left, which Sylvanas held until it faded away into nothing, consigning Arthas' soul to complete oblivion. The end. Jaina? Uther? Who? This was Sylvanas' big moment, losers.  At least Arthas got a pretty great theme song out of WoW. I'm not sure what language the song is in, but the official translation is below. Interestingly, the song is named after Arthas' horse and in part about him. Steed, stalwart companion I mourn your loss You were the first in battle, even in death Last to retreat, even in death I have lost a part of my soul Long live the king May he reign forever May his strength never fail him Never fail him Steed, stalwart companion I mourn your loss You were the first in battle, even in death Last to retreat, even in death I have lost a part of my soul Long live the king May he reign forever May his strength never fail him Never fail him
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Jan 30, 2024 04:01
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Cythereal posted:Arthas' actual evil plan in WoW was pretty straightforward: since he could raise his fallen soldiers endlessly, killing the forces of the Scourge was an inherently futile war of attrition. But, supremely confident in his invulnerability and seemingly endless power, Arthas got the idea to let the united forces of Azeroth think they were winning the war. Arthas let them come, let the heroes invade Icecrown Citadel itself, and waited until the heroes of Azeroth gave him a pretty good fight. Then Arthas killed everyone in one stroke and laughed at Tirion Fordring, the arch-paladin he'd captured. You see, Arthas' plan was to find the strongest champions of Azeroth this way, kill them, and raise them as new undead, followed by all the Scourge that the forces of Azeroth had thought they'd defeated. I have a special loathing for fights that players win, but then a cutscene says they lose anyway, and then someone else wins the fight for them.
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Jan 30, 2024 04:27
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From what I can find, Invincible's lyrics are written and sung in in-universe Common.
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Jan 30, 2024 04:32
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PurpleXVI posted:I have a special loathing for fights that players win, but then a cutscene says they lose anyway, and then someone else wins the fight for them. WoW usually at least doesn't do it quite that way. You'll get the boss to a specific health percentage and then it's a phase transition into the final part. Arthas I think does it at 10% hp? And later on the final boss of Legion did it at 30%. And the player always gets to finish the boss off, sometimes we do get cutscene kill-stolen, but that's usually a finishing blow after we have in fact, clearly won (Deathwing for example). I think it sells collaborative effort and the sheer power of some enemies pretty well. But it also is used very sparingly. Maybe 1 boss every 3-5 expansions in WoW does that in a raid.
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Jan 30, 2024 04:34
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Lord_Magmar posted:And the player always gets to finish the boss off, sometimes we do get cutscene kill-stolen, but that's usually a finishing blow after we have in fact, clearly won (Deathwing for example). I dunno I think a lot of players found Deathwing in particular to be extremely anticlimactic, stabbing a massive dragon in the toenails for ten minutes while Thrall charged a spirit bomb to blow him up with was a pretty bad way to cap off that expansion.
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Jan 30, 2024 05:03
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Parts of early WoW suffered from not really knowing or deciding on who or what the actual players were in-universe (which leads to things like Onyxia being killed by players...until no she wasn't, some Alliance dude REALLY killed her). This part of the campaign was totally good. I'm not going to quibble about things that happen later in WoW because, well, they hadn't happened yet as of this game. So you have an established peace between humans and orcs (which is what the tabletop game itself assumed, as has been mentioned previously), when suddenly this other group shows up and is throwing things off. You have the orcs caring a lot more about nature with both the thunder lizards and the environment, which shows them learning from the events of Reign of Chaos. The quillboars, as mentioned previous, are one of those poor written "Always Chaotic Evil" species. Just as the humans massacre gnolls nonstop, just as the dwarves massacre troggs nonstop, just as the night elves maybe hilariously end up massacring "corrupted furbolg" nonstop, and just as everyone massacres the murlocs and kobolds nonstop, the orcs and tauren deal with centaur, harpies, and quillboar. Night elves also kill a lot of harpies, too, come to think of it. As someone who only vaguely played WC2 back in the day, and certainly paid very little attention to the storyline due to being in elementary school, I at least was pretty interested on finding out who these humans were. Weird humans from across the sea, with anchors, and water magic? That sounds cool! I also liked how Thrall, despite all of what's going on, is still going "ok, well, I'm going to write Jaina a letter to figure out what's going on, because we're still at peace, dammit!" Again, it made a cool impression on how the war had ended and the real battle now might be humans and orcs vs someone else. Rexxar is an entirely normal archtype. The ranger of the wilds, the barbarian, who has no truck with "civilized" folk and their feigned politeness hiding venom. His inclusion and connection to the orcs here is painting exactly what's intended - that Durotar isn't a "civilized" land, but rather a barbarian city, a wildling one. It helps make it stand out hard againts the far more traditional western fantasy cities of the humans, dwarves, and whatnot. It goes along with the aforementioned part where the orcs are trying to manage their tree cutting and are paying attention to the habits of the Thunder Lizards. "Man vs nature" is one of the big conflicts middle schoolers are taught about in Language Arts, and humanity has always had a bit of a love-hate relationship with nature (and for good reason). In your given western fantasy, you often get a sharp divide between the civilized lands that mostly resemble lots of wheat filled plains (and you better believe wheat specifically was massively politicized and racialized), maybe some slight hills and bucolic forests, and the "wilds," made of twisted and tangled woods, jungles, badlands, impassible mountains, and...well, you get the idea. This also makes a pretty big seperation with the night elves. Elves in general, despite often living in the "wilds," are nearly always used as specifically a taming and civilizing force. They're western "druids," or new age religious groups who live in those aforementioned bucolic forests. Nature does as they say - it is tamed, controlled. Controlled is important, because the big part of that love-hate relationship, that man vs nature, is that nature is uncontrollable. The fantasy of elves and "druids" and nature spellcasters and all of that, is the fantasy of controlling that force. Compare again to the Horde here, and with Rexxar; Rexxar's archtype is specifically the wild man. The hermit, the mountain man, the barbarian. Rather then being an overpresent taming force, Rexxar exists inside the ambiguity of that man / nature divide. His connection to Thrall and the Horde seems pretty easy and clear - the Horde itself is going to live in that space, and quite proudly too. It certainly does reek of that "noble savage" archtype, to be clear, but it's an archtype with just as much of a connection to, say, Conan of Cimmeria, or even the historical records of Rome about the various Germanic tribe. I can't say much about the Arthas stuff other then "wow that sure is some more dumb bullshit from Shadowlands!" The bits before Shadowlands worked great. Arthas is a big comic book-rear end villain and it loving rules. If I remember, part of his thing in the Lich King expansion was also wanting those great heroes to be put through tests just as he was, under the belief that they'd also buckle and turn evil, because Arthas was if nothing else very self centered and believed whole heartedly that if he couldn't go through those hardships without turning evil, nobody could. As for Sylvanas having her moment...well, yeah? irst off Jaina absolutely does have her moments regarding Arthas throughout the expansion, including a scene specifically after you defeat him, so I'm not sure why you're acting like she was Miss Not Appearing In This Expansion. Secondly, Sylvanas kinda inarguably has the most personal beef with Arthas. He certainly wronged Jaina and Uther, no doubt, but Sylvanas was murdered and then enslaved by him, and her entire people, the Forsaken, exist only because of him. ProfessorCirno fucked around with this message at 08:57 on Jan 30, 2024 |
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Jan 30, 2024 05:39
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Cythereal posted:And on that cliffhanger, the mission ends. The rest of this campaign was DLC that came later. Small note, I believe it was patched in later, not sold seperately.
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Jan 30, 2024 06:21
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Arbite posted:Small note, I believe it was patched in later, not sold seperately. yeah, the rest of the campaign came with normal patches
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Jan 30, 2024 11:36
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Cythereal posted:Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous. Huh, you went Aeon? I'd have figured you for Azata or Angel myself.
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Jan 30, 2024 12:02
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CommissarMega posted:Huh, you went Aeon? I'd have figured you for Azata or Angel myself. I've played all three routes you've mentioned.
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Jan 30, 2024 12:46
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On the one hand, next missions will feature more Jaina. On the other, look at the writing - sure you want her to be? Cythereal posted:And here's where my screenshot recording screwed up and I didn't realize it until after. In brief, Thrall sent a messenger to the humans who agreed to a meeting with Thrall at midnight and told Thrall to come alone. Rexxar thinks this is a trap and persuades Thrall to let Rexxar - mister 'I have watched the other races. I have seen their squabbling, their ruthlessness. Their wars do nothing but scar the land and drive the wild things to extinction. No, they cannot be trusted. Only beasts are above deceit.' - go in his place.
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Jan 30, 2024 16:40
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In all complete fairness to the Orcs getting upset at the humans deforesting Thunder Ridge... as far as they know, Jaina led the survivors of Humanity across to Kalimdor. The Orcs may well be completely unaware, or otherwise have completely forgotten that there ARE other groups of humans left. At the very least, they aren't expecting any non-Jaina-aligned humans on Kalimdor. And, as mentioned, the Orcs and Jaina's humans have a treaty. So, human forces blundering into what the treaty would acknowledge as Orcish territory and engaging in reckless deforestation would be legit cause for outrage. This isn't some unknown invader storming in and taking their stuff; this is people who (as far as the Orcs know) have explicitly agreed NOT to do exactly this. It's just... turns out they're not from the group that signed the treaty.
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Jan 30, 2024 16:55
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So... we're assuming that Jaina never once told Thrall that she's leading the survivors of Lordaeron with volunteers from other human nations along for the ride (at the time Jaina left, Dalaran, Stromgarde, and Alterac were were all still around, plus Gilneas and Kul Tiras), and never clarified that other human nations still exist nor did Thrall ever ask for clarification. Well, par for the course for Blizzard trumping up a new round of faction war I guess.
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Jan 30, 2024 16:57
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Having ships come by to cross the ocean every two minutes is a WoW thing. At least in the narrative at this point, crossing the ocean between the continents is a long, extremely perilous journey (although part of that peril might have been the Horde being inexperienced sailors with unfamiliar ships). Having an old enemy make that crossing is a surprise even if there hadn't been an apocalyptic army sweeping across the old world. I wouldn't blame Thrall for not thinking of it as an option. He is at least still trying to resolve the matter peacefully and asking Jaina what's going on.
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Jan 30, 2024 17:06
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I mentioned it before but the general gist I as a kid at least got with WC3's conclusion was that Jaina's group was basically all that was left. I certainly didn't know jack or poo poo about "Alterac" or "Stromgarde," you saw Dalaran crumple like sand (literally!), and the BLood Elf / Forsaken campaigns end rather conclusively with the end of Loderaeron. Younger me definitely concluded that the eastern continent as a whole was basically lost. Also it's really weird to say this is Blizzard amping up another faction war, when Thrall is doing everything he can to avoid that. We just had humans outright massacre an orc encampment and his reaction is still "ok but no, I'm going to talk to Jaina, because we don't want another war to start." Everything is pointing towards the opposite of ginning up a faction war here - it's the beleagered survivors doing everything they can to cling to a peace treaty.
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Jan 30, 2024 17:20
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