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That argument can be made about a lot of different things, including the games that are the subject of this LP. Thankfully the fun and good qualities of WotR- and WC2 at least- make up for the turd stuff- most of the time.
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Oct 17, 2022 10:23
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Horde 10: Demolition Man Stratholme is a city that is probably very familiar to anyone who's played Warcraft 3 as the setting of perhaps the single best known mission in any Blizzard RTS ever made.  Also, this briefing continues the theme of the writers seeming rather confused about whether Lordaeron is the name of a kingdom, the continent, or is a fanciful name for the Alliance in general, and whether places like Kul Tiras are in fact separate nations or not.  I'm introduced right away to the new unit of this mission, a unit I doubt very much I will ever make again. Goblin sappers probably do more to characterize goblins than any other appearance of the race in the Warcraft RTS games.  They're suicide bombers, and can blow up these rocks blocking the army's path.  I am once again saddled with taking a starting army and some peons and establishing a base. This gold mine right next to where I start is a decoy, there's not enough room here to build a base. It's an expansion location for later.  The start of this mission is standard fare. I had to reload saves numerous times during this mission, though this isn't at that point yet, which lead to me eventually cheating.  From your starting position, you need to work your way north.  This gold mine in a snow field to the north is the base location. Sappers are at least fast, which makes them decent scouts.  The goblins meet their end in useful fashion taking out a ballista positioned close to the base site.  Alliance attacks start early and continue frequently, and they upgrade their units fast. I think I was seeing paladins before I got a stronghold upgraded.  It's the usual routine for this sort of mission. Upping game speed is something I've done in the past to race through this phase of the game, but Alliance attacks are so frequent that my inattention coupled with the game speed repeatedly messed me up.  Now I know what the AI feels like when I roll up siege weapons outside their vision range and snipe stuff. This is the root of my problems with this mission. Among the frequent AI attacks are ballistas, and there are no base defenses that outrange them. Just as dangerously, the tree layout means peons will naturally push further and further towards Stratholme and the waiting Alliance while also removing a natural barrier to attack. Managing these attacks is, frankly, exhausting, especially when I'm trying to wait through the slow process of base building in this game.  A couple of guard towers help, especially when the AI suicides a ballista into their range so it can snipe my lumber peons.  sigh  And this is what happens when I try to push back: Stratholme is right up there and ringed with cannon towers, ballistas, and elves. This is what happened to all of my failed attempts: pinned and ground down by ballista-lead Alliance attacks that focused on my lumber peons, choking off my supply of wood.    I understand the theory behind suicide units, and I enjoyed playing Zagara in Starcraft 2 co-op, but outside factions specifically set up like Zagara for employing them, I'm loathe to use suicide units. I'm sure someone out there made great use of them in WC2 multiplayer, but I very much doubt I will ever make these.  Pictured: why trying to push back the ballista attacks tends to fail.  I noted in Warcraft 1 how the invincibility cheat didn't work against catapults. Warcraft 2's invincibility cheat doesn't work against these assholes.  By the way, there's a whole naval side to this map that you need to wipe out. There is absolutely nothing to be gained by going into the water before you've wiped out the land base. You have enough oil for the stronghold and fortress upgrade and don't need oil for anything else. There is nothing across the water and attacking Stratholme from the sea would be very difficult. It's just an extra slog to do once you clear out the city.  I was too stunned by the first encounter with a mage to get a screenshot of their spell killing three units at a stroke. An ogre squished him, but then the ballista happened.  Cheating is deeply cathartic.  The mage spell appears to be a long line aoe that goes through the invincibility cheat.  Fuckers.  Even if you could find the wood or gold to go sailing at the start, this terrain makes an amphibious assault rather futile.  Well, nothing for it.  After wiping out Stratholme you still have to build a navy to clear out the Alliance presence in the water.  Which includes destroyers and battleships, but no submarines. My feeling is that if this had been framed as a naval attack first, introducing the Horde's own submarines - since the Alliance had no gnome fliers - and then you need to land outside the city to build and attack, this mission might have had a better flow to it.  Just a miserable little slog of a mission.  Call me a cheater if you want, Blizzard. I could have been watching Andor or playing Fire Emblem: Three Hopes instead of spending two hours on this poo poo.
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Oct 17, 2022 11:59
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Dynasty Warriors Another ho-hum mission, so another popular request from the docket. Today's subject, the Mogu.  The Mogu are a Titan-forged race, created by the Keeprs Ra-den and Norushen, to serve a similar function in southern Azeroth to the vrykul in the north: defenders and protectors of Titan facilities and other servants. Unlike the vrykul, the mogu were also used to some extent as a labor force. The mogu were crafted from solid stone, very much in the image of real-life China's famous terra cotta warriors, and further empowered with lightning by Keeper Ra-den. What we know of these early mogu is that they held Ra-den as a creator god and ruler of their race, and followed from there in a strict and rigid hierarchy of obedience. After the Titans departed, the mogu remained active in Azeroth and saw themselves as keepers of a divine order handed down from the heavens. To the mogu, dissent was an affront not only against terrestrial authorities and leaders, but against the very mandate of the gods, and must be crushed with holy purpose. Mogu society demanded absolute and unquestioning obedience, from the heavens to the emperor down to the lowest soldier or artisan. When Warcraft's writers were experimenting with the idea that the Titans were in fact alien precursors who would deem modern-day Azeroth unclean and fit to be purged, the mogu were one of the standard-bearers for this idea. For the Warhammer Fantasy fans, yeah we're basically talking about the Lizardmen but based on classical China instead of on Mesoamerican cultures.  The primary opponents of the Mogu Empire were the mantid, the insectoid servants of the fallen Old God Y'Shaarj. Serving a succession of empresses, the mantid believed that one day Y'shaarj would return to life and they must prepare Azeroth for his return. Mantid populations follow a regular cycle of swarming, and the mogu battled these periodic hordes without end. Try as they might, the mogu never did land a decisive counterattack against the mantid and instead settled for fortifying the border and shooting everything that moved. Which might have completely worked had the mantid not been capable of flight, adept with explosives, and liked breeding kaiju sized giant bugs. One of the most unusual features of the Mogu Empire during its heyday was the mogu's affinity for a magic known as flesh shaping. This is magic, likely related to blood magic, that allows the direct alteration of flesh and genetics. What little we know about flesh shaping is that this was the magic employed by the Titans to create the living creatures of Azeroth during the Ordering. The mogu are the only race in Azeroth known to still possess the knowledge and ability to use it. Three races created or remade by flesh shaping survive to this day: the yaungol, ancestors of the modern-day tauren; the savage reptilian Saurok created from dinosaurs; and the totally not Sherpas who wander the totally not Himalayas, the grummles which were created from troggs. All of these races were created or altered to be slaves of the mogu, as laborers or as shock troops for battling the mantid. Inevitably, the Curse of Flesh set in and the fabric of the Mogu Empire began to disintegrate. Brutal and tyrannical though the Empire had been, the mogu were at least not deliberately malevolent, they were in effect doing what they had been created to do. As with other races, the change from mineral to flesh was accompanied by mental changes and for the mogu this meant above all else overwhelming senses of arrogance and paranoia. The Mogu Empire splintered as great lords vied for power, were constantly assassinated by rivals, and only consistently banded together to fight other races that dared strike at mogu territory, most notably the mantid. Magic continued to advance during this time as the mogu discovered necromancy and made a good early go at creating something like a Lich King. Then a young mogu's father was assassinated.  Lei Shen was both a great warrior and a powerful sorcerer, and felt that the mogu race had lost their way. He had studied the most ancient of mogu writings and rediscovered the heavenly mandate that had once given the mogu purpose. Lei Shen's search for the truth lead him to the Keeper Ra-Den, originator of the mogu race, and ultimately a simple conclusion: the Titans, makers of all, were dead and their most immediate servants had given up hope. Lei Shen proclaimed that if no one else would set Azeroth to order, he would. He ripped out Ra-Den's heart and bound him within the facility that originally gave life to the mogu race. Lei Shen then used this facility to empower himself, becoming a terrible avatar of storms and twisted energies of creation with access to arsenals of weapons, magic, and technology left behind by the Titans. In less than ten years, Lei Shen had reunited the fractured Mogu Empire. Many swore fealty to Lei Shen willingly, and Lei Shen made examples of those who did not. Those who did serve him loyally and well, Lei Shen rewarded handsomely, which further accelerated his conquest as Lei Shen became known for his remarkable graciousness towards those who showed competence and loyalty rather than betraying and killing potential threats to his power. After his own people, Lei Shen set his sights on the other races of Pandaria and subjugated them one by one. Lei Shen publicly declared that he himself would swear fealty to any who could best him in single combat. None succeeded. Not even Xuen, the White Tiger, one of the August Celestials empowered by the Titans during the Ordering. To deal with the mantid, Lei Shen ordered the construction of the Ultimately, Lei Shen finally perished when he invaded Uldum, home to the Forge of Origination. Lei Shen's intent was simple: claim the engine used to order Azeroth's surface for his own and subjugate the entire planet. Instead, the native tol'vir turned the Forge on Uldum itself, blasting Uldum into a harsh desert - but also annihilating the combined armies of the mogu and Zandalari, and killing Lei Shen himself.  The Mogu Empire never recovered from Lei Shen's death and went into a final decline, ultimately overthrown by the pandaren leading a rebellion of the mogu's slave races. Much of the mogu's weapons, technology, and magic was inherited by the newfound Pandaren Empire that succeeded the mogu as rulers of Pandaria, though the secrets of flesh-shaping were lost, and the mogu were ultimately reduced to isolated bandits and mountain warlords bickering for scraps of power. In the Mists of Pandaria expansion for World of Warcraft, the mogu had a brief resurgence with the help of the Zandalari. The great troll prophet Zul, heeding the whispers of the Old Gods, landed in Pandaria, stole into Lei Shen's tomb, and resurrected the legendary mogu emperor, a man who had proclaimed himself a god. The resulting patch is regarded by most WoW fans as an all-time highlight of WoW's run, and the raid Throne of Thunder one of the game's all-time greats. Lei Shen was ultimately killed again, and a human mage named Jaina Proudmoore secured Lei Shen's remains, taking whatever secret had given Lei Shen his terrible power over storms for herself (this has, uh, never come up again in the game to my knowledge, she's threatened to use it once or twice in the books but always gets talked down, the books called Jaina the Tempest Queen once or twice but that also seems to have been completely forgotten). The mogu have reappeared once or twice since then as generic assholes for hire. Warcraft's writers seem to have settled on the mogu as a completely and unapologetically villainous race of evil tyrants.
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Oct 17, 2022 12:00
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Lei Shen! The single most  raid boss in all of WoW! Slayer of Kings and Gods! Dude who had to have a planetary extinction device aimed at his FACE to die.
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Oct 17, 2022 13:57
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The mogu sound pretty badass. Sappers. Ugh, where to begin? They are basically not worth their cost. You have other units that can do the same job more efficiently and not kill themselves. I only used them when required and was glad the AI never did. Mages- the line AOE attack is called fireball and it’s a basic spell Mages come with. Their cloud AOE Blizzard and Slow rebuff spells are worse, as are Polymorph (oneshot KO) and Invisibility (stealth spell). The AI mages use all these a lot late game. No real counter strategy except kill Mages ASAP, preferably with Dragons (whom they never seem to attack). Good luck.
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Oct 17, 2022 14:48
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My favorite bit of Mogu lore is the part where they and the Zandalari were totally going to betray each other at some point, but just enjoyed working together so much they they eventually forgot. I'm just imagining a lot of secret meets where they keep putting off the betrayal. "ehhh....maybe next week?"Cythereal posted:The mogu have reappeared once or twice since then as generic assholes for hire. Warcraft's writers seem to have settled on the mogu as a completely and unapologetically villainous race of evil tyrants. There is at least one group of friendly Mogu that show up in the final BfA patch to help you fight old gods. They're the Rajani clan and they're the only ones still loyal to Keeper Ra-den.
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Oct 17, 2022 16:12
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I've never actually seen the AI make use of Invisibility in Warcraft 2, personally. But yes, the rest of their spells are rather irritating to deal with on the receiving end. They also have Flame Shield, which just surrounds a unit with swirling flames that damages anything in melee range of that unit. And they love to cast it on your own tightly-clustered mobs of units so your own dude murders all his friends.
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Oct 17, 2022 16:14
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Sappers are useful for breaking rocks or trees though. There are plenty of maps designed with that in mind, where you can gain access to new areas or a different approach to the enemy at the cost of some resources. They are definitely not worth using in combat.
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Oct 17, 2022 18:43
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Dirk the Average posted:Sappers are useful for breaking rocks or trees though. There are plenty of maps designed with that in mind, where you can gain access to new areas or a different approach to the enemy at the cost of some resources. I actually find them fairly useful in the next mission, but I only build four or five of them for a specific purpose, and they need a good amount of backup units/a decoy force to take blows for them so they can do their job.
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Oct 17, 2022 19:23
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Even if he wound up doing incredibly terrible things in his reign, I still love that Lei Shen’s rise to power was essentially “ordinary man enters the home of his people’s long-forgotten demigod, finds that demigod has fallen into a catatonic depression, gets told that their gods are all dead… then declares ‘if you’re not going to do your job, I will’, and somehow beats the demigod into submission to take his powers for himself”.
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Oct 17, 2022 19:35
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Cythereal posted:The mogu have reappeared once or twice since then as generic assholes for hire. Warcraft's writers seem to have settled on the mogu as a completely and unapologetically villainous race of evil tyrants. Surely this is an oversight and there are actually the eldest gods behind the old gods who have been whispering in their ears. I always had trouble even getting my sappers to their target without dying.
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Oct 17, 2022 22:03
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The most use I ever got out of sappers was doing some creative redecorating of the terrain. I think there was a little teeny vs map based around doing so.
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Oct 17, 2022 22:41
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You can with some creativity set up a base down at the southern gold mine to start and work from there
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Oct 17, 2022 23:48
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Rhonne posted:There is at least one group of friendly Mogu that show up in the final BfA patch to help you fight old gods. They're the Rajani clan and they're the only ones still loyal to Keeper Ra-den. Interesting, I suppose, I quit BfA well before that point. Just yesterday I got my first youtube recommendation for a Bellular video in probably months. Hadn't even realized how completely I'd stopped following WoW and FF14 news.
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Oct 18, 2022 14:55
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Cythereal posted:Horde 10: Demolition Man
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Oct 18, 2022 19:18
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Regalingualius posted:Even if he wound up doing incredibly terrible things in his reign, I still love that Lei Shen’s rise to power was essentially “ordinary man enters the home of his people’s long-forgotten demigod, finds that demigod has fallen into a catatonic depression, gets told that their gods are all dead… then declares ‘if you’re not going to do your job, I will’, and somehow beats the demigod into submission to take his powers for himself”. he's a jrpg protagonist
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Oct 20, 2022 08:52
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ungulateman posted:he's a jrpg protagonist He's a jRPG VILLAIN but yes.
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Oct 20, 2022 09:04
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Given the inspiration for the mogu, I'd assume Lei Shen is based on Chinese myth or fantasy traditions. I know very little about Chinese myth and fantasy, but I could easily buy Lei Shen as being meant to be a fantastical Qin Shi Huang or some other figure.
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Oct 20, 2022 13:14
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Okay it's hard to tell with fantasy names, but is mogu here supposed to be 蘑菇?
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Oct 20, 2022 14:56
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I have no idea. I've also noticed that I'm running very short on lore articles for the future again, so I'm once again soliciting if anyone has a topic they'd like me to look at that won't be better suited to Beyond the Dark Portal or Warcraft 3. I also had a bit of a computer mishap at home recently (related to the hurricane issues), so I've partially lost my plans for the future. The only previous request that I recall that I haven't covered yet is the Shado-Pan, so apologies if I've forgotten anyone!
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Oct 20, 2022 15:42
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Cythereal posted:I have no idea. Are the Gurubashi trolls on the docket?
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Oct 20, 2022 16:08
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SirPhoebos posted:Are the Gurubashi trolls on the docket? There's very little to talk about, but sure I can cover them.
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Oct 20, 2022 16:08
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Is there much on sea biology? Wc3 doesn't do a whole lot of sea stuff so looking at all the sea monsters that show up in wc2 and wow could be a fun one.
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Oct 20, 2022 16:23
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Is there an official reason why small, cute, fuzzy animals explode when you poke them?
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Oct 20, 2022 17:49
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Stormwind's reconstruction and the Defias Brotherhood is probably something worth covering before getting started with Beyond the Dark Portal.
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Oct 20, 2022 17:53
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I think we had a post on giant turtles already. Have we had one on Griffions yet? What about Death Knights? The next Orc mission introduces them, as I recall. Dalaran needs something too, but you probably already have it scheduled.
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Oct 20, 2022 17:53
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SirPhoebos posted:Stormwind's reconstruction and the Defias Brotherhood is probably something worth covering before getting started with Beyond the Dark Portal. I'll cover them and Onyxia in Beyond the Dark Portal. achtungnight posted:I think we had a post on giant turtles already. Have we had one on Griffions yet? What about Death Knights? The next Orc mission introduces them, as I recall. Dalaran needs something too, but you probably already have it scheduled. There's no lore on griffons and I'll talk about Death Knights when I cover Gul'dan in depth in a couple more Horde missions.
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Oct 20, 2022 17:55
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Fun fact: Warcraft 2 suicide units come with a melee attack that they only use if you specifically use an Attack order. Right-clicking an enemy will result in them using their explosion ability.
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Oct 20, 2022 18:23
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The bottom of the OP is currently a little messed up with incorrect bbcode, btw.
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Oct 20, 2022 18:54
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Kith posted:Fun fact: Warcraft 2 suicide units come with a melee attack that they only use if you specifically use an Attack order. Right-clicking an enemy will result in them using their explosion ability. Wait, really?
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Oct 20, 2022 19:07
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FoolyCharged posted:Wait, really? Yes. Weapon upgrades increase the damage of this attack by 1-2 points, if I recall correctly.
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Oct 20, 2022 19:34
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Cythereal posted:I'll cover them and Onyxia in Beyond the Dark Portal. I’m surprised Death Knights and Gul’dan aren’t separate topics. Maybe they’re too interrelated or there’s not enough Lore on one. You did the Wildhammers already, right? If not, Griffons should be part of that article.
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Oct 20, 2022 20:11
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Granted, WC2-era Death Knights are almost completely unrelated to WC3-and-beyond DKs, and I’m fairly sure that they basically became completely irrelevant to the setting outside of one minor (but memorable) quest line in WoW.
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Oct 20, 2022 20:15
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Regalingualius posted:Granted, WC2-era Death Knights are almost completely unrelated to WC3-and-beyond DKs, and I’m fairly sure that they basically became completely irrelevant to the setting outside of one minor (but memorable) quest line in WoW. Yup. I might expand on them a bit more in Beyond the Dark Portal, but there's honestly not a lot to talk about for WC2 era death knights. achtungnight posted:You did the Wildhammers already, right? If not, Griffons should be part of that article. Again, there's not much to say about Wildhammers that I didn't cover in the dwarf lore article. Here is the sum total of lore about gryphons in Warcraft to my knowledge: they exist, they're intelligent, and dwarves like them. Then the dwarves liking them spread to the rest of the Alliance and gryphons are now the default Alliance flying mount in Warcraft (sorry, night elves, every hippogryph mount in the game requires some real effort or luck to obtain, it sucks to be a night elf or night elf fan in the WoW era, and I would know the latter). Cythereal fucked around with this message at 20:25 on Oct 20, 2022 |
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Oct 20, 2022 20:23
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Regalingualius posted:Granted, WC2-era Death Knights are almost completely unrelated to WC3-and-beyond DKs, and I’m fairly sure that they basically became completely irrelevant to the setting outside of one minor (but memorable) quest line in WoW. Warcraft: 3 completely separate kinds of Death Knights.
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Oct 20, 2022 21:48
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I loved the old Death Knights. Long dead humans imbued with dead orc spirits, wielding magical powers which mostly come from all the dead necrolytes? Easily trumps fallen paladin nr50
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Oct 20, 2022 22:00
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Cythereal posted:(it sucks to be a night elf or night elf fan in the WoW era, and I would know the latter). You and me both. 
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Oct 20, 2022 23:23
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Edit: wrong goddamn thread, gently caress im dumb.
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Oct 21, 2022 00:09
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 I get that it was still early years for RTS as a genre, but the level design in this game was never great and is starting to get really obnoxious. It's a pity in this case in particular because this would have been a marvelous opportunity to introduce the Alliance's own sappers.
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Oct 23, 2022 00:05
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| # ? Jun 2, 2024 18:45 |
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I will fully admit, that level can be a bit tedious and obnoxious. And the level that introduces the Alliance's version of the Sappers doesn't do so nearly as effectively. The only real use for them in their intro is basically as TowerBusters.
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Oct 23, 2022 19:00
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