I think the story of Thrall and his Orcs is probably one of the most interesting things about the Warcraft series. When I was a kid, seeing Orcs that were heroic and noble instead of savage monsters was a really interesting and fresh idea to me. I found the story of Orc Moses and his tribes of monsters seeking a new homeland so they can live in peace instead of waging constant warfare was super compelling. Seeing Grom sacrifice himself to save Thrall from Mannoroth and at the same time redeem himself for the evil he'd done actually made me cry. By the same token, seeing the once good Arthas slowly lose himself to madness and become one of the greatest monsters Azeroth has ever known was also a really interesting thing to see when I was a kid. I never got into World of Warcraft and frankly a lot of that game's story sounds kinda dumb but the story of Warcraft III and the Frozen Throne will always have a special place in my heart.
yeh i agree, arthas is a cool story, and arthas is honestly a vader tier villian. but taking big dumb stupid green dudes, and giving them a compassionate leader, and showing how successful that can be even when surrounded by the carnage of everything else that goes on in warcraft land is the story i like the most.
@@assassin6329 What I like about Pre Wow Thrall is that even though he's a chill dude, he was still as fierce as any other orc like how he wasn't afraid of sieging down theramore just for his people and how he made Grom snap out of his guilt and focus on killing Mannoroth.
Anything past warcraft 3 as story as a whole is just terribly made burning through developed characters, though if you want the two of character some of them are still good, issue with wow is two folds, retconing stupidly & doesn't want to stop or know when.
Arthas is a great, yet overdone, fallen hero story. It's inevitably really depressing. Thrall is just such an amazing feel good story, from the perspective of the underdog. It makes sense that we all fell in love with him.
One iconic thing to me is that when Ner'zhul tells you to complete the circle, you really do it as a player! You start with the Frozen Throne as the background for the main menu and the story finishes at the exact same frame.
The name Ner'zhul kind of sounds to me to be in the same category as Azjol-Nerub and Nerubians... so naturally, for years I thought Ner'zhul to be some spider god or something 😂
Quick thought on Blackrock and Roll. The cutscene that introduces the Blademaster doubles as a second important job of showing off his Mirror Image ability. Its the first ability you'll see from an enemy hero and one of the few in the game that isn't obvious in its purpose compared to something like Chain Lightning. So having Uther kill one in the cutscene nicely shows off that the image copies you'll be fighting in a minute are just an illusion.
50 runs through of this game and I never knew you could repair the bridge on the elven invasion, that's why I love these videos, ou learn weird little things like that.
Because it just shouldnt be doable. It was a mechanic that was attended to be in the game but wasnt finished when the game come out and they just forget that this repair thing was still in the mission files. thats why its so clunky and nowhere is info that this is possible
The funny thing for me is... I'm pretty sure repairing the bridge is how I did it on my very first playthrough (mind you, I think that was around 18 years ago, so I don't really recall the details of my first playthrough)
Archimonde is a summoned unit, which is why the wisps could blow him up. This also explains why he didn’t want to be summoned until after Quel’thalas (and the spellbreakers) were dead.
I'm pretty sure that the spell breakers came about AFTER the Elves became Blood Elves. They are the only elven unit (save for the new hero) that keep mentioning their hunger for magic. That being said, this is merely an educated guess based on the game and nothing else. I'm not very knowledgeable about the lore.
I think Warcraft 3 made me realize how important audio clarity because to this day, I can easily distinguish what units are attacking or what spells are being cast just from the sound effect like the resurrection spell or a sound of an archer shooting an arrow. Even in non rts games, I have no idea what's to going on and one of the major reasons is audio clarity.
Yeah, so do I. I can recognize pretty much every single sound effect which just proves how insanely designed this game used to be initially...and how poorly handled it was taken back.
Even just watching someone play WC2 back in the day made me hooked on the sound effects. I remember really liking the realistic sound of the swords clashing with the armor. I think the audio in these games were super important.
I came back to WC2 once in a while just for a few reasons. Gangbusters soundtrack, cool quote lines from buildings and units, immensely stimulating sound effects, from steel attack, ship sinking, to fucking mouse click, absurdly nice and representative graphics with a lot of easter eggs hidden in them, immersive story and its inplications in missions, hyperspeedy gameplay with clearly defined roles for each faction, with orcs being more early oriented through combined costs for their blacksmith upgrades and bloodlust in early tier 3 letting them go ham basically on autopilot, and humans being super lategame scalers with super op archers and micro heavy infinite hp palas. W3 slowed down the game a bit, introduced more complex skill tree and made the expierence be even more immersive through rpg elements, resulting in overall richer expierence, but I love both games in their own respective ways.
The implication that Archimonde counts as a “summoned unit” because he was summoned through the demon gate, thus meaning Wisp detonations damage him is a hilarious interpretation of the Reign of Chaos ending
The whole damaging summoned units could be something to do with wisp magic able to destroy beings either not of this world or have strong magic/held together by mostly magic. The demons kinda fits both so that works
I always thought Archimonde explode because wisp over feed him with its energy and the world tree’s energy combine are to much for him at the same time
Just wanted to add a little bit of context to the Night Elf part Malfurion loves Tyrande in part for her brash side, he loves that she knows what she wants and doesn't pussyfoot around, this is also helped because in Night Elf society, the women are the warrior caste while the men are more nurturers, they raise children and tend to homes, so the women tend to be more aggressive and the men more meek, unlike human society. This aspect of night elf society is reflected in their gods: Men take after Cenarius, the demi-god that mostly only cares about protecting the many groves and forests that he considers his and his children territory, he is very loving to his own people while extremely strict with outsiders, he also introduced Druidism to night elves, which fits perfectly with the nature of night elf men, mostly wanting to take care of their home and loved ones This idea is why Malfurion's kit is mostly defensive, his ensnaring roots aim to disable enemies, not kill them (its damage is very low), animate treant creates protection out of nature without harming it and since Druids can reanimate trees, losing a treant is not the end for it, his bark aura only damage enemy that attack him or his allies, so it's obviously protective and his ultimate literally disables all his offensive power to heal his allies On the other side of the coin, women take after Elune, the goddess of the moon and mother of Cenarius, like Cenarius, Elune is incredibly protective of those she believes to be her children, this includes not only Night Elves but also Taurens, Furbolgs and to a degree Worgen. Elune is often talked about as a loving mother that suffers no attack on her family, she used to incarnate her Wrath into a night elf in times of war, granting them incredible destructive power, but killing the elf once the infusion stopped. Elune's latest chosen is Tyrande, she has been allowed to wield a part of Elune's power AND been protected by her against demons for more than 10 000years, so at this point there is no doubt that Elune approves of Tyrande very much, that's why every other night elf immediately agrees with Tyrande whenever she takes a decision, because they see her as the conduit for Elune, and that automatically makes her the highest authority there is in night elven society When Tyrande says "Only the Goddess may forbid me", it's not a turn of phrase, Tyrande's faith in Elune is absolute, in WoW Legion when faced between saving Elune's temple and saving Malfurion's life, she immediately choses the temple saying "It breaks my heart but I have sworn my entire being to my Goddess" Also the Wardens while extremely important to Night Elves, and respected by many, have willingly separated themselves from the rest of society, they will watch over their prisoners but refuse any other authority than their own, Maiev (leader of the Wardens) is the only one they will obey, even when faced with Tyrande, they believe it is their charge and their charge alone to protect everyone else from the monsters they guard, Wardens aren't prison guards, they're eternal watch dogs, being imprisoned by the Wardens means you will stay imprisoned forever, it's not like a typical prison sentence.
Ah, I can't wait to watch this brief retrospective. Hopefully soon we'll get a 12 hour retrospective on the effects of the effects that Command and Conquer had.
There's a thing about culling of Stratholme that i noticed *even* in reforged which makes it hit even harder: if you want to attack your citizens before they zombify (which is often logically the good choice) you have to... manually choose the attack them, which just makes it extra spicy - you are not killing monsters, you are making the conscious effort to murder your own citizens
I didn't know how to do the forced attack. So my Arthas was a much nicer guy and I nearly lost the level. I guess it proved you could wait for them to turn and still win.
2:18:20 small correction, on the Daughters of the Moon mission the clock is not stuck, just greatly slowed. If you take enough time it will become daytime and Tyrande has a line of dialogue for that.
28:20 another small correction, you got it backwards, it's the Gyrocopters that were in Reign of Chaos that were changed into Flying Machines in Frozen Throne
@@vasilkalov2622 she says something along the lines of "Dawn has come and I cannot use the power of Elune to hide me anymore". You need to wait like 50 minutes or so for dawn to come btw.
It just recites the campaign without any reference to custom maps and how easy it was to make them with the map maker tool, social impact, or How Warcraft 3 Changed Strategy Games Forever. Probably wants to cash in on gamers nostalgia for them to watch his livestreams like some, or most youtubers do.
@@art-hx6hq but there literally is a section about the custom maps, how easy it was to make them with the map maker tool, social impact, and how warcraft 3 changed strategy games forever. 2:11:38
The only thing truly missing from this hectic video, would be a mention of the credits scenes that play at the end of base campaign. Those clips were so random yet hilarious
One thing I love about The March of the Scourge - it's such a difficulty spike and such a tense experience for the average player that it sells the idea of Arthas being traumatized by this and willing to go for extreme measures. The difficulty is kind of part of the story.
I always loved that illidan breaks his own cell. He could have always broken himself out, but what's the point? His people will just hate him and see him as a villain. Everything illidan does is for his people even when it doesn't seem that way. Even after he is free his only thought is about his own brother hating him. But through his fight he gains a new goal, he will help his people by killing the demons, even if his own people will hate him forever. It's awesome that you get so much context for illidan's story without it having to be explained. We understand illidan's hate of the demons and his sorrow for his people hating him, with very little dialogue. We don't need a monologue where illidan's goes on about he is the only one that is willing to do whatever it takes to kill the demons. We get all of through gameplay and basic understanding of his character through his actions. And that's so awesome. Wc3 was so good at naturally integrating character moments.
In the Books it's specified that Illidan couldn't have broken out, The wardens were sapping his powers and they would have been too much for him to deal with all on his own after breaking out, Maiev specifically leaves his Warglaves just outside his Cell to torture him with the knowledge that he can never escape. When Tyrande comes to free him Maiev is off somewhere and she kills the Wardens. But yes, Illidan could have at any point broken the cell but he wcouldn't have escaped the Wardens on his own. Fun lore fact, in World of Warcraft Maiev chases Illidan into Outland and gets found out and Captured, Illidan fully intended to keep her imprisoned until she died as revenge, the Player goes through a quest chain to free her, and she helps you kill Illidan in the Black Temple raid.
Back when i was a kid, i absolutely HATED it, the amount of walking around, killing random things, the story making no sense (cause stupid kid me decided to play it first instead of playing the other campaign first) but as i grew up, it quickly became my favourite, kinda sucks that they didnt make a full game out of it, i’d love to play a full game of Rexxar campaign but of course with a bigger scale, extra content and actually expand on the world building
Warcraft 3 has a few amazing quotes that still resonate in my mind. "Tremble mortals, and despair. Doom has come to your world!" "The horn has sounded, and i have come, as promised." "Who dares defile this ancient land? Who dares the wrath of cenarius, and the night elves?" Every cinematic had weight and while cheesey, felt serious in its own way. Absolutely flawless game.
Even subtler ones are amazing. My top two: "This wind chills to the bone, and you're not even shaking! My lord, are you alright?..." I fucking LOVE that foreshadowing and tone setting. Nerubian: The traitor king! Arthas: Who, me? Anub'Arak: They were referring to me, death knight. God that is SUCH good storytelling in just a few lines. I absolutely love it.
Here's two that stuck out to me even to this day "I hope there's a special place in hell for you Arthas" "We may never know Uther, I intend to live forever." "You did all of this, KNOWINGLY?! GRAAAAAAAAH!"z I also cherish the voice lines in this game As much as I like Liam o Brien's take on Illidan, his old VA emphasizes his cunning and deception a lot more clearly, with the voice filter in the metamorphosis emphasizing his raw power. I also miss pretty much all of the dreadlord voices (Malganis, Tichondrius, Varimarathas and even the regular one). Anubarak was a character that got his voice absolutely butchered and I like Rexxar's voice slightly less nowadays (maybe I just like Steve Blum)
Regarding Arthas' sudden manifestation of frost powers despite the Death Knight being the anti-paladin. When Blizzard still had the intention to properly make Reforged, they stated they were planning to expand the lore. For my money, I think they were trying to adapt the changes made by the Christie Golden novel Arthas. In that book, Arthas was legitimately stumped by the problem for a few minutes. When getting the keys to the gate, he'd simply had his undead warriors lay down in the smaller rivers between temples to make a bridge, but the gap to Quel'Danas was too vast. He ended up casting Frostmourne into the water, allowing the Lich King to channel frost power to freeze the path forward. If Reforged received the proper remake it advertised, I imagine we would've seen a similar scenario. Arthas dismounts, stares that the problem, Frostmourne glows for a second, giving him the idea to cast it into the lake, spawning the bridge. Which would also neatly explain why Arthas couldn't do that in Northrend in the Frozen Throne campaign. He literally lacked enough power to fuel the same effect. And for Sylvanas going from level 5 to level 2? Arthas had locked her body in a coffin for years to torment her, and she'd only reclaimed it after her meeting with the Dreadlords. So if they'd tweaked the game timeline a bit, maybe Sylvanas got her body back as a reward for good behavior, and she's weakened due to being in a form she's not used to. (Tis a stretch but its better than nothing.)
I have played this game for more than 10 years, and still do it ocasionally. I have done the base game and expansion campaigns more than 10-15 time each, and I was today years old when I found out that on the "Key of the three moons" quest, you CAN repair that bridge. I. Am. Mindblown. Amazing video as always!
Dude seeing your "Brief" Age of Mythology video become your most watched video, even over all the Deathless stuff I started watching you for, gave me second hand catharsis. Seeing a massive project like that blow up and become your most watched video had to feel good, and it was a damn good video to boot. Can't wait to sit down for this one when I have time. And I also look forward to the 5 hour 55 minute video on Starcraft at some point I know you have on the back of your mind.
I'm really curious how SC retrospective can be longer than WC retrospective. There are quite many missions where the objective is just "go kill everyone". It wasn't as balanced at the time, less factions, no heroes. Maybe he will combine SC1 and SC2 into one video for added length and I'd love to see the story analysus going from praise to utter salt :)
I've had a thought about it, I wonder if the reason why the AoM video was the most watched in this channel isn't partly because people didn't watch it all at once due to the length of the video, and thus had to return on the video to watch it later, adding one or several more views per person. How does UA-cam take into accounts multiple watchings of a single video?
Man it was WONDERFUL reliving my childhood through this video. I can't believe just how much of this game's story I remember and just how much of an impact it has had on my life and my obsession for fantasy. Thank you for making this!!!
Its worth adding how much of this game is a result of technical limitations of the time. The upkeep system and relatively small army sizes in WC3 were about maintaining performance. Its also why Tyrande (and all mounted units) have such a rough look - they had to spread the polygon count of a regular unit across both mount and rider.
Its kinda weird that Starcraft 1 had population space of 200 per side (Or 600 if somehow get access to protoss or zerg tech trees as each of them have their own unique pop cap) And Warcraft 3 itself can handle alot more than you would think, this is more notable in custom missions, but 200 cap per player could still be realistic for performance, also for a different reason - most maps wont let you actually get so many troops at once unless the enemy is just sitting on their asses the whole game, then they would get what was comng to them.
@@mrvex6695Starcraft was a 2D game, so I guess that's a big load off of their backs. I remember having issues with memory in Warcraft 3 way back in the day, specially in custom maps. But then again, I had a pretty shitty computer too.
Maybe it's that I always came from the C&C Side but Generals would allow for bigger armies and it was the contemporary of WC3 (and even then had some issues) I suspect that as always C&C's default camera was higher up and your infantry were always smaller (but very distinguishable) with the only units with higher polycounts being vehicles but again the further out camera allowed to save more polygons there too. Although Warcraft 3's push for Herocraft probably was to blame because if you could get a mega army without your obligatory 3 heroes well they start to become less important when you're throwing out dozens of top tier units and those three heroes really don't pull their weight anymore
Smaller army sizes were a design choice from the beginning as W3 was intended to be of smaller scale, with camera adjusted to almost 3rd person view and no base building.
@@FiftyStates5 Even Broodwar had some weird things and some things that didn't feel like they really carried through. Kerrigan feels like 3 completely different characters to me, she goes from being obsessed with Mengsk in SC1 to just being a psycho in Broodwar (Don't get me started on SC2). Like you're telling me she had to send EVERY Muta to chase down the UED? She couldn't send a single one to kill Mengsk? I still like the SC1 and Broodwar plot but there's some things that are just rly weird to me
when people talk about warcraft 3 in the same breath as age of empires and command and conquer and other games of it's era they are doing a collossal disservice to one of the single most important pieces of video game history. This is not "the best strategy game", this game is mandatory in a way that few others are - this is the kind of required reading in the way we talk about Dune. This game is the core dna to much of what we know in games today, from the obvious lineage in mobas to the more obscure like hero shooters. It constructed a world where we get the concept of the modern mmo, the idea that user-content could become real products, central pillars of modern game narratives like moral ambiguity to traditionally evil factions, and so much more. Fantastic work putting this together. You've done an incredible job of showing this to people who never got the context of how important this game is and how relevant it remains today.
fun fact theres a bunch of hidden mini-factions blizzard made that you can only play in 1 non-campaign map with a code. load up the monolith custom map that ships with the game, the one where you fight AI players playing as hostile & organized creeps, and enter -creepmeout into the chat and it replaces your base with a monolith that lets you pick one of the creep races to play as a non-main faction. one secret desire i've had for a long time is seeing people play against eachother as the hidden minor factions in a competitive PVP fashion. i'd be really interested, even if just as a sort of a goof, to see people work out how the troll faction plays vs the wolf faction, or whether the spider faction is IMBA
In the book Arthas (HIGHLY RECOMMEND) with the two bridges in quel’thalas the river the first bridge covers is so small that instead of zeppelins he actually just had meat wagon fill the river with bodies to use as a bridge to cross (I think to contrast with how much he USED to care about his subjects), but whenever he got to the second river it was too wide and fast for that so he froze the top of it, and in northrend with the boat mission he was too drained to use his powers to freeze the water. I dont know why they only changed one mission to match and not the others, but it leaves an annoying plot hole. They also didn't change the fact that the elf at the beginning wasn't a captive, he was a traiter who went to arthas so he would spare him, and he told him about all of the elves defences including the key of the 3 moons and it being split.
@tsarzamancorpdna ikr, that's why I like the revamp by sevenblood. They changed that mission to where you can actually sacrifice your units to have them build the bridge.
My favourite aspect of WC3's story is how Ner'zhul, whom was previously deceived by KIl'jaeden, managed to deceive The Deceiver. From convincing the Legion that corrupting Arthas is vital to having Kel'thuzad, the only one on their side that is powerful enough to summon Archimonde, be killed off early in the game. Knowing full well that resurrecting him by normal means (i.e. raising him from the dead via basic necromancy) will not work. The moment Kel'thuzad died, The Legion had no choice but to play along. Even the 'death' of Mal'ganis was necessary. By the time the Dreadlords begin to piece the deception together it is too late. They cannot pull the plug or risk the wrath of Archimonde. Whom was getting impatient. After doing his "task" by bringing the Arch Demon to Azeroth, Ner'zhul was no longer needed. With Tichondrius now having full control over the scourge. But since Kel'thuzad was a willing servant and Arthas had a direct link to Ner'zhul via Frostmourne, these two agents were his to use. So Arthas sneaked aboard a boat sailing to Kalimdor for the invasion. With the goal of pitting Illidan against Tichondrius. As the Dreadlord was their common enemy. With Tichondrius dead, control of the scourge went back to the Lich King... mostly. There were still some members of the scourge that were loyal to the Legion though. Led by Rage Winterchill. Nevertheless, Archimondes defeat was assured. The only thing left to do is withstand Kil'jaedens counter attack.
They really did a good job selling Ner'zhul as an incomprehensibly intelligent planner. Being able to dupe beings far more powerfull than himself to , essentially, create the champion that could have one day overthrown them is *great* Especially when you consider that these are 2 villanous factions plotting against each other
Good catch, will add this into my knowledge on the characters as the book did cut off at the info I needed, yet to read Arthes's book but this is just invaluable & cool explanation.
@@fransken4412ppl hated the jailer retcon, but what I hated the most, is in wod, where Nerzul the mastermins behinde wc3 is reduced to a random boss fight in a dungeon.
40:40 I think something that doesn't come up often enough when discussing Arthas, Stratholme, and people abandoning them is this. It was *planned*. Arthas, at the start of Stratholme, just came off of 3 days and 3 nights of no sleep and under constant assault. That is MORE than long enough to both be incredibly inarticulate, which Arthas is, and even to start hallucinating. The reason his allies completely abandon him is because he both isn't thinking straight, and because he's having trouble explaining to them WHY the city needs to be purged. Because they didn't see what he did during that 3-day assault, they don't know what he knows. But he is having trouble explaining it due to the stress, the lack of sleep, and his own anger. So he's left without any friends or companions while he has to slaughter his own people, to prevent a greater tragedy, only to be confronted with a person he can blame for all this sorrow and anger he feels. It was a PERFECT plan by Ner'Zhul to get Arthas right where he wanted him. Edit:WHAT!? You can repair the bridge in the elven mission!? Fucking hell, I never knew.
Also he was fighting the undead... A completely new enemy that is extremely horrific in nature and arthas was ligitmately scared of them but had to swallow his fears which added to all the stress
@@theassassin100it isn't, but having a decent understanding of human psychology would make the reader realize that this comment and this scenario makes perfect sense. Granted, that's not someone a lot of us who played this as kids/young teens had back then.
@@amplesstratleholm7609 "Arthas, at the start of Stratholme, just came off of 3 days and 3 nights of no sleep and under constant assault" Unless specified this is a big assumption that explains why Arthas was stupid and didn't explain to Uther why he knew how the undead work and that the grain will transform everyone, since he has more experience with this stuff (Jaina too btw). All he had to say was, I have the most experience with these, Jaina saw them too, just wait until night time to see. But he was apparently too angry to say the bare minimum.
Can we talk about how Tyrande's pfp is the only one to include her mount? Either the camera was really scared of her or it really wanted to include the big kitty.
For the name change on Furion and Grom, it was probably because of pre existing warhammer fantasy characters named "Grom the Pauch" and "Furion of Clar Karond", just another way to avoid issues with Games Workshop
If I remember correctly there was a lot of this happening, since I'm a warhammer fan, I would imagine this was the reason the gyrocopter, steamtank and others got changed as they also exist there.
@@franslair2199 most def I was only playing earlier today but I swear even on the tww map klar Karond is a minor faction, I gotta find who these dudes are
3:29:37 The reason you don't get Chimeras in the NE RoC campaign is because the defense mission wasn't supposed to be the finale. There was another mission at the World Tree itself, where you would unlock them, but that was ultimately cut from the game.
From what I remember, said cut mission was supposed to be a massive, hour long mission, but after realizing that the previous mission also took almost an hour to finish, and the fact that it'd be kind of anti-climatic to have the big baddie explode in one mission, and then have the finale be "mere" clean-up duty, they decided to scrap it.
@@Sarik0497wonder if anyone ever modded it in with some of those very good custom campaigns the game used to have till blizz nuked all the goodwill from orbit
@@Sarik0497 minor correction, the last mission wasn't a cleanup It was supposed to be the ascent of Archimonde up the slope of the tree, with you doing all you can to slow him down and allow the build-up of the wisps Naturally, that would be another time slogfest and they found it was not fun, so they got rid of it
@@Sarik0497 np :) Btw I took this info out of Dave's interviews, one of the wc3 original level designers, you can find all 8 parts at hos channel and Abelhawks
1:05:56 Anasterian Sunstrider was the king of the highelves and Kaelthas's father. 1:07:38 funny enough the wow lore explanation is he sends a larger chunk of the now undead Silvermoon population to form a bridge out of bodies wich is hilariously dark and fitting for him to do.
To add on to this, Thalorien Dawnseeker was the original wielder of Quel'Delar, one of the prismatic dragon blades. Anasterian's grandfather was Dath'Remar, who founded Quel'thalas in the first place.
Was looking for this comment. Anasterian has no role in base WC3, but the family name 'Sunstrider' should have been a bit of a giveaway he is at least royalty, since Kael is a prince and his name is also Sunstrider.
@@TheShanicpower oh, no... we're too late! these people have all been infected! they may look fine now, but it's only a matter of time before they turn into the undead! Arthas: 'what?!' Uther: this entire city must be purged.
@@KamirasuUther: As my future king, please give me the order to purge this city Arthas: I am not your king yet, Uther. Nor would I give you this order even if I were
@@dynastywarriorlord07uther: then you must consider this an act of treason. Arthas: Treason? have i lost my mind, uther? Uther: have you? prince arthas, by your right of succession and the sovereignty of your crown, you hereby relieve me of my command and suspend my paladins from service
I originally watched your retrospective on Age of Mythologies. When I watched it, I agreed with everything you said, I didn't learn very much, but I watched it because it was entertaining. Most of what you said about AoM was, to me, 'obvious.' I also played Warcraft 3 back in the day around the same time, but I never felt a lot of what you've explained in this video. Now that you have explained it, it's so clear, and it's amazing. Recognizing that, though, has only improved both of the videos and helped me enjoy both games all the more. I recognize that while AoM was obvious to me, that's only because I embraced it and learnt it well. Warcraft 3 was something I focused mostly on the custom games and online rather than the game itself, so I never felt or even saw a lot of what was explained. I remember, I only finished the campaign through specifically to play the night elf missions, I didn't care for the rest. My mistake then, fixed by you now. Thank you! Constructive criticism, you forgot something I would consider a major detail on the design philosophy. Difficulty. I don't know about the reforged maps, but dependent on your difficulty there were different elements are present, sometimes the AI changed alongside it. Realizing that was how they managed difficulty made me play through a second time just to see the difference. Compared to modern games just giving more resources to the AI .. yeah.
There is a consistency to the games that Grant gives a retrospective on: they mastered the show (or rather, play), don't tell method of teaching the game. Which, in turn, gives rise to the wonderful "tell what they show" in these retrospectives. Thanks for another great video, Grant! ps. I can't remember the title, but there was another review of the Culling mission that I thought was brilliant. The mission never tells you you can kill the villagers before they turn to make the process easier. You just... figure it out. In playing the mission, you sort of join Arthas' journey. The player chooses to kill civilians.
I think a lot of the reforged changes like Arthas making the ice bridge actually originally come from comics and novels written after Warcraft 3 and to square the differences between WoW and Warcraft 3. This is incredibly frustrating because usually the changes just make the story worse.
Yeah, lots of dumb shit in wow shouldnt even be considered canon. Especially how they forced everything and everyone into horde and alliance.(Night elves and forsaken should be independent and neutral factions). Sadly all the dumb and even lazy got set in stone just because it was the main warcraft game ever since it released... usually for far worse...
Close, it was the book, Arthas: Rise of the Lich King. And it used the Path of Frost, the WoW Death Knight ability that lets the DK and his allies walk on water. I think the main reason they introduced the change was that in WoW the Sunwell is not in Silvermoon but on the Isle of Quel'Danas, which as the name suggests is an island so he needed some way to cross the water.
Maybe more to the point, it would have been fine if they were allowed to remake the whole campaign like they originally intended, and maybe got time for a few more passes to iron out fiddly design details, but they only got a handful of remade missions in a functional state before those plans went in the garbage and they had to leave most missions unaltered. Realistically, the whole rivers and zeppelins mission was kind of nonsense anyway. If it were remade then the whole mission hook would probably be different and fit better narratively with the Silvermoon finale. But it wasn't, so it doesn't.
Warcraft stopped being cannon after Frozen Throne for me. MMOs dumb chatacter development down. Unless the characters were made just for the MMO. That isn't the case here. Too many immersion breaks with WoW. Some of what it does can be good but with the immersion breaks it all falls apart. Don't even get me started with the time travel nonsense. Which makes a sense of loss moot where Grom is concerned.
@@Veldazandtea Exactly... And they ruined so many... Illidan and many others got wasted in dumbest ways as dungeong/raid boss cannon fodder. Thrall and Jaina got run into the ground, because Metzen was a burned out tired fool who started to loathe his creation(most evident in Cataclysm, MoP and WoD, hell even in legion. He made Thrall into a stupid meme and made him go against hisncharacrer from Lord of clans book). And made Jaina go insane and viscious(ignoring Christie Golden's book written to bolster his stupid story decisions) until he left after Legion expansion. Closest they got to even doing something less idiotic was Arthas in Wrath but all they did was give normies who picked up wow just vecause of craze for it in late 2000s collective, indirect nostalgia for things they never played prior or since to get hyped up for "biggest bad boss", catering to dumbest and most shallow. Everything done for mmo gameplay or cuz of "rule of cool".... Its why i have love and hate relationship with WoW and blizzard as a whole. I love some aspects of classic wow...music, exploration artstyle for most part, but i just hate what hey did to the universe and characters. They didnt even give people freedom they should've(even compared to DnD Warcraft tabletop RPG released in 2003/2004), since they forced faction war and forced night elves and forsaken into it going against warcraft 3 and any logical world building. Just because WoW started development so early that warcraft 3's story was just parrtly ignored and they just went by basic "bad guys vs good guys" slapping elves with the "good" and undead with the "bad", because of Warcraft 2 i guess... Its all just so frustrating...since wow couldve been something great snd at the same time avoid affecting the story so negatively if they just mildly changed few things in what final game was... Like getting rid of rigid faction system and just using same reputation system neutral factions use for all main factions and let people choose their alliegences as they please with some legeork just like say Timbermaw furbolgs or goblins or any other classic wow minor faction. That way it would be in line with Warcraft 3 and that DnD Warcraft RPG(which metzen co-wrote) Or those language barriers(with common actualy being used by most races and ability to learn other languages). Or PVP especially battle ground/world one moved over onto guilds, so its guilds that are at war with each other as main PVP hook while faction conflicts are just events people would join in on as some.rared event ga actually has more meaningful story and would be just horde vs old alliance but all sorts. They only done this halfheartedly with wrath while doing nothing about things they done wrong... and they just double or triple down on it as time went on. While all expansionsnare just nostalgia baiting things riding off warcraft 3 story beats or copy pasting/rehashing itself several times over all the way to modern day... It could've been so much more...
The thing I find most interesting, is Arthas still has humility in the last but one mission, hoping the crypt lord survived whereas Maiev didn't even stop to give it a moment
An interest aspect of Arthas' characterization is that he still retains a lot of his personality traits before becoming a Death Knight, but now completely devoid of a moral compass. All of his behaviors as a Death Knight are present when he's a Paladin, with the sole exception of the hilarious(ly dark) irony that Death Knight Arthas has more of a sense of humor despite being a literal soulless version of himself. It's really funny how the good light warrior never cracks a single joke but the edgelord death lord occasionally makes the occasional wisecrack.
I know the novels catch a lot of flak, but if I recall correctly the one about Arthas does a lot to explain that all throughout his life he was continually fighting against his less-than-honorable character traits: his jealousy, his fearfulness, his self-doubt, his anger, and perhaps above all: his feeling of entitlement. Throughout the book he has this almost constant dialogue of wishing to be better than he is, because he's comparing himself against people like Uther -- a paragon of wisdom and valor -- Kael -- a cool, handsome, magically powerful elf -- and many others who hold traits that he himself wishes he embodied, and the strain of trying be better. When he finally, finally becomes a Death Knight, he begins to stop trying to be better. He starts accepting himself, the self that's selfish, even malicious. I bring all this up because he does actually relax throughout his journey, and it's because he'smore comfortable with himself -- but it's because he's just stopped caring and letting silly things like "morality" and "the basic decency of not killing indiscriminately" to dictate his actions anymore Character "growth" into an absolutely abysmal person, and I think that's pretty neat
You have to keep in mind that according to the lore the power does not come from the Helm of Command/Frostmourne, it only multiplies the power that is alrdy there. Arthas was powerful as Lich King because he was alrdy powerful as a paladin and to the very end held a lot of control over everything that happened, sparing for example some of his old friends and things like that. It also explains why Bolvar was such a loser as Lich King, he never was strong before he became the Lich King at least not compared to Arthas, and his motivation was pure (saving people from the scourge) while Arthas motivation was evil (revenge and destruction) which made him stronger. Consider how much power and control Arthas had as the Lich King being the literal ultimate raid boss who ruled an entire undead Kingdom. Bolvar as the Lich King was just some dude on a mountain with a few servants that nobody feared or respected for his strength... and then he got beat by a girl in 1v1...
@@Triumph633regarding Bolvar - I would imagine keeping the Scourge in check is harder than just letting it be the genocidal horde it wants to be. While also getting brainwashed by an otherworldly entity 24/7. And that 1v1 thing was kinda rigged, too? Sylvanas is one of the strongest characters at that point, being in cahoots with Zovaal and all. Being in cahoots with a "titan++" entity probably does entail some serious buffs. -shadowlands had such a cool premise, I wish they hadn't t fucked up the foreshadowing and execution so much-
I'm glad you pointed out how out of line Tyrande is for killing the Wardens so casually. I always felt weird about that. I had forgotten how genuinely unhinged Maiev was, but I still feel like the game let Tyrande off easy.
Jesus, Giant Grant. That was Warden Tyrande. She was out of line there about the execution, but --- oh my God, Maiev will have you shot. We have to erase the log books. I don't like this, but I'll protect you this time. I guess you have to stand up for what you believe.
Tyrande: "Only the goddess can forbid me from freeing Illidan." Prison Wardens: "The goddess forbids you from freeing Illidan." Tyrande: "I'm gonna pretend I didn't hear that."
Well bloodelves were quite bloodthirsty in original concept, especially women. It is onbrand for that. WoW turned them all into hippies forgetting the division, and also forcing them into alliance stupidly.(Both night elves and forsaken should be independent neutral factions)
I actually really like how underwhelming and pathetic Gul'dan's end is portrayed as in Frozen Throne. Gul'dan's greatest weakness was always his arrogance. While he was one of the greatest sorcerers to live, he was still a mortal Orc. His hubris led him to stab the Horde in the back and guarantee it's defeat in the Second War, raise the Tomb of Sargeras, and try to claim power far beyond his reach, and challenge beings much more powerful than him. And he dies a pitiful death, alone in the Tomb, the Eye of Sargeras not even close to his grasp. (I will agree his model is ugly though). I love Gul'dan, he's such a a great villain and one of my favorite Warcraft characters.
I also agree. While it could have shown more of Gul'dan's defeats, and given him a better model than the crotchety old hermit's, his hubris precipitating his end is very justifiable.
1:26:52 On the subject of the extended Orc Tutorial, the additional three mission where Thrall lands on the Troll island and fight the murlocs were included in the demo and were fully voiced in the demo. When they got added in the Frozen Throne, the voiceovers were not present. I also consider it canon as it explains where the trolls came from, as they were not present in the two previous missions.
warcraft 3 is my childhood i grew up on this game. i still remember getting it for my 9th birthday it was one of the first video games i have ever played and i instantly fell in love. i genuinely think i wouldnt be the gamer i am today if this game didnt exist
Its kinda sad for me because i wanted to beat it so bad but i never had a PC that could play it until years later. I only could play a couple houes once a week on LAN with friends on a cybercafe and obviously would always end in last place because i didn't know how to play it with that little ammount of practice.
@@j.2512 damn man. If you've never beat this game before I'd genuinely suggest doing so, it's so worth it. even if you know the story, playing through it is an amazing experience, and the gameplay is pretty fun. I will suggest to do so in vanilla none reforged version, even better if you can do so without the reforged version at all, if you own the cd it's as easy as looking for an install of the old update before reforged.
About the tiny buildings: if you play the goblin starting zone you will see that in the Warcraft universe there are ways to carry an entire town in your pocket.
Speaking of unit model changes/retcons, it looks like Reforged changed Furion's model for the Reign of Chaos campaign. Originally in the ROC campaign, his model didn't have a mount and he walked around on his own. In TFT his model has a mount. It looks like Reforged uses that TFT model for the ROC campaign.
Same thing happened in the clip where he's communing with the forests of Lordaeron. It's the one time in TFT that they used his unmounted model. I assume they did it for consistency, but it always made sense to me. If he just wakes up in the Barrow Dens, he wouldn't have a stag as a mount and probably wouldn't have time to get one before the end of the campaign. In TFT, of course he'd have time to get dressed up.
March of the Scourge was so hard that like, my go-to strategy to beat it involved ultimately going down the path to my city and like, having a peasant hiding down that trail and maybe building some houses I think... And like eventually my city would be completely destroyed, but I wouldn't lose as long as this unit lived to the end of the time limit... And sometimes it'd be scary since some undead might wander down the path a bit and destroy a building down there, but they wouldn't go ALL the way down the path normally... So yeah, I'd just spend like a few minutes or so with my city destroyed... And then Uther would roll in and be like "GOOD JOB! YOU DEFENDED THE CITY!!!" and I'd be like "Did I though?"
I find your characterizatoin of Maiev missing one key thing - she gains the Spirit of Vengence *after* her sisters get killed in the Tomb. To my that always signified both that she cared about them, but also that she became the avater of vengence itself and will disregard anything and anyone to achieve it.
Even better about the Shadow Orb, you can pass it on from Maiev to Malfurian who can then pass it on to Ilidan, then when Illidan appears in the Blood Elf campaign he still has it, and will continue to have it when hes an antagonist in the Undead campaign.
He actually did that for his Frozen Throne Deathless Campaigns, but he probably doesn't bring it up here because, as Grant repeatedly states, there's so much to talk about that he'd need many, many more hours to cover it all.
@@KickapoosWorldInConflictVids Stacking Illidan up & letting him solo Black Citadel was among my favorite things to do in WC3... If I recall, I had his inventory as: 1. Mask of Death 2. Necklace of Spell Immunity (there's just too many targeted stuns between the Fel Orc Warlocks & Infernals not to carry this, along with tons of mana burns & nukes from Outland demons) 3. Shadow Orb +10 4. Crown of Kings 5. Claws of Attack +15 6. Boots of Elvenkind // Khadgar's Gem of Health (situational, but I favored Boots considering the +6 damage & +12% attack speed is generally going to give more survivability due to Mask of Death than just 300 HP would - not to mention it's another +2 armor) If you even slightly start to get pushed, flip the Metamorphosis switch & it's all over...
Honestly, when it came to how epic this was all I could think of was Ian Hazzikostas telling Preach something to the effect of "oh, did the Jailer being behind all of the character's decisions ruin it for you? Well, deal with it because we're moving on". Modern Blizzard truly is not worthy of the IP. They should have made BFA and SL just a bad dream they wake up from, never happened. It's good they've moved on from trying to do more damage to the IP's story.
Bro, this has been such an awful thanksgiving and then out of nowhere Grant just drops this 5 hour masterpiece. A worthy successor to the Age of Mythology retrospective and I'm here for it!
The "Tiny Building" items are in fact part of the lore as engineering deployables. In WoW, Pop-up buildings are also prominently featured in the goblin starting quests.
What Arthas should have done, ultimately showing how he wasn't yet fit to be a king, was how the best course oif action directly after discovering Andorhall's corruption was to send messengers immediately outward, to neighbouring cities and the capital itself, so that casualties would be kept at a minimum. Yet, he was so desperate to chase the enemy down that it was all too late. Note that he CANONICALLY set up a damn base. Meaning there were days in between where, if had sent messengers, the purging of Stratholme might've been avoidable. But hey, Kel'thuzad wouldn't have picked him if he had such foresight and maturity. P/S: Jaina can literally f* teleport, the PERFECT messenger to imediately notify the kingdom.
Ehhh there's no sign of his base in WoW's timetravel mission, I think the base's presence is just a Jaina does notify Uther, but she should have made multiple stops, or gone to Dalaran and had THEM send the messengers if she didn't have the mana for multiple teleports.
@@DIEGhostfish Fair, base could be gameplay reasons, but even then, since they were doomed to be undead anyway, containment for the hopes of cure should've been first thought, along with killing the bastard, Malganis, and finding out how to chase him out. As for mana, I doubt she wouldn't have enough, since canonically, you'd have way more than just 6 inventory slots, and I'd imagine a master mage would have a few mana pots handy. Either way, had things gone any differently, Arthas could've been saved and redeemed, even until the very end, when Uther decided to just chuck him into the Maw because 'justice'.
Interesting note about Maiev. In one book she actively hunted down and killed night elf mages after they were allowed back into night elf sociaty. Like to the point where she almost killed her own brother. However, in Legion they changed her a bit. Alot of time passes between the Black Temple raid and Legion and she had a long time of having no target for her psychosis. She even shows remorse for Naisha's death, and gives you a world quest to set her soul to rest.
Character growth is cool for a story, but I really hate how Night Elves go from savage and aggressive to just all being peace loving like the druids in WoW. Gets even worse the longer WoW goes on.
@@alecshockowitz8385 Lore wise WoW is nonsense upon nonsense, every couple of weeks there's a new world ending apocalypse that a group of random nobodies stops, rinse and repeat
Oh, and then there was the implication that the Orb of Gul'dan was doing things to her mind...but that story ultimately went nowhere and got quietly retconned a few years down the line. Like so many other things...
I grew up on RTS games, but I think Warcraft 3 was the first one I ever actually beat. In a lot of ways, it dominated my childhood, and as my wife would tell you with a sigh, I still go back and play through it every once in a while. I'm glad to see you give it the love it deserves.
It's amazing to see how many of us are inspired by this masterpiece of a game, discussing its content more than two decades after its release! I clearly remember my first experiences with it, playing saved games that other people left. It was at the cybercafé since I didn't own a PC back then, and the fact that I didn't understand English at the time somehow made it more magical and intriguing. When I started understanding the language (with video games in general serving as a catalyst for rapid learning) and playing on my own PC, I was blown away by the depth of the story, which, it seems to me, often gets overlooked. Personally, the tales of Arthas and Thrall inspired me to start my own channel and share my thoughts on the topic, and your video helped me a lot! So thank you for the tremendous effort, and kudos.
2:39:30 The story of Illidan’s crime could be learned not only from novels. In fact, it was neatly explained in a manual that came with WC3. I, as a child being a huge WC3 lore fan, didn’t even know the manual exists and discovered it as a huge and wonderful surprise somewhere during WoW Burning Crusade era (I live in Ukraine, and WC3 was mostly pirated here, as post-USSR scene had yet little respect to copyright; so no manuals for us, just digital copies with lots of modes). The manual is well written, introduces crucial story points, as well as some really cool athmosphere building lore trivia, and I highly recommend it. Especially for people who already beat the campaign, since it seems as capable of spoiling the natural story paste. To be fair, though, Blizzard and most gamers also either forgot or didn’t know about the manual. The reason I learned about it was because, right before the Burning Crusade, Metzen decided to retcon draenei, but forgot that he already described eredar origin in the manual, leading to a contradiction. Metzen than officially apologized, yet most of the community went like ‘Wha?! There’s a WC3 manual with some deep lore in it?’ p.s. An awesome video, four hours of pure nostalgia. A great eye for campaign links between lore and mechanics. Some completely new for me, and some I also noticed yet never heard discussed.
The official Russian dub (which we also had because lasting effects of Russian imperialism and all that) is one of the most memorable video game dubs of the time. It is not perfect but it brims with good voice acting and quality Woolseyisms (e.g. Uther saying that we won't obey Arthas even if he was a king thrice, which conveys frustration a lot better in Russian). I meme the quotes with my friends to this day.
@@TenositSergeich True. It became a cultural phenomenon, very quotable, and very accessible, omnipresent. SoftClub, the company that did the dub, followed the same strategy that worked astonishingly well with Baldur’s Gate 2 Polish translation by CD Project Red (then simply a game dub company) and outpaced them. The game became a cultural phenomenon. WC2 already had a big presence in post-Soviet world. It was a big presence in a local pirate game scene, and there was even a local popular mode communities (most notably Warcraft 2000 project, the first project launched by CGS, a studio that later created Cossacks and STALKER). And Softclub dub of WC3 played on that rep, and, with its quality in both staying true to the game abd adopting it to local consumer, they created an epic. Add to that the fact that the popular post-Soviet method of consuming games at the time was ‘computer clubs,’ the cellar spaces filled with PCs where you can rent a PC on hourly basis to play games, alone or via the local network. The Softclub awesome dub and the immensely popular ‘computer club’ facilities give a sufficient explenation why post-Soviet nations had always been so good at DotA.
@@TenositSergeich that's funny, once when I was drunk I watched all the cutscenes with Russian dub for lolz, it was hilarious (my russian is very bad). I guess I have the same feelings about my country's dub (Polish) - english version, for the most part, sounds extremely bland to me in comparison
5 hours?! What a beautiful blast from the past. It's tough to remember given both the problems with modern Blizzard and the frankly horrendous lore World of Warcraft has been stuck with for the past few expansions, but there was once a time where Warcraft was one of the best worlds and stories to be invested in. Thank you for shining the much deserved spotlight on one of the greatest games of all time EDIT: WTF WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU CAN REPAIR THE BRIDGE?!?!
nobody remembers anymore, but Blizzard once delivered extraordinarily generous, well-implemented software content. then they made WoW and became more like their competitors
What I found neat was how Maiev gets her ultimate ability, Avatar of Vengeance, after she has to leave her soldiers behind in the collapsing Tomb to pursue Illidan. That's where her motivations against Illidan change from professional, to personal. Also, the old Warcraft rpg lore, which Metzen helped write, had it so that owners of a completed Shadow Orb fell prey to their obsessions. For Gul'dan, it was the Eye. For Maiev, it was Illidan. Edit: I also liked how you ended with video with the Wrath of the Lich King Main Theme. It's a great way to follow up from Arthas' Ascension.
For those who don't know, Illidan's crime was twofold: (Seemingly) switching sides half a dozen times in the War of the Ancients, and more directly: Creating a new Well of Eternity directly afterward, after _everyone_ agreed not to. The World Tree Nordrassil is a band-aid over Illidan's hubristic unilateral bullshit.
Very cool video, can't imagine how much time you spent making it. Thanks for it, WC3 deserves all attention it can get as it is/was awesome! Actually playing the fan-made Warcraft 2 remake in reforged now. Also a big recommendation!
It's over 20 years and I'm still in love with this game. And still play occasionally and watch pro players competing. Lore, the story are captivating, despite I've beat it through and through lots of times by now.
I seem to remember in the original WC3 ROC campaign in the human mercenary mission I did lose all my ranged units and I also could use storm bolt on the ships. I had to wait for mruadins mana to regenerate with no items helping his mana. If they changed storm bolt to not work on the ships, it must've been a later patch or TFT.
They did. In fact, the strategy guide recommended using Storm Bolt against the ships, and then getting confused when I couldn't do it when I bought the game. Only later did I find out it got patched.
Fun fact! Originally there was meant to be a post-big-shot mission after Archimonde is murked, where you deal with three huge undead bases. They decided to cut that one out for sake of narrative. Generally, there is a lot of cut stuff in Night Elf RoC campaign - one of the levels was meant to have a side quest involving green dragons, long-time allies of night elves, and there is even a named green dragon unit in the base editor codebase, not the individual levels' ones, that would probably be assigned to you. Correction: more likely, Archimonde would still live, it would be just about gathering wisps. It still would be a titanic mission after a lengthy timed mission.
one strat i made for the green base attack waves in the 2nd mission of the Blood elves was that they ALWAYS pass through the spot on the second island right after the water crossing spot, so i bult up a critical mass of towers there with ivory towers and leave 1 sorceress and a few dragonhawk riders to tie down frostwyrms, instead of the brown enemy i knock out purple because, that way the enemy sky barges always come from the north side and my myrmidons can always entangle them when they are over the water and smash them killing every unit inside and making this mission a joke to play through.
When I played through the game for the first time, I was around maybe 10-12 years old. During the Hunter of Shadows mission (the one with Cenarius), I never realized that you were supposed to go to the Chaos Well, I just kinda missed that part of the map completely. Killing Cenarius without Chaos damage took a super long time, and when Grom and his boys turned up later all red and evil, I was also very confused.
This game is quite literally character defining to me. It was the first game that was purchased for me back in the day, and 100% I attribute it to not only my love of RTS, but also my love of the fantasy video game genre as a whole. It made me want to create video games, and influenced my Dungeons and Dragons campaigns for literally over a decade. My favorite game of all time, I've played it so many times. And yet, I still will watch a nearly 5 hour video about it, and love every minute. Well done man, keep up the fantastic work.
This video is so much. This video represents a labor of love. Such great takes, comical editing, well spoken, to the point for each mission. This video itself represents a materpiece and encapsulates the entertaining combination of creativity, hard work, and widsom.
1:13:16 There is a really fun way to complete this mission by possessing attacking units using Banshees. Since the possessed don't take damage inside the energy dome it's a really fun strategy that makes you feel like conniving undead leader destroying the enemy from the inside.
I did that! I've been looking for a good place to mention this. I used the back-half of a screwdriver as he said. :D I even remember Possessing a random sheep wandering around to test the theory with a minimum of risk before trying it properly.
Regarding thevwyvern mission, I think it has narrative value in showing that thrall is charismatic and recruits for thr horde quite easily. Same with tauren, and the troll missions.
I have been watching this master piece at bed time over the course of 2 weeks, falling asleep to it every night. And now it's finally over and I don't know how to sleep without it :/
Founding of Durotar is actually pretty cool, I think it deserves a bit more than the short segment given here, but I understand that this is a nearly 5 hour video, so maybe talking about the neat little RPG hidden in WC3 in this RTS essay might be worth cutting. The Pandaren, while technically optional even in Founding of Durotar, get some more cameo, and I think it was this appearance more than the Tower Defense easter egg that inspired the WoW expansion. Chen Stormstout feels like a real character, if a bit of an oddball cameo, and actually hints at what the Pandaren are about, even if they additionally retconned a bunch of weird empire nonsense onto them to make them feel more like a historic faction in MoP. More importantly, there is a further exploration of Thrall's ideology of gathering various groups together trying to carve out a living in the barren lands of central Kalimdor. Rexxar's dual nature as half-orc. half-ogre, and own exile for being shunned by both sides of his heritage until now is a neat little tie in to this as well. It might be a little repetitive with the themes of the Orc campaign in Reign of Chaos, but it's nice to see the continuation of that, as well as the ramifications with the more radical Alliance forces and the continued, if shaky, peace relations with Jaina's Theramore humans. From a purely lore perspective, there's a lot that is set up in this campaign, and while some of it feels kinda underutilized or sacrificed for the 2 faction system in WoW, a lot of it is still some of the most interesting Orc writing in the series, grappling with the uncertainty of what the future of the Horde will be. Also, there are some crazy items and such to pick up, they limit you to only a handful of heroes, but make sure that you can feel like GODS on the battlefield by the time you have to put Admiral Proudmore down if you are willing to do some side quests.
1:46:43 Grom was still Grommash in the original release of Warcraft 3. Grom is a shortened version of Grommash. It's a little inconsistent as to why the text is different from the voiced dialogue, I think that may be an oversight, but he was always Grommash since 2002. It may have been a last-minute addition by Metzen to flesh out this character a little more.
I can confirm that the text in the original version of Warcraft 3 refers to him as Grom most of the time (and sometimes as Hellscream), but Mannoroth calls him Grommash at least once.
I always thought the reason for the name change was, in Warhammer fantasy there a character name Grom the Paunch, and they don't want get involved in a copyright mess with Games Workshop.
@@drarenthiralas1683 that is indeed the only memory I have of the name Grommash in the original version of the game. I never even made the connection to 'full name', just figured it was a Mannoroth thing :P
The part mentioning Dryads would have been perfect to talk about units voices an how WC3 is is just the GOAT at that. "I'll attract the enemy with my human call: 'I'm so wasted! I'm so wasted!'"
@@jimmcphearson7252 And yet, the voices they supposedly added before they added the original back for the night elves were low-quality borderline orgasmic noises. Source: Grubby mentions it when talking about his experience when playtesting in the video of how he tried to save Reforged
Amusing. Grant, your taste in bettering my evening grows ever more exquisite. Edit: Grant, the length of your videos has restored my faith in the Templar caste!
This was a fantastic (multi-day) watch! I think the TFT Orc campaign is my favourite moment in any RTS ever. It really planted the seeds that DotA would later on bloom for me.
omg dude monumental effort, well done! sorry to say that I had this on in the background, but it really lightened my day while I was doing stuff today. Cheers for some amazing content
A nearly five hour long video on everything that made WC3, my absolute favorite RTS ever, and why it is amazing? Holy shit Grant, Christmas isn't for another month! You can't go around giving me this beauty of a gift like this!
Regarding Reforged new models: the dreadlords variant where kinda cool idea, they where suppose to be inspired by the seven deadly sins wich doesnt really make sence for w3 but whatever. The real problem comes with pretty much every non hero unit, W3 units where incredibly easy to read at a glance even in the chaos of battle, meanwhile reforged "HD" models are way too pack with details and shapes that are not very unique so it becomes quite hard to identify wich units are wich in the middle of a fight
Wonderful video! You definitely deserve my upvote for this. Cheers, Grant, and thank you for taking me back to this amazing videogame and its awesome expansion :) One thing I'd like to correct you on though: 4:14:14 The Gnoll, Troll and Murloc are, in fact, in that mission and they do trigger dialogue. It's just not implemented in a cutscene and you don't get to have their forces when you possess them (only the 3 themselves), but they ARE in the mission.
Kinda sad you gave so little time to Rexxar - it was my favorite campaign by head and shoulders, and I am looking forward to the Azeroth Reborn version of it so much you couldn't believe.
it was also one of my favorit camaign i just hpe that after theyy are done they don't just leave them and insted use them to make stuff like random recrutment and other custom ver of the game
I'm waiting for the Age of Empires 2 Grant Era, I'd love to watch you tackle the campaigns and then do a cool retrospective video about it. Nobody's doing it like you, Grant. This is great stuff.
My prayer for that one Headhunter who's stuck under the bridge forever 4:32:39 The only reason why Grant wants to create this 4 hours of why WC3 is a timeless masterpiece xD
1:47:31 Grommash was always referred as Grommash in WoW - there is a building called Grommash Hold in Orgrimmar, it was there since 2004 original release, and was always called like that. Lore says that in orcish, "Grom" means giant, and refers to some native giants that orcs fought back on their home planet. "Grommash" means "giant's heart", as conveyed in some in-game dialogues by Thrall. So it is - Grommash "Grom" Hellscream. Alternative Grommash from WoD plot - is referred simply by suffixing "(alternate universe)" The situation was even more confusing for people who played WC3 in some localized languages :D In my playthrough, he was named "Гром Задира" which means in russian "thunder" and "the bully" - i.e. it was so far from original name. Same for "Malfurion Stormrage" - he had a name "Фарион Свирепый" which is "Furion" and "ferocious". I was soooo completely confused when started playing WoW, because of that - where one who I remembered as "Mr. Thunder" became "Grommash Hellscream", and "Mr. Ferocious" is now "Malfurion Stormrage". These were the only two names that got twisted, btw :D Only them, others were just fine. Lmao.
Great video as always man, this resonates with me as Warcraft was also a big part of my childhood. 23:54 Wait what I didn't even know this happens in game 57:25 WTF I didn't know you could just repair that bridge
I think the Lord of the Rings coming out less than a year before RoC also played an important aspect in the games popularity. Here was a game that also had orcs elves humans dwarfs hero’s dragons and hero’s. Many of the popular custom games were based off of lord of the rings battles. Once giving the game a try the fantastic design, gameplay, and original story kept people like me coming back and engaging with the scenario editor to tell my own stories.
![Lp. Сердце Вселенной #60 РОЖДЕНИЕ ЛОЛОЛОШКИ [Финал] • Майнкрафт](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YoR0pAV9FVQ/mqdefault.jpg)
It says a lot that I'm willing to watch almost 4 hours and 45 minutes of someone telling a story I know so well that I could tell it myself.
It's so nice to see so many people who have such fond memories of this game like I do.
Well put
Hm.
Wanna see me trigger every nostalgic WC3 player?
6/10, mid Jailer plot :V
Same, dude, same
Yoooo
I think the story of Thrall and his Orcs is probably one of the most interesting things about the Warcraft series. When I was a kid, seeing Orcs that were heroic and noble instead of savage monsters was a really interesting and fresh idea to me. I found the story of Orc Moses and his tribes of monsters seeking a new homeland so they can live in peace instead of waging constant warfare was super compelling. Seeing Grom sacrifice himself to save Thrall from Mannoroth and at the same time redeem himself for the evil he'd done actually made me cry.
By the same token, seeing the once good Arthas slowly lose himself to madness and become one of the greatest monsters Azeroth has ever known was also a really interesting thing to see when I was a kid. I never got into World of Warcraft and frankly a lot of that game's story sounds kinda dumb but the story of Warcraft III and the Frozen Throne will always have a special place in my heart.
yeh i agree, arthas is a cool story, and arthas is honestly a vader tier villian. but taking big dumb stupid green dudes, and giving them a compassionate leader, and showing how successful that can be even when surrounded by the carnage of everything else that goes on in warcraft land is the story i like the most.
@@assassin6329 What I like about Pre Wow Thrall is that even though he's a chill dude, he was still as fierce as any other orc like how he wasn't afraid of sieging down theramore just for his people and how he made Grom snap out of his guilt and focus on killing Mannoroth.
Anything past warcraft 3 as story as a whole is just terribly made burning through developed characters, though if you want the two of character some of them are still good, issue with wow is two folds, retconing stupidly & doesn't want to stop or know when.
Arthas is a great, yet overdone, fallen hero story. It's inevitably really depressing. Thrall is just such an amazing feel good story, from the perspective of the underdog. It makes sense that we all fell in love with him.
Maybe so, but no other mission is as memorable as The Culling of Stratholme.
One iconic thing to me is that when Ner'zhul tells you to complete the circle, you really do it as a player! You start with the Frozen Throne as the background for the main menu and the story finishes at the exact same frame.
Never noticed that
Holy shizz
The name Ner'zhul kind of sounds to me to be in the same category as Azjol-Nerub and Nerubians... so naturally, for years I thought Ner'zhul to be some spider god or something 😂
@@oscarfernald9402yeah, I was extremely surprised to find out Ner’Zhul was an orc.
@@AHMAS_Hotlinefor me was realy strange seing death Knights on Warcraft 2.
Quick thought on Blackrock and Roll. The cutscene that introduces the Blademaster doubles as a second important job of showing off his Mirror Image ability. Its the first ability you'll see from an enemy hero and one of the few in the game that isn't obvious in its purpose compared to something like Chain Lightning. So having Uther kill one in the cutscene nicely shows off that the image copies you'll be fighting in a minute are just an illusion.
50 runs through of this game and I never knew you could repair the bridge on the elven invasion, that's why I love these videos, ou learn weird little things like that.
Yeah that completely blew my mind
Because it just shouldnt be doable. It was a mechanic that was attended to be in the game but wasnt finished when the game come out and they just forget that this repair thing was still in the mission files. thats why its so clunky and nowhere is info that this is possible
Check out the easter egg compilation by Abelhawk too, if you haven't already.
50? That's crazy. I did one then multiplayer only.
The funny thing for me is... I'm pretty sure repairing the bridge is how I did it on my very first playthrough (mind you, I think that was around 18 years ago, so I don't really recall the details of my first playthrough)
Archimonde is a summoned unit, which is why the wisps could blow him up.
This also explains why he didn’t want to be summoned until after Quel’thalas (and the spellbreakers) were dead.
I'm pretty sure that the spell breakers came about AFTER the Elves became Blood Elves. They are the only elven unit (save for the new hero) that keep mentioning their hunger for magic.
That being said, this is merely an educated guess based on the game and nothing else. I'm not very knowledgeable about the lore.
@@ediblemussel532 or the priests then who can dispel summoned units...though shamans could have still do it.
I think Warcraft 3 made me realize how important audio clarity because to this day, I can easily distinguish what units are attacking or what spells are being cast just from the sound effect like the resurrection spell or a sound of an archer shooting an arrow. Even in non rts games, I have no idea what's to going on and one of the major reasons is audio clarity.
Yeah, so do I. I can recognize pretty much every single sound effect which just proves how insanely designed this game used to be initially...and how poorly handled it was taken back.
Even just watching someone play WC2 back in the day made me hooked on the sound effects. I remember really liking the realistic sound of the swords clashing with the armor. I think the audio in these games were super important.
Man this is a good point, use it in Dota all the time
Good sound design is such an underrated part of games.
I came back to WC2 once in a while just for a few reasons. Gangbusters soundtrack, cool quote lines from buildings and units, immensely stimulating sound effects, from steel attack, ship sinking, to fucking mouse click, absurdly nice and representative graphics with a lot of easter eggs hidden in them, immersive story and its inplications in missions, hyperspeedy gameplay with clearly defined roles for each faction, with orcs being more early oriented through combined costs for their blacksmith upgrades and bloodlust in early tier 3 letting them go ham basically on autopilot, and humans being super lategame scalers with super op archers and micro heavy infinite hp palas. W3 slowed down the game a bit, introduced more complex skill tree and made the expierence be even more immersive through rpg elements, resulting in overall richer expierence, but I love both games in their own respective ways.
The implication that Archimonde counts as a “summoned unit” because he was summoned through the demon gate, thus meaning Wisp detonations damage him is a hilarious interpretation of the Reign of Chaos ending
I don't know if it's an interpetation. I think that's exactly what the developers were planning. Ludonarrative and all that.
The whole damaging summoned units could be something to do with wisp magic able to destroy beings either not of this world or have strong magic/held together by mostly magic. The demons kinda fits both so that works
I always thought Archimonde explode because wisp over feed him with its energy and the world tree’s energy combine are to much for him at the same time
If Archimonde really was a summoned unit, damn this guy has a long time duration.
Always how I saw it.
Just wanted to add a little bit of context to the Night Elf part
Malfurion loves Tyrande in part for her brash side, he loves that she knows what she wants and doesn't pussyfoot around, this is also helped because in Night Elf society, the women are the warrior caste while the men are more nurturers, they raise children and tend to homes, so the women tend to be more aggressive and the men more meek, unlike human society.
This aspect of night elf society is reflected in their gods:
Men take after Cenarius, the demi-god that mostly only cares about protecting the many groves and forests that he considers his and his children territory, he is very loving to his own people while extremely strict with outsiders, he also introduced Druidism to night elves, which fits perfectly with the nature of night elf men, mostly wanting to take care of their home and loved ones
This idea is why Malfurion's kit is mostly defensive, his ensnaring roots aim to disable enemies, not kill them (its damage is very low), animate treant creates protection out of nature without harming it and since Druids can reanimate trees, losing a treant is not the end for it, his bark aura only damage enemy that attack him or his allies, so it's obviously protective and his ultimate literally disables all his offensive power to heal his allies
On the other side of the coin, women take after Elune, the goddess of the moon and mother of Cenarius, like Cenarius, Elune is incredibly protective of those she believes to be her children, this includes not only Night Elves but also Taurens, Furbolgs and to a degree Worgen. Elune is often talked about as a loving mother that suffers no attack on her family, she used to incarnate her Wrath into a night elf in times of war, granting them incredible destructive power, but killing the elf once the infusion stopped.
Elune's latest chosen is Tyrande, she has been allowed to wield a part of Elune's power AND been protected by her against demons for more than 10 000years, so at this point there is no doubt that Elune approves of Tyrande very much, that's why every other night elf immediately agrees with Tyrande whenever she takes a decision, because they see her as the conduit for Elune, and that automatically makes her the highest authority there is in night elven society
When Tyrande says "Only the Goddess may forbid me", it's not a turn of phrase, Tyrande's faith in Elune is absolute, in WoW Legion when faced between saving Elune's temple and saving Malfurion's life, she immediately choses the temple saying "It breaks my heart but I have sworn my entire being to my Goddess"
Also the Wardens while extremely important to Night Elves, and respected by many, have willingly separated themselves from the rest of society, they will watch over their prisoners but refuse any other authority than their own, Maiev (leader of the Wardens) is the only one they will obey, even when faced with Tyrande, they believe it is their charge and their charge alone to protect everyone else from the monsters they guard, Wardens aren't prison guards, they're eternal watch dogs, being imprisoned by the Wardens means you will stay imprisoned forever, it's not like a typical prison sentence.
what a bunch of crap you are saying, thanks for the projection from your life
Also in Legion, Malfurion was a huge tool and got Ysera's mortal form corrupted and killed.
Ah, I can't wait to watch this brief retrospective. Hopefully soon we'll get a 12 hour retrospective on the effects of the effects that Command and Conquer had.
12 hours 12 minutes and 12 seconds!
I would squirm if Tiberium Sun gets even 10 minute attention...but 12 hours for C&C? Bruuuuuhhhhhh.
Don't give Grant any ideas
Has Grant played CnC Generals?Has he mentioned it?
@@shamanicdude8605GLA Postal Servic
4 hours 44 minutes and 44 seconds. On another amazing RTS. I LOVE IT
"B R I E F"
brief
43 seconds on my screen!
4 hours 44 minutes and 44 seconds
On a game with "3" in the title
Ghhhh
Next we need a 5 hours 55 mins 55 seconds episode!
There's a thing about culling of Stratholme that i noticed *even* in reforged which makes it hit even harder:
if you want to attack your citizens before they zombify (which is often logically the good choice) you have to... manually choose the attack them, which just makes it extra spicy - you are not killing monsters, you are making the conscious effort to murder your own citizens
that's the whole point of the developing plotline
It's a pretty neat bit of diagetic storytelling!
Press A. Shift. Left click left click left click left click... NEXT HOUSE
Well yea
I didn't know how to do the forced attack. So my Arthas was a much nicer guy and I nearly lost the level. I guess it proved you could wait for them to turn and still win.
2:18:20 small correction, on the Daughters of the Moon mission the clock is not stuck, just greatly slowed. If you take enough time it will become daytime and Tyrande has a line of dialogue for that.
28:20 another small correction, you got it backwards, it's the Gyrocopters that were in Reign of Chaos that were changed into Flying Machines in Frozen Throne
great, so I wasnt the only one who noticed.
I doubt I will ever wait to see what that dialogue is.... Could you share?
@@vasilkalov2622 Idk either im gonna go look it up!
@@vasilkalov2622 she says something along the lines of "Dawn has come and I cannot use the power of Elune to hide me anymore".
You need to wait like 50 minutes or so for dawn to come btw.
Sometimes all you need is a 5-hour video on the greatest game ever made.
It just recites the campaign without any reference to custom maps and how easy it was to make them with the map maker tool, social impact, or How Warcraft 3 Changed Strategy Games Forever. Probably wants to cash in on gamers nostalgia for them to watch his livestreams like some, or most youtubers do.
Nah ill do it on Rumble one day, but definitely not here @@justincase5002
@@justincase5002 Were your feelings hurt?
thanks but no thanks, with all the censorship and weirdos ill do that later @@justincase5002
@@art-hx6hq but there literally is a section about the custom maps, how easy it was to make them with the map maker tool, social impact, and how warcraft 3 changed strategy games forever.
2:11:38
I just noticed at 2:24:10
The Glaive throwers ... shoot arrows. The TFT model was imported, but the attack wasn't.
The only thing truly missing from this hectic video, would be a mention of the credits scenes that play at the end of base campaign. Those clips were so random yet hilarious
And the music HOT DAMN IS IT A BOP (prob bcus it was the first time i heard rock/metal as a kid)
that's pretty cool lol @@endieisfridgeconfirmed
One thing I love about The March of the Scourge - it's such a difficulty spike and such a tense experience for the average player that it sells the idea of Arthas being traumatized by this and willing to go for extreme measures. The difficulty is kind of part of the story.
I always loved that illidan breaks his own cell.
He could have always broken himself out, but what's the point?
His people will just hate him and see him as a villain.
Everything illidan does is for his people even when it doesn't seem that way.
Even after he is free his only thought is about his own brother hating him.
But through his fight he gains a new goal, he will help his people by killing the demons, even if his own people will hate him forever.
It's awesome that you get so much context for illidan's story without it having to be explained.
We understand illidan's hate of the demons and his sorrow for his people hating him, with very little dialogue.
We don't need a monologue where illidan's goes on about he is the only one that is willing to do whatever it takes to kill the demons. We get all of through gameplay and basic understanding of his character through his actions.
And that's so awesome.
Wc3 was so good at naturally integrating character moments.
In the Books it's specified that Illidan couldn't have broken out, The wardens were sapping his powers and they would have been too much for him to deal with all on his own after breaking out, Maiev specifically leaves his Warglaves just outside his Cell to torture him with the knowledge that he can never escape. When Tyrande comes to free him Maiev is off somewhere and she kills the Wardens. But yes, Illidan could have at any point broken the cell but he wcouldn't have escaped the Wardens on his own.
Fun lore fact, in World of Warcraft Maiev chases Illidan into Outland and gets found out and Captured, Illidan fully intended to keep her imprisoned until she died as revenge, the Player goes through a quest chain to free her, and she helps you kill Illidan in the Black Temple raid.
The TFT Rexxar campaign is severely underrated and not talked about enough
It's the prototype for World of Warcraft and is better than the game itself
@@AnMCommWhile it might b the prototype for wow, it always felt more similar to a diablo game to me.
@@zairaner1489 and if we are at it, it is better than Diablo.
Back when i was a kid, i absolutely HATED it, the amount of walking around, killing random things, the story making no sense (cause stupid kid me decided to play it first instead of playing the other campaign first) but as i grew up, it quickly became my favourite, kinda sucks that they didnt make a full game out of it, i’d love to play a full game of Rexxar campaign but of course with a bigger scale, extra content and actually expand on the world building
Sounds like WoW alright@@theTequilaMan
Warcraft 3 has a few amazing quotes that still resonate in my mind. "Tremble mortals, and despair. Doom has come to your world!" "The horn has sounded, and i have come, as promised." "Who dares defile this ancient land? Who dares the wrath of cenarius, and the night elves?" Every cinematic had weight and while cheesey, felt serious in its own way. Absolutely flawless game.
Even subtler ones are amazing. My top two:
"This wind chills to the bone, and you're not even shaking! My lord, are you alright?..." I fucking LOVE that foreshadowing and tone setting.
Nerubian: The traitor king!
Arthas: Who, me?
Anub'Arak: They were referring to me, death knight.
God that is SUCH good storytelling in just a few lines. I absolutely love it.
@@Norrieification The chilled to the bone line was when it really hit me that arthas wasnt going to be redeemed, that he was way too far gone.
Work Work
Here's two that stuck out to me even to this day
"I hope there's a special place in hell for you Arthas"
"We may never know Uther, I intend to live forever."
"You did all of this, KNOWINGLY?! GRAAAAAAAAH!"z
I also cherish the voice lines in this game
As much as I like Liam o Brien's take on Illidan, his old VA emphasizes his cunning and deception a lot more clearly, with the voice filter in the metamorphosis emphasizing his raw power. I also miss pretty much all of the dreadlord voices (Malganis, Tichondrius, Varimarathas and even the regular one). Anubarak was a character that got his voice absolutely butchered and I like Rexxar's voice slightly less nowadays (maybe I just like Steve Blum)
I really love the balance between cheesy tropes and serious emotional investment in classic Blizzard games.
Regarding Arthas' sudden manifestation of frost powers despite the Death Knight being the anti-paladin. When Blizzard still had the intention to properly make Reforged, they stated they were planning to expand the lore. For my money, I think they were trying to adapt the changes made by the Christie Golden novel Arthas.
In that book, Arthas was legitimately stumped by the problem for a few minutes. When getting the keys to the gate, he'd simply had his undead warriors lay down in the smaller rivers between temples to make a bridge, but the gap to Quel'Danas was too vast. He ended up casting Frostmourne into the water, allowing the Lich King to channel frost power to freeze the path forward.
If Reforged received the proper remake it advertised, I imagine we would've seen a similar scenario. Arthas dismounts, stares that the problem, Frostmourne glows for a second, giving him the idea to cast it into the lake, spawning the bridge.
Which would also neatly explain why Arthas couldn't do that in Northrend in the Frozen Throne campaign. He literally lacked enough power to fuel the same effect.
And for Sylvanas going from level 5 to level 2? Arthas had locked her body in a coffin for years to torment her, and she'd only reclaimed it after her meeting with the Dreadlords. So if they'd tweaked the game timeline a bit, maybe Sylvanas got her body back as a reward for good behavior, and she's weakened due to being in a form she's not used to. (Tis a stretch but its better than nothing.)
Odd that he kept her body in a coffin for "years" when Frozen Throne takes place only several months after Reign of Chaos.
So what was the lich King doing in mission 4? Freezing that lake wouod have been really helpful let me tell u.
I have played this game for more than 10 years, and still do it ocasionally. I have done the base game and expansion campaigns more than 10-15 time each, and I was today years old when I found out that on the "Key of the three moons" quest, you CAN repair that bridge. I. Am. Mindblown. Amazing video as always!
same here man. legit was just like wait what that was a thing this entire time ?!?!?! lol my gf laughed so hard at my reaction to that.
same here. I literally had my mouth open like nahhh fucking kidding me? texted my brother immediately lol@@erikschaeffer8419
Absolutely same. My jaw was on the floor.
The real game is multiplayer.
@@MyHomeExperimentsand yet here we are
Dude seeing your "Brief" Age of Mythology video become your most watched video, even over all the Deathless stuff I started watching you for, gave me second hand catharsis. Seeing a massive project like that blow up and become your most watched video had to feel good, and it was a damn good video to boot. Can't wait to sit down for this one when I have time. And I also look forward to the 5 hour 55 minute video on Starcraft at some point I know you have on the back of your mind.
Starcraft memes are straight up supreme, can't wait for the inevitable retrospective
“Each retrospective has a progressively bigger amount of depth”
And honestly, he is set up to break an even higher record with this one, LET'S FRIGGING HELP HIM DO IT! *FOR LORDAERON, FOR THE HORDE!*
I'm really curious how SC retrospective can be longer than WC retrospective. There are quite many missions where the objective is just "go kill everyone". It wasn't as balanced at the time, less factions, no heroes. Maybe he will combine SC1 and SC2 into one video for added length and I'd love to see the story analysus going from praise to utter salt :)
I've had a thought about it, I wonder if the reason why the AoM video was the most watched in this channel isn't partly because people didn't watch it all at once due to the length of the video, and thus had to return on the video to watch it later, adding one or several more views per person. How does UA-cam take into accounts multiple watchings of a single video?
Kael: We have hunger inside of us.
Vashj: I understand.
*Romantic music intensified*
Why is it so good? Writing, worldbuilding & lore. This foundation has carried everything until today. It's an absolute masterpiece of art.
Also the visuals.
@@JoshSweetvale the visuals is the one aspect that has aged the worst. Minus the cinematics.
@@j.2512 Still way better than plastic Reforged graphics
Don't forget the algorithm
@@j.2512 You're blind, The art style of Warcraft 3 is amazing and iconic
Man it was WONDERFUL reliving my childhood through this video. I can't believe just how much of this game's story I remember and just how much of an impact it has had on my life and my obsession for fantasy. Thank you for making this!!!
I really like that grant takes advantage of the shorts format of you tube with reels like this one , ten out of ten would watch again .
Its worth adding how much of this game is a result of technical limitations of the time.
The upkeep system and relatively small army sizes in WC3 were about maintaining performance.
Its also why Tyrande (and all mounted units) have such a rough look - they had to spread the polygon count of a regular unit across both mount and rider.
Its kinda weird that Starcraft 1 had population space of 200 per side (Or 600 if somehow get access to protoss or zerg tech trees as each of them have their own unique pop cap)
And Warcraft 3 itself can handle alot more than you would think, this is more notable in custom missions, but 200 cap per player could still be realistic for performance, also for a different reason - most maps wont let you actually get so many troops at once unless the enemy is just sitting on their asses the whole game, then they would get what was comng to them.
@@mrvex6695Starcraft was a 2D game, so I guess that's a big load off of their backs.
I remember having issues with memory in Warcraft 3 way back in the day, specially in custom maps. But then again, I had a pretty shitty computer too.
@@mrvex6695StarCraft 1 was a 2D game masquerading as a 3D game. It's all sprites, not 3D models.
Maybe it's that I always came from the C&C Side but Generals would allow for bigger armies and it was the contemporary of WC3 (and even then had some issues) I suspect that as always C&C's default camera was higher up and your infantry were always smaller (but very distinguishable) with the only units with higher polycounts being vehicles but again the further out camera allowed to save more polygons there too.
Although Warcraft 3's push for Herocraft probably was to blame because if you could get a mega army without your obligatory 3 heroes well they start to become less important when you're throwing out dozens of top tier units and those three heroes really don't pull their weight anymore
Smaller army sizes were a design choice from the beginning as W3 was intended to be of smaller scale, with camera adjusted to almost 3rd person view and no base building.
Can't wait for a 12h-long laconic and concise explanation of how Starcraft revolutionized the genre
Story and lore wise it was all over the place tho. Would love to hear what ggg has to think about it
@@MaxRavenclawThe first game rocks but the second games story makes 0 sense. Feels like Ole Jimmy had some major character assassination
@@FiftyStates5 Even Broodwar had some weird things and some things that didn't feel like they really carried through.
Kerrigan feels like 3 completely different characters to me, she goes from being obsessed with Mengsk in SC1 to just being a psycho in Broodwar (Don't get me started on SC2). Like you're telling me she had to send EVERY Muta to chase down the UED? She couldn't send a single one to kill Mengsk?
I still like the SC1 and Broodwar plot but there's some things that are just rly weird to me
Haha did not expect to see you here!
Unironically this though lol
when people talk about warcraft 3 in the same breath as age of empires and command and conquer and other games of it's era they are doing a collossal disservice to one of the single most important pieces of video game history. This is not "the best strategy game", this game is mandatory in a way that few others are - this is the kind of required reading in the way we talk about Dune.
This game is the core dna to much of what we know in games today, from the obvious lineage in mobas to the more obscure like hero shooters. It constructed a world where we get the concept of the modern mmo, the idea that user-content could become real products, central pillars of modern game narratives like moral ambiguity to traditionally evil factions, and so much more.
Fantastic work putting this together. You've done an incredible job of showing this to people who never got the context of how important this game is and how relevant it remains today.
fun fact theres a bunch of hidden mini-factions blizzard made that you can only play in 1 non-campaign map with a code. load up the monolith custom map that ships with the game, the one where you fight AI players playing as hostile & organized creeps, and enter -creepmeout into the chat and it replaces your base with a monolith that lets you pick one of the creep races to play as a non-main faction.
one secret desire i've had for a long time is seeing people play against eachother as the hidden minor factions in a competitive PVP fashion. i'd be really interested, even if just as a sort of a goof, to see people work out how the troll faction plays vs the wolf faction, or whether the spider faction is IMBA
Saving this so I can try it out later, thank you!!
I didnt know that
Wow. This does seem to be true. I had not idea about this
In the book Arthas (HIGHLY RECOMMEND) with the two bridges in quel’thalas the river the first bridge covers is so small that instead of zeppelins he actually just had meat wagon fill the river with bodies to use as a bridge to cross (I think to contrast with how much he USED to care about his subjects), but whenever he got to the second river it was too wide and fast for that so he froze the top of it, and in northrend with the boat mission he was too drained to use his powers to freeze the water. I dont know why they only changed one mission to match and not the others, but it leaves an annoying plot hole. They also didn't change the fact that the elf at the beginning wasn't a captive, he was a traiter who went to arthas so he would spare him, and he told him about all of the elves defences including the key of the 3 moons and it being split.
I was going to say that, the ice bridge change was made to match with the lore version of how he reached Quel'danas
the body bridge is so metal i wish blizzur made that into an animated bit
@tsarzamancorpdna ikr, that's why I like the revamp by sevenblood. They changed that mission to where you can actually sacrifice your units to have them build the bridge.
Was that Dar'khan Drathir?
@@sumerian88 Yep, something something they don't appreciate me enough, here's how to kill my people, please don't kill me and give me some power.
this video is like a time machine to me. I very much enjoyed it and its just nostalgic!
My favourite aspect of WC3's story is how Ner'zhul, whom was previously deceived by KIl'jaeden, managed to deceive The Deceiver. From convincing the Legion that corrupting Arthas is vital to having Kel'thuzad, the only one on their side that is powerful enough to summon Archimonde, be killed off early in the game. Knowing full well that resurrecting him by normal means (i.e. raising him from the dead via basic necromancy) will not work. The moment Kel'thuzad died, The Legion had no choice but to play along. Even the 'death' of Mal'ganis was necessary. By the time the Dreadlords begin to piece the deception together it is too late. They cannot pull the plug or risk the wrath of Archimonde. Whom was getting impatient. After doing his "task" by bringing the Arch Demon to Azeroth, Ner'zhul was no longer needed. With Tichondrius now having full control over the scourge. But since Kel'thuzad was a willing servant and Arthas had a direct link to Ner'zhul via Frostmourne, these two agents were his to use. So Arthas sneaked aboard a boat sailing to Kalimdor for the invasion. With the goal of pitting Illidan against Tichondrius. As the Dreadlord was their common enemy. With Tichondrius dead, control of the scourge went back to the Lich King... mostly. There were still some members of the scourge that were loyal to the Legion though. Led by Rage Winterchill. Nevertheless, Archimondes defeat was assured.
The only thing left to do is withstand Kil'jaedens counter attack.
They really did a good job selling Ner'zhul as an incomprehensibly intelligent planner. Being able to dupe beings far more powerfull than himself to , essentially, create the champion that could have one day overthrown them is *great*
Especially when you consider that these are 2 villanous factions plotting against each other
Good catch, will add this into my knowledge on the characters as the book did cut off at the info I needed, yet to read Arthes's book but this is just invaluable & cool explanation.
Nah bro, both sides were just manipulated by the jailer :^)
Complex politics of multiple factions and sub factions is what made classic Blizzard games great.
@@fransken4412ppl hated the jailer retcon, but what I hated the most, is in wod, where Nerzul the mastermins behinde wc3 is reduced to a random boss fight in a dungeon.
40:40 I think something that doesn't come up often enough when discussing Arthas, Stratholme, and people abandoning them is this.
It was *planned*. Arthas, at the start of Stratholme, just came off of 3 days and 3 nights of no sleep and under constant assault. That is MORE than long enough to both be incredibly inarticulate, which Arthas is, and even to start hallucinating. The reason his allies completely abandon him is because he both isn't thinking straight, and because he's having trouble explaining to them WHY the city needs to be purged. Because they didn't see what he did during that 3-day assault, they don't know what he knows. But he is having trouble explaining it due to the stress, the lack of sleep, and his own anger.
So he's left without any friends or companions while he has to slaughter his own people, to prevent a greater tragedy, only to be confronted with a person he can blame for all this sorrow and anger he feels.
It was a PERFECT plan by Ner'Zhul to get Arthas right where he wanted him.
Edit:WHAT!? You can repair the bridge in the elven mission!? Fucking hell, I never knew.
Also he was fighting the undead... A completely new enemy that is extremely horrific in nature and arthas was ligitmately scared of them but had to swallow his fears which added to all the stress
Uhh, where is any of this explained in game?
this comment needs to be pinned
@@theassassin100it isn't, but having a decent understanding of human psychology would make the reader realize that this comment and this scenario makes perfect sense. Granted, that's not someone a lot of us who played this as kids/young teens had back then.
@@amplesstratleholm7609 "Arthas, at the start of Stratholme, just came off of 3 days and 3 nights of no sleep and under constant assault" Unless specified this is a big assumption that explains why Arthas was stupid and didn't explain to Uther why he knew how the undead work and that the grain will transform everyone, since he has more experience with this stuff (Jaina too btw). All he had to say was, I have the most experience with these, Jaina saw them too, just wait until night time to see. But he was apparently too angry to say the bare minimum.
Can we talk about how Tyrande's pfp is the only one to include her mount? Either the camera was really scared of her or it really wanted to include the big kitty.
For the name change on Furion and Grom, it was probably because of pre existing warhammer fantasy characters named "Grom the Pauch" and "Furion of Clar Karond", just another way to avoid issues with Games Workshop
If I remember correctly there was a lot of this happening, since I'm a warhammer fan, I would imagine this was the reason the gyrocopter, steamtank and others got changed as they also exist there.
Blizzard can’t just stop stealing ideas from WH. Be it for star or war crafts
Funnily enough when was the last time furion even got mentioned, I mean hell fantasy is still dead lol
@@SigvaldScionofSuccubitotal warhammer has revived wfb in a major way tho
@@franslair2199 most def I was only playing earlier today but I swear even on the tww map klar Karond is a minor faction, I gotta find who these dudes are
3:29:37 The reason you don't get Chimeras in the NE RoC campaign is because the defense mission wasn't supposed to be the finale. There was another mission at the World Tree itself, where you would unlock them, but that was ultimately cut from the game.
From what I remember, said cut mission was supposed to be a massive, hour long mission, but after realizing that the previous mission also took almost an hour to finish, and the fact that it'd be kind of anti-climatic to have the big baddie explode in one mission, and then have the finale be "mere" clean-up duty, they decided to scrap it.
@@Sarik0497wonder if anyone ever modded it in with some of those very good custom campaigns the game used to have till blizz nuked all the goodwill from orbit
@@Sarik0497 minor correction, the last mission wasn't a cleanup
It was supposed to be the ascent of Archimonde up the slope of the tree, with you doing all you can to slow him down and allow the build-up of the wisps
Naturally, that would be another time slogfest and they found it was not fun, so they got rid of it
Oh yeah, that does ring some bells. It has been a good minute since I last looked it up, so cheers for the correction ^^
@@Sarik0497 np :)
Btw I took this info out of Dave's interviews, one of the wc3 original level designers, you can find all 8 parts at hos channel and Abelhawks
Amazing video. I listened to it like a podcast and you transported me to another universe for four hours and forty-four minutes. Thank you!
1:05:56 Anasterian Sunstrider was the king of the highelves and Kaelthas's father.
1:07:38 funny enough the wow lore explanation is he sends a larger chunk of the now undead Silvermoon population to form a bridge out of bodies wich is hilariously dark and fitting for him to do.
To add on to this, Thalorien Dawnseeker was the original wielder of Quel'Delar, one of the prismatic dragon blades.
Anasterian's grandfather was Dath'Remar, who founded Quel'thalas in the first place.
Was looking for this comment. Anasterian has no role in base WC3, but the family name 'Sunstrider' should have been a bit of a giveaway he is at least royalty, since Kael is a prince and his name is also Sunstrider.
Anasterian was also wielding Felo'melorn during his fight against Arthas, which was shattered in the conflict, then reforged by Kael'thas.
Anasterian was written as progressively more and more incompetent and in denial with each new retcon. Not a big fan of that.
Grant makes a nearly 5 hour video to make a 15 second crab joke. This is the content I’m here for
3:33:24 I like to think that Illidan just had to take a moment by the fact that his minion called Tyrande his 'friend'.
Glad I could make it, Arthas.
i watch my tone with you, old man. i may be the prince, but you're still my superior as a paladin
As if you could forget. Listen, Arthas. There’s something about this shipment I should know…
@@TheShanicpower oh, no... we're too late! these people have all been infected! they may look fine now, but it's only a matter of time before they turn into the undead!
Arthas: 'what?!'
Uther: this entire city must be purged.
@@KamirasuUther: As my future king, please give me the order to purge this city
Arthas: I am not your king yet, Uther. Nor would I give you this order even if I were
@@dynastywarriorlord07uther: then you must consider this an act of treason.
Arthas: Treason? have i lost my mind, uther?
Uther: have you? prince arthas, by your right of succession and the sovereignty of your crown, you hereby relieve me of my command and suspend my paladins from service
I originally watched your retrospective on Age of Mythologies. When I watched it, I agreed with everything you said, I didn't learn very much, but I watched it because it was entertaining. Most of what you said about AoM was, to me, 'obvious.' I also played Warcraft 3 back in the day around the same time, but I never felt a lot of what you've explained in this video. Now that you have explained it, it's so clear, and it's amazing. Recognizing that, though, has only improved both of the videos and helped me enjoy both games all the more. I recognize that while AoM was obvious to me, that's only because I embraced it and learnt it well. Warcraft 3 was something I focused mostly on the custom games and online rather than the game itself, so I never felt or even saw a lot of what was explained. I remember, I only finished the campaign through specifically to play the night elf missions, I didn't care for the rest. My mistake then, fixed by you now. Thank you!
Constructive criticism, you forgot something I would consider a major detail on the design philosophy. Difficulty. I don't know about the reforged maps, but dependent on your difficulty there were different elements are present, sometimes the AI changed alongside it. Realizing that was how they managed difficulty made me play through a second time just to see the difference. Compared to modern games just giving more resources to the AI .. yeah.
There is a consistency to the games that Grant gives a retrospective on: they mastered the show (or rather, play), don't tell method of teaching the game.
Which, in turn, gives rise to the wonderful "tell what they show" in these retrospectives. Thanks for another great video, Grant!
ps. I can't remember the title, but there was another review of the Culling mission that I thought was brilliant. The mission never tells you you can kill the villagers before they turn to make the process easier. You just... figure it out. In playing the mission, you sort of join Arthas' journey. The player chooses to kill civilians.
I think a lot of the reforged changes like Arthas making the ice bridge actually originally come from comics and novels written after Warcraft 3 and to square the differences between WoW and Warcraft 3. This is incredibly frustrating because usually the changes just make the story worse.
Yeah, lots of dumb shit in wow shouldnt even be considered canon. Especially how they forced everything and everyone into horde and alliance.(Night elves and forsaken should be independent and neutral factions). Sadly all the dumb and even lazy got set in stone just because it was the main warcraft game ever since it released... usually for far worse...
Close, it was the book, Arthas: Rise of the Lich King. And it used the Path of Frost, the WoW Death Knight ability that lets the DK and his allies walk on water.
I think the main reason they introduced the change was that in WoW the Sunwell is not in Silvermoon but on the Isle of Quel'Danas, which as the name suggests is an island so he needed some way to cross the water.
Maybe more to the point, it would have been fine if they were allowed to remake the whole campaign like they originally intended, and maybe got time for a few more passes to iron out fiddly design details, but they only got a handful of remade missions in a functional state before those plans went in the garbage and they had to leave most missions unaltered.
Realistically, the whole rivers and zeppelins mission was kind of nonsense anyway. If it were remade then the whole mission hook would probably be different and fit better narratively with the Silvermoon finale. But it wasn't, so it doesn't.
Warcraft stopped being cannon after Frozen Throne for me.
MMOs dumb chatacter development down. Unless the characters were made just for the MMO. That isn't the case here. Too many immersion breaks with WoW. Some of what it does can be good but with the immersion breaks it all falls apart. Don't even get me started with the time travel nonsense. Which makes a sense of loss moot where Grom is concerned.
@@Veldazandtea Exactly... And they ruined so many... Illidan and many others got wasted in dumbest ways as dungeong/raid boss cannon fodder.
Thrall and Jaina got run into the ground, because Metzen was a burned out tired fool who started to loathe his creation(most evident in Cataclysm, MoP and WoD, hell even in legion. He made Thrall into a stupid meme and made him go against hisncharacrer from Lord of clans book). And made Jaina go insane and viscious(ignoring Christie Golden's book written to bolster his stupid story decisions) until he left after Legion expansion.
Closest they got to even doing something less idiotic was Arthas in Wrath but all they did was give normies who picked up wow just vecause of craze for it in late 2000s collective, indirect nostalgia for things they never played prior or since to get hyped up for "biggest bad boss", catering to dumbest and most shallow.
Everything done for mmo gameplay or cuz of "rule of cool"....
Its why i have love and hate relationship with WoW and blizzard as a whole.
I love some aspects of classic wow...music, exploration artstyle for most part, but i just hate what hey did to the universe and characters.
They didnt even give people freedom they should've(even compared to DnD Warcraft tabletop RPG released in 2003/2004), since they forced faction war and forced night elves and forsaken into it going against warcraft 3 and any logical world building.
Just because WoW started development so early that warcraft 3's story was just parrtly ignored and they just went by basic "bad guys vs good guys" slapping elves with the "good" and undead with the "bad", because of Warcraft 2 i guess...
Its all just so frustrating...since wow couldve been something great snd at the same time avoid affecting the story so negatively if they just mildly changed few things in what final game was...
Like getting rid of rigid faction system and just using same reputation system neutral factions use for all main factions and let people choose their alliegences as they please with some legeork just like say Timbermaw furbolgs or goblins or any other classic wow minor faction. That way it would be in line with Warcraft 3 and that DnD Warcraft RPG(which metzen co-wrote)
Or those language barriers(with common actualy being used by most races and ability to learn other languages).
Or PVP especially battle ground/world one moved over onto guilds, so its guilds that are at war with each other as main PVP hook while faction conflicts are just events people would join in on as some.rared event ga actually has more meaningful story and would be just horde vs old alliance but all sorts. They only done this halfheartedly with wrath while doing nothing about things they done wrong... and they just double or triple down on it as time went on.
While all expansionsnare just nostalgia baiting things riding off warcraft 3 story beats or copy pasting/rehashing itself several times over all the way to modern day...
It could've been so much more...
Who else was overcome by the urge to load up Warcraft 3 while they were watching?
Me I downloaded the Warcraft 3 rereforged and started the prologue lol
Warcraft 3 and Vice City are the two games you just gotta go back to every few years.
The thing I find most interesting, is Arthas still has humility in the last but one mission, hoping the crypt lord survived whereas Maiev didn't even stop to give it a moment
An interest aspect of Arthas' characterization is that he still retains a lot of his personality traits before becoming a Death Knight, but now completely devoid of a moral compass. All of his behaviors as a Death Knight are present when he's a Paladin, with the sole exception of the hilarious(ly dark) irony that Death Knight Arthas has more of a sense of humor despite being a literal soulless version of himself. It's really funny how the good light warrior never cracks a single joke but the edgelord death lord occasionally makes the occasional wisecrack.
I know the novels catch a lot of flak, but if I recall correctly the one about Arthas does a lot to explain that all throughout his life he was continually fighting against his less-than-honorable character traits: his jealousy, his fearfulness, his self-doubt, his anger, and perhaps above all: his feeling of entitlement. Throughout the book he has this almost constant dialogue of wishing to be better than he is, because he's comparing himself against people like Uther -- a paragon of wisdom and valor -- Kael -- a cool, handsome, magically powerful elf -- and many others who hold traits that he himself wishes he embodied, and the strain of trying be better.
When he finally, finally becomes a Death Knight, he begins to stop trying to be better. He starts accepting himself, the self that's selfish, even malicious.
I bring all this up because he does actually relax throughout his journey, and it's because he'smore comfortable with himself -- but it's because he's just stopped caring and letting silly things like "morality" and "the basic decency of not killing indiscriminately" to dictate his actions anymore
Character "growth" into an absolutely abysmal person, and I think that's pretty neat
You have to keep in mind that according to the lore the power does not come from the Helm of Command/Frostmourne, it only multiplies the power that is alrdy there.
Arthas was powerful as Lich King because he was alrdy powerful as a paladin and to the very end held a lot of control over everything that happened, sparing for example some of his old friends and things like that.
It also explains why Bolvar was such a loser as Lich King, he never was strong before he became the Lich King at least not compared to Arthas, and his motivation was pure (saving people from the scourge) while Arthas motivation was evil (revenge and destruction) which made him stronger.
Consider how much power and control Arthas had as the Lich King being the literal ultimate raid boss who ruled an entire undead Kingdom.
Bolvar as the Lich King was just some dude on a mountain with a few servants that nobody feared or respected for his strength... and then he got beat by a girl in 1v1...
@@Triumph633regarding Bolvar - I would imagine keeping the Scourge in check is harder than just letting it be the genocidal horde it wants to be. While also getting brainwashed by an otherworldly entity 24/7.
And that 1v1 thing was kinda rigged, too? Sylvanas is one of the strongest characters at that point, being in cahoots with Zovaal and all. Being in cahoots with a "titan++" entity probably does entail some serious buffs.
-shadowlands had such a cool premise, I wish they hadn't t fucked up the foreshadowing and execution so much-
The word you are looking for is penultimate
I'm glad you pointed out how out of line Tyrande is for killing the Wardens so casually. I always felt weird about that. I had forgotten how genuinely unhinged Maiev was, but I still feel like the game let Tyrande off easy.
Night elf women didn't have their hippie men for ten-thousand years.
Jesus, Giant Grant. That was Warden Tyrande. She was out of line there about the execution, but --- oh my God, Maiev will have you shot.
We have to erase the log books. I don't like this, but I'll protect you this time. I guess you have to stand up for what you believe.
Tyrande: "Only the goddess can forbid me from freeing Illidan."
Prison Wardens: "The goddess forbids you from freeing Illidan."
Tyrande: "I'm gonna pretend I didn't hear that."
desperate times call for desperate measures. the wardens werent gonna help fight the legion.
Well bloodelves were quite bloodthirsty in original concept, especially women. It is onbrand for that. WoW turned them all into hippies forgetting the division, and also forcing them into alliance stupidly.(Both night elves and forsaken should be independent neutral factions)
I actually really like how underwhelming and pathetic Gul'dan's end is portrayed as in Frozen Throne. Gul'dan's greatest weakness was always his arrogance. While he was one of the greatest sorcerers to live, he was still a mortal Orc.
His hubris led him to stab the Horde in the back and guarantee it's defeat in the Second War, raise the Tomb of Sargeras, and try to claim power far beyond his reach, and challenge beings much more powerful than him.
And he dies a pitiful death, alone in the Tomb, the Eye of Sargeras not even close to his grasp. (I will agree his model is ugly though).
I love Gul'dan, he's such a a great villain and one of my favorite Warcraft characters.
I also agree. While it could have shown more of Gul'dan's defeats, and given him a better model than the crotchety old hermit's, his hubris precipitating his end is very justifiable.
1:26:52 On the subject of the extended Orc Tutorial, the additional three mission where Thrall lands on the Troll island and fight the murlocs were included in the demo and were fully voiced in the demo. When they got added in the Frozen Throne, the voiceovers were not present.
I also consider it canon as it explains where the trolls came from, as they were not present in the two previous missions.
Yeah, he missed those three nifty missions.
THEY HAD VOICE ACTING ? Fuck me I gotta find that version
@@Duchess_Van_Hoof I kept waiting for him to come back to them!
I knew I wasn't dreaming!
@@SigvaldScionofSuccubi They are included in the base version of reforged if you can work with that.
warcraft 3 is my childhood i grew up on this game.
i still remember getting it for my 9th birthday it was one of the first video games i have ever played and i instantly fell in love.
i genuinely think i wouldnt be the gamer i am today if this game didnt exist
Its kinda sad for me because i wanted to beat it so bad but i never had a PC that could play it until years later. I only could play a couple houes once a week on LAN with friends on a cybercafe and obviously would always end in last place because i didn't know how to play it with that little ammount of practice.
@@j.2512 damn man.
If you've never beat this game before I'd genuinely suggest doing so, it's so worth it. even if you know the story, playing through it is an amazing experience, and the gameplay is pretty fun.
I will suggest to do so in vanilla none reforged version, even better if you can do so without the reforged version at all, if you own the cd it's as easy as looking for an install of the old update before reforged.
Fricken love this. Found your channel a little over a week ago and I'm obsessed!
same here
It's pretty good
About the tiny buildings: if you play the goblin starting zone you will see that in the Warcraft universe there are ways to carry an entire town in your pocket.
Speaking of unit model changes/retcons, it looks like Reforged changed Furion's model for the Reign of Chaos campaign. Originally in the ROC campaign, his model didn't have a mount and he walked around on his own. In TFT his model has a mount. It looks like Reforged uses that TFT model for the ROC campaign.
Same thing happened in the clip where he's communing with the forests of Lordaeron. It's the one time in TFT that they used his unmounted model.
I assume they did it for consistency, but it always made sense to me. If he just wakes up in the Barrow Dens, he wouldn't have a stag as a mount and probably wouldn't have time to get one before the end of the campaign. In TFT, of course he'd have time to get dressed up.
In fact, they pretty much outright deleted unmounted Furion from HD.
Also happened with normal units like in the Orc Campaign.
Catapults are no longer on RoC like in the video and are replaced by Demolishers from TFT
March of the Scourge was so hard that like, my go-to strategy to beat it involved ultimately going down the path to my city and like, having a peasant hiding down that trail and maybe building some houses I think... And like eventually my city would be completely destroyed, but I wouldn't lose as long as this unit lived to the end of the time limit... And sometimes it'd be scary since some undead might wander down the path a bit and destroy a building down there, but they wouldn't go ALL the way down the path normally... So yeah, I'd just spend like a few minutes or so with my city destroyed... And then Uther would roll in and be like "GOOD JOB! YOU DEFENDED THE CITY!!!" and I'd be like "Did I though?"
I've played it that way a few times
I find your characterizatoin of Maiev missing one key thing - she gains the Spirit of Vengence *after* her sisters get killed in the Tomb.
To my that always signified both that she cared about them, but also that she became the avater of vengence itself and will disregard anything and anyone to achieve it.
Even better about the Shadow Orb, you can pass it on from Maiev to Malfurian who can then pass it on to Ilidan, then when Illidan appears in the Blood Elf campaign he still has it, and will continue to have it when hes an antagonist in the Undead campaign.
He actually did that for his Frozen Throne Deathless Campaigns, but he probably doesn't bring it up here because, as Grant repeatedly states, there's so much to talk about that he'd need many, many more hours to cover it all.
I give illidan 3-4 of malfurions best items including shadow orb +10
@@KickapoosWorldInConflictVids Stacking Illidan up & letting him solo Black Citadel was among my favorite things to do in WC3... If I recall, I had his inventory as:
1. Mask of Death
2. Necklace of Spell Immunity (there's just too many targeted stuns between the Fel Orc Warlocks & Infernals not to carry this, along with tons of mana burns & nukes from Outland demons)
3. Shadow Orb +10
4. Crown of Kings
5. Claws of Attack +15
6. Boots of Elvenkind // Khadgar's Gem of Health (situational, but I favored Boots considering the +6 damage & +12% attack speed is generally going to give more survivability due to Mask of Death than just 300 HP would - not to mention it's another +2 armor)
If you even slightly start to get pushed, flip the Metamorphosis switch & it's all over...
Honestly, when it came to how epic this was all I could think of was Ian Hazzikostas telling Preach something to the effect of "oh, did the Jailer being behind all of the character's decisions ruin it for you? Well, deal with it because we're moving on". Modern Blizzard truly is not worthy of the IP. They should have made BFA and SL just a bad dream they wake up from, never happened. It's good they've moved on from trying to do more damage to the IP's story.
Bro, this has been such an awful thanksgiving and then out of nowhere Grant just drops this 5 hour masterpiece. A worthy successor to the Age of Mythology retrospective and I'm here for it!
The "Tiny Building" items are in fact part of the lore as engineering deployables. In WoW, Pop-up buildings are also prominently featured in the goblin starting quests.
What Arthas should have done, ultimately showing how he wasn't yet fit to be a king, was how the best course oif action directly after discovering Andorhall's corruption was to send messengers immediately outward, to neighbouring cities and the capital itself, so that casualties would be kept at a minimum.
Yet, he was so desperate to chase the enemy down that it was all too late. Note that he CANONICALLY set up a damn base. Meaning there were days in between where, if had sent messengers, the purging of Stratholme might've been avoidable.
But hey, Kel'thuzad wouldn't have picked him if he had such foresight and maturity.
P/S: Jaina can literally f* teleport, the PERFECT messenger to imediately notify the kingdom.
Ehhh there's no sign of his base in WoW's timetravel mission, I think the base's presence is just a
Jaina does notify Uther, but she should have made multiple stops, or gone to Dalaran and had THEM send the messengers if she didn't have the mana for multiple teleports.
@@DIEGhostfish Fair, base could be gameplay reasons, but even then, since they were doomed to be undead anyway, containment for the hopes of cure should've been first thought, along with killing the bastard, Malganis, and finding out how to chase him out.
As for mana, I doubt she wouldn't have enough, since canonically, you'd have way more than just 6 inventory slots, and I'd imagine a master mage would have a few mana pots handy. Either way, had things gone any differently, Arthas could've been saved and redeemed, even until the very end, when Uther decided to just chuck him into the Maw because 'justice'.
Interesting note about Maiev. In one book she actively hunted down and killed night elf mages after they were allowed back into night elf sociaty. Like to the point where she almost killed her own brother. However, in Legion they changed her a bit. Alot of time passes between the Black Temple raid and Legion and she had a long time of having no target for her psychosis. She even shows remorse for Naisha's death, and gives you a world quest to set her soul to rest.
Character growth is cool for a story, but I really hate how Night Elves go from savage and aggressive to just all being peace loving like the druids in WoW.
Gets even worse the longer WoW goes on.
I'm sorry but did you see the Night Warrior content in BFA lol @@alecshockowitz8385
@@alecshockowitz8385 Yeah they should be renamed to beta elfs.
@@alecshockowitz8385 Lore wise WoW is nonsense upon nonsense, every couple of weeks there's a new world ending apocalypse that a group of random nobodies stops, rinse and repeat
Oh, and then there was the implication that the Orb of Gul'dan was doing things to her mind...but that story ultimately went nowhere and got quietly retconned a few years down the line. Like so many other things...
I grew up on RTS games, but I think Warcraft 3 was the first one I ever actually beat. In a lot of ways, it dominated my childhood, and as my wife would tell you with a sigh, I still go back and play through it every once in a while. I'm glad to see you give it the love it deserves.
Me too. I at least Beated Wings Of Liberty too.
It's amazing to see how many of us are inspired by this masterpiece of a game, discussing its content more than two decades after its release! I clearly remember my first experiences with it, playing saved games that other people left. It was at the cybercafé since I didn't own a PC back then, and the fact that I didn't understand English at the time somehow made it more magical and intriguing. When I started understanding the language (with video games in general serving as a catalyst for rapid learning) and playing on my own PC, I was blown away by the depth of the story, which, it seems to me, often gets overlooked. Personally, the tales of Arthas and Thrall inspired me to start my own channel and share my thoughts on the topic, and your video helped me a lot! So thank you for the tremendous effort, and kudos.
2:39:30
The story of Illidan’s crime could be learned not only from novels. In fact, it was neatly explained in a manual that came with WC3.
I, as a child being a huge WC3 lore fan, didn’t even know the manual exists and discovered it as a huge and wonderful surprise somewhere during WoW Burning Crusade era (I live in Ukraine, and WC3 was mostly pirated here, as post-USSR scene had yet little respect to copyright; so no manuals for us, just digital copies with lots of modes).
The manual is well written, introduces crucial story points, as well as some really cool athmosphere building lore trivia, and I highly recommend it. Especially for people who already beat the campaign, since it seems as capable of spoiling the natural story paste.
To be fair, though, Blizzard and most gamers also either forgot or didn’t know about the manual. The reason I learned about it was because, right before the Burning Crusade, Metzen decided to retcon draenei, but forgot that he already described eredar origin in the manual, leading to a contradiction.
Metzen than officially apologized, yet most of the community went like ‘Wha?! There’s a WC3 manual with some deep lore in it?’
p.s. An awesome video, four hours of pure nostalgia. A great eye for campaign links between lore and mechanics. Some completely new for me, and some I also noticed yet never heard discussed.
The official Russian dub (which we also had because lasting effects of Russian imperialism and all that) is one of the most memorable video game dubs of the time. It is not perfect but it brims with good voice acting and quality Woolseyisms (e.g. Uther saying that we won't obey Arthas even if he was a king thrice, which conveys frustration a lot better in Russian). I meme the quotes with my friends to this day.
@@TenositSergeich True. It became a cultural phenomenon, very quotable, and very accessible, omnipresent. SoftClub, the company that did the dub, followed the same strategy that worked astonishingly well with Baldur’s Gate 2 Polish translation by CD Project Red (then simply a game dub company) and outpaced them. The game became a cultural phenomenon.
WC2 already had a big presence in post-Soviet world. It was a big presence in a local pirate game scene, and there was even a local popular mode communities (most notably Warcraft 2000 project, the first project launched by CGS, a studio that later created Cossacks and STALKER).
And Softclub dub of WC3 played on that rep, and, with its quality in both staying true to the game abd adopting it to local consumer, they created an epic.
Add to that the fact that the popular post-Soviet method of consuming games at the time was ‘computer clubs,’ the cellar spaces filled with PCs where you can rent a PC on hourly basis to play games, alone or via the local network.
The Softclub awesome dub and the immensely popular ‘computer club’ facilities give a sufficient explenation why post-Soviet nations had always been so good at DotA.
@@TenositSergeich that's funny, once when I was drunk I watched all the cutscenes with Russian dub for lolz, it was hilarious (my russian is very bad).
I guess I have the same feelings about my country's dub (Polish) - english version, for the most part, sounds extremely bland to me in comparison
5 hours?! What a beautiful blast from the past. It's tough to remember given both the problems with modern Blizzard and the frankly horrendous lore World of Warcraft has been stuck with for the past few expansions, but there was once a time where Warcraft was one of the best worlds and stories to be invested in. Thank you for shining the much deserved spotlight on one of the greatest games of all time
EDIT: WTF WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU CAN REPAIR THE BRIDGE?!?!
nobody remembers anymore, but Blizzard once delivered extraordinarily generous, well-implemented software content.
then they made WoW and became more like their competitors
That is the first time I’m seeing it as well and I’ve played that campaign many times lol.
31:42 "Burn down the ships"
Hernan Cortes moment
What I found neat was how Maiev gets her ultimate ability, Avatar of Vengeance, after she has to leave her soldiers behind in the collapsing Tomb to pursue Illidan. That's where her motivations against Illidan change from professional, to personal.
Also, the old Warcraft rpg lore, which Metzen helped write, had it so that owners of a completed Shadow Orb fell prey to their obsessions. For Gul'dan, it was the Eye. For Maiev, it was Illidan.
Edit: I also liked how you ended with video with the Wrath of the Lich King Main Theme. It's a great way to follow up from Arthas' Ascension.
2:39:43 Illidan's crime was made clear in the RoC manual, along with Malfurion being the true name and Furion being a nickname.
Man... I forgot games used to have manuals. I miss them, but I feel few games nowadays have the atmosphere to capitalize on them
For those who don't know, Illidan's crime was twofold: (Seemingly) switching sides half a dozen times in the War of the Ancients, and more directly: Creating a new Well of Eternity directly afterward, after _everyone_ agreed not to.
The World Tree Nordrassil is a band-aid over Illidan's hubristic unilateral bullshit.
Very cool video, can't imagine how much time you spent making it. Thanks for it, WC3 deserves all attention it can get as it is/was awesome! Actually playing the fan-made Warcraft 2 remake in reforged now. Also a big recommendation!
It's over 20 years and I'm still in love with this game.
And still play occasionally and watch pro players competing.
Lore, the story are captivating, despite I've beat it through and through lots of times by now.
they literally don’t make ‘em like this no more
@@WeeWeeJumbobuuut since our dear Grant is a Campaign Consultant on ZeroSpace it will probably have a great campaign ^_^
I picked English just for it!
I seem to remember in the original WC3 ROC campaign in the human mercenary mission I did lose all my ranged units and I also could use storm bolt on the ships. I had to wait for mruadins mana to regenerate with no items helping his mana. If they changed storm bolt to not work on the ships, it must've been a later patch or TFT.
Yeah, I for sure remember storm bolting ships in fact, pretty sure this is the only way I ever killed them since it's fastest way to do so
It definitely came from TFT.
They did. In fact, the strategy guide recommended using Storm Bolt against the ships, and then getting confused when I couldn't do it when I bought the game. Only later did I find out it got patched.
@@RancorSnp I stormbolted them all the time. I think Reforged merging in TFT limitations may have done that.
Lovely video! Might I add you have a soothing voice, so I usually put this on to sleep.
A Brief Retrospective is, now that it is a series, my favorite series. Not just on your channel, but all of youtube, hell, all of the internet.
Fun fact! Originally there was meant to be a post-big-shot mission after Archimonde is murked, where you deal with three huge undead bases. They decided to cut that one out for sake of narrative. Generally, there is a lot of cut stuff in Night Elf RoC campaign - one of the levels was meant to have a side quest involving green dragons, long-time allies of night elves, and there is even a named green dragon unit in the base editor codebase, not the individual levels' ones, that would probably be assigned to you.
Correction: more likely, Archimonde would still live, it would be just about gathering wisps. It still would be a titanic mission after a lengthy timed mission.
Where did you find this information?
Another commenter said that it actually wasn't after he got nuked, it was one last stage before the nukiung.
one strat i made for the green base attack waves in the 2nd mission of the Blood elves was that they ALWAYS pass through the spot on the second island right after the water crossing spot, so i bult up a critical mass of towers there with ivory towers and leave 1 sorceress and a few dragonhawk riders to tie down frostwyrms, instead of the brown enemy i knock out purple because, that way the enemy sky barges always come from the north side and my myrmidons can always entangle them when they are over the water and smash them killing every unit inside and making this mission a joke to play through.
When I played through the game for the first time, I was around maybe 10-12 years old. During the Hunter of Shadows mission (the one with Cenarius), I never realized that you were supposed to go to the Chaos Well, I just kinda missed that part of the map completely. Killing Cenarius without Chaos damage took a super long time, and when Grom and his boys turned up later all red and evil, I was also very confused.
This game is quite literally character defining to me. It was the first game that was purchased for me back in the day, and 100% I attribute it to not only my love of RTS, but also my love of the fantasy video game genre as a whole. It made me want to create video games, and influenced my Dungeons and Dragons campaigns for literally over a decade. My favorite game of all time, I've played it so many times. And yet, I still will watch a nearly 5 hour video about it, and love every minute. Well done man, keep up the fantastic work.
This video is so much. This video represents a labor of love. Such great takes, comical editing, well spoken, to the point for each mission. This video itself represents a materpiece and encapsulates the entertaining combination of creativity, hard work, and widsom.
1:13:16
There is a really fun way to complete this mission by possessing attacking units using Banshees.
Since the possessed don't take damage inside the energy dome it's a really fun strategy that makes you feel like conniving undead leader destroying the enemy from the inside.
They don't? Honestly I played every mission by spamming Frost Wyrms, I was a very uncreative child
I did that! I've been looking for a good place to mention this. I used the back-half of a screwdriver as he said. :D
I even remember Possessing a random sheep wandering around to test the theory with a minimum of risk before trying it properly.
Regarding thevwyvern mission, I think it has narrative value in showing that thrall is charismatic and recruits for thr horde quite easily. Same with tauren, and the troll missions.
I have been watching this master piece at bed time over the course of 2 weeks, falling asleep to it every night. And now it's finally over and I don't know how to sleep without it :/
Founding of Durotar is actually pretty cool, I think it deserves a bit more than the short segment given here, but I understand that this is a nearly 5 hour video, so maybe talking about the neat little RPG hidden in WC3 in this RTS essay might be worth cutting. The Pandaren, while technically optional even in Founding of Durotar, get some more cameo, and I think it was this appearance more than the Tower Defense easter egg that inspired the WoW expansion. Chen Stormstout feels like a real character, if a bit of an oddball cameo, and actually hints at what the Pandaren are about, even if they additionally retconned a bunch of weird empire nonsense onto them to make them feel more like a historic faction in MoP. More importantly, there is a further exploration of Thrall's ideology of gathering various groups together trying to carve out a living in the barren lands of central Kalimdor. Rexxar's dual nature as half-orc. half-ogre, and own exile for being shunned by both sides of his heritage until now is a neat little tie in to this as well. It might be a little repetitive with the themes of the Orc campaign in Reign of Chaos, but it's nice to see the continuation of that, as well as the ramifications with the more radical Alliance forces and the continued, if shaky, peace relations with Jaina's Theramore humans. From a purely lore perspective, there's a lot that is set up in this campaign, and while some of it feels kinda underutilized or sacrificed for the 2 faction system in WoW, a lot of it is still some of the most interesting Orc writing in the series, grappling with the uncertainty of what the future of the Horde will be. Also, there are some crazy items and such to pick up, they limit you to only a handful of heroes, but make sure that you can feel like GODS on the battlefield by the time you have to put Admiral Proudmore down if you are willing to do some side quests.
1:46:43 Grom was still Grommash in the original release of Warcraft 3. Grom is a shortened version of Grommash. It's a little inconsistent as to why the text is different from the voiced dialogue, I think that may be an oversight, but he was always Grommash since 2002.
It may have been a last-minute addition by Metzen to flesh out this character a little more.
unlike Malfurion who is Furion
I can confirm that the text in the original version of Warcraft 3 refers to him as Grom most of the time (and sometimes as Hellscream), but Mannoroth calls him Grommash at least once.
I always thought the reason for the name change was, in Warhammer fantasy there a character name Grom the Paunch, and they don't want get involved in a copyright mess with Games Workshop.
@@drarenthiralas1683 that is indeed the only memory I have of the name Grommash in the original version of the game. I never even made the connection to 'full name', just figured it was a Mannoroth thing :P
The part mentioning Dryads would have been perfect to talk about units voices an how WC3 is is just the GOAT at that.
"I'll attract the enemy with my human call: 'I'm so wasted! I'm so wasted!'"
It sucks they removed it with reforged because they thought it'd be offensive
@@jimmcphearson7252 All in all, it proves the Dryad's call even more. What's more human than wasted potential?
@@jimmcphearson7252 And yet, the voices they supposedly added before they added the original back for the night elves were low-quality borderline orgasmic noises.
Source: Grubby mentions it when talking about his experience when playtesting in the video of how he tried to save Reforged
They deleted them as they worked on the male blizzard employes too well.
@@TYR1139 :D
Amusing. Grant, your taste in bettering my evening grows ever more exquisite.
Edit: Grant, the length of your videos has restored my faith in the Templar caste!
This was a fantastic (multi-day) watch! I think the TFT Orc campaign is my favourite moment in any RTS ever. It really planted the seeds that DotA would later on bloom for me.
It's wild to see all the original units for the dota characters we still play to this day.
omg dude monumental effort, well done! sorry to say that I had this on in the background, but it really lightened my day while I was doing stuff today. Cheers for some amazing content
A nearly five hour long video on everything that made WC3, my absolute favorite RTS ever, and why it is amazing? Holy shit Grant, Christmas isn't for another month! You can't go around giving me this beauty of a gift like this!
Regarding Reforged new models: the dreadlords variant where kinda cool idea, they where suppose to be inspired by the seven deadly sins wich doesnt really make sence for w3 but whatever. The real problem comes with pretty much every non hero unit, W3 units where incredibly easy to read at a glance even in the chaos of battle, meanwhile reforged "HD" models are way too pack with details and shapes that are not very unique so it becomes quite hard to identify wich units are wich in the middle of a fight
Nah I think the new WoW dreadlords suck. Their voices are just slow brutish idiots and they lost much of the intellectual classiness
Wonderful video! You definitely deserve my upvote for this. Cheers, Grant, and thank you for taking me back to this amazing videogame and its awesome expansion :)
One thing I'd like to correct you on though: 4:14:14 The Gnoll, Troll and Murloc are, in fact, in that mission and they do trigger dialogue. It's just not implemented in a cutscene and you don't get to have their forces when you possess them (only the 3 themselves), but they ARE in the mission.
Kinda sad you gave so little time to Rexxar - it was my favorite campaign by head and shoulders, and I am looking forward to the Azeroth Reborn version of it so much you couldn't believe.
it was also one of my favorit camaign i just hpe that after theyy are done they don't just leave them and insted use them to make stuff like random recrutment and other custom ver of the game
same, i had to scrub through the video to find that little chapter lol
I'm waiting for the Age of Empires 2 Grant Era, I'd love to watch you tackle the campaigns and then do a cool retrospective video about it.
Nobody's doing it like you, Grant. This is great stuff.
Have you ever played Spell Force? It's a neat, and quite obscure old game, a combination of RTS and RPG. I strongly encourage you to give it a try.
My prayer for that one Headhunter who's stuck under the bridge forever
4:32:39 The only reason why Grant wants to create this 4 hours of why WC3 is a timeless masterpiece xD
Eh, it's called Frostmourne.
It mournes Frost.
Makes bridges of ice.
Arthas forgot.
1:47:31
Grommash was always referred as Grommash in WoW - there is a building called Grommash Hold in Orgrimmar, it was there since 2004 original release, and was always called like that.
Lore says that in orcish, "Grom" means giant, and refers to some native giants that orcs fought back on their home planet. "Grommash" means "giant's heart", as conveyed in some in-game dialogues by Thrall.
So it is - Grommash "Grom" Hellscream.
Alternative Grommash from WoD plot - is referred simply by suffixing "(alternate universe)"
The situation was even more confusing for people who played WC3 in some localized languages :D In my playthrough, he was named "Гром Задира" which means in russian "thunder" and "the bully" - i.e. it was so far from original name. Same for "Malfurion Stormrage" - he had a name "Фарион Свирепый" which is "Furion" and "ferocious".
I was soooo completely confused when started playing WoW, because of that - where one who I remembered as "Mr. Thunder" became "Grommash Hellscream", and "Mr. Ferocious" is now "Malfurion Stormrage".
These were the only two names that got twisted, btw :D Only them, others were just fine. Lmao.
Great video as always man, this resonates with me as Warcraft was also a big part of my childhood.
23:54 Wait what I didn't even know this happens in game
57:25 WTF I didn't know you could just repair that bridge
I think the Lord of the Rings coming out less than a year before RoC also played an important aspect in the games popularity. Here was a game that also had orcs elves humans dwarfs hero’s dragons and hero’s. Many of the popular custom games were based off of lord of the rings battles. Once giving the game a try the fantastic design, gameplay, and original story kept people like me coming back and engaging with the scenario editor to tell my own stories.
The scourge/arthas ending cinematic in The Frozen Throne has music which is very LOTR-movie esque imo.
As a kid I always thought Lord of the rings was Warcraft III 😂. Played this game so so much. Its truly the best game ever made.