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
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.
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.
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.)
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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 TH-cam take into accounts multiple watchings of a single video?
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.
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
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.
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.
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
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...
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.
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.
@@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
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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-
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.
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
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.
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.
@@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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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'm sick and I cant sleep at night. This is literally the single best possible video that could've appeared on my recommended. 55 mins in and absolutely love it
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.
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!
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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!
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!
As someone who "discovered" warcraft 3 when younger this was both nostalgic AF and relatable, so the moment I saw this video and its duration I understood where the next 5 hours of my day will go ^_^. The finale was sweet and even more relatable. Well done man! And if you have the same liking of battle realms then I look forward to eventual battle realms retro.
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.
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
Great work bro, great narration and story telling.. I played the compaign so many times throughout my life and still I learned some things that I never knew like the sunwell compaign, I didn't know you could repair the bridge. Great work.
As someone who has never played wc2 or wow, you did an excellent job of explaining lore significances. I really liked the little tidbits about repairing bridges or the random cutscene orc turning into an lovestruck owl. Fantastic watch all around and I was constantly engaged for all of it
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.
This game has my utmost respect and love. From childhood to present, I still find ways to appreciate this wonderful game with its epic aspects, from individual units and great world building story to the still active community with custom mapping and game innovation. Thank you, old Blizzard.
I know, that video is already an Absolute unit of time, but I really think that Rexxar campain deserves a bit more than just a few seconds. Also - we never revisited prolog. I would not mind a week or two for a more refined video (but maybe that's just me finding small nitpicks, since I know WarCraft in and out). Other than that - Great job. Really enjoyed the video. Thank you for all the work you put into this video.
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!
A fantastic presentation, Grant! It always amazes me how much of an impact on the later geopolitics of Azeroth that a relatively small player like Garithos had. It's possible the Blood Elves' magic hunger would have driven them out of the alliance anyways, but otherwise I attribute the elves leaving the alliance and joining the horde and everything that followed to Garithos being an assbasket.
The ability to repair the bridge is very surprising, I had no idea! I want to say it seems like a bug, but with my mapmaking experience I don't recall repairing of doodads being something you can do. If that is the case, maybe it's also possible to repair gates? Kinda want to download and open up the world editor for the first time in years.
Grom is also the name of a major Goblin character in Warhammer, the franchise Blizz wanted to license for WarCraft 1. GW said no, forcing the devs at Blizzard to rework the lore and WarCraft was born. Recently GW, the Warhammer owners, have been handing out "cease and desist" letters to anyone that uses their copyright. Blizz has no right, according to GW, to use the name Grom bc another character GW owns uses that name. Hence, Grom is retroactively referred to as Grommash or Hellscream to keep GW away from Warcraft 3 Reforged.
I very much doubt that is the case. GW has only written cease and desist letter to people specifically doing stuff recognised as being directly related to warhammer, such as animations of 40Ks space marines. For blizzard, they simply wouldn't. Blizzards warcraft franchise is also decades old, and the character of grom initially came out in warcraft 2, not warcraft 3, and certainly not in warcraft 3 reforged. Because of that, Blizzard could very comfortably state in response to any cease and desist, thst Grom hellscream is a fully and clealry legally distinct character in a franchise that, whilst superficially similar to GWs warhammer fantasy franchise in some respects, is also fully and clearly legally distinct. And like grant said, it's very unlikely anyone is ever going to walk into a store looking for "that game wot has grom in it" and land on Warcraft 3 reforged instead of Warhammer total war 3 or whatever.
Props to the editor, HUUUUGE ASS effort to get this project done. 800 GB of raw material, OH GOD. It's already an effort as a spectator to watch one video this long, but congrats to the creator too. Theoretically I feel like I played this game entirely. I just happened to actively remember Arthas campaign, not much on the others. It feels like I either mindlessly played through or somebody helped me with the missions (which is unlikely) or some of them bugged and I just skipped those, tbh, i just don't know. I never liked Warcraft as a RTS as much, sure thing it was pretty innovative and brough different art styles, combat styles, map styles, etc, etc. which of course was appreciated, but I still preferred much more, Age of Mythology as a RTS for instance, (That's the video I came from) (and I feel dizzy about watching like 9 hours of video by the end of the year, rofl). However, I was a total fan of Warcraft as a MMO, specially in its early stages (vanilla + burning crusade + Wrath of the Lich King) absolute best, and to me and for many people, one of the biggest things that made it SO SPECIAL, was the AWESOME, GREAT, INSPIRING, MAGNIFICENT plot / lore that was presented on Warcraft 3, to me, this joyous RTS basically served as a very useful tool to establish common ground for the roadmap of the initial WoW trilogy, which takes a totally different gameplay approach and expands A LOT every single hero, every single cutscene, every single named NPC have inspired entire expansions, quests, maps in WoW. And around 2001 to arguably 2013 maybe? was the golden age of the Blizzard (company) - Warcraft (game series) combination. WoW has been kept alive because of $money$, as a kid, I used to see Blizzard as one of the greatest places to work, a respectable goal to be looked for if you wanted to be amongst the "_gods_ of gaming design", and it's somewhat sad to witness the downfall of this company over the last decade, and to me, most important, the downfall of WoW. In my opinion, one of the major causes for games to be so bad nowadays, it's because of the lack of a cohesive, intriguing and compelling narrative, and Warcraft 3 (even if casually) provided the master example of just that for WoW. And your video helped me to understand A LOT MORE about my adventures back in the day in that world. Which is Awesome! For you fans of RTS only, let me tell you, Blizzard has given the same Reforge treatment to many of their games. For WoW Classic, they played it dirty, while many people was hoping for a curated version of their childhood/teenager virtual adventures, they basically just took the most nostalgic expansions from the dusty dark shelf in their storage, plugged it back on the servers and hired / designated people with thousands of dollars to make this "huge" accomplishment possible. Although it's somewhat sad to see Blizzard go down, that company really needed a massive re structure, I'm glad that Microsoft bought it and that 2 days ago we had the previous CEO to walk away, so maybe we have chances to witness more great work in the future.
In the cutscene at 3:09:00, you can see Gul'dan talk about reaching the Chamber of the Eye, so yes, what is said in the cutscene at 3:11:06 is actually the second reference to "the Eye". But, seeing as how the video is over 4 hours long and it's so engaging that I'm watching it for the 3 time this week, small stuff like this is to be expected
this shows how i love this game, i myself played this game these campaigns multiple times over and over and I still watched this vid even if its more than 4hrs. this story line and game play is timeless. It will always forever be a pillar of role playing and real time strategy game.
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 :/
What an awesome video. I've been watching this in parts over the last few days and this is clearly a labor of love. Not only playing through the entire game (with secrets!) and commentating it, but putting little jokes in on-screen text adds so much charm. You're clearly a true fan of this beautiful game.
4:12:00 by the way, Kel-Thuzad's model got heart eyes, it's seen extremely well whenever he says any line. Ever since I noticed, I had chuckles every time.
I will say this. Reforged _desperately_ suffered from not being able to do any real re-writing or re-recording of voice lines, even if that would have required redoing the ENTIRE script with any actors that have been replaced in the last 20 years. Because as far as I know, the Ice Bridge example is intended to be a case of Arthas' powers having increased over the course of the invasion by simple virtue of how goddamn many Elven Souls he feeds to Frostmourne by way of stabbing. But of course, because they couldn't record any new dialogue, and didn't want to just have the explanation in a silent pop-up tip, they didn't know how to give this information to the player. Or have any dialogue explaining who Anasterian and Thalorien are. Though Anasterian's identity is... sort of hinted at in what his Hero is labelled. Rather than a Paladin, Archmage, Death Knight... his Hero class... is "High King". Considering a certain Prince who shows up later that happens to share his last name... I think I can stop talking now. Very interesting take that Stratholme is narratively strong _because_ the mission itself is... well, boring, to sum up your description. I'm not sure I really necessarily agree that making the mission interesting defeated the point, but I see what you're getting at. As for Grom, the Motorcycle theory has largely been dropped upon realizing that Warhammer Fantasy features a character named "Grom the Paunch". Several of the unit changes that came with name changes in Frozen Throne occurred, apparently, due to paranoia in trying to avoid copyright conflict with the notoriously aggressive and these days universally hated by its own fans Games Workshop. Grom's name changing to Grommash is, I think, very likely a similar case.
For the stratholme point, I do kinda see where grant's getting at. I don't necessarily agree that the mission being bland specifically is what makes it thematically potent, but it is *something* that makes the mission stand out from the rest and really showcase itself as a catalyst for arthas's crumbling mental state. Meanwhile the reforged version feels like it cares more about aligning the mission with how the mmo did it than about reforging how the actual rts did, and without anything mechanically unpleasant to go with the slaughter of innocents, it does lose that potency in the process
Eh, Arthas wasn't supposed to have any connection to ice whatsoever except the name of the sword. Not until WotLK which lacked understanding of Arthas as a character already.
Kinda sad you didn't give more focus to the Founding of Durotar campaign considering how thorough the coverage is on everything else, that's the one I replayed the most as a kid and loved the even greater emphasis on quests and heroes.
One of the worst parts of reforged is they gated the founding of duratar behind the rest of the campaigns. Sure you can cheat to skip straight to it. But it feels weird and kind of annoying still.
Not to mention that the last mission of the campaign is a homage to Icefrog and DotA, yet notably there's the stigma that Blizzard beat themselves up for not grabbing onto Dota and profiting it themselves.
Well he kinda did, Illidan is a moraly gray character,he does some pretty shady things. His goals are often on the more benevolent side which he does trough some malevolent means.
@@raptormage2209 obviously this is a meme, but objectively speaking, he never did anything evil. he made another moon well, not evil in nature. he consumed the powers of demons, you could say its bad and thats more semantics, but we never see it corrupt illidan's mind, sure others do seem to be corrupted by demon magic, but illidan never does, so you cant say its evil. you could argue, its bad or wrong and obviously others do, but its not evil in nature, how he uses the power is. he taught others to consume and use demon magic. this is the first thing that could be argued is evil in nature, but again we have to look at the specifics. illidan made only made people who had nothing to lose, into demon hunters. he wanted to ensure hes not ruining anyone who had something to lose. again could be evil, but you could argue hes only doing to people who would have died fighting the demons, without this power. he does a few more thing, but my point is that its very arguable weather he does "shady thing". is a grey character, yes absolutely. but i would genuinely argue he did nothing wrong. i could talk about illidan for hours, but ill spare you. i genuinely love this character, and think someone at blizzard cooked hard with his story and personality.
Awesome stuff Grant. Great presentation as always. I'm only a quarter of the way in so far. I played this game almost 20 years ago and still look back fondly on it. I then watched your deathless runs a while ago and that was a fun revisiting of the great story. If they ever do another Warcraft movie(s), I hope they work to the Arthas and Frozen Throne storyline. Another single player RTS for Warcraft and Starcraft are the #1 things I want from Blizzard. I've mostly been a console game, but those would be games to motivate me to update my 12 year old gaming PC, which I haven't even plugged back in from moving almost 2 years ago lol.
my guess is the dalaran mission in reforged was the first mission worked on. which is why blizzard marketed reforged as a complete re-imagining. but then blizzard ditched funding so everything else in reforged went to shit.
I have to say, there might've not been a right answer to Stratholme, but there definitely was a _wrong_ answer for the shores of Northrend, and Arthas chose poorly. Edit: Personally I think the reason why we have a huge lack of editors is that the whole industry has learned from WC:3, and don't want a DotA of their own, and/or modders to create free skins that are better then what can be bought through microtransactions. That's 'leaving money on the table' for them.
Unironically, the culling of Stratholme was the right choice. As a Paladin and future ruler, the incorrect choice is to allow the plague to further spread.
To me, Warcraft III was something that I played because I finished the Age of Mythology campaign and "is this Warcraft thing similar? I might as well try is".
Little correction here you can actually find those dialogues in the campaign (the ones from sylvanas and possession) bc it isnt cut out, the gnoll its on the Left of your base, you can control him but it doesn't give you the troops, same with the murloc, it is close to te first ogres thay you find and last its the chiefs forest troll who its on the right maybe? I dont remember much but i do remember getting thise dialogues and the chiefs bc I just love the mechanic of possesion in this mission
Another roleplaying strategy game id recommend looking into is Warlords Battlecry 3. 14 races/factions all with their own unique systems and twists. The factions have some unit cross over between each other but also have a wide variety of unique units. And the units that do bleed over get unique systems per faction. Playing as the dark elves, you can build skeletons as cheap fodder units. But when playing as the undead faction, you can improve your skeletons into higher tier skeletons or wraiths.
The VA of WC3 just can't be beat. Old Arthas and Illidan are leagues ahead of their current counterparts. Even Furion and Tyrande have lost their edge in the modern games. I'm certain anyone who has played this game as a kid when it released has dozens if not hundreds of voice lines from every unit stuck in their brain.
This was a journey that I once had as a kid about 15 years ago... it's incredible that after so much time, I still enjoy this as much as I did back then. I watched the entire 4:44:44 video in two days and I can proudly say that this video is more then just a TH-cam video. I relived the entire story told with so much passion, love and soul that I couldn't just watch it without saying something... THANK YOU ENORMOUSLY GRANT for bringing me back to those years and helping me relive all those emotions. You are at this time, my favourite TH-camr and I can not thank you enough for making this video!
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
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.
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
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
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
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.)
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.
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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 TH-cam take into accounts multiple watchings of a single video?
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.
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
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.
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.
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
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...
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 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.
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
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
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
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.
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.
1:31:40
"DIE KODOS MÜSSEN BESCHÜTZT WERDEN!!!!"
That voiceline just lives rent free in my head, forever :D
I think it works for everyone especially if you're playing with your native language that's not English
"TRZEBA BRONIĆ BESTII KODO!"
_ДЕРЖИТЕ ОБОРОНУ_
*ЗАЩИЩАЙТЕ К О Д О Е В*
the kodos are a very big meme in RU WC community because of this single line
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
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
will you make a similar video for stacraft?
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.
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
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.
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!
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 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.
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.
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.
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 love those movies of yours! First AoM, now Warcraft, I hope there are plans for more!
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!!!
Reforge taught me a valuable lesson that I haven't forgotten... no more pre orders.
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.
I'm sick and I cant sleep at night. This is literally the single best possible video that could've appeared on my recommended. 55 mins in and absolutely love it
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.
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!
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!
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.
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
Thank you for making this video.
It was great to relive the feelings I got when I played this fantastic game as a child!
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.
Grant makes a nearly 5 hour video to make a 15 second crab joke. This is the content I’m here for
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.
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.
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.
I wish i had a woman so obsessed about me as Maiev is obsessed about Illidan
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
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.
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.
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.
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
This was so good, I got to go through 1 of my favourite childhood games again and learn so much about it while doing so. Thank you for this
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!
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!
As someone who "discovered" warcraft 3 when younger this was both nostalgic AF and relatable, so the moment I saw this video and its duration I understood where the next 5 hours of my day will go ^_^. The finale was sweet and even more relatable. Well done man!
And if you have the same liking of battle realms then I look forward to eventual battle realms retro.
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.
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
Great work bro, great narration and story telling.. I played the compaign so many times throughout my life and still I learned some things that I never knew like the sunwell compaign, I didn't know you could repair the bridge. Great work.
As someone who has never played wc2 or wow, you did an excellent job of explaining lore significances. I really liked the little tidbits about repairing bridges or the random cutscene orc turning into an lovestruck owl. Fantastic watch all around and I was constantly engaged for all of it
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.
This game has my utmost respect and love. From childhood to present, I still find ways to appreciate this wonderful game with its epic aspects, from individual units and great world building story to the still active community with custom mapping and game innovation. Thank you, old Blizzard.
I know, that video is already an Absolute unit of time, but I really think that Rexxar campain deserves a bit more than just a few seconds. Also - we never revisited prolog. I would not mind a week or two for a more refined video (but maybe that's just me finding small nitpicks, since I know WarCraft in and out). Other than that - Great job. Really enjoyed the video. Thank you for all the work you put into this video.
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!
A fantastic presentation, Grant!
It always amazes me how much of an impact on the later geopolitics of Azeroth that a relatively small player like Garithos had. It's possible the Blood Elves' magic hunger would have driven them out of the alliance anyways, but otherwise I attribute the elves leaving the alliance and joining the horde and everything that followed to Garithos being an assbasket.
The ability to repair the bridge is very surprising, I had no idea! I want to say it seems like a bug, but with my mapmaking experience I don't recall repairing of doodads being something you can do. If that is the case, maybe it's also possible to repair gates? Kinda want to download and open up the world editor for the first time in years.
its an oversight most likey
Grom is also the name of a major Goblin character in Warhammer, the franchise Blizz wanted to license for WarCraft 1. GW said no, forcing the devs at Blizzard to rework the lore and WarCraft was born. Recently GW, the Warhammer owners, have been handing out "cease and desist" letters to anyone that uses their copyright. Blizz has no right, according to GW, to use the name Grom bc another character GW owns uses that name. Hence, Grom is retroactively referred to as Grommash or Hellscream to keep GW away from Warcraft 3 Reforged.
I very much doubt that is the case. GW has only written cease and desist letter to people specifically doing stuff recognised as being directly related to warhammer, such as animations of 40Ks space marines. For blizzard, they simply wouldn't. Blizzards warcraft franchise is also decades old, and the character of grom initially came out in warcraft 2, not warcraft 3, and certainly not in warcraft 3 reforged. Because of that, Blizzard could very comfortably state in response to any cease and desist, thst Grom hellscream is a fully and clealry legally distinct character in a franchise that, whilst superficially similar to GWs warhammer fantasy franchise in some respects, is also fully and clearly legally distinct.
And like grant said, it's very unlikely anyone is ever going to walk into a store looking for "that game wot has grom in it" and land on Warcraft 3 reforged instead of Warhammer total war 3 or whatever.
An absolute masterpiece. And the game isn't bad either.
The description for Sylvanas is super unique, she is constantly the thorn in our sight, mentioned with progressly stronger tone of frustration.
Props to the editor, HUUUUGE ASS effort to get this project done. 800 GB of raw material, OH GOD.
It's already an effort as a spectator to watch one video this long, but congrats to the creator too.
Theoretically I feel like I played this game entirely. I just happened to actively remember Arthas campaign, not much on the others. It feels like I either mindlessly played through or somebody helped me with the missions (which is unlikely) or some of them bugged and I just skipped those, tbh, i just don't know.
I never liked Warcraft as a RTS as much, sure thing it was pretty innovative and brough different art styles, combat styles, map styles, etc, etc. which of course was appreciated, but I still preferred much more, Age of Mythology as a RTS for instance, (That's the video I came from) (and I feel dizzy about watching like 9 hours of video by the end of the year, rofl).
However, I was a total fan of Warcraft as a MMO, specially in its early stages (vanilla + burning crusade + Wrath of the Lich King) absolute best, and to me and for many people, one of the biggest things that made it SO SPECIAL, was the AWESOME, GREAT, INSPIRING, MAGNIFICENT plot / lore that was presented on Warcraft 3, to me, this joyous RTS basically served as a very useful tool to establish common ground for the roadmap of the initial WoW trilogy, which takes a totally different gameplay approach and expands A LOT every single hero, every single cutscene, every single named NPC have inspired entire expansions, quests, maps in WoW. And around 2001 to arguably 2013 maybe? was the golden age of the Blizzard (company) - Warcraft (game series) combination.
WoW has been kept alive because of $money$, as a kid, I used to see Blizzard as one of the greatest places to work, a respectable goal to be looked for if you wanted to be amongst the "_gods_ of gaming design", and it's somewhat sad to witness the downfall of this company over the last decade, and to me, most important, the downfall of WoW.
In my opinion, one of the major causes for games to be so bad nowadays, it's because of the lack of a cohesive, intriguing and compelling narrative, and Warcraft 3 (even if casually) provided the master example of just that for WoW.
And your video helped me to understand A LOT MORE about my adventures back in the day in that world. Which is Awesome!
For you fans of RTS only, let me tell you, Blizzard has given the same Reforge treatment to many of their games. For WoW Classic, they played it dirty, while many people was hoping for a curated version of their childhood/teenager virtual adventures, they basically just took the most nostalgic expansions from the dusty dark shelf in their storage, plugged it back on the servers and hired / designated people with thousands of dollars to make this "huge" accomplishment possible.
Although it's somewhat sad to see Blizzard go down, that company really needed a massive re structure, I'm glad that Microsoft bought it and that 2 days ago we had the previous CEO to walk away, so maybe we have chances to witness more great work in the future.
In the cutscene at 3:09:00, you can see Gul'dan talk about reaching the Chamber of the Eye, so yes, what is said in the cutscene at 3:11:06 is actually the second reference to "the Eye". But, seeing as how the video is over 4 hours long and it's so engaging that I'm watching it for the 3 time this week, small stuff like this is to be expected
this shows how i love this game, i myself played this game these campaigns multiple times over and over and I still watched this vid even if its more than 4hrs. this story line and game play is timeless. It will always forever be a pillar of role playing and real time strategy game.
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 :/
What an awesome video. I've been watching this in parts over the last few days and this is clearly a labor of love. Not only playing through the entire game (with secrets!) and commentating it, but putting little jokes in on-screen text adds so much charm. You're clearly a true fan of this beautiful game.
That was beautiful 😭😭
4:12:00 by the way, Kel-Thuzad's model got heart eyes, it's seen extremely well whenever he says any line. Ever since I noticed, I had chuckles every time.
I will say this. Reforged _desperately_ suffered from not being able to do any real re-writing or re-recording of voice lines, even if that would have required redoing the ENTIRE script with any actors that have been replaced in the last 20 years. Because as far as I know, the Ice Bridge example is intended to be a case of Arthas' powers having increased over the course of the invasion by simple virtue of how goddamn many Elven Souls he feeds to Frostmourne by way of stabbing. But of course, because they couldn't record any new dialogue, and didn't want to just have the explanation in a silent pop-up tip, they didn't know how to give this information to the player. Or have any dialogue explaining who Anasterian and Thalorien are. Though Anasterian's identity is... sort of hinted at in what his Hero is labelled. Rather than a Paladin, Archmage, Death Knight... his Hero class... is "High King". Considering a certain Prince who shows up later that happens to share his last name... I think I can stop talking now.
Very interesting take that Stratholme is narratively strong _because_ the mission itself is... well, boring, to sum up your description. I'm not sure I really necessarily agree that making the mission interesting defeated the point, but I see what you're getting at.
As for Grom, the Motorcycle theory has largely been dropped upon realizing that Warhammer Fantasy features a character named "Grom the Paunch". Several of the unit changes that came with name changes in Frozen Throne occurred, apparently, due to paranoia in trying to avoid copyright conflict with the notoriously aggressive and these days universally hated by its own fans Games Workshop. Grom's name changing to Grommash is, I think, very likely a similar case.
For the stratholme point, I do kinda see where grant's getting at. I don't necessarily agree that the mission being bland specifically is what makes it thematically potent, but it is *something* that makes the mission stand out from the rest and really showcase itself as a catalyst for arthas's crumbling mental state. Meanwhile the reforged version feels like it cares more about aligning the mission with how the mmo did it than about reforging how the actual rts did, and without anything mechanically unpleasant to go with the slaughter of innocents, it does lose that potency in the process
Eh, Arthas wasn't supposed to have any connection to ice whatsoever except the name of the sword.
Not until WotLK which lacked understanding of Arthas as a character already.
You're correct about Grom and the Warhammer thing, from what I've heard.
Kinda sad you didn't give more focus to the Founding of Durotar campaign considering how thorough the coverage is on everything else, that's the one I replayed the most as a kid and loved the even greater emphasis on quests and heroes.
One of the worst parts of reforged is they gated the founding of duratar behind the rest of the campaigns.
Sure you can cheat to skip straight to it. But it feels weird and kind of annoying still.
Felt especially weird how he had that bit about how War3 isn't an rts it's an RPG and then kind of shits on the part of War3 that is the most RPGlike
Not to mention that the last mission of the campaign is a homage to Icefrog and DotA, yet notably there's the stigma that Blizzard beat themselves up for not grabbing onto Dota and profiting it themselves.
Just remember illidan did nothing wrong
king
Perhaps my favorite thing to say “the road to the twisting nether is paved with good intentions”
he convinced his followers to give him their power, leaving them defenseless, he essentially sacrificed others for his own gain
Well he kinda did, Illidan is a moraly gray character,he does some pretty shady things.
His goals are often on the more benevolent side which he does trough some malevolent means.
@@raptormage2209 obviously this is a meme, but objectively speaking, he never did anything evil.
he made another moon well, not evil in nature.
he consumed the powers of demons, you could say its bad and thats more semantics, but we never see it corrupt illidan's mind, sure others do seem to be corrupted by demon magic, but illidan never does, so you cant say its evil. you could argue, its bad or wrong and obviously others do, but its not evil in nature, how he uses the power is.
he taught others to consume and use demon magic. this is the first thing that could be argued is evil in nature, but again we have to look at the specifics. illidan made only made people who had nothing to lose, into demon hunters. he wanted to ensure hes not ruining anyone who had something to lose.
again could be evil, but you could argue hes only doing to people who would have died fighting the demons, without this power.
he does a few more thing, but my point is that its very arguable weather he does "shady thing".
is a grey character, yes absolutely. but i would genuinely argue he did nothing wrong.
i could talk about illidan for hours, but ill spare you. i genuinely love this character, and think someone at blizzard cooked hard with his story and personality.
Awesome stuff Grant. Great presentation as always. I'm only a quarter of the way in so far. I played this game almost 20 years ago and still look back fondly on it. I then watched your deathless runs a while ago and that was a fun revisiting of the great story. If they ever do another Warcraft movie(s), I hope they work to the Arthas and Frozen Throne storyline.
Another single player RTS for Warcraft and Starcraft are the #1 things I want from Blizzard. I've mostly been a console game, but those would be games to motivate me to update my 12 year old gaming PC, which I haven't even plugged back in from moving almost 2 years ago lol.
my guess is the dalaran mission in reforged was the first mission worked on. which is why blizzard marketed reforged as a complete re-imagining. but then blizzard ditched funding so everything else in reforged went to shit.
I have to say, there might've not been a right answer to Stratholme, but there definitely was a _wrong_ answer for the shores of Northrend, and Arthas chose poorly.
Edit: Personally I think the reason why we have a huge lack of editors is that the whole industry has learned from WC:3, and don't want a DotA of their own, and/or modders to create free skins that are better then what can be bought through microtransactions. That's 'leaving money on the table' for them.
Unironically, the culling of Stratholme was the right choice. As a Paladin and future ruler, the incorrect choice is to allow the plague to further spread.
To me, Warcraft III was something that I played because I finished the Age of Mythology campaign and "is this Warcraft thing similar? I might as well try is".
Little correction here you can actually find those dialogues in the campaign (the ones from sylvanas and possession) bc it isnt cut out, the gnoll its on the Left of your base, you can control him but it doesn't give you the troops, same with the murloc, it is close to te first ogres thay you find and last its the chiefs forest troll who its on the right maybe? I dont remember much but i do remember getting thise dialogues and the chiefs bc I just love the mechanic of possesion in this mission
You have amazing narrative talent, you made my shift today so much more enjoyable!
Another roleplaying strategy game id recommend looking into is Warlords Battlecry 3. 14 races/factions all with their own unique systems and twists. The factions have some unit cross over between each other but also have a wide variety of unique units. And the units that do bleed over get unique systems per faction. Playing as the dark elves, you can build skeletons as cheap fodder units. But when playing as the undead faction, you can improve your skeletons into higher tier skeletons or wraiths.
The VA of WC3 just can't be beat. Old Arthas and Illidan are leagues ahead of their current counterparts. Even Furion and Tyrande have lost their edge in the modern games. I'm certain anyone who has played this game as a kid when it released has dozens if not hundreds of voice lines from every unit stuck in their brain.
Arthas' voice actor deserves some sort of Hall of Fame recognition. His line deliveries are literally legendary.
Holy F* this was 4+ hours long, and i didnt even realise that once while watching.
Loved the video!
This was a journey that I once had as a kid about 15 years ago... it's incredible that after so much time, I still enjoy this as much as I did back then. I watched the entire 4:44:44 video in two days and I can proudly say that this video is more then just a TH-cam video. I relived the entire story told with so much passion, love and soul that I couldn't just watch it without saying something... THANK YOU ENORMOUSLY GRANT for bringing me back to those years and helping me relive all those emotions. You are at this time, my favourite TH-camr and I can not thank you enough for making this video!
Funny how Warcraft 3 has better dungeons than Diablo IV
If more blood elves scenarios were like the second one I would adore it. Currently, I am just heartbroken.
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.