WC3:Reforged

I'm glad they didn't go through with it.

There's also a lot of gameplay ideas for various maps that never panned through but remain in the data. Wonder if those might make a comeback.

I actually read about that in a (printed) strategy guide for Warcraft III. It was strange to read about Jaina getting killed so suddenly, only for her to come back in the Orc and Night Elf campaigns.

Dreadlord Jaina confirmed!

Yeah, the Bradygames Strategy Guide was written while the game was being made, so it could ship on the same date. As such there's a lot of errors in it that show previous design iterations.

For example, Uther was controllable at one point in the first human missions - he even still has a unique set of voice lines in the game. He probably was made uncontrollable to make the focus more on Arthas, and because 2 Paladins would make the heroes redundant and repetitive.

RE: Jaina's death. Originally Jaina was supposed to become a Banshee. This was scrapped early to her just dying, because the writers felt it was too much like Kerrigan (Love of the male lead, thought dead, becomes a champion of the bad guys). So they changed to her coming back a few missions later. Then realized it was pointless, and just never made her die. The Banshee stuff became Sylvanas.

Lets see... what else. Oh yeah, the first Orc mission has triggers, dialogues and data for a high elven base / village which the Orcs find on landing in what will be Durotar, which the Orcs then attack.

Night Elf campaign was supposed to have a green dragon NPC in a mission. Oh, and originally The Night Elf Campaign of the base game had a different final mission that was merged into the previous level to become what we got now.

Edited by Ghilz on Nov 16th 2018 at 2:08:58 PM

Now I want AU Jaina Banshee Queen...

... remember reading something about Jaina's death in the guide... but it then told me not to worry and just build and Altar to revive her

So I always figured that Jaina dying was just a tutorial bit to explain altars

And the amusing thing is, they still ended up with a Kerrigan Expy in Sylvanas as Expansion Pack Villain/Rebel.

And of course, Arthas being the Spear Counterpart to the Queen of Blades.

And then made another sniper chick who was forcibly turned evil in Overwatch too.

Blizzard knows what they like.

I really, really hope Sylvanas' arc doesn't end up like Kerrigan's though.

Kerrigan's is likely the best we can get out of the dumpster fire that they have created in BFA.

I always had the theory that the reason why Sylvanas has been steadily going off the deep end over the years was that Blizzard wanted to avoid basically repeating Kerrigan's whole arc in another franchise.

Funnily enough, a lot of people seem to like neither Kerrigan's redemption arc nor Sylvanas' slide into puppy-kicking villain territory.

Edited by DrunkenNordmann on Nov 17th 2018 at 12:02:02 PM

Becoming goddess after defeating a boring one note villain who failed to do anything interesting across 2 expansions?

I'd say it's not impossible.

Sylvanas' slide into puppy-kicking villain territory.

I always find the whole "slide into villainy" thing funny, coz the first mission where you control Sylvanas as a hero (As opposed to a Banshee with a different name), she's gleefully depriving people of their free will for the sake of her own revenge. Seriously, the entire mission is possessing various creeps to throw them at the deadlords as cannon fodder.

Slide into villainy implies where was a moment where Undead!Sylvanas wasn't evil.

Edited by Ghilz on Nov 17th 2018 at 7:26:18 AM

She didn't do much in early Wow, since she was focused on keeping the Forsaken race intact. She didn't even have a way to replenish losses before she got the Val'kyr, which probably made her very cautious. Once she got a bit more power, she immediately started using it to be a villain again, because of course she did.

I assume that's why people are complaining about her "sudden" turn to villainy. I haven't played the latest expansion and only know the early parts of the plot, but I could have seen her ascension to Warchief as a good opportunity for a redemption story. She realizes she's been going too far and pulls back, hampered by the Alliance being wary of her for various reasons. But as I understand it, that's not what Blizzard did. So.

Someone at Blizzard (probably Chris Metzen, but who knows) has a thing for redemption stories, but isn't particularly good at them. Even the Lich King got a bit woobified.

Maybe she'll back down once she loses her val'kyrs. After that maybe she won't be killed but just step down as Warchief and go back to caring only about the Forsaken?

I'd say Sylvanas' most heroic moment in Warcraft III would be attempting to kill Arthas. But then Kel'thuzad had to show up.

,

The motives were kinda different - back in The Frozen Throne Sylvanas main motivation was "We just got our freedom from the Lich King, so I'll be damned if I let anyone else put me under their thumb".

While the Forsaken in WoW were always ruthless, they were still mainly driven by a) revenge against the Scourge and b) getting the living to back off.

The Forsaken only started going really off the rails post-Wrathgate. Despite the whole "Putress and Varimathras are traitors aligned with the Legion" thing, suddenly the Forsaken are throwing the plague at everything.

I do assume that was a case of Then Let Me Be Evil, considering the whole Kor'kron occupation thing, but it still felt kinda weird.

Long story short: While the Forsaken were always the Token Evil Teammate (with a hefty dose of Freudian Excuse), they weren't the Scourge 2.0. And Sylvanas went from "take revenge and" to "kill everyone and raise them as my servants".

Edited by DrunkenNordmann on Nov 17th 2018 at 1:53:36 PM

Ah yeah see, that's proof Sylvanas was always evil, because her most heroic moment was fucking up killing the BBEG by not just killing him and instead sitting there with Evil Gloating.

Edited by VutherA on Nov 17th 2018 at 7:55:53 AM

To be fair, that was after years of being Arthas' undead puppet. Taking your time with the revenge isn't that unusual.

That, plus Arthas had Plot Armor. You know, like Kerrigan? Because Craft game expansions in that era always had to make the villain win.

"What joy is there in this curse?"

"Have you tried slowly paralyzing and torturing your tormentor to death?"

"...I'm interested."

I can still remember the conversation my brother and I had about that when we were kids. ^_^;;

Me: I think Warcraft III is the only game in the series with a happy ending. :)
My Brother: Yes, and then they made an expansion set with a catastrophic ending. x_x

Warcraft 2 (Prior to the expansion) ends with the humans repelling the (At the time), Always Chaotic evil orcs. Even the expansion is bitter sweet since while the heroes are lost, a further invasion is prevented and the orcs are stopped seemingly forever.

The ending of WCII wasn't really set in stone ; until BTDP came out and clarified things it was just as likely that the Horde steamrolled its way through most of the continent with only Gilneas and Kul Tiras remaining.