Posts with tag warcraft-II

I was perusing the forums (like you do) when I came across this forum thread from poster Xewie, and I found it an interesting place to start thinking from. Xewie's points aren't entirely ones I agree with - I frankly found Mists of Pandaria one of the richest expansions in terms of lore and story and feel that anyone who dismisses it simply because there are pandaren in it is deliberately and willfully blinding themselves to an excellent ride with some astonishing highs and lows - but there's a certain truth in the points about the RTS vs. WoW itself. As others (including our own Michael Sacco) have pointed out, Garrosh Hellscream is really one of the first big lore characters we've had in World of Warcraft who was born in the MMO, evolved over its course and became a faction leader and finally an end villain.

I think part of the problem is that the RTS features these characters, so even when it kills a few (like Terenas Menethil) it offers up a few more. But the MMO features us, ultimately, so when we put down Lady Vashj or Arthas, there's no immediate replacement. To be sure, there have in fact been tons of new faces over the course of World of Warcraft - Ragnaros, C'thun, Nefarian were all first introduced in classic WoW, not the RTS. The problem is, we introduce these characters and then, well, we dispatch them. Sometimes, like Ragnaros, our first encounter with them isn't a final one, but even if we know they'll eventually be back, it's not like their luck will hold out forever. I called this the "Joker problem" once, and to a degree I think it is an issue for the MMO.

However, does it follow that we need an RTS to create stories? Since I think Mists of Pandaria did an amazing job of building up the story, and in fact I'm really much more of a Cataclysm booster than most, I don't agree with that idea. In fact, in many ways, WoW has done more to broaden and expand the Warcraft setting than the RTS ever did.

In what will be heralded as one of the more austere, kickass features coming with Mists of Pandaria, Blizzard has finally added in the music for Pet Battles, which is a mix of a little new/little old MIDI tunes that sound more at home on a Super Nintendo. But what's that I hear? Is it ... the original Warcraft and Warcraft II renditions of the faction songs? For Pet Battles? For serious?

I guess I have to go install Warcraft II: Battle.net Edition again. Great. What do you all think about the old Warcraft music's making an appearance in WoW?

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It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!

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Technology has come a long way since the original Warcraft games were released, including the ability to create machinima. Given those advances, Melvenor jumped back in time and revisited his favorite video game. After spending some time in the past, he returned to us with this Warcraft II Unofficial Trailer.

The audience reaction to this trailer was overwhelming. When the video cut to game footage, the entire hall burst in nostalgic laughter. The trailer isn't just one long joke, though. Melvenor laced the video with the gorgeous scenes and intense dialogue for which he's known.

Congratulations to Melvenor for first place in the BlizzCon 2011 machinima contest.

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Interested in the wide world of machinima? We have new movies every weekday here on WoW Moviewatch! Have suggestions for machinima we ought to feature? Toss us an email at moviewatch@wowinsider.com.

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While we didn't get the full fledged Maelstrom expansion that some people were predicting, Cataclysm still promises to have some water-related content, such as the Abyssal Maw, the elemental plane of water. And where there's water, you need a boat. The recent Twitter developer chat revealed that we will, in fact, be using new transports to get to certain places in Cataclysm, and that these transport would be submarines, built by the gnomes and goblins for their respective factions.

Just in time for the inevitable announcement of World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, IGN have decided to turn in the opposite direction and take a peek at this history of this momumental franchise. They've posted an epic five-page retrospective feature on the entire Warcraft franchise as part of the run up to BlizzCon.

It looks at everything from the original game, Warcraft: Orcs and Humans, to the failed Thrall-centric loregasm that was Warcraft Adventures right on through to Warcraft II and III. Of course, they also look in detail at World of Warcraft and its two expansions, The Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King.

If you only discovered the Warcraft franchise with WoW, as I did, it's a fascinating glimpse into one of gaming's biggest franchises. World of Warcraft is not just a game or a single mythology, it's the culmination of a decade of gaming history. So if you've got an hour to kill before the fun and games today, you might want to check this out.

The fine folk over at Gametrailers.com are preparing for Wrath of the Lich King in their own, fun little way. And by little, I mean totally awesome. They've posted the first part of their Warcraft Retrospective, looking back on the history of the Warcraft series of games. This first installment talks a little about Warcraft I, Warcraft II, and the adventure game Warcraft Adventures that ended up getting canned.

On top of the nostalgia-riddled look at past incarnations of Warcraft, the retrospective provides insight into the origins of things such as the RTS genre itself and perhaps one of the first map editors that ended up in user hands, setting the stage for just about every RTS to start providing one baseline. Entertaining and educational! Uh, sort of. I really do recommend watching it, though. It's only a click away, so go on! Hit play!

[ Thanks, Ray, James and Colyn! ]

Welcome to Ask a Lore Nerd, the column that answers your questions about the story and lore of the Warcraft universe. Click the Comments link below (or e-mail us!), ask your question, and blogger/columnist Alex Ziebart will answer your question in a future installment!

Without further ado, let's get to the questions. Justin of Firetree-US wrote in to ask...

Along the coastline in the Swamp of Sorrows there are skeletons of giant turtles with structures built onto the back of their shells. Is this a nod to the Gnome submarines used in Warcraft II? If I remember correctly, they were turtles as well.

While yes, the Gnomes did use the turtles as submarines in Warcraft II, they aren't the only ones that have made use of them. According to a few quests in Darkshore, the Naga have put the Giant turtles to work as transports. Also, in Wrath of the Lich King, the Tuskarr use giant turtles with carriages on their backs as transportation as well. In fact, you can use them to get from one end of Northrend to the other. Edit: I was wrong, the Gnomes didn't use the turtles. It was a Horde unit. Same answer applies, though.

The Death Knight has been touted as the first heroic class in World of Warcraft. Hopefully there will be more to come in the future. We've heard some interesting tidbits about this class, and many people are chomping at the bit to play one. Aegulle of Cenarius wants to know what it is about Death Knights that makes them "heroic." To him they appear to be just another class.

Some suggested that the starting level of this class makes them heroic- that nothing more thank skipping 55 levels of grinding is enough to qualify for an elevated status. Unlike existing classes, a player must put some effort into WoW before it can even be rolled. Death Knights can only be created by those who "unlock" the class by leveling at least one character on the server to 55.

A few short days ago, Blizzard updated their browser-based music player with the fan favorite track "Power of the Horde" by Tenth Level Tauren Chieftain, now known as Level 70 Elite Tauren Chieftain. If you've never heard of this music player before, don't feel too bad. Most players haven't.

Heck, I hadn't heard of it until recently, which is a bit of a shame. There's a lot of great music available here, ranging from the World of Warcraft to Warcraft II. It doesn't provide all of the Warcraft music, you need to buy the CDs for that, but there's enough there fuel some nostalgia or get you in the adventuring mood. Plus, you can check out some of their old holiday specials, which lie somewhere between 'amusing' and 'hilarious.' Oh yeah, there's a dancing ogre. Those are always good. I... think.

Arr mateys! For those that be not in the know, today be International Talk Like a Pirate Day, and we be dedicatin' much a' today to those seafarin' scallywags, the pirates! That said, writing like that for any length of time makes my brain twitch, so you'll have to pardon me while I simply keep with the overall theme and instead wish you all a happy Talk Like a Pirate Day. Yarr!

Warming up for Wrath of the Pirate King, err Lich King, I've been revisiting my old copies of the Warcraft RTS games. One of the things that I always enjoyed from Warcraft II was the fact that I got to build boats, load my Orcs and Trolls up and go pounce on the unsuspecting Alliance. (My friends seemed to enjoy doing much the same by pouncing on my little Horde villages in return when we'd play together.) In replaying the games now, I've gotten to once again load up those boats and sail around, torching oil platforms and raiding towns. With the talk of the buildings that will be destroyable in WotLK, I can't help but wonder -- where are our naval skirmishes? In WoW, you can ride the same boats with the opposite faction from Booty Bay to Ratchet. But at no point do you get to jump on a boat and attack the other faction's boats or take out shipyards.

I can't be the only one who liked the ship battles from days of Warcraft yore. So for today's Breakfast Topic -- If they offered ship-based PvP, would you play it? How about if you were helping your side to cut the other side off from "resources" kind of like a ship-based version of AB? Did you like the sailing action in the previous RTS games too? How would you like to see ship battles enacted, were Blizzard to do them in the future?