Was Warcraft 3 historically considered bad?

[Alex]

I thought arthas was one of the worst parts of warcraft 3's story. Well, until you got to Night Elves at any rate. Did people find him memorable at all?

 

[ghardy]

It was a popular fall-from-grace story that was carried to great heights, I contend, on the strength of the cinematics. Whether these heights were deserved is a separate question.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

I thought arthas was one of the worst parts of warcraft 3's story. Well, until you got to Night Elves at any rate. Did people find him memorable at all?

It was a popular fall-from-grace story that was carried to great heights, I contend, on the strength of the cinematics. Whether these heights were deserved is a separate question.

Exactly.

The story is atrociously badly written. But it looked and sounded pretty, the playerbase were mostly underage, and it came out at a time when video game stories were not remotely respected. So makes sense that those kids would carry a nostalgic torch for it two decades later.

All Blizzard writing is terrible. There are a few gems here and there for about 5 minutes each before they (and my heart) get crushed. The most annoying part are the nostalgic fanboys who still think this claptrap is amazing, attack anyone who doesn't fall in line, and then have the gall to act surprised when games made after the RTS Golden Age turn out to have bad stories even if the same creators are involved. "How is Starcraft 2/Stormgate/whatever so badly written?" Newflash you dumbfucks, it was always bad. You just didn't notice then because you were impressionable children without any media analysis skill.

 

[Ravielsk]

There’s evidence for both him being a born sociopath and a good person driven insane by extreme circumstances.

That is kind of the whole point. Arthas works because there is plenty of reasons to believe he is the kind of guy who would pick up a cursed relic to get a one up on the annoying kid but at the same time there are reasons why you would buy that he is a decent person capable of resisting the temptation. If you remove one or the other you get a story with 0 tension.

Compare that to Sylvanas whose entire existence is holding a murder boner against everything living but then you are expected to feel sympathy or something for her because once every blue moon she has a flashback to Arthas twerking on her in the Halo: Reach lobby. Anyone who paid any attention to her story since Vanilla WoW knew she was pure evil so when she "officially" fell for Daddy jailor the reaction was just a tired "finally" instead of the "ZOMG, MY QUEEN. NOOO!" that Blizzard was expecting.

 

[ghardy]

Compare that to Sylvanas

On the whole, I found the Night Elves' story dull, as told in WarCraft 3. I haven't played the MMORPG installments. Maiev was dull, as was Tyrande. The Stormrage brothers were the common sort of brother-versus-brother trope. (Mind you, when the brothers trope is handled well, there's nothing quite like it.)

And yet, I think there was at least a hint of something of interest, something that could have been in Sylvanas' tale. Consider what it would mean to a long-lived being of fantasy to be brutally killed defending a home, and then wrenched back to life, only to find that this new life was actually the thing that should not be: the grotesque immortality of undeath. What forces, what passions would be at play within this being? And to think that down the road, she would raise up her own army of the deathless.

But this would of course presuppose a modicum of skill and sensibility in the hands of the writers.

(It almost makes me wish for an RTS version of Alpha Centauri.)

 

[Hoodoo]

Warcrafts story at this point is so disjointed and retarded I can't help but love it. Don't know why people are so mad either. If you want to enjoy a good, coherent fantasy story that explores themes and shit there is plenty to read. If you want time travelling dragons, world destroying dragons, dream dragons, interplanetary demon orc invasions, or an excuse to fight a planet as a raid boss - then you have warcraft.

 

[Jaedar]

I thought arthas was one of the worst parts of warcraft 3's story. Well, until you got to Night Elves at any rate. Did people find him memorable at all?

Pretty cool cutscene though.

 

[Larianshill]

I thought arthas was one of the worst parts of warcraft 3's story. Well, until you got to Night Elves at any rate. Did people find him memorable at all?

Here we have another case of out of touch codex delusion. This man appears to be unaware that Arthas is one of the most iconic characters in video games.

 

[Necrensha]

This entire thread needs to be purged.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

Warcrafts story at this point is so disjointed and retarded I can't help but love it. Don't know why people are so mad either. If you want to enjoy a good, coherent fantasy story that explores themes and shit there is plenty to read. If you want time travelling dragons, world destroying dragons, dream dragons, interplanetary demon orc invasions, or an excuse to fight a planet as a raid boss - then you have warcraft.

Most people want to enjoy something seriously rather than ironically. Warcraft is badly written drek that takes itself completely seriously because the writers are idiots with their heads up their own asses. People wouldn’t be mad if the story was deliberately tongue in cheek.

(It almost makes me wish for an RTS version of Alpha Centauri.)

That would require actually competent writers who want to explore themes. The whole appeal of Alpha Centauri story is that the characters are avatars of their faction ideologies. This runs completely contrary to how RTS stories are typically written. Most of the time, like in Blizz RTS, they’re crappy soap operas with an RTS game crudely tacked on. The Westwood games probably got the closest, but they’re still really far off the mark.

I would love to see that, but I don’t think it’s likely unless you were the one who wrote it.

That is kind of the whole point. Arthas works because there is plenty of reasons to believe he is the kind of guy who would pick up a cursed relic to get a one up on the annoying kid but at the same time there are reasons why you would buy that he is a decent person capable of resisting the temptation. If you remove one or the other you get a story with 0 tension.

Right. That’s probably a lucky fluke rather than Metzen deliberately setting out to write that. An example of a broken clock being right twice a day.

While that seed of a decent conflicted character is there, the writing is still terrible and relies on childhood nostalgia to prop it up. If you used that script today, then the average 30 something RTS player would call it out as badly written.

 

[Larianshill]

This entire thread needs to be purged.

How can you ever consider that? There's got to be some other way.

 

[Necrensha]

How can you ever consider that? There's got to be some other way.

Dammit, Larianshill! As your future emperor, I demand that you refund Baldur's Gate 3.

 

[Storyfag]

How can you ever consider that? There's got to be some other way.

Dammit, Larianshill! As your future emperor, I demand that you refund Baldur's Gate 3.

I told you my death would mean little.

 

[Ravielsk]

Right. That’s probably a lucky fluke rather than Metzen deliberately setting out to write that. An example of a broken clock being right twice a day.

Fluke? Maybe but I doubt it was Metzen's. The quality of his writing went downhill after Vanilla WoW and significantly so. If you take WC3 as poorly written than TBC and following expansions are barely devianart tier fanfiction.

I personally suspect that its a case of stolen credit where the bulk of WC3 and Vanilla came from some unknown employee(s) whose work Metzen claimed for himself. The difference in his output is that stark.

 

[MerchantKing]

We went from this:

to this:

Or from this:

View attachment 55152

to this:

View attachment 55153

3D graphics are mistake every time. On top of that mistake, developers keep making the mistake of giving characters extremely slow animations as is usually the case.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

I personally suspect that its a case of stolen credit where the bulk of WC3 and Vanilla came from some unknown employee(s) whose work Metzen claimed for himself. The difference in his output is that stark.

I dunno. Maybe?

According to World of Warcraft Diary, Metzen was notoriously scatterbrained. He kept binders full of ideas, but during meetings he routinely forgot what he wrote and had to get suggestions from other team members. It sounds entirely plausible that it was the other employees who actually provided all the good suggestions and Metzen simply took credit for it.

The actual dialogue in the Arthas’ arc is extremely weak. When Arthas and Uther actually confront each other at Stratholme, they disagree without providing any reasons or solutions. Arthas goes straight to “kill everyone”, while Uther goes “no,” but the actual mission has the citizens turning into zombies immediately and Arthas killing zombies. It’s impossible to get a sense of what any of that would’ve looked like if it happened in a movie or something.

While I’m at it, Medivh is a complete asshole who refuses to tell anyone about the legion invasion when that would obviously convince people to evacuate. “The demons are invading. I’ve been following their movements for the last generation. We need to evacuate the entire country to Kalimdor and setup a bomb to kill Archimonde. That will solve everything!” He has no reason to conceal any of this information unless he has reason to believe it would get back to Archimonde. And why not go to Hyjal before the demons arrive and tell the night elves to prepare the bomb in advance? Why not destroy the tree immediately to fuck over the demons? Why not destroy the Book of Medivh while they’re at it? That way, Archimonde is fucked no matter what he does.

Medivh does nothing because that would break the plot.

 

[ghardy]

It sounds entirely plausible that it was the other employees who actually provided all the good suggestions and Metzen simply took credit for it.

You know, this double-edged sword could be at work in Stormgate too. People could be coming up with the most preposterous ideas and attributing them to Metzen's genius.

When Arthas and Uther actually confront each other at Stratholme, they disagree without providing any reasons or solutions. Arthas goes straight to “kill everyone”, while Uther goes “no,” but the actual mission has the citizens turning into zombies immediately and Arthas killing zombies. It’s impossible to get a sense of what any of that would’ve looked like if it happened in a movie or something.

It would depend on the time the zombification process takes. If instantly, as in the game, then Arthas' righteous rampage is necessary. If not, then perhaps a quarantine zone could be established.

Personally, I don't think citizens would turn into the walking dead in the blink of an eye. This would leave time to wall it off (like the Old Quarter in Thief where the Haunted Cathedral was).

On Medivh

The only ones listening turned out to be a green warrior-prophet-king and a sorceress in training.

 

[whocares]

Personally, I don't think citizens would turn into the walking dead in the blink of an eye. This would leave time to wall it off (like the Old Quarter in Thief where the Haunted Cathedral was).

It's pretty much obvious that instant zombification is a purely gameplay concession. You start investigating the tainted grain because you hear about a plague going through the lands. No one mentions anything about the undead. You'd think that if you heard news about a plague, then the same rumor sources would mention Bob the peasant turning into a zombie 5 minutes after eating his morning croissant.

 

[Storyfag]

Arthas goes straight to “kill everyone”, while Uther goes “no,” but the actual mission has the citizens turning into zombies immediately and Arthas killing zombies

No. In vanilla it was possible to kill infected people before the transformation.

 

[Thalstarion]

Arthas was an interesting character in the sense that you see him go from a fairly likable and well meaning guy to a being responsible for some of the greatest atrocities in the setting. On that basis alone, he's fairly memorable. Warcraft 3 had a fair bit of edge to it, too, which helps - especially given how overly safe and sanitised many fantasy settings are these days.

 

[ghardy]

Notice how the first quotes or parts of story that come to people's minds are from the Human Campaign. I can't recall anything off hand from the Night Elf or Orc Campaigns. I can from the Undead one, but that's Arthas again.

 

[Malakal]

Arthas goes straight to “kill everyone”, while Uther goes “no,” but the actual mission has the citizens turning into zombies immediately and Arthas killing zombies

No. In vanilla it was possible to kill infected people before the transformation.

Arthas was clearly right the Lordaeon Coof had to be stopped!

Of course we as players had the meta knowledge where this is going so its easy to defend his actions...

 

[Thalstarion]

Illidan's fairly memorable as well. He carried the Night Elf campaign fairly hard.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

Personally, I don't think citizens would turn into the walking dead in the blink of an eye. This would leave time to wall it off (like the Old Quarter in Thief where the Haunted Cathedral was).

It's pretty much obvious that instant zombification is a purely gameplay concession. You start investigating the tainted grain because you hear about a plague going through the lands. No one mentions anything about the undead. You'd think that if you heard news about a plague, then the same rumor sources would mention Bob the peasant turning into a zombie 5 minutes after eating his morning croissant.

It weakens the story. The logistics don’t work out without rewriting it from scratch. This is the problem with any attempt at adapting Arthas’ plot into a movie or tv show. Blizz focused on style over substance to the point where trying to give it substance would undercut the moral dilemma. Either Arthas does something reasonable like quarantine, making Uther a braindead moron, or Arthas does obviously insane things like slaughtering everyone with reckless abandon.

If I understand the plague lore on the wiki correctly, it just kills people after a few days and leaves their bodies ready to be zombified by Malganis. They don’t change immediately while still alive. In the lore, Malganis ran around raising infected bodies from cemeteries. So the solution is to just decapitate all the bodies upon death. You don’t need to immediately kill the infected people.

So Strathholme literally cannot play out the way it did. It makes no sense for Arthas to kill people immediately as opposed to just waiting for them to die and then chopping off the heads. It’s still horrifying, but it’s clearly necessary.

I can’t think of a way to make Arthas look morally ambiguous here. With the rules as established, he’s either completely reasonable for quarantining everyone and disposing of bodies, or he’s a completely deranged mass murderer.

The situation is just too clean for moral ambiguity to work. The plague itself needs to behave more chaotically before extreme solutions would sound reasonable to anyone at all.

 

[Axioms]

Warcraft storyline/lore was shit from day 1 game 1, news at 11. Only impressive for people who had never been exposed to any other fantasy.