Human Campaign possible map changes

General Discussion
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So i’m very excited for Warcraft III:Reforged. But as we have heard, campaign may receive some retcons due to things having changed in WoW’s lore.

Because of that, I decided to hop onto WoW and Warcraft 3 and see similarities between both worlds and what could stay and what may be retconned to resemble more WoW’s geography.

  • By all means I want to clarify that these are just my personal opinion and thoughts and may or may not reflect what could happen in reality.

Before starting, I’ll go with the Human Campaign for now, even though I have compared every Campaign of the game. But for the sake of this post only the first campaign will be mentioned.

  • Also wanted to note that I’m making this post not only to show my opinion on the subject, but for it to be used as a place for everyone to share their thoughts and keep it all in the same Thread.

TL;DR at the bottom of the post for those who do not want to see some insight in why the maps may or may not change.

Without further ado:

Chapter 1.-Defense of Stranhbrad.

  • So, in WoW Strahnbrad remains pretty similar to its RTS counterpart. However, the river that flows in the middle of the map isn’t present in WoW (But may be due to the plague withering the land)
    My guess is that this map will stay Unchanged.

Chapter 2.-Blackrock n’ Roll.

  • Stated to be somewhere in the outskirts of Strahnbrad, without an specific location, so probably won’t change.

Chapter 3.-Raveges of the Plague.

  • This level occurs in Brill, which in WoW is at the center of Tirisfal Glades. The only way to get from Strahnbrad to Brill by walking is through the Western Plaguelands, therefore passing by Andorhal.
  • My guess is that the location will be changed to be what in actual WoW is Chindwill Camp as it doesn’t seem to be another way that Arthas and his men could travel from Strahnbrad to current Brill’s location.

Chapter 4.-The Cult of the Damned.

  • Both Andorhal’s seem pretty much the same. My guess is that Andorhal will receive some tweaks to be more “Town-like”, just like Stratholme has received.
  • I also wanted to emphasize on the area where Arthas makes his basement. This area and its path to Andorhal has a similar layout to the Chindwill to Andorhal zone WoW has. So it could fit and flow with my guess from the previous chapter.

Chapter 5.-March of the Scourge.

  • Hearthglen will probably receive the Stratholme’s treat as its WoW version differs a lot from the original one.
  • Also they stated that they’ll be adding some lines to enhances the story,
    so as now Hearthglen isn’t in the way to Stratholme, they’ll emphasize that Arthas and Jaina went to Hearthglen to resupply their forces, but it was being raided by the Undeads.

Chapter 6.-The Culling.

  • See Blizzcon Reforged Demo. Hope they add some tribute to the removed zoo easter egg.

Chapter 7.-The Shores of Northrend.

  • So in W3 Arthas lands on Daggercap Bay, which in WoW would be the little seashore where Utgarde’s Keep is situated.
  • The layout of the map is pretty similar, it’s just that the RTS map is seen horizontally and in WoW we see it vertically.
  • To keep the location coherent lorewise to W3 and WoW, Arthas should land on the east side of the shore, then surround it and got to Valgarde.
  • The layout of both versions of the map seem to fit pretty well so my guess is that this map won’t be changed.

Chapter 8.-Dissension.

  • Taking into account previous chapter, Arthas would destroy the ships in the Valgarde’s seashore. Still seems to fit the layout so probably no changes either.
  • It’s important to note that supposedly Utgarde’s Keep as well as other Vrykul encampments were hidden under glaciers and became fully visible either when Illidan was using ‘Eye of Sargeras’ to destroy Icecrown Glacier; or when Arthas puts on the Helm of Domination and Icecrown seems to start falling apart.

Chapter 9.-Frostmourne.

  • The only changes that I see from W3 to WoW is that there may be a river in the south part of the map as the outskirts of Drak’Tharon have a river flowing through the lands. Also may see a glimpse of Drak’Tharon Keep as this zone is where Mal’Ganis probably settled his base.

TL;DR of possible changes.

  • Chapter 1.-Little to no changes.

  • Chapters 2, 7 and 8.-Probably no changes.

  • Chapter 3.-Probably change location name. (in my opinion)

  • Chapter 4.-Probably an enhancement of the Layout.

  • Chapter 5.-Probably receive Stratholme's treat.

  • Chapter 6.-Already Seen at Blizzcon.

  • Chapter 9.-May receive some enhancement to the map.**

So with that said, I hope we see some of these changes and some other not so much. I’m hoping for quite a newly fresh experience in terms of map layout. Hope they don’t change the story itself though.

  • Before leaving I want to clarify once more that this is based on my opinion and what can be seen in WoW, I may have bypassed some similarities or differences.

If you have spotted other probable changes or you think some maps may not change. Feel free to comment them. If an idea seems pretty accepted by the others I’ll probably edit the info to match that idea.

Have a nice day!

5 Likes
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On Blackrock n’ Roll, change the troll headhunters into forest troll axe throwers.

7 Likes
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Very well done overlook! That’s pretty close to what I, too, think will happen. Also, a nice notion on that it may have been very possible that all of Northrend was covered in more ice, but Illidan broken it. I always thought about that a bit and how they are going to change it, but that would be just logical explanation and therefor they didn’t even have to change WC3’s snowy landscape, at least that drastically.

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All the differences you describe are unnecesary. The scale and the location of any geographic objects on WoW map is not an accurate representation of actual Azeroth. It actually gives WC III reforged developers a lot of freedom, as a lot of differences in all three games can be explained away by ALL of them being canon thanks to scale inaccuracies. So the Stratholme zoo wasn’t retconned, it simply wasn’t featured in the new version, while still existing in imaginary Azeroth that is 100% accurate and has Stratholme that is about 10 times larger that what we see in any of three games.

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Yeah, but the geography should still match. And it matches quite well, other than Brill was moved to Tirisfal Glades, so that’s probably the only major change to human campaign’s geography. And inspired by this thread, I actually looked up all the other campaigns too, and they, too, hold pretty well. Only one that’s going to get a bit more changes is the blood elf campaign and their journey to Outland.

3 Likes
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Well, you can believe what you want. I believe that none of three games have accurate geography. I’d like to see how you explain the second mission of the Watchers campaign, without changing the tileset and all the creeps, along with significant revamp of the story (given all the Broken Isles were retconned in Legion to have a lot of native inhabitants, some of which never left the islands ever since the subndering), and the fact that the islands were never discovered throughout previous 10 000 years, which doesnt make any sense.

I have my own explanation for that, which you can find here: Campaign Maps + Geography Discussion - #62 by UchuuStrange-1571
But it requires significant reconsiderations in geography, some of which are taken from WC III and others from WoW. I would prefer that, rather than revamping 99% of story and graphics in that mission.

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Well they don’t need to change even nearly 99% of the story and graphics. The story barely needs any changes, and tileset changes regard mostly on Tomb of Sargeras itself. Somebody made a quite good comparison on how the WC3’s depiction fits the current understanding of the isles:

https://i.imgur.com/Zpu6Dvl.jpg

1 Like
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If we take this picture as accurate, then it will require a tileset change, as only one of the isles was submerged. Plus the explanation why the purple dome occupying the entirety of one of the isles was ignored (if we take the scale to be accurate). Plus the explanation why the Nightfallen or Highmountain Tauren or the rest of the island inhabitants were never encountered. Plus the explanation how the rest of Azsuna appeared. And most importantly, why the Broken Isles were never discovered before by anybody, as I mentioned, as that would affect not only Warcraft III lore, but also WoW lore, and none of this will make sence and be a plot hole. If all that gets changed, it’s the revamp of at least 50% of the mission, if not 99%.

So yeah, it’s possible that you’re right, but in that case I dread all these changes and would not be happy at all to see them.

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Well I’m sure Blizzard knows to do what’s best. I’d not worry so much. Also, it sure may be different, but so what? Then it’s different. Is WC3 really something so holy that it cannot be changed? And how do you know no one has discovered the islands in the past 10 000 years? It’s not like Kul Tiran island didn’t exist, even though it was not featured in any of the games before.

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There’s no firm evidence neither for nor against the view that the denizens of Broken Isles had no contact with the rest of the world. But Val’sharan elves, Valewalker Farodin and Highmountain Tauren mention nothing about the long history of having ties with post-sundering Kalimdor. The same goes for Kalimdor denizens - Kaldorei never heared about the giant dome above Suramar throughout next 10,000 years, and Maiev is surprised at their discovery. So no firm evicence against this view is a weak evidence for this view, as based on no evidence the isolation view is more likely. Unless this will be retconned by Reforged of cource.