So, as the title says, i am genuinely worried.
What is happening with the campaign ? Are things going good ? Is it what we want ? These are good questions, we have bits of info here and there, everyone hold some answers, some being partially true and some being wrong.
I love Warcraft 3, this game is basically my childhood in a nutshell, this game introduced me to fantasy, introduced me to gaming, and let’s say it basically made me the kind of person i am today, a nerd who like to create fantasy setting for his pen and paper roleplay and a gamer.
As a kid back in the days, i didn’t have internet, and it is only years later that i would discover the greatness of custom games and the horror of getting destroyed on the ladder like the peasant that i am. Therefore i played the campaign as a maniac, again and again and again, and i loved it every single time of it.
Did i purchase reforged the very second i heard of it ? Yes.
Was it for the campaign ? Yes.
Was it for the custom games ? Yes.
Am i dumb peasant ? Yes milord.
So today i’m gonna do two things, the first will be to objectively summarize what we know so far on the reforged campaign. And the second will be to explain my personnal worries about it. So here we go, what do we know ?
We know that :
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The in-game cutscenes we were showed (with the culling in the Reforged demo back in 2018) are no longer happening.
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The in-game cutscenes we will get will be closer to the classic campaign, BUT with new camera angles, new slow ins and slow outs instead of linear motions by using new tools but staying close to what the original is like so that “people can get that same aesthetic feel that they had when they originally played it” BUT with “nice visuals and particle effects”.
Moreover, the characters will have different motions when interracting such as moving an arm toward another character or point their weapon and such, they will also be able to walk instead of run, all of that in contrast with Classic where the models where using the animation from their spells or attacks when doing their speech etc… -
The WoW aesthetics is being applied in order to make a bridge between Warcraft 3 and WoW, for the terrain, doodads and cities (Dalaran looking like WoW Dalaran, same with Straholme and Silvermoon). Apparently, according to grubby more than 8 maps were considerably changed.
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The dialogues and the story are said to be kept intact, the voiceovers are being kept as it is.
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New musics are being worked on, as well as new atmostpheres for the cities and towns for the players to experience more of a life filling game.
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New models can be found in the datas, such as the one of Anasterian Sunstrider (father of Kael’thas, and high king of Quel’Thalas) who wasn’t present in Classic. Or the green Dragon Tharifas (Tharifas already had a model in Classic for him to appear in one of the mission, but the mission was ultimately removed from the finished game and therefore never appeared but could be found in the World Editor). These models indicate added content to some of the missions to an extent.
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We ‘might’ have some new content during the missions since the dev stated they wanted to reforge the game especially because they wanted to enlight the turning point of famous characters who are now well known in WoW such as Sylvanas. What does it means ? We don’t really know it’s vague.
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Some inconsistencies are being corrected such as the high elves using the captain’s model for their footmen or having human archmages, we will now get new models for elven archmages and elven footmen.
BUT GREATER INCONSISTENCIES are still in an unknown state such as darkspear trolls being in the Blackrock clan, Fel kodos being in the outlands, Far Seer heroes appearing in the ranks of Blackrock etc… there is a whole topic about those that we players do not want to see that you can find there : Inconsistencies in Classic WC3 that you want to see fixed in Reforged -
The Prologue, the exodus of the horde is in an unknown state so far, in classic we had the first 2 missions, and the remaining 3 were added as a custom campaign, but were then removed, originally it was the demo if i’m not mistaking. Telling the story of the darkspear trolls joining Thrall in the horde. We do not know if we will get the full 5 missions, some speculate that yes, some other say that it is unlikely… we don’t know.
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The cinematics such as Arthas murdering his father, or Thrall and Grom fighting Mannoroth, are NOT being remade, instead they will be upgraded to 4K.
The fight of Arthas and Illidan in front of Icecrown is being remade, this fight in Classic was different from other cinematics as it was made with the game engine because of what i believe was a lack of time, it is being remade with in-game models, and you can find a short teaser from the Blizzcon. -
No new missions nor DLC is planned, some missions might be slightly changed and new units added (such as i stated above with the new models of Anasterian and such) but aside from that, and giving us skins for heroes in melee, well nothing is planned for the future.
And that is about it for what we know so far. I know that some of us are disappointed, some are angry, some are satisfied, and some are very happy.
Me, I am worried.
We were introduced to new in-game cutscenes during Blizzcon 2018 and that we would have retcons from WoW, it was ultimately scrapped to a minimum of changes. I think it is somehow too bad because it was THE occasion to tell the story that we all love on a different angle. I know that some are saying that Blizzard is lazy and justified this choice by saying it was “what we wanted” that Blizzard lied to us, and i honestly understand even if i’m not going as far as insulting the company since it would be impolite, and i want to dev team to continue doing their work with passion, but it is a shame we could have had a classic campaign with old graphics, a classic campaign with HD graphics and a new campaign with hd graphics, but we won’t.
But I’m still positive though, as i believe that a well made game with their new tools, camera angles, and musics, as well as the application and experience of the dev will bring me great joy, and for example I can’t wait to see those newly made maps of Silvermoon or Dalaran.
I am genuinely worried about inconsistencies though, as we were showed a screenshot of the prologue during the deep dive showing us kodos and darkspear trolls with Thrall in the eastern kingdoms. Is it a mistake ? Is it made by someone who doesn’t know the lore ? Is it due to a lack of time in the preparation and therefore inattention to details ? Or is it maybe just to show us that they are working on the campaign and tell us “look how good looking it is !”.
Nonetheless I am not satisfied with either of these potentials answers, and i am worried for the rest of the campaign. I adore the classic campaign, and i spent wayyy too many hours of my life in it, but as much as i love it, i know that it is not perfect, same models were reused because it was easier, and dumb things such as putting darkspear trolls in the Blackrock clan were made.
I do not want those inconsistencies to be part of Reforged, it would for me a fanboy of the campaign ruin the game. And i litterally beg the dev team to take a look at the listed inconsistencies in the link i sent above entitled “Inconsistencies in Classic WC3 that you want to see fixed in Reforged” as the main issues concerning the lore are being listed there.
I am also quite disappointed in the fact that we apparently won’t get any new dialogues and voiceovers, i mean are we really gonna have Anasterian Sunstrider the high king of Quel’thalas simply be a buffed creep defending the sunwell without any threat or dialogue to us the undead player saccaging his city and murdering his people ? hmmmmm ok.
BUT maybe i’m missunderstanding that, and maybe we will get new scenes, it is something we will only know for sure when the game will be out, so the only thing we can do right now is cry in a corner, maybe they gave him some lines, just like they could have given sylvanas new ones as well as new scenes, we don’t know, but from what we know they didn’t.
For the cinematics, such as Arthas killing his father, or Archimonde destroying Dalaran, i honestly understand that it is not possible to remake them in terms of both time and money, remaking all of them would be a titanic work and would cost way too much. However i am not quite satisfied with only upgrading them in 4K, i love the originals cinematics that is true, and i would love to watch them in 4K, but let’s say it they aged well that is true but they are outdated, even in 4K Thrall is still going to be ugly, even in 4K Terenas is going to awkwardly move his hand at Medivh, even in 4K Archimonde is still going to have weird movement when destroying his sand castle. Moreover, we now have new in-game models, such as Grom whom new model is inspired from WoW, what do we do about that ? Are we gonna play with this new model, and then bam ! cinematic kicks in and eww wtf is this, who’s that orc ?
I think that those cinematics should have some adjustments, not only upgrade them to 4K, but also change some details in it. Those cinematics are dear to me, and i love the originals, but we’re not in 2003 anymore, we’re in 2019 and we won’t be playing warcraft 3 RoC nor TFT, we will be playing Warcraft 3 Reforged.
About the prologue, i hope it is being remade and that all 5 missions will be fully implemented. Thrall meeting the darkspear trolls is to me something important as it is not explained why they have trolls with them once they arrived in Kalimdor. Unfortunately while we have a new model in the World Editor for Vol’jin who make an appearance in the Founding of Durotar, we do not however have one for his father Sen’Jin whom we meet during that prologue. Sad very sad.
That’s about it for what i’m thinking about all that. Thank you for reading everything, it was something i needed to share and i also want other people opinion on all of this. To conclude let’s say that i’m worried about the direction this game has been taking, is the dev team really reading us ? Are we all talking for nothing ? We don’t know.
And when we think about it the only big change in reforged is about graphic for now, and since the models are not even made by blizzard I am then genuinely confused and want to ask wtf have you been doing for 1 year ? Are you butchering my favorite game ? (i will still play it tho, lol)
But let’s all remember that the only way to be sure about all of this is to have the final product in our hands, today we talk about our worries and hopes, but it is only tomorrow (figure of speech) when we will have the actual finished game, that we will have the right to complain, and if the game doesn’t correspond to what we expected and that what we said we wanted corrected is still a mess, then we shall all roar in rage and burn these forum down to ashes in the name of Azeroth.
Until then have a great day.
Me : Looks at the huge post i made, and remembers all the mean forest trolls on the forum
Also me : chuckle, I’m in danger