Part 2: Act 1: Building with mud and twigs

Act 1: Building with mud and twigs

Here's where the orc campaign begins proper. Like any good RTS, the first level acts like much of a tutorial. I'm also commenting here to note that I'll be leaving notes on gameplay and lore here in italics. I'm the one getting in the way of all the fun-having with a bit of "facts."



Every level you're treated to a small scene of orcs discussing battle strategy. I'll upload the full dialog after each update so that you do get some glimpses into the "story" of the game. For instance, here in this they pretty much say, "You can't get an army going without food and a place to train them. Go make some farms and a barracks."



Then you get a nice little sweep into the area which you'll be playing in. This somewhat establishes your progression through the game as well as the general landmarks of Azeroth. By comparing this to the map in the manual, it almost looks like where we're starting out is literally no where. However, in the World of Warcraft, this location is more akin with Stonard, which is much farther north on the map. It's the little things.

: So, we crush the pig-dogs of this world and then celebration, yes?

: We will feast on the blood of our foes.

: ...Yes. So, tell me about yourself, soldier.

: Me Vilefeast. Slasher from Blackrock clan, strongest clan in Draenor. Me strongest Slasher in Blackrock-

: Hey, that's great. So where's my army? Let's get down to business in crushing these "humans."



: This it.

: What. What. What. You're kidding me.

: What wrong, Chieftain?

: Blackhand sent me to subdue an entire world with... what!? A handful of grunts!?

: Don't forget me, Chieftain...

: And who are you supposed to be, runt?



: Private Bloodgut, Chieftain. Here to aid in all economic endeavors and development issues.

Alright, your basic unit in any RTS game: the builder/gatherer. The peon here is pretty much as basic as they come. They're cheap to train, gather up your resources (lumber and gold), and construct your buildings. However, differing from all of Blizzard's later games, peons do not attack. At all. If they are attacked, they will run the fuck away. This is incredibly annoying if you get raided unexpectedly, as you find yourself playing "Wrangle The Peon" for a few minutes.

: This can't be happening. Stuck on an alien world, no troops, and fighting an enemy that Blackhand himself lost to-"

: Blackhand lose on purpose!

: ...

: He did! Blackhand never lose! Never!

: Okay, right. Big people talking now, Vilefeast. Take the men out scouting, find us some food or something. I don't care, just leave.



: And kill anything you find!

Scouting in Warcraft is probably the closest you can come to cheating if you come from the RTS games we have nowadays. At this point in time, there was no fog of war, so even scouting out a small ways off from camp can catch an incoming raid before it has a chance to do any damage. Getting your units into defensive positions in time is another story, however...

: Now that dung for brains is gone, we can set about with training some soldiers...

: Work complete, Chieftain.



: What the hell, Bloodgut? How... how did you...?

: A barracks. To train the men you spoke of, Chieftain. You should find everything within to be rather... adequate.

And another staple of the RTS genre: the barracks. Here you get the majority of your units, starting with the basic grunt. Speaking of which...

Elsewhere, deeper in the swamp...

: Brothers, new Chieftain may be stupid, but he know we strongest. Give us best job. Find things to kill. Crush good.



: Haha! Pink skin! Crush it brothers! Make it squeal! Charge!



: Peh. Creature weak. Crush good, brothers. Vilefeast not even hurt.

Here's another opportunity to point out the single most frustrating thing to deal with in Warcraft. You can only select four units at a time, and you can't designate any preset groups. This makes moving larger groups around an absolute pain. When I was younger playing this game, it wasn't so bad, but after you've played any other RTS, their absence is pretty shocking.

: They weak! Find more! Destroy! Bring heads back for new Chieftain!



: More! More! Crush! Blood!



: Stand and fight, brother! Missing arm is no problem! We attach later!



: Err...





: VICTORY.

In the first stage of Warcraft, you have a few nearby enemies, but none who actively attack. Hunting them is your own sadistic fun. The only exception to this is the gold mine to the far south, which you may need if you screw up your resource management early on. This is one of the few maps where you don't have to take the second gold mine, but it helps to go after it just in case.

Also, I'll take this pause to talk about the humans here. We've only encountered two of their units and they already have a leg up on the orcs! At the first tier we have the Footmen, who are your average slow-moving, decent damage melee unit. This matches up exactly with the orcish Grunts that we have. However, the humans here also have the Archer, which is much the opposite: fast, low damage from range. We can't currently train their orcish equivalent: the Spearman (reserve your jokes, I heard 'em already). I have a rant prepared for speaking about ranged units in the next update.



: Where have you been? And where are the men?

: Found humans. Broke their bones good. Brothers sleeping after VICTORY.

: You're covered in blood.

: VICTORY.

: Chieftain, the roads are completed. We're ready to begin work on a number of farms to feed our burgeoning forces.

Another aspect that never made it into another Blizzard RTS: roads. You see, making a town in Warcraft is not the straight up "point-click" process it is nowadays. The Warcraft manual states the three prerequisites you must meet in order to place a building, besides having the necessary lumber and gold.

1. Must be placed in explored territory, which isn't too hard given the following conditions.

2. Must be placed alongside a road. Road costs 50 gold to pave one square, so most roads will just be quick and simple enough to get to your next building.

3. Must be placed nearby other buildings. Yup, there's no way to build a second town here. Or even have an expo base. Or even a lone farm off in the middle of nowhere. This seems like a non-issue at the moment, but it will sink in why this sucks horribly in the next few missions.



: As well, Chieftain, our goldmine is running low. I wouldn't recommend mining any deeper.

: Nonsense, Private, pull all the gold straight out of that mine and into our coffers. We have an army to pay for!

: ...as you wish, Cheiftain. Perhaps we should focus on our food situation?

: Quiet, Bloodgut! We have a dire situation to attend to, we need to feed our warriors-to-be!



: ...I've begun construction on a farm, Chieftain. This should keep any of the new soldiers well stocked with rations.

Ah, yes, the more subtle aspect of resource management. Food is provided by farms (d'uh), and pretty much means that you'll be constructing a few of these. If you're unfamiliar with farms in RTS games, then perhaps you haven't played anything. Blizzard didn't reinvent the wheel here, but the did get it moving in the right direction. Also, at least we don't have to hear YOU MUST CONSTRUCT ADDITIONAL PYLONS every 5 seconds. As to exactly why, well... that'll be covered in the next update.

: More, Bloodgut! More! Our army shall be massive! Tomorrow we storm the land of the pale dogs!

: Chieftain, first off, the land of the humans is far from our current position. Secondly, the construction of our farms will take considerable time, perhaps you can take some time to review the battle plans for the days ahead. I left your messages from Blackhand within your quarters in the Town Hall.

: Er, yes. I shall do that. Battle plans.



: ...Well then.



: Chieftain, we've begun construction of our fourth farm. Perhaps it would be best-



: FERRRR THE HORDE!

: I'll just... come back later, Chieftain.

: Heey! Bloodguy! Didja gimmie all that gold from tha mine yet?

: Chieftain, I've explained that doing so would be a dangerous-

: Mine it. Mine it. Mineitmineitmineit...

: Chieftain-

: MINEITMINEITMINEITMINEITMINEIT-

: Fine. ...Chieftain.



: Daemon spit! What was that!?

: Chieftain. The gold mine collapsed. We'll have to secure funds elsewhere.

Here's the other frustrating part about Warcraft, that works well with being unable to construct buildings a distance from your main base: Getting gold is a chore. In nearly every mission, your first gold mine will collapse making it so that you must trek to hell and back with a massive number of peons to keep a steady supply. On the first level, however, this is a non-issue (assuming you didn't spend all your gold making grunts or some other such nonsense).



: And seeing as that explosion sobered you up somewhat, I'd like to take this moment to inform you that our final farm is just about nearing completion. Our settlement will be ready to sustain a full-scale seige on the human territories.



: I like what you've done with the place. Sinetric and all that.

: Symmetric, Chieftain. We are ready to move on to the next stage of the invasion.

: So that means...?



: VICTORY.

And here is the screen you'll be seeing after every mission. Pretty much your basic rundown of how you did. Do I really need to explain this to you? Scores. It's all about them scores. There is one thing of interest, however, and that would be the ranking system. Dependent on your score at the end of the level, you're ranked from Slave to God (technically there's "Designer" level beyond that, but come on). Slasher is pretty basic, just a few notches about Slave. I'll post the full ranking system elsewhere in the thread.

I'd also like to take the opportuniy here to apologize for image quality. I've already fixed the images for later updates, so hopefully we'll have a bit more clarity.