I almost didn’t read the third book after reading this one. But you have to remember that this is the “second act” of a play. This is setting up the final conclusion you get in the third book.

The third book brings a lot of closure to the story, and a lot more of the lore of warcraft. I enjoyed the three as a set. If you like the warcraft books, grind your way through this to get to the third book. Afterall, not all of the lvl 1-60 is fun either is it? You do have to grind from time to time.

A fantastic read and continuation of the war of the ancients series.

4/5

And don’t worry, this negative review isn’t all just about the visceral hatred of high fantasy involving lots of magic. The game itself has plenty of bad flaws.

I used to love Warcraft. But I hate Warcraft since they made it “Blizzard presents: Magic: The Gathering”.

My favorite thing about Warcraft was exactly what they took out in III and World of: a sense of grittiness and uniqueness in a world of fantasy. There were no “Thyalawynd” or “Darkheart”s or “Ebonheart”s or “Gyilwind”s magic fantasy crap with gravity-defying robes and swords made of silver and no shields or any semblence of tactics or strategy or even blood.

There was no “We ah the Knoights of Lothar the Guilywind, son of Gunther the Loinhearted, son of Baxter the Baxton, son of Aragorn of Aragorn, and we foight fo peeeeeace” versus “Graarrgh we are demon spawns from hell who want to crush the world and kill everything that moves”.

Warcraft wasn’t like that at all—Warcraft had the Orcs coming into Azeroth because their own world was destroyed by civil war, and rather than accomodate, the Humans responded with war. And it blew up in their faces as the Orcs destroyed Stormwind Keep and forced the humans into Lothleroin, with the Orcs following. I don’t remember what happened after that, but I think eventually the Orcs were beaten back by the Alliance of Humans and Elves.

Then I completely do not remember a single thing about Warcraft III other than Taurens supporting the Orcs for absolutely no reason, and the Undead randomly appearing out of nowhere for no reason, and Night Elves appearing out of nowhere for no reason, and lots of pixie dust sprinkle winds magic and demons and wizards and keys and powerups and upgrades and magical fire pansy moves of doom for make benefit glorious magician of kingdom of Godwynn EverNeverwind P. Dark-Ebonheart.

Warcraft and Warcraft II were to me, the modern Medieval-fantasy equivalent of Conan the Barbarian, in that yes, magic was there, and magic was used, but only the magicians practiced magic, and the magicians could not stand up to an army of a billion Orc Grunts and Troll Axethrowers. Sure, then there came Ogre-Mages, Death Knights, Paladins, and the like, but even those were but a small asset in an army made to fight with steel and wood and flesh, not just magic.

Instead in Warcraft III, and extending into World of Warcraft, magic becomes the centerpoint of virtually any army. You can still use the backbone of infantry and cavalry and the like, but their effectiveness against magical heroes and magical elves and pixies is reduced by the sudden jump in population everything costs and the stupid upkeep.

But while magic would become the more central point beyond Warcraft III, War3’s focus instead came upon HEROES!

The entire RTS aspect of this game is not fully broken, but rather fractured by not just the inclusion, but the heavy reliance upon individual heroes, who have dozens of hero-only chests to pick up for upgrades and equipment that can make them MORE powerful, and they have the ability to LEVEL UP and research MORE abilities and powers.

At least half the missions in the campaign I was apart of either involved playing ONLY as heroes, or playing in such a mission that only heroes could determine the outcome of battles.

Then, UPKEEP.

The idea of upkeep in this game is in no way relevant to how upkeep really works in games like Total War or in real life. Upkeep is the cost of maintaining an army. Upkeep does not exist in traditional RTS games.

In this game, upkeep means “you no longer mine as many resources” when you have too many units. And “too many” ranges from 50-75 population points taken up.

And then comes the fact that full-army battles are rendered impossible when the average Orc Grunt starts costing THREE population points, and the maximum population is no longer the Blizzard standard of 200, but somewhere near 125-175 or so.

Controlling the first level of upkeep means your peasants now gather 7 of a resource rather than ten. Medium upkeep reduces it to 5. High upkeep reduces it to 3. And an army under high upkeep can consist of a handful of heavy units not fit to take out a militia force twice their size.

This is only balanced by the fact that it affects all player on a map. But another problem involving this is that because the basic units take up so much population and are so ineffective, the player is basically forced into an arm’s race with their opponents, to build up their base technologies, upgrade all they can, then build the most powerful units available while ignoring the 90% of other units available to train, just to meet an evenly matched opponent who has done the same thing.

And then again, the RTS idea is fractured and shattered by the powerful emphasis on building superunits and superweapons as quickly as possible, and to hell with all other available units.

This is not how a good RTS works. Starcraft comes to mind: an army of 30 basic Terran Marines can slaughter an enemy army of Hydralisks or Ultralisks. An army of 30 Battlecruisers seems unstoppable, and yet can easily be torn asunder by a few Corsairs or Valkyries, or a flood of Scourges. Or they can be broken up from all-out attack from an Arbiter’s stasis, or a Ghost’s lockdown. They can suffer huge splash damage from Psionic Storms from High Templar or Infested Kerrigan.

In short, in Starcraft, every unit is effective if utilized properly. You can win one game by playing a megalomaniac and massing dozens of super units, and win another game in the same amount of time with a ragtag militia and some special tricks of infiltration and the like.

Warcraft III has none of it. Every unit that is not a superunit or a hero is simply cannon fodder and/or base defense until that superunit or hero is available for building.

And so what was once “WARcraft” and I so deridingly called “Magecraft” could more accurately be called “Herocraft”, because heroes are so ridiculously overpowered that they become the center point of every game, EVEN the skirmishes, as you cannot start unless you pick a hero for your side. AND you can get MORE THAN ONE hero on a map, one for heavy combat, one for support, and one for magic.