As the first response to this thread, I'd like to take a more hobbyist approach.
Little background about myself. I identify as a long-time "former" Blizzard fan (1999 until
the Hong Kong incident), a millennial Warcraft fan (since 2002 --- the very game that is Warcraft 3) and a regular WoW fan (from 2005 until the
Battle of Azeroth expansion). I consider
the Legion expansion the
definitive and perfect ending to the entire Warcraft story, and everything beyond that point is in my (subjective) opinion Activision's disingenuous fiction and not real Blizzard work.
With this background, I find the entire Prologue of Re-Reforged to be quite good. Though there are occasional parts where I feel could have been done more boldly, I recognize those are mostly due to vanilla Prologue's restricted nature. Overall, the work is impressive considering the material it's based on is very much a "tutorial" campaign.
Things that really amazed me:
(1) The entire dungeon in Mission 04
The Fires Down Below is VERY BEAUTIFULLY crafted. The choice of using the Sunken Ruins tileset over the Dungeon tileset is supreme. The Kaldorei and Naga Witch statues are magnificent and as a long time fan, they really connect the prologue with the future for me. The boss fight with Dagon is very engaging and delivers the gravity of the situation. This mission is so far my favorite in the package. The vaguely "
Azsharan", ancient Night Elf theme doubles it down on hinting of future Naga content which is exactly how I wanted to see this quest play out when I first bought
Reforged. So, a thousand thank you for fulfilling my dream there . I hope this trend continues in all your future work, and that
the quality of this mission becomes the baseline for all dungeon quests in this project. I recognize this would probably make your job harder , so no pressure.
(2) Mission 05 Countdown to Extinction is also well done, as you've managed to build it over Mission 03's map and made it seem like the Orc bases have progressed a bit but not too much, they almost felt like the same bases I built in 03. There's also the part of rescuing the Trolls from their villages. With these nice little touches, the 2 missions feel like they are in the exact same time space and very connected.
(3) Mission 01 and 02 pan out pretty okay, considering they are the most "tutorial-y" missions in this entire tutorial. The Human base in 02 is buffed up and the encounter feels impactful. If this is what you can do, I can't wait to find out what lies in wait in the rest of the campaign.
(4) Snowsong being actually a standalone unit you can command at the beginning of 04 is very cool. I think this will be extremely useful once we get to the juicy bit that is the
Invasion of Kalimdor. I expect that will likely be near the end of next year at the very earliest.
Things that I feel could have been done better:
(1) Mission 03's involving protecting the Troll villages is
very creative . I also love how there is a Voodoo Lounge at the 3rd village. However, the map overall feels underdeveloped. You have placed plenty of Murloc bases and population around, but it turns out they do not attack you in the actual mission. I guess you wanted to save it as a surprise mechanism for the ending, but in my opinion, some early skirmishes with those guys would have made the mission less mono-toned. This is because we did just finish a fight against only humans in Mission 02, and while swapping the forces out with a Kul-tiran navy helps reducing the feeling of repetition, it overall feels "samey" because straight-up Orcs vs Humans is just an extremely common stuff in Warcraft. Too common, if you ask me.
(2) Again on Mission 03, because I had the pleasure of reading the dialogue files before playing the mission, I was expecting the secret scene where Loa speaks to Thrall after you discover that codex to be much more dramatic. After all, it is a homage to
an official short story where the same Loa spoke to
Sen'jin's son Vol'jin. I think this part could have been expanded upon a little, so this Loa does not just repeat the same line to Thrall, but rather something similar, more grammarly and grander.
(3) The additional scene you added as an epilogue after Mission 05 is nicely done. However, I can't help but feel that the scene with the Cult could be a bit bigger. It shouldn't just be an Acolyte speaking, but also the villagers listening to him feeling surprised, frightened, and/or intrigued depending on what each of those villager is. It should have turned into a short discussion (no longer than a banter between squadmates in
Mass Effect. So like, about 3 characters speaking and 5~7 sentences in total).
(4) Since you're going very far with the world building and already use some WoW music, why not go further? For example, I think this music for WoW's resident Naga dungeon would work very well with Mission 04:
Closing Note
None of the flaws here are fatal or serious, so
I don't think there is a need to go back and "fix" any of the mission, mostly because I see the values & potentials you can bring to future campaigns
a lot more than what you can squeeze out of vanilla's barebone Prologue. This is probably the best that anyone on Earth can do with it.
The Scourge of Lordaeron is what I consider the first real campaign in the entire game, so I imagine you've got your work cut out for you.
I do wonder what other folks around here have to say about it, so I'll cut my post here and leave the speaking stick on the table. See you around
