Idea for the Northrend chapters

[Ardenaso]

I don't have much images to back myself up but I'll say it anyway

I think to make use of the Drak'tharon Keep in Reforged, I think the humans would rescue the Drak'tharon Keep from the Scourge and in gratitude the Ice Trolls would offer their services to Arthas and Muradin by helping them burn the ships and then leading them towards some goblins who have sappers.

And now that Drak'tharon is still in Frostmourne, at this point the Ice Trolls would now be hostile to the humans for the betrayal. They will also attack you and there would be an optional quest to wipe their base and get a new free base (Wintergarde Keep) or else the Scourge would claim their base and get undead Trolls

Image from Gameplace

I just thought of this since the Drakkar were very hostile to the Argent Crusade which I think is rooted with their previous experience with humans which is Arthas' betrayal.

 

[Khazmo]

So, would Drak'tharon keep be in the first Northend mission?

 

[Footman16]

Based on Arthas dialogue and the history I don't really think it's conceivable for the Ice Trolls to ally with Muradin and Arthas tbh.

 

[Venombite]

Don't know if you ever played Dragonblight storyline (if not I definitely recommend it), but here:

Red circle is where the Northrend chapters of Human Campaign happen:
1. Landing site, and later burning ships;
2. Their main base;
3. Frostmourne Cavern;

 

[Wlarius]

Maybe a little cutscene when Arthas returns from Frostmourne cavern, where Baelgun and the other dwarves leave the human camp. No more dwarven units for the finale.

I always found happenings there a bit strange. For example, Arthas says nothing about killing Muradin and the body is never found, yet in TFT the remnants of the dwarven expedition hiding in Azjol Nerub say "You are the one that killed poor Muradin and let us to rot, Arthas. Baelgun led us to the ruined city to survive." And in the comics, it is explained that Magni somehow learned of Arthas causing Muradin's "death" and forged his hatred towards Arthas into the Ashbringer. Maybe Arthas used words that made the dwarves suspect something fishy, and have them leave. Or the dwarves simply left to retrieve Muradin's body, and later witnessed Arthas killing his own troops and raising them, as seen in the Icecrown flashback quest. That would have explained what happened.

 

[Ethenil]

It will be necessary for InsaneMonster to decide whether he wants to keep the landing site in the Howling Fjord or in Dragonblight. Either way, I think several changes will have to be made to the missions.

 

[Dagren]

Blizzard back in WotLK retconned the landing site in the Dragonblight, precisely in the Forgotten Shore, where we can see the ships burnt by Arthas and his main base now overrun by the Scourge, so it's not anymore in Daggercap Bay. The loading screen may be a problem if we want to stay lore-friendly. Anyway, even if we decide to ignore that we could still use a terrain resembling the layout seen in WoW for these missions.

Here is the clean (no trees visible) terrain seen from above of the area covering the set of the three Northrend missions:
It would be nice to use almost the same zones in the three maps, apart that during "Dissension" we use only few units in a one-way path not reachable in the first-mission and at the same time we can't reach the playable area of the first mission except the shore. The last mission would involve the northern portion of the map. This would be more coherent than the original terrain seen in the campaign.

"Dissension" mission concept:

Alliance Base: The Alliance has abandoned her previous camp and established a well-fortified base in the place of the undead base just like Arthas orders at the very end of the Shores of Northrend mission. The Alliance Base is just in the blue-area (see map below) because is stated that Wintergarde Keep (the upper-upper-portion) was built by the last Alliance expedition in WotLK, while the rest was already there, built by the first human expedition led by Arthas. A closed gate in the upper base could be used to make unreachable the rest of the map to Arthas and Muradin, and the accessible area should be only in the brown path.



Mercenary Camp:
Is stated in both old lore (wc3 manual) and new one (chronicles vol.3) that there were already few human settlements in Northrend, meanwhile there are no ogres to be found in this artic continent. At the end of this mission Arthas screams "These murderous creatures have burned our ships and robbed you of your way home!" pointing out the feral nature of the mercenaries, but we could still see mercenary ghosts in WoW near the Forgotten Shore, and they are mostly humans. In my opinion the wisest choice for mercenary units here would be Ice Trolls and Human bandits instead of ogres. Around the mercenary outpost there should be a look similar to the one seen in the trappers community in Grizzly Hill, like wooden palings.

 

[Ethenil]

Great analysis, Dagren! That map seems right to me, and I'd also love to see the Northrend human architecture in those missions to represent the natives.

 

[Dagren]

Great analysis, Dagren! That map seems right to me, and I'd also love to see the Northrend human architecture in those missions to represent the natives.

Thank you, but I did it quickly and now that I look at it maybe my concept map still lacks few things, like another mercenary camp (Muradin clearly says "I've come across A FEW mercenary camps up here") and also some obstacles like destroyable rocks or trees in the mid of the path (in the original there was a spot of trees to take down with mortar teams or mercenary goblin sappers) and also some lines of rocks beneath the trees preventing the reaching of the other area of the map by destroying trees.

Btw The mercenary camp would mesh perfectly surrounded by wooden palings with few tents, they really match the trappers style.

UPDATE:
Shores of Northrend concept map

 

[Ethenil]

I love it. I especially love in the second mission that you go slightly into the Wastes themselves!

 

[Dagren]

I love it. I especially love in the second mission that you go slightly into the Wastes thFor the frozen wastelands, that corresponds to all the main central area of the Dragonblight

For the small part in the frozen wastelands I had in mind something like this, almost all covered everywhere with ice banks and ice blocks to path the way.

 

[Ian The Red]

In addition to the human trapper mercenaries, you could keep the ogres and goblins (while omitting the ice trolls of course) and even possibly add in gnolls to the mix by explaining the other mercenaries as being a part of the venture company, maybe the first mercenary camp is the human trappers and the one with sappers a venture company outpost. There is precedent for this regionally as well, as venture bay is very close to the landing site.

As a bonus InsaneMonster could also include a lore entry for both the trappers and the venture company near those specific mercenary camps. The other merc camp could even use the goblin inventor model from the CSW team's assets as either the recruitment building or decoration.

 

[Dagren]

I managed to draw a map for the loading screen mantaining the Warcraft 3 style, but located in the eastern part of the Dragonblight as retconned in WotLK. Icons may be changed/added, but the design of the map is done.

 

[Khazmo]

My idea is focused more on the Undead forces than on the missions themselves. For the missions so far, we've mostly focused on the Scourge enemies being different in composition from the Scourge we will play as. We've seen heavy use of zombies and skeletons, we've seen Liches removed from Lordaeron and the Cult of the Damned fleshed out. This works well, as when we eventually play as Arthas, we're utilising the best creations of the Scourge, using them at their full might.

I feel this should continue with the Northrend chapters, and so my suggestion is for the introduction of another new unit for the undead... or rather, one very, very ancient unit:

Cold Wraith

The Cold Wraith was a unit that had been in the pre-beta of the original Warcraft 3, but was sadly scrapped and never made it into the game. We do, however, have the lore for them from the pre-beta and the official concept art:

"The few surviving Warlocks who were captured along with Ner'zhul by the Legion were transformed into spectral apparitions of living cold. Renamed Cold Wraiths, the damned spirits became twisted and evil. Filled with the desire to inflict pain and suffering, these former magic users now serve their Lich King without question and use their newfound necromantic powers in his name. Cold Wraiths can fly across any battlefield and rain down their terrible bolts of cold-fire."

These Wraiths had two abilities - Chill Touch, which slowed the target unit, and Lifetap which stole health from the enemy it targeted.

Interestingly, Cold Wraiths are mentioned in Kel'thuzad's origin story as being in Northrend. My suggestion is to add these to the Scourge for the Northrend missions.

 

[Ethenil]

I don't think this description would be lore firendly - after all, Ner'zhul's warlocks were already turned into liches!

 

[Khazmo]

That's a good point. I mostly mentioned the lore to give a vague idea of what Blizzard were intending with the Cold Wraiths when they were first designed. Truth is that we wouldn't even get lore on them anyway, but they'd still make for an interesting enemy to slap about with your armies.

 

[Dagren]

Frostmourne (Arthas-side only) ideas

As IM plans to split the final mission in two phases, I wanted to share my suggestions for this part of the final mission of the human campaign.

This map represents only the minimap of the initial phase as I thought it, and therefore it would be off-boundaries in the second phase.

I would take the geographical part of the Dragonblight near this area, which is characterized by a crevasse that in a certain point is crossed by the ruins of the Path of the Titans and I would put there the beginning of the path.
The path follows the road at the bottom of the crevasse, roughly tracing the geography of wow up to the entrance of the cave.


I did not make this choice by randomness, because from canon lore the Waygates were made by titans and also because it is from the dwarves (notoriously fond of titanic history and archeology) that we learn of the existence of one of these Waygates.
Also, in Reforged the Way Gates changed their look to match as the titan-forged Waygates seen in WoW.

The Waygate (seen in the initial cutscene of the mission) is completely absent in WoW, so for that I would rely on the original game, in which it was located not far from the human main base, which canonically corresponds to Wintergarde, so the waygate would be in a similar area, nearby the base.

Given the total absence of the Waygate in the Dragonblight in WoW, I wouldn't even mind seeing it destroyed or hidden (snow avalanche?) somehow by the end of the mission.

it is inside the cave that I had hypothesized where the boss fight with the guardian could take place, given that this encounter is happened here according to the Arthas novel and fits even better with the dialogue "Turn back, mortals. Death and darkness are all that await you in this forsaken vault."