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Rise of the Lich King

Campaign by: Armelior

This is the legacy version
The remaster which is better in every way is available here


Keywords:
king,lich,warcraft,frozen,throne,alternate,story
Contents

Rise of the Lich King (Campaign)

Reviews
VGsatomi: Approved. An old but good campaign.
Level 9
Joined
Dec 1, 2021
Messages
62
So, I've recently been doing a playthrough of every campaign on hard, but with the twist of not being able to go above no upkeep, or 20/25 supply, if it was one of those missions where you can't build stuff. This campaign is a little different from the other "big" ones that I have (or will have) played, as it's a reasonably short one that hasn't been updated in a loooooong time, while being made by a guy who doesn't exactly do many campaigns. But this custom campaign is the first one that I ever played, and is also one of the more popular ones too (guess I wasn't the only one that was interested in a campaign that continues the Warcraft 3 story, despite knowing that WoW is a thing).
And if I'm completely honest, I still really like this campaign, but there are many, many problems with it, which makes it all the worse that the chances for a future update are basically 0%.

The story was pretty simple, but pretty ok.
  • It took a pretty safe overall route. We start off with the good guys loosing, as the bad guys are advancing, but then the good guys team up and defeat the bad guys for good. We don't exactly have multi side conflicts or an ending that goes "yeah, the big conflicts that the campaign was focusing on are resolved, but there's still gonna be new ones up ahead". (None of this goes against the campaign btw. This is more of an objective observation)
  • The story does two things to spice it up though.
  • One of them is that we get to follow both sides simultaneously, which is something you very rarely see in campaigns, as most of them are about a race or a group, or heck, a single character, but this one follows both of the important sides, which is a neat idea.
  • And the other is that the campaign tries to pull a few surprises on the player. It doesn't go to the length that Legend of Arkain does, but there's still a genuine effort there, and I think it works quite well.

The gameplay was shockingly good for a campaign so old and not that updated. I'm pleasantly surprised.
  • As I've mentioned in the story section, the whole gimmick of this campaign is that it keeps switching between two sides. This might seem like it's happening for the story, but actually, the gameplay might be the reason here.
  • Since this is one of the few campaigns that doesn't give the player a new tech tree, it compensates for it by switching the player around multiple already known tech trees, which is really effective at stopping you from getting bored mid-way, as you never know what you get in the next mission.
  • It also means that the campaign doesn't have to introduce things 1 by 1 (it's not like it could anyway, with so many races and only 8 chapters). It can immediately get straight to the point, which is a privilege that something like Curse of the Forsaken just doesn't have.
  • The maps are very unique and interesting, and they all have their charm to them. I wouldn't say that I'm a huge fan of all of them but I don't think this campaign really has that mission, where I just look at it and go "yeah, you could probably just cut this". They're all important, and that's neat.
  • The difficulty was the only part of the gameplay that felt weird. Simply put, it was inconsistent as hell. Some missions were fairly simple and weren't that much of a challenge, but others really gave me a run for my money. I would also label this campaign as Normal/Hard instead of Normal/Easy. This is not a campaign that could be completed without cheats by a new Warcraft 3 player who couldn't finish Legacy of the Damned on normal. It's just not.

Neither the hero, nor the unit cast had that many new additions. But thankfully, there were still some neat new things here and there.
  • The Lich King was an absolute raid boss, and I love him like everybody else here. Though it would have been nice if the player could have used him more than on a single encounter, and some custom spells would have been neat too. (Also, the basic Raise Dead of the necromancers? Really? Shouldn't the Lich King be summoning more than two tiny 180 HP skeletons? Make it two giant skeletons, at least)
  • Danzil is a fairly typical aoe caster. He has two aoe damage spells, an aoe silence and a big aoe heal. He isn't the most fun or interesting hero out there, but he gets the job done. My only complaint with him is that if he's the "Storm Mage", then he probably should be shooting lightning with his attacks, and not fire like he does now.
  • The blood elven swordsmen having Bloostlust instead of Defend makes a ton of sense. Makes me question why Blizzard didn't give them something more offensive. Their unit selection circle thingy is a lil too big though.
  • The ghost guards (not 100% sure if that's what they were called though) are pretty neat, and thankfully, not as overpowered as the naga royal guard. They offer much more disruption than the royal guards, but the creator balanced it out by making their offense weaker in comparison. They also have 4 abilities instead of 3 like the royal guards, but they're generally weaker, so that's ok (Blizzard should get buffed though, it's much worse than just auto attacking).
  • It's interesting that the creator didn't just add in hydromancers (despite the fact that the maps literally play out on Theramore, which is the location where the hydromancer were used in the vanilla game), but the humans instead get the enchanters, which are really strong casters. Not gamebreakingly overpowered, but strong nonetheless (they're still the only casters of the humans though, so they really should be generally good).
  • The dwarven rune mages are just enchanters, except that they're more annoying. But damn, did it feel good when I used that mind control scepter on em to make up for my lack of healing. They look a little too tiny though, but it's possible that this is the normal size of casters, and it only looks weird cus Medivh is usually bigger

Here I'm gonna mention some general problems with this campaign, none of which are really connected to a single chapter, but are rather spread throughout the entirety of this thing:
  • The campaign is filled with a bunch of typos, grammatical errors, and random French (or at least I assume they're French, I could be wrong) words/sentences. I wouldn't really call myself a grammar nazi, as I don't really care if someone makes a few mistakes here and there (I occasionally make some as well, English isn't my first language after all), but this campaign has a little too many. I could even write down a list, if anyone is interested.
  • There are a bunch of bugs and weird inconsistencies. There aren't enough of them to really ruin the campaign, and that's honestly a pleasant surprise, since this campaign is very old, and you'll see much worse on other old abandoned campaigns, so I gotta give credit here.
  • The map layouts are not that bad, though they're not that great either. Plenty of maps are bigger or smaller than they should be, and there lots of areas that are too empty or too cluttered. It's not horrible by any means, but it could be better
  • Theramore using the Broken Isles tileset makes no sense, as cityscape fits it much better, and was also the tileset used for the city in The Founding of Durotar. (I'm starting to think that the creator isn't a huge fan of that campaign, as he ignored the death of the admiral and used a different tileset for his city on purpose, while throwing the Horde completely out of the story)
  • One good thing that I'd like the bring up is the clever reusage of maps. This is something others might call lazy, but I personally love it when campaign creators do this, as it makes the missions more comfortable for the player (playing on a map he's already been on), while also allowing for more world building around the locations, and some neat gameplay opportunities (like swapping the position of the player and the enemy, think CH6 and CH8 in Rise of the Blood Elves).
  • The way some items were hidden is also great. The item placed in the water next to the tuskarr camp in CH1, the Crown of the Kings on the hill on CH4 (I suppose taking it would make you the... king of the hill :grin:), the scrolls on Varimathras' side in CH6, you name it. I always really like hidden items that feel rewarding to find, as long as the campaign isn't stacked with them to make my OCD go completely insane (and thankfully, this one isn't)

And now onto my thoughts on the chapters themselves:

CHAPTER 1 - This is a pretty interesting first mission. You basically never see ones where the player already has access to tier 3 armor and damage upgrades, along with basically every unit (other than the air ones and the royal guards). But this is perfectly fine, since most players already know what the naga and the blood elves can do from Terror of the Tides and Curse of the Blood Elves (also, the changes made on the blood elven tech tree are too small to really throw off people). What is not fine, however, is the size of the map. When you give the player 6 damage and armor upgrades that can be upgraded to tier 3 and two races with separate tech trees (both of which need to build a base completely from scratch), then you should probably balance it out by making the map a decently long one to balance it all out, like how CH5 from the blood elf campaign does it. But this one is an extremely tiny map with one enemy base and one short sidequest, so now the player either has to sit back and just wait for everything to complete, or rush in way too early, before he gets properly tech-ed up, putting the player in an annoying loose-loose situation. The lumber shortage is a little annoying, but there's a bunch near the bridge, so that was all fine.

CHAPTER 2 - I think this mission is a lot more fun than the first. You get to have some fun with the Lich King, and just like most people, I wish his section would have been longer, but I'll rather just appreciate the fact that we even got a section where we get to play as a raid boss (resetting to control the new bandit units is fun too). The Sylvanas section was pretty neat too, seeing all of her hard work getting absolutely obliterated while you're trying to get out with this tiny force. Though it is technically possible to save some units from the giant army (I managed to rescue an obsidian statue :cool:2), but there's a weird thing where getting a unit out of that area will pause things and trigger a warning from Sylvanas, even though you're getting someone out of danger, not the other way around (the units from the army should not be allowed to trigger that event). I liked the fact that the player actually gets a banshee with Possession. It kept me constantly thinking about what should I do with her (Do I keep her or do I possess? And if I possess, then who should I target?), and I'm surprised that most campaigns almost never have master banshees in micro missions. The flank attacks from the enemy undead were pretty well balanced, not too frequent or huge, but not too infrequent or tiny either. Though it would have been nice if they would have sent other units too, not just ghouls.

CHAPTER 3 - Very unique but also extremely short. This is a very creative way to do a stealth mission, and the fact that you don't get heroes means that it'll be perfectly clear from the start, that this is not a chapter where you should not be exploring the map. I don't really have anything else to add here, other than the fact that the scout tower guards are a little too easy to deal with, but I can definitely see how someone would struggle if he doesn't know how to cheese them, and also took a bunch of damage from other enemies. It would have been neat to have another section before the ship escorting (maybe another Sylvanas micro section, or gathering resources to build a base for Vashj and Kael), but it's not that important. This is just a very simple, but also decently made little map.

CHAPTER 4 - Oh, and you thought the campaign was gonna be sweet and simple after these first few missions? Boy, you were wrong, because you're already at the infamous Ironforge mission! Ok, but I actually kind of like this mission, and it makes perfect sense for it to be so difficult (Ironforge isn't exactly a small and lightly defended city after all). There were genuinely a ton of interesting and creative ideas behind this map, and it's one of those few macro maps where you just can't brute force through everything, but instead you have to look around, play sneaky and make up strategies. It kind of captures the main points of RTS as a genre, and the things that make it so fun, rather than focusing on cool new spells or heroes (which is more of a MOBA thing now). With that being said, holy hell this map is an absolute nightmare to navigate through. It's waaaaay too big, and filled with huge empty spaces, while the gigantic tower spam is right in front of the player's base. (Plus there's yet another tower spam right up north from your base, cus why not?) Thankfully teleport scrolls and staffs are available, along with sky barges that take no supply (thank goodness), so it makes things a little better, but it's still pretty annoying, especially since the orcs walk through a pretty important path, so I was bumping into them a lot. The last thing I'd mention here is that the inner part of the city was a little bit too easy to deal with, compared to everything outside. I can definitely see how a player could get swarmed near the castle, but... Death and Decay is a thing, so if you get destroyed there, you kind of deserve it. The big castle should probably send out units to defend, way before the player gets close enough to hit it, or I guess the outside bases could get nerfed instead if the mission was meant to be a bit easier.


CHAPTER 5 - The concept behind this one is cool, but in practice it's pretty meh. The first ten minutes are pretty interesting, as you're killing all the creeps on the island while looking for resources, but you're also trying to keep some outside ally defenses alive. But after that, there's not gonna be that much for you do to, and only the player's base is really pressured, as the allied AI can hold out both the water and the ground (especially the ground) sides just fine, even despite the fact that they use ships in a very dumb way, positioning them all in one big cluster as close to the ground as possible. One thing that I disagree with is the removal of all those small islands and rocks and whatnot on the top side of the map. I get that the player isn't supposed to go there (huge wall of enemy ships and all), but it's just too empty, and I doubt the undead decided to sink all those small islands after presumably killing the creeps there. Overall I still really like the idea of this level, but the later part definitely could have been more fun.

CHAPTER 6 - I feel like this is a pretty good way to make a difficult, but action packed micro mission. Having to push into enemy bases while having no ways to train units yourself is rough, but I feel like the map balanced things out quite well, as the player doesn't have to resort to weird cheese strategies to win, but he still has to play real good to get through this thing, especially since mistakes get punished very heavily here. I've the Varimathras section harder than the Kel'Thuzad one, mainly because he has to deal with two bases sending units at him, while not getting the privilege of getting teleported near the castle past the initial front. The only thing I don't understand is why the undead couldn't just bring their entire force immediately, as they were planning to destroy the villages that would be alerted anyway, so trying to be sneaky didn't really help them here. Other than that, this is a great mission, even though it looks like an absolute nightmare to anyone who isn't that good at micro-ing.

CHAPTER 7 - Well, this was a weird micro mission for sure. It starts off as a "run fast or die" kind of map, but then turns into a stealth map, but then turns into a normal micro map, but then turns into a stealth map again, but then you have to destroy a whole base, but then you get to the orc base after a small fight, only find out this entire journey was pointless. Yeah, it's a weird map. The centaur camp is probably one of the most buggy parts of this entire campaign, though I think I've only triggered one bug this time, which was a centaur from the encounter in the "sunburn section" randomly running away with Danzil saying something about the camp being warned, yet there were literally no consequences for the fact that I let him run away, as the centaurs would capture the group no matter what (of course, this could have been intended, but in that case, I'd like to know what relevance it even has). The ending is also pretty darn painful, and I'm quite shocked that the creator actually gave the player's side the biggest loss they could get here, which is something that basically never happens after the player wins a map in a campaign. (Seriously, try to think of any map in any campaign that ended like this. It's actually very difficult) Though the ending has been set up quite well with all that death and destruction that the player can see as he's getting close to the orc camp. (The goblins getting killed is quite funny, as you literally had to buy an item from them to complete a sidequest as the undead in CH4. I've bought a ton more stuff from them too xd)

CHAPTER 8 - This chapter is honestly a lot more enjoyable than most other defense maps out there, but it's also an extremely stressful one. Not only do you have to control two bases at the same time (which is already difficult enough), but you also have an allied base so enormous that even the Legends of Arkain enemy bases would cover in shame, and you have to defend all of that. And just to make it worse, you also have to defend random civilian houses from attacks that get dropped in by invulnerable sky barges (god bless the Mass Teleport, though I still heavily disagree with the zeppelins being completely immune). So yeah, there's a ton of tension all around in this mission, and you're basically gonna be fighting 24/7 throughout the entire first part (ok not quite 24/7, but more... uh, 23 or 22/7?). The second part is a lot easier, but I feel like that's exactly how it should be, since the good guys just received a ton of reinforcements, so it wouldn't make sense for them to still struggle (they also have naga royal guards, so it would most likely be physically impossible anyway). Overall, I still really enjoyed this mission, and even the long cleanup of the second part was pretty neat, despite it being extremely easy. To me, this chapter felt like an excellent way to end the campaign, not perfect, but extremely close.


Aaaaaaand that's it for my Rise of the Lich King review. I'm aware that this campaign is simply not going to be updated no matter what, which is a shame, since it has become decently big in the custom campaign community. But if there's anyone looking to remake this thing, then I guess a lot of this rambling I just did can be useful to him. Overall, I'd rate this campaign as a 7/10 or an 8/10, since it's pretty well made and is a lot of fun, but it also has a few problems and it doesn't really offer enough to really count as one of those extremely high quality campaigns that you absolutely must play (still way above average though, just not on perfect level). I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys the more simple and down to earth Warcraft 3 content that isn't about all the new cool things added, but rather some lovely ideas that the base game could do, yet it wasn't explored by Blizzard. Also to people that finished Legacy of the Damned and want to get into custom campaigns.
Thanks to everyone who read all this, and thanks to the creator who actually was willing to put a ton of time and effort into this campaign way in the past. Wish y'all a happy ride on the nostalgia train too!
 
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Level 9
Joined
Dec 1, 2021
Messages
62
Oh wow, I didn't even know that project was a thing. Even just the screenshots of CH1 look very promising. Sweet!

I'll try to make time to test em soon. I'm currently doing the only no upkeep challenge on Dwarf Campaign (on very hard difficulty too... yeah, it's rough), and school is taking time as well ofc. But it's not like these maps are going to randomly disappear soon or something xd

I imagine it's going to take a while for you to get 6 more fairly complicated maps done. Just be aware that game design is a pretty weird art, where someone can hate a product for the exact reason that someone else loves it (LoA is probably the best example for this with WC3 custom campaigns, as I love the huge grindy big tug of war macro missions there, but others simply dislike it because of how big and grindy they are). Though I generally try to write feedback that most people could reasonably agree with (at least with the negative ones), but if you feel like disagreeing with something I said, then you're perfectly welcome to do so. I'm just one random guy after all.

Either way, as a totally not evil friendly looking chancellor would say, we will watch your career with great interest :psmile:
 
Last edited:
Level 19
Joined
Dec 15, 2021
Messages
302
I imagine it's going to take a while for you to get 6 more fairly complicated maps done.

yeah the first 2 map are the easiest ones to remake, the dwarf and the barrens one will be much more work, but at least I've already done the 2 new ones (minus balancing/more testing)

Just be aware that game design is a pretty weird art, where someone can hate a product for the exact reason that someone else loves it (LoA is probably the best example for this with WC3 custom campaigns, as I love the huge grindy big tug of war macro missions there, but others simply dislike it because of how big and grindy they are).

if LoA is legend of Arkain, I've never played it but I watched Jayborino play them and I know I will NEVER play them, it would drive me nuts :gg:
 
Level 2
Joined
Aug 20, 2023
Messages
4
Hi!



The campaign was very good. It uses a lot of innovative solutions, and the maps are also good. :)



  • One negative thing that can be highlighted. In Siege of Theremore map, if you turn a Scourge Acolyte to your side with Sylvanas, you can practically train unlimited Undead Heroes and Ice Guards.
  • The campaign does not work with all Warcraft versions.


I also have some feedback that I saw recently that voice is being generated with AI. Maybe the dubbing could be added.



The music of Nier: Automata is very well chosen. 😊

Thank You for Your Work!!!!!!!! :)
 
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