where heroes are forged...

[Cheshire]

just something I thought of and was hoping people here could help make some sense about -

we hire soldiers from barracks - that checks out.

for peons and peasants - when you want to recruit some villagers to come help you with a communal task - you find help at the town hall. this all checks out.

hiring wandering heroes from a tavern, also makes sense.

why though, in Azeroth's name, do we hire heroes from an altar? are we supposed to believe that the heroes are all the ritualistic leaders, sacrificing things?

aren't they the generals and strongest warriors? why are they are hanging out by the altar? are you telling me that mr mountain king is spending his free time burning goats or grinding incense instead of kicking back and drinking ale? aren't the heroes the equivalent of the generals whereas the casters are the spiritual men?

Come loreiors of old, heed my call

 

[Retera]

Ah, this is probably for a game mechanic reason and not because it makes any sense. If you play the Reign of Chaos Beta, all of the techtrees are more "fun" in a flavor sense, but are possibly more punishing in a game mechanic sense.

That is to say, on the earliest version I was able to find and play courtesy of Hallfiry's unofficial online backup (and YobGul's software wizardry to fake a 2001 server in the year 2018 for me or something like that), what I found is that:
- We know as Frozen Throne players that Town Hall and Keep (Tier 1 and Tier 2) always require nothing, but Castle (Tier 3) always requires Altar. Why? Imagine reaching the point that you want to upgrade Tier 3 without an Altar, wouldn't that be insane?
- It turns out, in the original techtrees, upgrading to the next Tier always required building one of the available buildings. So, Tier 2 required a Barracks, and Tier 3 required an Altar.
- But the only purpose of the Altar was a place to revive heroes. Like in the Tenth Level Tauren Chieftain song, "Upon the Altar of thy Storms, I will be reborn!!" This was quite literally the only purpose of an Altar.
- By contrast, the 3 heroes for your faction were -- like the peons and peasants -- hanging out at the Town Hall. This is perhaps more thematic, and it caused the player to immediately see the need to choose a hero as one of the first elements of the game encountered. But if your hero died, it was way, way more punishing, because you had to hurry and build an Altar.
- But on that old game version, the Altar was only available at Tech level 2 and required the Keep!!
- So you see, there was a thematic natural progression. You were required to build a barracks, then required to get Tier 2, then required to build an altar -- and in that order. But if your hero did not die, maybe you could skip all of that and sit at Tier 1. Wouldn't this be really bad for gameplay!? Because whoever messed up and lost their hero first would be so extraordinarily punished that it just probably would not be a good feeling.

So, although the above notes are my conclusions from playing Reign of Chaos Beta in 2018, and not the result of being a genuine oldie who actually took part in the beta in 2001-2002, I think that these conclusions are most likely valid.

The answer to your question is that you are right, and the original designers had the heroes available at the Town Hall.

Above: The Altar is not available!

To be honest, when I look back at that version -- where the Barracks trains the Tauren, and the Burrow is a defensive building that can put a Grunt or Headhunter in there, whereas the Pig Farm is the food production -- I think it would be honestly fun if there was a way to play that old stuff multiplayer in a manner that closely approximated those original drafts. I think it's kind of unfortunate how difficult it is to actually modify Reign of Chaos or Frozen Throne to run this unit data, because of how some of the abilities are truly functionally different. (If I recall, there also are not damage types, so things just literally do damage and maybe that's easier to follow.)

 

[FeelMyRash]

just something I thought of and was hoping people here could help make some sense about -

we hire soldiers from barracks - that checks out.

for peons and peasants - when you want to recruit some villagers to come help you with a communal task - you find help at the town hall. this all checks out.

hiring wandering heroes from a tavern, also makes sense.

why though, in Azeroth's name, do we hire heroes from an altar? are we supposed to believe that the heroes are all the ritualistic leaders, sacrificing things?

aren't they the generals and strongest warriors? why are they are hanging out by the altar? are you telling me that mr mountain king is spending his free time burning goats or grinding incense instead of kicking back and drinking ale? aren't the heroes the equivalent of the generals whereas the casters are the spiritual men?

Come loreiors of old, heed my call

My own take:

• Town Hall-Type Structures: These things are actually gigantic, so there's probably thousands of Workers taking up various rooms. They're paid to werk werk or supplied resources for building.
• Barracks-Type Structures: Resources are spent to train/equip soldiers or construct siege weapons.
• Altars: Heroes are either equipped here (raised into undeath in the Undead's case) or the Altars are used to "attract" Heroes (so for a Paladin, a bunch of Holy items are placed to bring him to your cause. For Blood Mages, there's a bunch of arcane magic to "feed" them so they'll join the cause) hence the Resources spent.

Se other thoughs:

• Mercenary Camps/etc: Hired as implied.
• Tavern: I've always hated this building because... Why would a Pit Lord or a Firelord be in a Tavern?... Makes no sense. I guess it represents something else. I personally would've gone with another Altar (Altar of Warmongering or something) that glows a different colour with different effects for each Hero (so demonic runes for Pit Lord, fire for Fire lord, etc).

 

[Retera]

Why would a Pit Lord or a Firelord be in a Tavern?

Well... I moonlight.

 

[Cheshire]

But the only purpose of the Altar was a place to revive heroes

cool. that makes a lot of sense. the altar is where the ceremony of bringing heroes back from the dead takes place.

Altars: Heroes are either equipped here (raised into undeath in the Undead's case) or the Altars are used to "attract" Heroes (so for a Paladin, a bunch of Holy items are placed to bring him to your cause. For Blood Mages, there's a bunch of arcane magic to "feed" them so they'll join the cause) hence the Resources spent.

you can make up lore about what goes on in these buildings, but what I was asking is how this has to do the with the established social concept of an altar. having a place where you put out bowls of different kinds of candy to attract different kinds of clients is a nice story... you can invent a new meaning for the term altar, but that doesn't have much to do with what altars are in general or the known usage of the term.

Why would a Pit Lord or a Firelord be in a Tavern?

I think a tavern as a place where you go to maybe bump into some shady adenturer (who maybe ends up being the lost king of gondor) is pretty established in the genre. I agree that it doesn't fit all heroes like a glove, but then again unless you invent a completely new place without linking on to a previously known concept you will be hard pressed to find a place where it makes sense to find all these different types of characters (besides blizzcon, but that would be kind of 4th wall breaking).

 

[Weigazod]

We do not hire heroes from the altars or taverns. If you move your cursor to the hero icons, it will say "Summon...".

This can either mean you summon their spirits from another world, another realm, or leave them a telepathic message so that they know to teleport to your location through the connection with the altar.

Both the Taverns and Altars work like information brokers where you get a paperback catalogue of heroes that agreed to leave their information and contact there so that potential hirers can employ their services. Each of the tavern heroes may have different reason to allow people to gain access to their service and I can not accurately detail their reasons.

For Pit Lords, they are battle-maniacs. It makes a bit of sense that they would allow other people to call forth their presence from the nether realm so that they may satiate their needs for carnage.

Pandaren Brewmasters are travelers so it's not strange to see some of them letting fate dictate their next destination by the mean of being hired through a Tavern agent service.

Dark Rangers are by TFT's lore homeless undead elves. They may seek a sense of purpose through these sellsword business, get monetary benefits or just want to test their skills.

Tinkers, Alchemists and Beastmasters may share similar reasons to the Dark Rangers concerning financial benefits and skills / creation testing.

Naga Sea Witches and Firelords may be exploring the mortal worlds to get information in service of their race's unknown nefarious reasons.

Overall, there are quite a lot of ways to argue for these heroes being in contact with the Tavern.

 

[raypack]

Ah, this is probably for a game mechanic reason and not because it makes any sense. If you play the Reign of Chaos Beta, all of the techtrees are more "fun" in a flavor sense, but are possibly more punishing in a game mechanic sense.

That is to say, on the earliest version I was able to find and play courtesy of Hallfiry's unofficial online backup (and YobGul's software wizardry to fake a 2001 server in the year 2018 for me or something like that), what I found is that:
- We know as Frozen Throne players that Town Hall and Keep (Tier 1 and Tier 2) always require nothing, but Castle (Tier 3) always requires Altar. Why? Imagine reaching the point that you want to upgrade Tier 3 without an Altar, wouldn't that be insane?
- It turns out, in the original techtrees, upgrading to the next Tier always required building one of the available buildings. So, Tier 2 required a Barracks, and Tier 3 required an Altar.
- But the only purpose of the Altar was a place to revive heroes. Like in the Tenth Level Tauren Chieftain song, "Upon the Altar of thy Storms, I will be reborn!!" This was quite literally the only purpose of an Altar.
- By contrast, the 3 heroes for your faction were -- like the peons and peasants -- hanging out at the Town Hall. This is perhaps more thematic, and it caused the player to immediately see the need to choose a hero as one of the first elements of the game encountered. But if your hero died, it was way, way more punishing, because you had to hurry and build an Altar.
- But on that old game version, the Altar was only available at Tech level 2 and required the Keep!!
- So you see, there was a thematic natural progression. You were required to build a barracks, then required to get Tier 2, then required to build an altar -- and in that order. But if your hero did not die, maybe you could skip all of that and sit at Tier 1. Wouldn't this be really bad for gameplay!? Because whoever messed up and lost their hero first would be so extraordinarily punished that it just probably would not be a good feeling.

So, although the above notes are my conclusions from playing Reign of Chaos Beta in 2018, and not the result of being a genuine oldie who actually took part in the beta in 2001-2002, I think that these conclusions are most likely valid.

The answer to your question is that you are right, and the original designers had the heroes available at the Town Hall.

View attachment 486172

View attachment 486173

View attachment 486174

Above: The Altar is not available!

To be honest, when I look back at that version -- where the Barracks trains the Tauren, and the Burrow is a defensive building that can put a Grunt or Headhunter in there, whereas the Pig Farm is the food production -- I think it would be honestly fun if there was a way to play that old stuff multiplayer in a manner that closely approximated those original drafts. I think it's kind of unfortunate how difficult it is to actually modify Reign of Chaos or Frozen Throne to run this unit data, because of how some of the abilities are truly functionally different. (If I recall, there also are not damage types, so things just literally do damage and maybe that's easier to follow.)

Farm costing 135/40 is a crime.
Also, what units do you build from the arcane sanctum and that high elven barracks(?) building?

 

[raypack]

Bump @Retera

 

[Retera]

Sorry I was expressly putting off answering this question because I've been trying to move to Linux Libre instead of Windows, and so when I'm not on a Windows machine I don't have wine even, and so I didn't have a convenient method for launching the game and actually reviewing the answer to your question.

But, from these Linux machines, even if I don't actually have the War3 binaries to run I can run all of our fan modding software which is more cross platform, and analyze the game internals. I think the building there is called the Mage Tower, as something distinct from the Arcane Sanctum. Below is a dump of the unit data from inside the game:

Units\HumanUnitFunc.txt

[hars]
Requires=htws
Researches=Rhpt,Rhst,Rhse
Art=ReplaceableTextures\CommandButtons\BTNArcaneSanctum.tga
Buttonpos=1,2
BuildingSoundLabel=BuildingConstructionLoop
LoopingSoundFadeIn=512
LoopingSoundFadeOut=512
Specialart=Objects\Spawnmodels\Human\HCancelDeath\HCancelDeath.mdl

[htws]
Requires=hkee
Trains=hmpr,hsor
Art=ReplaceableTextures\CommandButtons\BTNMageTower.tga
Buttonpos=1,1
BuildingSoundLabel=BuildingConstructionLoop
LoopingSoundFadeIn=512
LoopingSoundFadeOut=512
Specialart=Objects\Spawnmodels\Human\HCancelDeath\HCancelDeath.mdl

Units\HumanUnitStrings.txt

[hars]
Name=Arcane Sanctum
Hotkey=R
Tip=Build A|cfffed312r|rcane Sanctum
Ubertip="Contains spell upgrades for Priests and Sorceresses. |nAlso contains an upgrade that enables Human towers to detect invisible enemy units."


[htws]
Name=Mage Tower
Hotkey=M
Tip=Build |cfffed312M|rage Tower
Ubertip="Spellcaster production building. Trains Priests and Sorceresses."

Probably the most straightforward answer to your question here lies in the tooltips. What we can see is that Mage Tower and Arcane Sanctum were separated, where one was a research building while the other was for training the spellcasters. Also, the Arcane Sanctum research building required the Mage Tower.

Notably also, if I do a search command on this unit data grep hars *.txt, we find that there is one unit who requires the Arcane Sanctum, in this case the Sorceress:

[hsor]
Requires=hars
Art=ReplaceableTextures\CommandButtons\BTNSorceress.tga
Buttonpos=1,0
Missileart=Abilities\Weapons\SorceressMissile\SorceressMissile.mdl
Missilearc=0.00
Missilespeed=900
Specialart=Objects\Spawnmodels\Human\HumanLargeDeathExplode\HumanLargeDeathExplode.mdl

Also, for what it's worth, if I use Retera Model Studio to preview how the Mage Tower looks, it's not actually the same as the High Elven Barracks.

RoC Beta (Buildings\Human\MageTower\MageTower)

It was always glowing like this, that's not the stand work animation. In Stand Work, the second layer animates:

For contrast, here is the High Elven Barracks from Patch 1.22, previewed with the same (Buildings\Other\MageTower\MageTower)

(The upper particle appears to have been removed.)

 

[Cheshire]

the Burrow is a defensive building that can put a Grunt or Headhunter in there, whereas the Pig Farm is the food production

I just did some messing around with build order strings. whereas build order strings are mostly just the name of that building with no spaces, the build order string for burrows are "trollburrow". brought me back to this conversation how those were garrisons for trolls originally. it also makes it make more sense that they shoot the same missile as headhunters... (I think... too lazy to check)

 

[raypack]

I just did some messing around with build order strings. whereas build order strings are mostly just the name of that building with no spaces, the build order string for burrows are "trollburrow". brought me back to this conversation how those were garrisons for trolls originally. it also makes it make more sense that they shoot the same missile as headhunters... (I think... too lazy to check)

Yeah...
So,

From what I know, Pig Farms were supposed to be the "farm" unit of the orcs initially. Troll Burrows (the burrow) was supposed to be the "tower" unit for the orcs and Watch Towers didn't exist.
Then they decided to make the burrows the farm unit for the orcs, but it did keep the neat ability to garrison peons, on top of adding the watch tower.

That is why I'm pretty sure the orc camp in Chasing Visions uses pig farms instead of burrows.

On a side note, I find it pretty cool that the Blackrock Clan in the 2nd human and 6th undead missions uses Pig Farms ,
but I absolutely hate the fact that they use troll headhunters instead of forest trolls (talking about original warcraft 3, not reforged).