Part 25: Epilogue

First time I played this, I had the demon baron, who wrecked stuff and Ardania was hard. This time, it was all so easy, probably because I randomly took out Empress first, then that douchebag with a name I still can't spell and so on, basically unraveling the support chain. Last time, I had to cast Dauros Spell Of Killing Undead the ghost to make it go down. But that was a simpler time, when I though that 100 was a lot of damage.


Barfor, Baron of Force and Barlog, Baron of Logic. The Devs must feel so smug about themselves, can't believe I didn't notice that before.


I totally missed the Warcry of Rage: Examplars moving out of range explains the fluctuation of power that confused me. That said, here we have a mobbable temple unit, which sounds ridiculous.

Epilogue: Last Thoughts and Regrets


Following is mostly personal stuff related to writing and unsavory personal quirks, and not this exactly this. LP related stuff will be AFTER the image.


I really can‘t remember what was the first LP that I read on LParchive, but it all quickly captured my fancy and imagination. Unlike many other people, I didn‘t really feel in position to start doing an LP myself.
Of course, some time passed and I said fuck it: I attempted to do Strike Suit Zero and Medieval II for another site, before getting a being gifted a create-an-account voucher by Habermann (I used to adore his VLPs).
SA had already had magnificent Medieval II LPs so I grabbed Warlock, because nobody else seemed to be doing it.

Took me a year to finish, because like many things than can be classed as work, it made me feel nauseous when I thought about doing it. Yet somehow I added character portraits (Drakengard and Icewind Dale LPs really benefited from those, so I said why not?) and forged forward.

Mostly because of the audience, really. I mean, I am a lazy famewhore, so views count, too, but unlike in my experience as a vidjagame critic, I received feedback from well spoken people. And I felt like I was making change, in that people said “Your LP is great, it made want to make a Russian less poor by buying Warlock”. That basically never happened in the 7 years I reviewed videogames. Magazine audiences were usually mum, and on the internet, well, it’s the famous games that most attention and those have the most rock solid audience ever: if you bash Call of Duty, it’s because you like Battlefield, and vice versa.
(I do it because I used to like Call of Duty for the campaign).

Anyways, after telling myself (and my visiting girlfriend) that I’m gonna man up and finish that Warlock LP, I did updates on alternating days and for something that required ~3 hours of writing and linkpasting (gaming is never considered work, unless it’s shit like Party of Sin or Deep Black: Reloaded), it went surprisingly well. Unlike various attempts at making sustained columns (that died because of overwhelming general apathy) on our gaming website, the LP got response.

And so I decided to the best I could and make an of Warlock 2 that would run on alternate days and would finish roughly at the time when my all supportive girlfriend went back home.

The timing was surprisingly impeccable.

SAFE TO READ ZONE STARTS HERE



In comparison to my first playthrough:



Oh the dreams that I had.

The character drama of Veremoud slowly growing to trust King Lich VI.

Loudoin being a constant thorn in King Lich’s side till he was hunted down.

A plot thread about Louduin being a maniac who dismantled Plane Warriors in distrust of undead and how King Lich would have restored them (as regular Plane Warriors and Sergeants). Considering the mish mash of forces in the end, not a big deal.

Custom banners for units of Honor Guard: this fell through because I can’t draw, and it’s so fucking hard to keep track of all the blighters. Was it that hard to steal from Civ and make units renamable? FFS, it’s a game about legendary heroes and units that grow fat with enchantments and magical armor.

More actual gate crashing, with dorfs instead of crows going through the gate.

Not using Rune Warrior, Dragomorts and Samoloms to their full potential. Really, Honor/Elite guard was so good and Rune Warrior with their <20 HP didn’t have a place in my army. The only real trouble from Krel’s forces were mages that prospectors could kill easily, but were also horribly vulnerable to. For a game that wanted to place greater emphasis on combined warfare (in that archers actually assist attacks of other units), this turned out to be quite the lopsided melee grind fest. Dragomorts and Samoloms fell prey to poor city planning and limits on cities.

But seriously, the Guard are just that good.

I also regret not seeing Plane Warrior Temple version, Black/Dark Reapers in action, maybe it’s the Planestrider unit that doesn’t suck.

It’s also very strange that I didn’t manage to find an entrance to the other branch of shards. Really fukken weird.

Other than that, this has been a fun ride and you were a great audience.

I aim to return in three days with Fallout Tactics – Brotherhood of Steel. It’s likely going to be a screenshot LP, since the last time I played the game AGES (8-10 years ago, oh God) I saved every five seconds, I hate audio editing and I apparently switch to an “audio recording” voice that’s quite horrible.