Warcraft – Human Tech Tree

I’ve been a fan of Warcraft (and eventually Blizzard) since I played Warcraft 2 back in the mid 90’s. It all started off when I first heard of the game seeing boxes of it at this computer store I was at. There were a lot of copies and had stickers on them saying Game of the Year. I looked at the screen shots on the back and it looked pretty confusing to me so I put it down. A little later on a kid I knew at the time told me more about it and hooked me up with a demo. I found the game easy to learn, but mastering it was something else completely. Eventually I got a copy and just wanted to play all the time, but there was something else I really liked, the map editor.

Human | Dwarf | Gnome | Draenei | Worgen	Orc | Tauren | Troll | Forsaken | Blood Elf | Goblin
Kul Tiran | Dark Iron | Mechagnome | Alliance Sub	Zandalari | Nightborne | Mag’har | Horde Sub
Scourge | Legion | Naga | Old Gods | Twilight | Mawsworn	Pandaren | Tuskarr | Dracthyr | Broken | Vrykul

I really liked the idea I could make my own levels and would just play around all the time making something stupid. Years later Warcraft 3 came out and that was an immensely bigger game, and had a more powerful world editor. I played a lot of that too. Then World of Warcraft came out, which I ended up buying about a decade later because I finally had a computer powerful enough to play. But one thing I’ve often asked myself, what if the WoW storyline was playable as a strategy game instead of an MMO? Well, I figure each playable race in game would have their own tech trees, Warcraft 3 style, starting with the humans.

Now, this is just a fan made thing I’m doing for fun. Nothing will come of it because I have nothing that will allow me to go very far into this. But if any other fans see this, gives them some ideas and is able to put something together, have at it. With that said, here is a link of what the human alliance tech tree looks like in Warcraft 3, and below are some changes I would make if it was redone to just be human units. As of where did I come up with the screen shots for my unit concepts? WoW Model Viewer.

Starting of with the combat units. Each tech tree in Warcraft 3 has 5 different categories for what kind of unit they are. The workers, combat, caster, siege, and flying. With the combat units there are mainly three different types, the tier 1, which you can make from the start, ranged, and tier 3 which can only be made after upgrading your town hall (or equivalent building) to it’s third form. In the humans case, the castle. Since there is already the tier 1 and 3 units with the Footmen and the Knight, they just need a new ranged unit, that I’m calling the Marksman.

Next group are the casters, which I’m basing the first two off the casting units from the very first Warcraft game, with the Cleric and the Conjurer. And last adding something new to the list, the Warlock (name could change, but that’s all I got for now).

As for the siege and flying units, I have nothing new as of now. There are in game model files for catapults so that would most likely be reused. I’ll be making more of these, and updating each page with links to each other.

EDIT: I’m adding a new unit to this post, the Lightbringer. It will be a a combat/caster unit. The reason has to do with the Forsaken tree I made that has 4 caster units. The extra Forsaken caster is the Banshee, so to help keep the two to be a near mirror to each other I decided upon this change. I have in mind it will act like a Spell Breaker on the Human tree are already in game, with a hint of Paladin. I also had in mind for this unit to have red hair because the Banshee is from Irish folklore, so I wanted to have that connection.

And last are the hero units. There is already 2 hero units in game, the Archmage and Paladin. So each race will have 4 heroes, the new ones I’m calling (for now) the Infiltrator and Ranger. The Infiltrator is a spy or rogue like unit and has her look based on Vanessa VanCleef in WoW, but could also go with Spymaster Shaw. And the Ranger is meant to be a ranged combat hero like the Dark Ranger in Warcraft 3.