Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness

Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness is a fantasy-themed real-time strategy (RTS) game published by Blizzard Entertainment and first released for DOS in 1995 and for Mac OS in 1996. The main game, Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness, earned enthusiastic reviews, won most of the major PC gaming awards in 1996, and sold over 2 million copies.

Later in 1996 Blizzard released an expansion pack Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal for DOS and Mac OS, and a compilation Warcraft II: The Dark Saga for the Sony PlayStation and Sega Saturn. The Battle.net Edition, released in 1999, provided Blizzard's online gaming service, Battle.net, and replaced the MS-DOS version with a Windows one.

Players must collect resources, and produce buildings and units in order to defeat an opponent in combat on the ground, in the air and in some maps at sea. The more advanced combat units are produced at the same buildings as the basic units but also need the assistance of other buildings, or must be produced at buildings that have prerequisite buildings. The majority of the main screen shows the part of the territory on which the player is currently operating, and the minimap can select another location to appear in the larger display. The fog of war completely hides all territory which the player has not explored. Terrain is always visible once revealed, but enemy units remain visible only so long as they stay within a friendly unit's visual radius.

The Dark Portal

The Dark Portal is the first book in the Deptford Mice Trilogy by Robin Jarvis. It was first published in 1989 and was a runner-up for the 1989 Smarties Book Prize.

Plot

In the sewers of Deptford there lurks a dark presence that fills the tunnels with fear: Jupiter, a dark god known only by his evil glowing eyes seen behind a dark "portal" in the tunnel wall. The rats worship him and do his dark bidding. No one really knows who he is except for his lieutenant Morgan.

The Deptford mice, who worship the Green Mouse who brings Spring, are aware of Jupiter's evil presence in the tunnels. One of the mice, Albert Brown, is pulled through a grate into the sewers by the dark enchantments that Jupiter has woven there. He meets a cheeky mouse from the city, Piccadilly, also lost inside the lair of the rats. When Albert is captured by Morgan, a Cornish, piebald rat with a stump for a tail and rings through his ears (none other than Jupiter's lieutenant) and brought to Jupiter, Piccadilly escapes into Albert's home, known as the Skirtings, where he meets a large number of friends.

Warcraft

Warcraft is a franchise of video games, novels, and other media created by Blizzard Entertainment. The series is made up of five core games: Warcraft: Orcs & Humans, Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness, Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, World of Warcraft, and Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft. The first three of these core games are in the real-time strategy genre, where opposing players command virtual armies in battle against each other or a computer-controlled enemy. The fourth and best-selling title of the franchise is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), where players control their character and interact with each other in a virtual world. The most recent title is Hearthstone, a digital collectible card game.

Of these games, no expansion sets were released for Warcraft: Orcs & Humans, but Warcraft II was accompanied by the release of Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal and Warcraft III was accompanied by the release of Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne. Multiple expansion packages also accompanied World of Warcraft, which include: The Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King, Cataclysm, Mists of Pandaria, Warlords of Draenor and Legion.

Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal

Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal is an expansion pack developed by Cyberlore Studios, released in 1996 by Blizzard Entertainment for their award-winning real-time strategy computer game Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness. As with most computer game expansion packs, Beyond the Dark Portal requires a full version of the original game to run.

Story

The plot of Beyond the Dark Portal takes place after the events of Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness. The Orcs, now under the leadership of Ner'zhul, staged a new invasion of Azeroth and overwhelmed the citadel of Nethergarde, which guarded the remnants of the portal. The Alliance itself had been splintered after the Second War and Gilneas and Stromgarde had withdrawn their support. The arch-mage Khadgar summoned heroes of Azeroth, Alleria Windrunner, Danath Trollbane, Turalyon and Kurdran Wildhammer to rally the forces of the Alliance. The Horde was beaten back and Khadgar decided to take the initiative to push through the Portal into the Orcs' homeland. Before being pushed back, Ner'zhul managed to steal the spellbook of Medivh which was needed to create new Portals.

The Dark

The Dark may refer to:

Film and television

Literature

Music

Other uses