Warcraft 3 reforged is a complete disaster

EldritchMoose · February 8, 2020

On 2/5/2020 at 8:57 PM, dalekphalm said:

If you're gonna remake a game in the Warcraft universe, why not do Warcraft 1?

Honestly, I'm kinda surprised they didn't do this as a tie-in for the Warcraft movie a few years ago.

As for why they chose this: I'm fully in agreement with Jack_of_all_Trades - Warcraft 3 still had tens of thousands of players at the time of this decision, and they needed something punchy to get players hyped in case their other big Blizzcon announcement (Diablo "Do you guys not have phones" Immortal) fell through. 2018's Blizzcon didn't really have anything out of the ordinary beyond those two: a new Overwatch hero, a new Hearthstone expansion and an ETA for WOW Classic. Battle For Azeroth was still going on, so it would be too early to announce the next expansion and Heroes of the Storm would get its esports plug pulled before the end of the year, so there's not much to get hyped for there.

Frankly, they needed something with guaranteed success, and the most popular Warcraft RTS game fit that bill perfectly.

dalekphalm · February 8, 2020

7 hours ago, EldritchMoose said:

Honestly, I'm kinda surprised they didn't do this as a tie-in for the Warcraft movie a few years ago.

That would have been a good marketing move. I saw the movie - it was surprisingly much better than anything I heard about it online. People were calling it trash, it was getting really bad reviews - but for a video game turned "epic scale" fantasy movie? It turned out pretty good.

Now, I don't know shit about the Warcraft lore - did the movie go over the same plot as the first game?

7 hours ago, EldritchMoose said:

As for why they chose this: I'm fully in agreement with Jack_of_all_Trades - Warcraft 3 still had tens of thousands of players at the time of this decision, and they needed something punchy to get players hyped in case their other big Blizzcon announcement (Diablo "Do you guys not have phones" Immortal) fell through. 2018's Blizzcon didn't really have anything out of the ordinary beyond those two: a new Overwatch hero, a new Hearthstone expansion and an ETA for WOW Classic. Battle For Azeroth was still going on, so it would be too early to announce the next expansion and Heroes of the Storm would get its esports plug pulled before the end of the year, so there's not much to get hyped for there.

Could well be the case - I had a look, and Warcraft 2 and 3 are both on the best selling PC games of all time list, with WC3 RoC edging out WC2 (3 million sales vs 2 million).

7 hours ago, EldritchMoose said:

Frankly, they needed something with guaranteed success, and the most popular Warcraft RTS game fit that bill perfectly.

Announcing a Starcraft 3, Diablo 4, or WC4 would go a long way towards something with "guaranteed success".

The SC2 story (told throughout the 3 campaigns) was well regarded - I enjoyed the shit out of it. I never closely followed the Diablo series, but I put so many hours into Diablo 1 and the expansion pack for it. Always been meaning to play 2 and 3.

EldritchMoose · February 8, 2020

1 hour ago, dalekphalm said:

That would have been a good marketing move. I saw the movie - it was surprisingly much better than anything I heard about it online. People were calling it trash, it was getting really bad reviews - but for a video game turned "epic scale" fantasy movie? It turned out pretty good.

Now, I don't know shit about the Warcraft lore - did the movie go over the same plot as the first game?

Mostly - it depicted the war that served as the setting for the first game along with a lot of elements that were later retroactively added to the lore. The first game had a very rudimentary plot that IIRC didn't have a canonical ending with one side winning until the second game was released. I could be wrong here, it's been a few decades since I played it.

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The SC2 story (told throughout the 3 campaigns) was well regarded - I enjoyed the shit out of it. I never closely followed the Diablo series, but I put so many hours into Diablo 1 and the expansion pack for it. Always been meaning to play 2 and 3.

I can recommend Diablo 2 - it stands as one of the games that kept my attention for the longest time. It's also the one game for which I own all the tie-in novels because I love the story and setting as much as I do.

Unfortunately my experience with Diablo 3 was decidedly less positive - I played through the campaign once and never returned. It hinges on retconning a pretty major plot element from the first game.

SpaceGhostC2C · February 9, 2020

9 hours ago, EldritchMoose said:

The first game had a very rudimentary plot that IIRC didn't have a canonical ending with one side winning until the second game was released. I could be wrong here, it's been a few decades since I played it.

That is correct: the human and orc campaigns were not sequential but alternative. You were playing the same war with either side, you could play either at any time, and at the end your chosen side claim some victory or another when you finished the last mission.

Wasn't the same in Warcraft 2? And then the "Beyond the Dark Portal" expansion was based on the human campaign (as in assumed a human victory all the way to said portal)?

I believe Starcraft was the first Blizzard game to have a unified storyline where you play each side in a sequence rather than as competing storylines.

SpaceGhostC2C · February 9, 2020

19 hours ago, EldritchMoose said:

Warcraft 3 still had tens of thousands of players at the time of this decision, and they needed something punchy to get players hyped in case their other big Blizzcon announcement

But that's the thing: to me that meant more risk than benefit. People were playing the original WC3, meaning it's still "good enough", your user base is familiar with it, and it's harder to show something as an improvement. On the other hand, many WC fans are not as old as us, and may have been introduced to WC by WOW or at best WC3, are invested in the lore, but can't possible bear the old UIs (not the much simpler story). A remaster of WC3 can be perceived as "messing with their game", while a remake of WC1 or even WC2 would be practically as good as WC4 - and since so much of the story would have to be retro-ported if not entirely created, it would be as good as a prequel that never existed.

And that's maybe why they didn't do it : too much scripting work. At that point, may as well makes a movie

Andreas Lilja · February 9, 2020

On 2/6/2020 at 7:01 PM, dalekphalm said:

With an actual remake, you don't need to "salvage" (not entirely sure what you mean there - assets?) anything from the original version. You redo everything. New game engine, new code, new 3D models, new textures, new graphics, new voice acting, new cinematics - A remake basically just retells the original story in a new game (often with tweaks and/or changes to the story as makes sense). The gameplay often is similar (but updated) or inspired by the original gameplay.

A remaster takes the original game and updates things while still making it the same game.

I meant assets and overall direction, gameplay or artistic.

WC2 remake would be a totally new game, everything else outside of maybe the story needs to go back to the drawing board.

They even shot down the idea of a remaster a while back, saying that the first two games "aren't that fun anymore".

steelo · February 9, 2020

Just played the original wc3 with my wife...despite the dated graphics, I forgot how fun that game is.

I refuse to buy d4 after reading how blizzard gave the middle finger to its long time customers. In a way, I hope d4 bombs as well to finish whatever blizzard has become off for good.