Warcraft 3 Not Until 2002

Thomas M Hughes writes "Blizzard said a few weeks ago that Warcraft 3 won't be ready in 2001. While Blizzard has never been good at meeting its release deadlines, usually its a good idea. They tend to put out decent games the first time and not have as many huge fixes, just small tweaks. " They've put the announcement in the FAQ.

Comments

This is NEWS?

[necrognome]

Who is actually surprised by this? Did anyone actually expect Warcraft 3 to ship Q3 '01 when not too long ago they had only finished two of the races in the game, and hadn't done any unit balancing or multiplayer work? This is fine with me. I asked a Blizzard employee at a game convention years ago: "When will Starcraft ship?" He said, "When it's ready."

I prefer it this way

[ferratus]

I'm a really big fan of everything blizzard and War3 is something I can't wait to get my hands on. Still, I prefer that they release it 6 months late (or im this case, it's been like what, 2 years ?) and have a really stable game.

I've been playing max payne lately and while it is a great game, it's buggy as hell! They can take all the time they want, as long as they release it stable.

Anyway, blizzard is just like 3drealms : Release date ? What the hell is that ??? I think they've confused "release date" with "hype date". Can you say Duke4ever ?

Fixing after it's published

[SilentChris]

"They tend to put out decent games the first time and not have as many huge fixes, just small tweaks."

Have to disagree with that. Normally, with games like WarCraft and StarCraft, Blizzard has been pretty good updating frequently after the release with small fixes.

But the Diablo series has had it's share of problems, the first with the hacking of the file on the local hard drive to boost your stats (which Blizzard never really fixed), and the second with being published clearly when the servers weren't ready to handle the load. Most disturbing is that many of these companies promising "massively-multiplayer RPGs" create 200,000 CDs for launch and then get surprised when more than half these users end up on their servers. It's a real problem, as countless editorials in gaming mags demonstrate.

If you're going to sell 200,000 CD's, make sure your servers can handle 200,000 users. If you're waiting to release a game "until it's done", make sure it's actually done when you release it.

Re:Fixing after it's published

[Jimmy_B]

But the Diablo series has had it's share of problems, the first with the hacking of the file on the local hard drive to boost your stats (which Blizzard never really fixed), ...

This was a conceptual problem in the first game, not an implementation problem, which is why they weren't able to fix it. In Diablo 2 they created the Realms, which fix this problem by keeping the save files out of the players' hands.

... and the second with being published clearly when the servers weren't ready to handle the load. Most disturbing is that many of these companies promising "massively-multiplayer RPGs" create 200,000 CDs for launch and then get surprised when more than half these users end up on their servers.

Actually, Blizzard DID prepare for load. Before releasing they conducted a 100,000-user stress-test of their servers. What they then found was that after they released, players went directly to the realms instead of playing single-player first, creating load problems. They were quite responsible about dealing with these problems, though, working to get more bandwidth and tune the server software. Also, Diablo 2 is not and was never advertised as "massively multiplayer" (though it is multiplayer).

Blizzard's been very careful about their reputation, and thus about what software they'll put their name on. The last five Blizzard games (plus expansions) were all successes; those that weren't (see Warcraft Adventures) were cancelled or delayed and reconsidered. I have faith that they'll use the extra time to make a better game, and that had they not done so, we would've been disappointed. No, they're not perfect; no company is. But they do deserve respect for refusing to shove games out the door when they need more time, and for correcting the mistakes they do make as quickly as they can.

Von Rex

[Von Rex]

They tend to put out decent games the first time and not have as many huge fixes, just small tweaks.

I guess Hemos hasn't checked out the Battle.net message bases lately. Maybe after he reads his first 500 messages complaining about the endless delay for the upcoming huge patch that will fix the dozens of current bugs he'll alter his position.

And we're not talking about tweaks here. We're talking about bugs that allow certain users (druids and barbarians, I believe) to crash any other user. There's also a nasty bug that allows the stealing of entire accounts, though that won't work on all servers. These bugs have been exploited for weeks and there hasn't been any response from Blizzard. I wish they would issue some small tweaks instead of telling people to wait for the mega-patch.

And then there's the class balance issues. A lot of people think that the expansion set, along with the 1.08 patch for the normal game, have pretty much destroyed all gaming potential of Diablo 2. I don't hold quite as extreme an opinion myself, but then again, I play a sorceress, the class most people think is dramatically overpowered. If I was a warrior, trying to hack my way through hordes of "physically immune" (what a concept, what is this, DC comics?) monsters, I'd probably have a different opinion. In fact, I doubt I'd even bother playing the game.

Re:Starcraft?

[hillct]

At least they're honest about it. It's not like thay're pushing the schedule back a couple days, on a weekly basis or something. You have to admit that's a point in their favor. It's hard to find companies with this level of integrity.

Finally this would be on-topic

[JoeShmoe]

I have been a fan of RTS games since, well, Blizzard practically invented them with Warcraft on the Macintosh.

But the big downfall of RTS games, and why I think many people hate them, is that as the genre has progressed, the interfaces have not. Ultimately victory comes down to not managing resources or having brilliant strategy, but being nimble enough to control the interface.

Take StarCraft, for example. To control your troops you assign them to hotkeys. The problem is that when you mix unit type within a group, you lose the ability to give them advanced commands. So you have to assign separate hotkeys by type and you end up using five or six of them just for one attack.

Unit grouping is another factor. You can carefully arrange your troops in a formation that gives them the advantage, but when you order them from point A to point B they arrive in one big jumble. Often times, unit will arrive at a destination one by one and get slaughtered.

The question I have...how hard would it be to develop some kind of basic programming language for these type of games? In StarCraft, Reavers cause an enormous amount of damage. I would want my characters to attack them first, overriding any previous attack orders. Or, for Zerg troops, if their health dips below a certain point, automatically burrow.

I know there are free software version of many strategy games in the workd (like FreeCIV) but are there projects attempting to recreate open source versions of RTS type games? So that this type of functionaly could be added?

And to Blizzard if there are any employees reading, why not work on this as a nice standby to WarCraft III? It should be very simple to develop a way of giving commands from scripts instead of point and click.

- JoeShmoe

Three Constants in life:

[UserChrisCanter4]

Death

Taxes

a Blizzard or 3D realms game that's "Just around the corner!"

Re:Great games but...

[dangermouse]

... could just hire on some more programmers and get the job done.

There are books written about how doing this fails to help.

Better a delay than what we normally see

[penguin_nipple]

IMHO, looking at the low quality of alot of games out there that do get released (*cough* Myst III *cough*).

I am personally fine with waiting for complete, mainly correct, runnable, optimized and fun game rather than a piece of cruft. The gaming industry has a habit of producing alot of junk at the expense of quality. So far as I am concerned, get it right, and I'll be a dedicated customer for life. Companies like Dynamix, Id, and Blizzard do their absolute best to produce games of quality - for that I thank them and always purchase their games. Think about it too...some other game developers will release a decent game, then lock it up so it can never be expanded to enhance the game in the future.

Much like Aliens vs. Predator - GREAT game - but it just stagnated after a while because the game was locked very, few mods etc and I stopped playing it.
Not that I didn't like the game, it just died. I can't say that I have had that experience with any of the above mentioned companies. I play their games often, I purchase their products gladly - because they make great games period! They seem to have balanced the marketroid interference with quality products in an intense, horribly stressful, fast paced, and unforgiving market. Gamers are the worst critics I think you'll all agree...

I am a programmer by trade too - and you couldn't drag me kicking and screaming into the gaming industry - I'll stick to developing scientific applications for Linux thanks very much! But I have an enormous amount of respect for these developers...so hurrah!

When Warcraft 3 comes out it will kick ass and I'll be playing it for years...heck I'm still playing warcraft2!

this is the proper way.

[Restil]

This is how software is SUPPOSED to be written and released. You work on it until its ready. Until its perfect. Until everything works exactly the way you want it to, with no flaws. THEN you release a beta test to find those issues that nobody in the development or testing team could find. If designed correctly, most flaws will simply be specific hardware issues that weren't completely tested in house or balancing issues with gameplay. But I played Starcraft and I never saw any major bugs.

Keep up the good work Blizzard.

-Restil

Re:Coverage

[mindstrm]

How does windows force you to use proprietary software? Just because the 'free software' crowd doesn't write software that actually works under windows?

You can get GCC for windows (and it works well). THere is no law against developing free software for windows. Poeple just *aren't doing it*

Total Annihilation was the peak of RTS

[ddt]

It's very odd, but I feel RTS is a rare genre which has actually peaked and is now in deline. Total Annihilation had an outstanding user interface, and units did largely what they're supposed to do. And there were no artificial 12-man limits on the number of units you could select.

For instance, you could send a building bot around the base on patrol, and he'd automatically reclaim metal, energy, repair units, repair buildings, help build units, or help build buildings, depending on the availability of resources. It's not just about flexibility but about sensible heuristics and testing and balancing, all fields that have been badly overlooked.

I played Kohan, and it's a wonderful first title, but neither it nor anything I've played in a very long while comes close to TA.

TA has its flaws, but I have not seen its equal in RTS for years now, and the fans are *still* generating new units, new maps, and even new games out of TA.

Check out http://www.planetannihilated.com if you want to learn more.

I would love to see someone make a new RTS that learned all the user interface and most of the heuristic lessons from TA along with the matchmaking and community support lessons from Battle.net, but I feel that right now, we're in a rut where alpha-blended 3D accelerated special effects and enough camera angels to rival a porno DVD are being prioritized over the real design issues.