Warcraft III Gone Gold

0x00 writes "Shacknews seems to be the first to report that Warcraft III has gone gold. The press release is here. Blizzard have announced that the game will be available July 3rd around the world - just in time for my mid-year University break (great timing!)." Update: 06/13 15:16 GMT by M : Please consider the fact that Blizzard is suing people who write software to interoperate with theirs when deciding whether you want to purchase this game.

Comments

why not give the money to the EFF instead

[Karl J. Smith]

It's $64.95 list and $79.99 for the collector's edition.

Head to http://www.eff.org and give them the money, then send a letter to Blizzard telling them about it, and why.

OWCH, $60+

[nweaver]

The price is getting STEEP for these highly hyped titles. No way.

And I haven't liked an RTS since Total Annihilation, mostly because it's the only one which got the interface right and had units which are reasonably intelligent in responding to the enemy without user intervention.

Rich and powerful?

[Steveftoth]

Blizzard isn't all that rich, in fact they don't even own themselves.
They are owned by a larger company, a french company I believe. Blizzard does make a few of the most popular games, but that doesn't mean they are the most successful.
Id is sucessful because of the work of one man, Carmack. Without him there would be no Doom and thus no Id. (Don't want to knock the artists, but they needed his engine) Quake was the first game where he didn't do all the work on the engine. So there is a large personal investment in the projects that Id does, while Blizzard is run by managers and lawyers. I'm sure that the programmers that worked at Blizzard would love to see bnetd succeed. Unlike at Id, the programmers can't speak their minds.
While Id is one of the few successful gaming companies to realease the code to their old engines, Blizzard is still selling Diablo 1 in stores. Without an engine available for mass use.
Blizzard is more hard core about protecting their property.
BTW, a few thousand geeks boy-cotting this game won't do anything to the sales, they are expecting the mothers of the world to pick this up for their little johnny or jane to play. Blizzard games sell millions of copies.

Indeed, I was a real high seas pirate

[A nonymous Coward]

No less authority than Radio Hanoi said so, in fact. My carrier (USS Midway CV-41) helped evacuate Saigon as it was falling in April 1975. Many helicopters landed on us with evacuees, and we later picked up many planes flown out to Thailand. Radio Hanoi said these planes and helicopters were legitimate war booty, and they wanted them back. Since we refused, we were nothing but a bunch of pirates. Our captain flew the Jolly Roger in acknowledgement.

To get serial for a moment, complaining about the new meaning of "piracy" is about as useful as complaining of "hacker" being abused by the press. Words mean what people want them to mean (c.f. Humpty Dumpty), meanings change over time and by region, and it does no good to get snippety about it.

Honest Question for Michael

[wdr1]

Please consider the fact that Blizzard is suing people who write software to interoperate with theirs when deciding whether you want to purchase this game.

Michael, what would the harm have been in posting this as a comment?

It's not a technical correction, additional information, etc. -- things that are logical as updates.

-Bill

Common misunderstanding.

[AftanGustur]

Also, the collector's edition includes the soundtrack (now on a separate disk), a coffee table book, 4 lithographs(?) (probably the 4 different covers of the game) and something else. In all, the collector's edition is well worth the price.

Things are not "worth" what you put into them. That is a well established economical fact. If you put 1 million into a software project, the results will not be "worth" 1 million. The real "worth" of all the stuff in the box is how much people are ready to pay for it. If Blizzard can't find custumers who are ready to pay more than 10$ for the package, the the package is only worth 10 dollars.