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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.
I've been waiting a long while for this one to come out. Now I'll start waiting for the expansion set to be released... :P
Like my productivity didn't suck enough already...
"Jesus saves sinners...and redeems them for valuable coupons"
that no matter what it is that we're protesting at the moment, that it doesn't really matter because we're not serious about the boycotts.
Say what you like about Blizzard, they make some pretty damn good games.
I have been pwned because my
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.
Better idea.
Don't send the money to the EFF, but mail Blizzard saying you did.
Then treat yourself to a dozen Krispy Kreme donuts for being crafty (War Crafty!)
I have been pwned because my
...in that regard. Games are not so important to me to sacrifice my principles over them.
If it doesn't run on Linux, I'm not terribly interested in buying it. If a company's going to pull the stunts Blizzard has went at lengths to do, I'm definitely not going to buy it.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
2. it's questionable just how much they apply to traditional news outlets. Most newspapers and TV news shows are quite free with the editorializing, and usually far less honestly than above. And besides,
3. No specific course of action is advised by the comment. It's just an objective piece of information: a reminder that Blizzard is currently suing the authors of bnetd. Insofar as any product announcement implies an imperative to go out and buy the product (what, you think it's world news?) they are simply providing more information about the product - that the company making it is engaged in a lawsuit against open source developers.
i just lost $50 to a guy. I told him Duke Nukem 4Eva would come out before this...
Blizzard is exercising its right to not allow anybody except for Blizzard to use the gaming technology that it built! Panic, panic, boycott, boycott!
I think Michael is forgetting one crucial bit of information -- BLIZZARD GAMES ARE NOT OPEN SOURCE. Blizzard built it, people play it; Blizzard has the legal right to choose who they allow to interact with their game at any level. Not to say that interop software would be a bad thing -- id Software and Valve have proven that a game or gaming engine's longevity is closely tied to how accessable it is to the modding community. But if Blizzard has no desire to venture down that path, so be it.
Blizzard makes good games, period. If you don't want to buy them, that's your beef. But don't try to turn this into an open-source crusade -- you're wrong, they're right, end of story. Deal with it.
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.
Test your net with Netalyzr
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.
There are so many posts about how "i am going to get even by pirating the game"...
guys (or gals), please do not sink yourself to that level. While we agree on the fact that Blizzard sueing bnet.d is questionable (okay, dead wrong and full of malicious intent), we also all know that copyright infringement is wrong. not necessarily as wrong as MS and BSA make it appear to be, but still wrong non-the-less. copying their software will not make things any better. in the end they will just come back with the statistic and say -- look, of COURSE we need to take these legal actions.
the future rests in each of our hands (gosh that sounds lame), that may seem to be insignificant at first, but i really believe that it's an important responsibility.
think it through -- i mean, it IS just a game you know.
My life in the land of the rising sun.
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.
Somehow I don't think that a game publisher needs to be held to quite the same interoperatibility standards as an operating systems publisher ... because it's a game. Odds are, no matter how much they sue or how inoperable they are, they're not going to push all other games out of the market.
Am I going to buy it? I'll wait for the reviews on the single player campaign. I never liked warcraft I or II multiplayer - it seemed to be the simple art of running exploding suicide troops at the enemy.
Which borders on unpatriotic these days, now that I think about it.
Maybe the state's highest function is to grind out insoluble problems. (Zelazny, Hall of Mirrors)
P.S. What another boycott? Jeez! If I followed all of these boycotts, I wouldn't be able to turn on my computer. Sorry guys, Blizzard supporting Mac at the same level of Windows is more important to me than open source game servers.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
Lets see here ..
.. and will appeal to many people out there. But the style of game has been so badly abused over the past 10 years that it turns out to be the Same #$^@ Different Day.
Warcraft, Warcraft II, Command and Conquer, Red Alert, Age of Empires, Age of Empires II, Start Craft, Galatic Battlegrounds, etc, etc, etc.
Its to the point that you have played so many of these that they all seem to be same game.
Build a base
build units
enhance units
smash enemy
Wash
rinse
repeat
I played a friend of mines SWGB. After about 3 or 4 games, I removed it from my box, packaged it back up again, and gave it back to him.
Warcraft III is prob a great game
Just a ramble.
-- Knowing too much can get you killed, but knowing who knows too much can make you rich.
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.
Ok, I thought about it.
I don't care.
Great idea! But If Blizzard gives you a counter-offer of Warcraft III Collector's Edition for just $49.99, should you accept it?
Of course, the Sun is actually white, almost by definition. People think it's yellow because they usually see it when it's low in the sky near the horizon, which causes its color to be significantly reddened
by its long path length through the gas and dust of our atmosphere.
Liberal (adj.): Free from bigotry; open to progress; tolerant of others.
Just go out and buy Neverwinter Nights (in a week or two when it hits stores) and forget all about WC3. If Blizzard's tactics don't appeal to you, support the competition instead! You get a great game, and that should make it a lot easier to let go of your pain and get on with your life.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
That's a nice little bogus viewpoint. Committing wrongs for free doesn't make them right... and would open up the door for companies funding neat little non-profits for mangling other companies. Hell, they're already willing to legally relocate to Bermuda to cut their taxes via some interesting financial manuevers...
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
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.
Infuriate left and right
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
SlashSig Karma: Excellent (mostly affected by moderatio
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.
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
Well, there are more, but that's 18 games right there that didn't bankrupt their creators by allowing people to run servers at a LAN party.
/. crowd, I don't think Blizzard is too happy about losing 90% of their sales (assuming WC3 gets pirated at 2/3'rds the rate of the Dynamix figures) so that Joe Slashdot can meet up with his friends in an empty room rather than in Battle.Net.)
Well, actually, Dynamix *did* go bankrupt, partly due to the fact that virtually no-one actually bought Tribes 1. Why? Because people didn't need CD checks to play online, so they just warez'd it and played.
I remember talking to one of the ex-Dynamix staff, and they were saying that the figures for pirated people playing through their master server vs legal copies was something like 15-to-1.
Also, quite a few titles in that list *do* have centralised key auth'ing systems. Half-Life has WONID's based off serials, Tribes 2 did, Quake 3 did, and MoH:AA did. I don't think you can seriously count Doom and Duke Nukem 3D, since they were pre-internet gaming.
So before you go "Hey, it's not going to bankrupt them", it does.
(and as a side note: I'm going against the flow and supporting Blizzard here. It doesn't matter if bnetd heals a dying swan and fixes every bug in the game, it still gets around CD protection.
While that might be fine for the "Any use of the DMCA is evil, even if it means shooting off our feet"
If the Sun was yellow then clouds and snow would look yellow, because they are very close to being perfect neutral light scatterers.
I don't know how, but somehow you've managed to fit a "yellow snow" joke into this conversation.
Do not eat.
~Will
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