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First Warcraft 3 Reviews Trickle In
Mortin writes "Several reviews of Warcraft 3, set to be released on July 3, are up at Icrontic, Tweakers.com.au, and of course IGN. Looks like Blizzard has yet another killer game on their hands."
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Even so - people will buy it so they can play on the official battle.net network.
-Berj
The RTS genre is one of those that i found interesting at first, but after playing six to eight quite similar games, i've kind of lost interest in the genre. I had quite a lot of fun with Starcraft and Myth 2 for a short while, but mostly only when i could find someone i knew to play with, like at a LAN party or something. Eventually, i got kind of tired of these. I don't really play these games anymore.
:)
Give me one reason why i should care about WarCraft 3, given that? Is there any reason that this is different or would catch my attention? I'm reading the reviews. Nothing is particularly catching my eye.
If no one can come up with a good answer to this question, i think i'm just going to go back to bed, pretend i'm boycotting Blizzard because of their unethical attempts to use barratry to crush people legally reverse-engineering their games' communication protocols, and eagerly await this fall, when the mac release of Neverwinter Nights is out, and i will also be able to play Star Wars Galaxies on my girlfriend's PC
-- super ugly ultraman
Yes, but isn't it up to the individual to make up their own mind? Being presented with both sides of the issue is the only way to ensure that you have the ability to make an educated decision.
/. isn't the best spot to go for pro-Microsoft/big-corporation news, so I know my point is kind of stepped on that way...
Conversely,
As such, I will not be buying WC3 if they continue this lawsuit and have told all my friends why. Unfortunately they seem to think I'm some kind of weird Linux zealot (as opposed to a Protoss one?) and will be buying it anyways. But at least I'm trying to make a difference by not joining in their reindeer games, right?
"Say, why won't Sax play Warcraft with us?" "I think it's against his religion."
A steaming cup of soykaf would be real wiz right now.
Slashdot is a news site. Part of reporting the news is covering both sides of the issues, regardless of personal belief. Would you prefer the editors simply post their opinions, without linking to documentation? Personally I much prefer the current system, wherein information is provided and I form my own opinion. If you are unable to form opinions, either through brain damage or simple lack of cognitive functionality, perhaps we can arrange a 'Slashdot lite' where the editors can simply tell you what to think.
Again, for the slower readers: This is a news site. It reports the news (for nerds) and stuff that matters.
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Damn the Emperor!
I'm going to put this game in the same catagory as Doom 3, and say that this is what's wrong with the American game industry.
There is too much convergant thinking in PC games anymore. War Craft 3, and Doom 3 being prime examples. Neither game sets off to be a good game in their own right. They want to be the perfect example of what a game in their genre would be. Neither Id nor Blizzard look at a game anymore and go "what would be good for this game?" they go "what would be good for a RTS or FPS?" Instead of trying to give the player a totally new experience, and make it something worth my time to play, I just get new polish on the same games that have been released for years. Most of the "improvements" in WC3 weren't because it would make it a better experience in the world of Warcraft, it's what would make it a more "perfect" RTS. The same can be said for Doom 3, which is going toward what a "perfect" FPS should be. It seems like the companies just seem to say "let's make a RTS, do what would be a perfect RTS, then just theme it with whatever franchise we should have a sequel to. Id being the same way, just so happens the Doom was the next franchise to get an update to approach that "perfect" FPS.
Is it really that hard anymore to actually try to create a game, and then design an interface to the game that would be best fitted to the experience you wanted to gamer to have? Show me something new before I put down $60 for a game. Or has the US gaming market have become so braindead that if a game doesn't fit perfectly into a given genre, it's "too hard and confusing". Excuse me if I don't want the same game 50 times, and have to have my hand held though a game. Give me something new, and I'll go put $60 to get a copy.
All they did (showing some of that wonderful Blizzard Creativity) was take the main character from Diablo, and put it in the middle of Warcraft. The trouble is, the heros are so essential to the game, and so hideously overpowered the rest of the characters are reduced to sideshows.
Warcraft III is designed to be a quick and dirty game where the fights are over in 30 minutes or less. Gone is any hope of a epic back-and-forth fight, it's a lets get the game finished as quick as possible.
The first person to lose their hero has lost the game in 90% of the cases, because their hero is out of the game for 2 minutes, while the other hero is running around levelling up and getting more items.
In order to get the game over as quick as possible, the game is exaggerated - if you lose, you come into the next fight at a disadvantage. If you win, you are more likely to win the next time, because the game is adjusting the hero's strengths. Add to that the Upkeep rules and the game is saying "You will play me this way or not at all - I will not let you deviate from the designers vision"
Strategy games should not do this - It's like playing a game of chess where when you capture the oponents pieces you get to put them on your side. Fun ? Maybe once or twice for the low-attention span crowd, but it's not strategy.
Personally, I'd look to a company that doesn't have a history of screwing over the open source community, or trying to steal your personal details from your system registry - say Creative Assembly, who will be releasing the latest Total War game in the near future - Medieval Total War which is more a computerised table top wargame then anything else.
Let me spell this out for you: this article is about Warcraft 3 being a killer game. The bnetd project has nothing to do with it.
It's obviously possible to think Blizzard's actions against bnetd are wrong, and think Warcraft 3 is a killer game at the same time.
What you seem to be proposing is that Michael should lie or omit the truth about Warcraft 3, because he disagrees with Blizzard's actions against bnetd.
I played warcraft 3 at Fry's a bit today in Sunnyvale. They had 4 really nice warcraft 3 setups available for anyone to sit and give a try.
My impressions: Graphically, it's amazing. The sound completely rocks. The unit AI is the best I've seen in an RTS yet. For instance, when your peasants are done building, they will go and do something useful like chop lumber or mine gold. This eliminates a great deal of micro management.
I can't say more than that because I only completed a couple of battles, but it filled my soul with the urge to upgrade my hardware.
FYI.. Fry's is also selling it an hour before the rest of the west coast... 11PM on the 2nd.
Since you're probably too unmotivated to read it, let me extract a couple relevant sections:
All points he makes apply directly to the Warcraft 3 / Blizzard situation. Blizzard's politics and the quality of their products are independent -- especially when you consider the people who create the games are a wholly separate group from those who make the political decisions.
And that applies to the MPAA, too. You can despise their political actions, but still appreciate the work by Sam Raimi, Stan Lee, and company; Peter Jackson, J.R.R. Tolkien, and company; and so on.
So by no means is it doublethink to say, "We dislike Blizzard's actions toward BNetD. In addition, we like Warcraft 3." Take your head out of that sandbox you've burried it in, and grow up.
Actually, some companies did try originality. Let's take, say, Looking Glass. Those guys made *EXCELLENT* games. Thief revolutionized the FPS concept. Thief 2 is one of my fav games ever, and one of the very few remotely recent games that I consider worth my time.
Next thing you know, Looking Glass bites the dust.
Why?
My idea is that if you're reaching for the masses (and if you want to make money with a $50 game, you'd better reach for the masses), you'll have to aim for the masses' Lowest Common Denominator. Kind of like McD, if you want: they sell cheap crap that is successful worldwide because it's the lowest common denominator of food. Maybe it goes the same for games, and the suits, whose priority is to make the most money out of the game, will only approve games with the most basic gameplay...
Sad, indeed. Good thing there are mods...
-- B.
This sig does in fact not have the property it claims not to have.
Blizzard games is they seem quite long-lived. I still know lots of people who play Starcraft and Diablo, years after they were released. Is it possible that they're planning for the game to come into its own performance-wise 6 months or a year from now?
"1) It won't play smoothly on a P3 500 laptop (with 384 meg of RAM and an ATI Rage Mobility). Blizzard usually tries to get the low-end of the market. Not any longer"
On my A750s with TNT1s, which are "super-duper" for 3 years ago, the play is acceptable like Starcraft on a P120. It's slower than top-of-the-line, but very playable. If you want to play a game released in 2002, don't have a machine from pre-1999. Is that hard to accept? If so, try console gaming. They can have much larger windows of games (release + n years) than an arbitrary computer configuration.
Also, a Rage mobility isn't exactly a great 3D card to be using in a 3D game.
"Screw it. If this game had come out 5 years ago, maybe. But Starcraft is better, and so is Age of Empires 2."
If it had come out 5 years ago, it wouldn't be Warcraft 3. The Voodoo2s of the time (very high-end for 1997) can't do it acceptably. Starcraft and AOE2 are better for you because you have an old 2D-capable system. Essentially what you're saying (in your own words) is that you wanted something that worked on your old computer, and you're disapointed when it doesn't work like a game released 4 years ago (Starcraft). Again, I have to say, if you want to play games for computers released this year, own a computer with hardware from a maximum of 3 years ago. Try a desktop P3 with a GeForce 2 MX 400, I'm sure it'll do it more than acceptably.
Or move to console gaming. You sound like you'd enjoy that a lot more.
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Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.