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."

Comments

Re: July 3?

[Andorion]

Even so - people will buy it so they can play on the official battle.net network.

-Berj

Re:Make up your mind...

[LadyGuardian]

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.

Conversely, /. 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...

Re:Make up your mind...

[Skirwan]

I guess the Slashdot editors are only interested in preserving their rights when it doesn't involve any action on their part.

Or maybe they're interested in providing a fair and balanced coverage of news issues.

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.

--
Damn the Emperor!

War III is not a strategy, it's a clickfest

[EvilBastard]

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.

they aren't the same issue

[gripdamage]

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.

Re:Jesus, people

[RovingSlug]

Eric Flint in Prime Palaver #8 expressed the point best: "Grow up, dammit."

Since you're probably too unmotivated to read it, let me extract a couple relevant sections:

Or, to move to American literature, I find the politics of Ernest Hemingway a lot more to my liking than the politics of William Faulkner. Yet, as a rule, I dislike the fiction of Hemingway -- I find his obsession with issues of "manhood" boring ("c'mon, Ernie, I figured this stuff out by the time I was seventeen; grow up, willya?") -- and I adore the fiction of William Faulkner.

Literature is not politics. The only time I will refuse to read the fiction writings of someone whose political views I strongly disagree with is if their actual writings are simply a thinly-disguised veneer for their political program.

...

Literature -- and popular fiction is no different, there's no Chinese wall separating the two -- is not politics. A writer as a political figure and his or her fiction are not the same thing. Their political and social views will, of course, influence their writings. But the way that influence works its way through can get extremely complex, even contradictory. And since no political viewpoint -- not even mine, as amazing as it may be -- ever captures all of human reality, you will often discover that a writer whose expressed viewpoints on political matters seems stupid or offensive to you still has something to say in his fiction which strikes a chord.

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.

Self-contradictory.

[Inoshiro]

"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.