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Warcraft III Expansion
Ultra Magnus writes "Looks like Blizzard is releasing an expansion pack to WC3. I've always been pleased with their expansions before, so I hope this lives up to expectations."
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The Features:
1) New Heroes for each race (1/race)
2) New Campaigns
3) New units for each race
4) Some sort of new building?
5) Random heroes that can be recruited by any player.
Opinionated Law Student Strikes Again!
Yessir I want Starcraft 2! Just think aboout it! 3D all terrain and characters, gonna rock ass but I think Vivaldi or whatever will stop production of Starcraft 2 because of it's non expectant sales that will probably plumet with Blizzard's stock market and their 1st quarter earnings.
Cant belive that they could create another expansion to War3. The story was terrific. Many months have passed since Archimonde and the Burning Legion were defeated at the Battle of Mount Hyjal... The stalwart night elves, led by the Arch Druid, Furion Stormrage and the Priestess Tyrande Whisperwind, have vanished back into the shadows of Ashenvale Forest - intent to heal the ancient lands that were scarred by the Legion's vile corruption. The battle-weary orcish Horde, led by the idealistic Warchief, Thrall, has settled in the harsh, eastern hills of the Kalimdor Barrens. Finally able to claim a homeland of their own, the orcs work tirelessly to found and protect their new nation of Durotar. The human survivors of Lordaeron, under the command of the Sorceress, Jaina Proudmoore, have also settled along the eastern coast of the Barrens. The island citadel of Theramore was erected to safeguard the last, rag-tag remnants of the failing human Alliance. ...And Arthas, the newly crowned King of Lordaeron, has driven the undead Scourge to eradicate the last vestiges of resistance to his iron rule. His kingdom - the once proud bastion of human might and nobility - has become a plagued realm of death and sorrow. Now, driven by haunting visions of the Frozen Throne of Icecrown, Arthas plans to tighten his grip over the rest of the world.
* * * ...Still, one dark soul still remains at large...
For in some shadowed corner of the world, the wayward creature known as Illidan Stormrage plots... and awaits...
and the art was absolutely amazing . cant wait to play this new game . Blizzard says it comes out in summer 2003 .
but i seriously hope that Microsoft doesnt buy Vivendi games .If this happens , i wouldnt buy any game from blizzard
If the trend continues, there will be keys attached to the expansion. Brood War didn't have a key, and I imagine a lot of people didn't legally purchase theirs =P Heck, the game came out before my birthday, so my cousin burnt me a copy as a present. No CD Key, no hassle.
The Diablo II expansion had a key, and this probably kept people honest. Not many people would enjoy not being able to play with their RL friends, so people that knew eachother had to buy their own copies.
I personally don't mind the keys at all... if it makes Blizzard happy, good for them. They put out great games, and it's not like their collecting our personal information without our consent... anymore.
Some of the dedicated b.net players are dissapointed by this. The usual Blizzard fanboys are, as expected, frothing at their mouths. But this "expansion" is both ill-timed and a slap in the face to those of us that have been patiently waiting for Blizzard to fix Warcraft III multiplayer. Some of the new multiplayer features (like clan support) were hoped to be in the game originally. Many of the things they're adding are features that have been asked for since the public beta, and Bliz kept giving generic responses -- "We value the fans opinions..." -- leading us to believe they were planning on implementing them. They kept telling us they were working hard to improve b.net and planned many changes, but now we find out the changes are exclusively for the expansion!
And furthermore, the imbalances in Warcraft III are so blatantly obvious that it's sickening. The only redeeming factor is that each race has so many different imbalances it's usually possible to compete between races. But come tournament time, one or two main strategies (sometimes bordering on being bug exploits) appear.
What I'm getting at here is that I'm not excited; I'm dissapointed. Warcraft III to many still isn't finished. Map hackers (and other cheaters) run rampant on b.net, the ladder and scoring systems are in serious need of an overhaul, there has been no mention of Warcraft seasons or Blizzard-sanctioned tournament, and their attempt at "balancing" the game have become so bad that Warcraft III is nothing like what it was originally supposed to be, at least judging from the beta. (Need to kill high-ranking undead abominations? Mass frail spellcasters and rush them in headlong! No melee support needed!)
Blizzard led us all to believe that they were intent on fixing the broken multiplayer system. Now I find out that for $30 I can have the game I was originally promised. Way to go Blizzard.
--
"God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh." -Voltaire
I'll be anonymous here because I fear for my life after telling deluded Slashdoters that WIII and DII are the sorriest ass games ever. Sure Warcraft was fun. So was Diablo (well, a bit less). All they have done for the sequels was to improve the graphics. Sorry, Diablo II is actually identical to the original (beats me why it took the three years to make it - hey I wanna work for these guys!!). Games haven't changed a bit (even the originals were pretty brain dead to be honest). Pretty fraking *boring* and old! Expansion pack on a washed out sequel! Yay! I can't wait!
Why doesn't Blizzard stop releasing "expansion packs" a short time after a game's release and start actually making with the goods initially. Consider this scenario:
:)
Blizzard releases a great game in the initial release. Maybe a couple of patches to deal with unit balances and stuff, but there shouldn't be any major flaws that need fixing. Then (and here's the tricky part), they actually get to work on the sequel right away! Who ever thought they could improve on all aspects of the game instead of just adding to the original?
Seriously, why would I want to pay basically the price of the original game over again for an expansion pack that generally adds little to things like graphics and the game's core functionality? Especially in games like Warcraft, where you're guaranteed a wealth of custom scenarios created by other players, great to keep interest in a game. If the company put the manpower into getting the next chapter in the game underway, they could avoid making us wait years and years for the next game in the series.
But of course this means they can't bank on everyone paying twice for the game + expansion pack. Since everybody buys them off the shelves the instant they get put there, nothing's gonna change.
On a note related specifically to War3, I was surprised at how little had really changed from War2 except for the graphics. Sure, they integrated the neat control features from Starcraft like easier unit grouping and such, and added heroes, but I don't think it justifies the amount of time the game's been in development. Blizzard is in the great position of being able to release any garbage they want and have it break sales records.
That was a game design decision, not an inability to program.
Given that it lags as it is now, I think not.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Strategies that the designers hadn't intended? You mean "Zerg Rush from the left instead of Zerg Rush from the right?" Or BattleShip Rush with 24 battleships instead of 8? Or (insert whatever here) rush?
Almost every RTS degernates into "he[1] who gathers resources best wins, regarless of everything else." I remember reading an interview when they said that they were trying to change that model for WC3, hence the upkeep and small caps.
[1] I almost said "he or she;" what was I thinking?
>(Besides, it's Vivendi you're after..)
EXACTLY, and who gets the lion's share of the money from my purchase if I buy a Blizzard game? Why, Vivendi, of course!
No, I don't hold Blizzard blameless in the bnetd fiasco. If they really wanted Vivendi to 'let it be', they could, because they have absolutely no financial reason to attack bnetd. It's purely a control issue; one which they never had to begin with, and the bnetd folks pointed out so ardently.
Please, don't bother reciting about the piracy issue; it isn't one and never was.
-SS "Teach the ignorant, care for the dumb, and punish the stupid."
Or a lurker/reaver drop on their gathering units, or a psystorm on their rally points, or mind controlling half their battleships for fratricide, or more than half to simply turn them around back into the enemy's teeth, defilers in the front lines so their attacking units can't target anything, defensive nuking, or the ultimate in interspecies cooperation with valkyries, carriers, and a d-matrixed arbitor assigned to a group of guardians for damn near unstoppable death from above.
There are tons of strange, weird, and interesting things you can do in SC, alot of teams just aren't balanced enough to get that far, or play on maps that are far too small for the number of people playing.