Okay. I am one of the select few people who has consistently failed to buy into the hype surrounding warcraft 3. I just don’t understand why everyone claims it’s so innovative and groundbreaking. And, it would seem, taken from a mishmash of other games:
Me a week ago: I don’t get why war3 is supposed to be so innovative and original. It’s just a combination of warcaft 2 and diablo 2. Well, maybe the fact that they have heros, and creeps, and a smaller unit size are enough to satisfy people, even though I may not think it’s all that great. Plus, they claim to have added a lot of stuff like action queuing and autocast.
Me 2 days ago: Oh look! Battle Realms is on sale. It looks good, so what the hell!
5 minutes laterHey, this game looks like warcraft 3! And almost all of the features (rallying, action queuing, etc) are the same! Neat!
Wait. It has a small unit size too. And autocast. And heroes. And… let’s see… oh, it looks like it came out right when war3 was in development. Funny. Well, not really that funny.
Long story short, the only original feature I can think of that warcraft 3 actually came up with themselves is creeps. Are there any other RTS games out there that use creeps? If so, I can duct tape starcraft, warcraft 2, diablo 2, battle realms and game X together, then sell them as “Warcraft 3’s family tree! Now YOU can design a multimillion dollar game!”
And I’m not crazy. I just get tired of feature stealing passed off as “originality.” It happened to apple, it happened to battle realms, it can happen to you.
Actually, I agree, Warcraft III is rather pointless. Though the cut scenes are the best bar none.
If you want to try an RTS with a good storyline, magic, AND creeps try Kohan: Ahriman’s Gift. It is the best RTS I’ve played in a very long time. The storyline was incredible, the characters were believable, and the plot very moving. There was one part, at the end of the last act that would have wet my eyelashes if I weren’t so masculine. 
Though I have to say, that World of Warcraft thing looks good. I don’t really understand why people get so hyped up when Blizzard releases anything. Far as I am concerned, most of the games get boring fast, and usually are infested with cheaters if you decide to play the multiplayer.
Ahh well
Warcraft III isn’t at all original. The Roman numeral III ought to clue you into that, if nothing else. There’s nothing in there that hasn’t been done one way or another by a previous RTS game, and I’ve never heard it claimed otherwise. That’s how Blizzard works. They aren’t innovators. There’s nothing remotely original about any of their games. So why are they one of the most successful developers out there? Because they do everything right. Sure, Battle Realms had a lot of Warcraft III’s features a good year before Warcraft III. It still didn’t prevent it from being a bad game. The story was blah, the units weren’t particularly interesting, level design was uninspired, and the graphics were second-tier at best. Warcraft III, on the other hand, had a compelling story, interesting and unique units, and top-notch graphics. And the level design was brilliant: each map was unique and interesting, and presented its own challenges. I don’t really like RTS. It’s a pretty shallow genre. But I always buy the latest iteration of Warcraft, because it’s always the absolute pinnacle of RTS design. It’s not new, but it’s almost always perfect.
Damn. I love kohan, and I didn’t even think of it. Guess I was just too enamored of it’s company scheme to notice the creeps.
I despise graphics being used to rate RTS games. I don’t CARE what the little buggers look like, I just want them to do what I say. And battle realms was a very innovative game, IMO. They used a lot of things other games didn’t such as dynamic resources and continuous unit acquisition. Unit caps were too low, but you can’t hold that against them.
Friend, I was very disappointed with several aspects of warcraft 3. Warcraft 3 was very far from perfect. Don’t get me started, or we’ll be here all day.
Warcraft III is one of the more disappointing games I’ve ever purchased. It’s just Warcraft II with better cutscenes. Nothing about the game is innovative, or all that good.
The best RTS game I’ve ever played is, sadly, STILL Total Annihilation.
If you haven’t already tried them, I’d suggest kohan or battle realms. Both extremely good games with innovative ideas that didn’t get the praise they deserved.
Warcraft III’s greatness comes from the way it derails the ‘path of stupid complexity’ which was killing the RTS genre for all but the truly hardcore…
It’s simple to play and yet complex to master.
It’s funny.
It’s cutscenes are gob-smacking and really add to the atmosphere.
It’s very-obviously a labour of love by people who really know how to make a game - this is becoming a rare thing indeed.
It’s not ‘next gen’ and it does nothing ‘revolutionary’ - it simply does what it does in near-perfection and for that it deserves every accolade IMHO
TTFN
JP
creeps are the non-player controlled monsters on any given map.
like those little monsters that give your heroes experience when you kill them. wild boars and what have you…
I really enjoyed WCIII. I’m not a cutting-edge gamer; I don’t know what constitutes the latest graphics, or the most innovative features in games, or anything like that. I buy about four games a year, and hope they’re good.
Warcraft III was tremendous fun for me. I didn’t have to go online to learn the best strategies; units were clearly distinguishable from one another both in function and form. The missions had variety and tension. The characters were reasonably interesting (not as interesting as in Starcraft or Planescape: Torment, but still interesting). The advanceable characters were nifty, as were the treasures.
I played it a lot. I do think that Blizzard focuses on quality above innovation, and I’m completely okay with that. I don’t live on the cutting edge of games; I try to live in the moist chewy center of fun.
Daniel
WCIII is a brilliant game.
Not at all innovative (One of the Dwarven heroes is named Muradin, for Dwarfhome’s sake!), but brilliant. Never claimed to be innovative. Most of it is simply building on what they did with WCII, which was building on WC, and all three borrow from various sources - yes, including other RTSs. Like Miller says it (mostly) does it right. (Although the damn food limit drives me.)
This is what a good game does.
And, hells, this is Blizzard. Even the bits that were completely new and novel when they started developing the game would have gotten into other games between when the game went into the Blizzard Development Time Warp, and when it was finally released.
War3’s development started off with a game concept that would have been fairly innovative: a RPG and RTS hybrid. But as development progressed, Blizzard discovered that it just wasn’t fun, and they ditched it and moved back to a more traditional RTS structure. There are still remnants of the RPG/RTS system in the game, like the heroes and the emphasis on small unit tactics.
That is the key to Blizzard’s success - if it’s not fun, they get rid of it. There are countless game concepts in various states of development internally within Blizzard, and if they don’t cut the mustard, they themselves are cut. The most visible public example of this phenom was the cancellation of Warcraft: Adventures, a 2D adventure game that was due out years ago. It wasn’t cancelled for technical reasons - in fact, there is a working version of it floating around on the Blizzard network - instead, it was cancelled because it was not at the level of quality gamers expect from Blizzard.
Of course, the vast majority of developers do not have this freedom, and this leeway is a result of their almost-unique position in the game industry. Some other companies that are afforded the same luxury are 3D Realms (witness Duke Nukem Forever and the “when it’s done” philosophy), id, and Ion Storm (the Warren Spector branch, at least); a paltry few out of the hundreds of established game developers around the world, but they all have an established track record that proves they can deliver.
I found the cinematics in Warcraft 3 highly annoying. I stopped playing because of them.
What is it with people and their getting so pissed off about one minor sub-feature which doesn’t meet their expectations and angrily deciding never to play again?
Being able to mouseclick like a no-doz crunching 13 year old with a hyperactivity disorder does not, IMO, count as mastery. But that’s another topic.
personally, i liked it. i’m a big fan of cutscense when they are done right (and i think they were done really well here) the story was VERY good, though there were a few plot holes, and the gameplay was great. i was a bit miffed at the 90 food limit, though i can understand why it was done (i rememer the zerg rush in Starcraft all too well).
i’m also a big fan of custom mods…some of the LOTR and Zelda Mods for WC3, as well as originals i found online, were very fun to play.
i never have gotten into multiplayer…so YMMV.
btw- is there any sort of hack/cheat to get rid of the food limit? like i said, i don’t do battle.net, but it’d be cool for playing through again, or for some of the mods.
Warcraft 3 is a lot of fun, I think. Not hugely innovative: I second Total Annihilation as one of the best RTSs ever. Too bad the sequel/spinoff TA:Kingdoms sucked (IMHO). I would absolutely love to see a TA 2 done properly.
Warcraft 3 succeeds where most Blizzard games do: It’s addictive, fun, not difficult to learn, but with enough depth to keep you playing. Heck, I’m stillplaying Diablo 2, despite the fact that the gameplay really boils down to clicking your mouse frantically and repeatedly.
Kohan was, indeed, very very good. And Battle Realms wasn’t bad either, it had some neat ideas.
Try playing it online against a decent opponent (not some l33t fcukwit who just rushes you or quits when they are losing) and you’ll see the true depth of the beast.
The single player game never really ‘tests’ the player in the same way - it’s really just a good ‘warm up’ for the real combat really
A damned enjoyable one tho
TTFN
JP
Go to the ‘Chat’/Cheat, enter the code PointBreak.
It doesn’t COMPLETELY remove the food limit, but if you start creating your units fast enough, it’ll let you beat the limit by a good amount. (Without the code, if you aren’t producing enough food for the units, it’ll stop creation, with it’ll finish everything that’s in production, but won’t let you produce more.)
Who cares if a game is innovative or not? Innovation doesn’t equal good.
Warcraft 3 has a great story. It has great playability. It has great graphics. It has great music and sound effects. It has great cutscenes. It has great multiplayer capabilities.
Therefore, it is a great game.
And being a Frozen Throne beta-tester, I have to say that the expansion will make numerous changes to nearly every aspect of the game, much like Brood War did for Starcraft.