Warcraft III: Refunded General - How one company managed to mess up a remaster of a 17 year old game.

[Pissmaster]

In hindsight I should have known since Starcraft 2 that things would take a darker turn.

StarCraft 2 focusing so hard on eSports and ladder matches put me off hard.

It guarantees that they'll never have another dota, though.

I remember hearing about how extensive StarCraft 2's game editor could be at launch, and then, just... nothing came of it. I guess it's because of that EULA where Blizzard would just claim everything you make, and who seriously has the cash and resources to fight a giant company like them in court?

So now, their shit's just... barren. Every release going forward is going to be caked in emojis, and the internet's going to be combing through everything to find out exactly how many ways they're fucking up. The people earlier in this thread talking about Valve being generous with their IPs are right on the money - imagine if they tried to claim ownership of everything made with Source Filmmaker. There's just so many reasons Steam is the unquestionable emperor of PC gaming, with GoG sitting pretty in second place.

I think the Activision merger definitely ruined Blizzard, especially since Activision has also taken the same route of ramming million dollar franchises into the ground. Call of Duty was the biggest game on the Xbox 360, but on the Xbox One it's struggled to remain relevant. Guitar Hero is a dead franchise while Harmonix continues to release Rock Band songs and Clone Hero has managed to become as huge as Stepmania. Spyro and Crashes newest games are remakes and Spyro for years was milked to death with Skylanders (which died out as well). Destiny 2 is no longer an Activision published game now, Bungie owns the rights to it and has moved it to Steam as a f2p game.

Oh and Call of Duty has had multiple remote code execution bugs on the PC version with multiple CVE entries.

I could write for hours about how retarded it was that they completely squandered Guitar Hero for this generation, It should have been easy, all they had to do was just make more of the same but with new songs, because that's what music games are.

Instead, Guitar Hero Live was some kind of live service deal tightly tied to "GHTV", where you'd just play whatever they were streaming and buy songs from that, though only as streaming songs. And the service went down right around the three-year mark, near the end of 2018, so if you bought any songs from that, tough shit. The weird new guitar didn't help matters either, since it was a 2x3 fretboard as opposed to the 1x5 used in every single other game, so of course, none of your old guitars were compatible.

It just looked so bad and offputting that I never actually bought it, even when I saw it on deep clearance for like $15. What was so hard about them just releasing a proper Guitar Hero game like Harmonix did with Rock Band 4? Guitar Hero's one of those evergreen games that will always have an audience, and at the very least they could have released some freemium bullcrap with a few songs that rotate weekly and a store where you can buy music a la carte. I'm fairly surprised they just never did anything like that.

 

[Fougaro]

StarCraft 2 focusing so hard on eSports and ladder matches put me off hard.

E-sports can't die soon enough!

Like the homogenised wasteland that starcraft 2 ums was. Warcraft 3 was the last one where it was a wild west and there was room for more organic growth of maps. It's kinda like if kiwifarms only showed the posts of the top 10 upvoted users and you had to click multiple times and scroll multiple times to find posts by other people. Those 10 stagnate as they don't need to post anything very new, and all the other people stop posting much because they get very little interaction.

There was a time where you could make your janky stupid map edits and then play it and have people swear at you for how much you suck. As well as sex maps like the below.


https://youtube.com/watch?v=p5tEzJQIThI

I fondly remember the glorious days of Starcraft map modding. Everyone was going nuts with their God given assburgers and good times were had by all. Starcraft map making and modding were a passion of mine back in the early to mid 2000s, especially when I figured out the black magic behind the MPQ editor and Arsenal III. That combined with me being a weeb opened so many doors. Some of the campaigns you could find online were eccentric, some were strangely prophetic (one whose name I forgot but ended with Kerrigan being de-infested) while some others were legitimately amazing. My personal favourite were the four Vision of the Future campaigns. Some campaigns were even complex and elaborate RPGs!

I could talk myself into a spergnado regarding these good old days, back when the world was more innocent and made more sense.

Regarding Starcraft 2, I only paid attention to Starcraft: Mass Recall, a, in my opinion fantastic, fanmade remake of the original and Brood Wars, what Blizzard should have done instead of the remaster. Then again, given how Warcraft 3: Reforged turned out, maybe it was for the better for it to be left to the fans.

 

[Smug Chuckler]

I remember hearing about how extensive StarCraft 2's game editor could be at launch, and then, just... nothing came of it. I guess it's because of that EULA where Blizzard would just claim everything you make, and who seriously has the cash and resources to fight a giant company like them in court?

It wasn't a thing until the Dota 2 fiasco that was a year after SC2's release, I think the likely cause why SC2's editor hasn't taken off like WC3's had that it was much harder to use.

 

[Pissmaster]

I could talk myself into a spergnado regarding these good old days, back when the world was more innocent and made more sense.

Go for it, I'm always down to read spergnados about gaming history that I'd never otherwise hear about.

 

[Picnic_Boy]

I was never really that crazy about WarCraft 3, not until the toolset let me create a proper undead faction instead of one composed of spiders and dragons.

 

[GethN7]

What the difference between Valve and Blizzard can be boiled down to is simple: One's a symbiote, one is a parasite.

Valve may borrow from its fans, but it doesn't treat them like assets to be used, but more like fonts of creativity to be nurtured.

Valve may hire the best fans to do what they do professionally and make professional versions of excellent fan work, but they do so in the full expectation that encouraging the fans to join in the fun will result in more fun and profit for all involved.

Blizzard is going full parasite. They are demanding the best work of the fans be surrendered to Blizzard and Blizzard alone if the latter demands it (which is basically discouraging any fan from wanting to risk losing the rights to make more fan work in a related area) and is basically saying "we're glad you're fans, but we are the only ones who will profit off your work, and no, when we want to shut you out of the process, we will do that when we please and you get nothing in return.

It's not hard to see why Blizzard is frosting the well of creativity shut while Valve is doing like it's name and opening itself to more fan effort in exchange for Valve letting them enjoy the fruits of the labor without punishing them for trying.

 

[Grinrow]

It will happen to whatever game or game company you currently like. It's inevitable. The video game industry is being actively pozzed.

Fuck man, I've played video games all my life and seeing it turn into what it has become makes me so fucking sad. As gay as the word "normie" is, normies ruined my fucking video games.

 

[Manah]

I remember hearing about how extensive StarCraft 2's game editor could be at launch, and then, just... nothing came of it. I guess it's because of that EULA where Blizzard would just claim everything you make, and who seriously has the cash and resources to fight a giant company like them in court?

I heard that it's partially that the SC2 editor was about a thousand times more user unfriendly than Warcraft 3's World Edit, on top of things like the lobby system being way worse, and the idea of Blizzard just taking what you made.

I didn't grow up playing it or anything, I'm not actually that familiar with Warcraft 3 or Starcraft or anything, but it's just staggering to me how Blizzard managed to retroactively fuck up one of their most beloved games.

It just looked so bad and offputting that I never actually bought it, even when I saw it on deep clearance for like $15. What was so hard about them just releasing a proper Guitar Hero game like Harmonix did with Rock Band 4? Guitar Hero's one of those evergreen games that will always have an audience, and at the very least they could have released some freemium bullcrap with a few songs that rotate weekly and a store where you can buy music a la carte. I'm fairly surprised they just never did anything like that.

It's just greed. A game selling for $100 isn't enough anymore, now you need infinite growth possibilities.

Big businesses and money men ruined games as much as anything.

 

[Dumpster dived waifu]

My absolute last hope for Blizzard was a decent remake of Diablo and Diablo 2. That hope is gone now.

After the catastrophic disappointment of Diablo 3, I was hoping that this Warcraft remaster might pave the way for a Diablo 2 remaster so I could sink hundreds of hours into that with friends again. Now I'm worried it'll come out and play like Diablo 3. Blizzard, you used to be cool. You should have stayed cool.

 

[Foolish Samurai Warrior]

Oh dear. First Diablo III's infamous Error 37, then them fostering a no-fun-allowed atmosphere in Overwatch and even trying to shut down fanmade porn, then the public ritual suicide that was Diablo (My) Immortal, then them openly cucking to China during the Hong Kong kerfuffle, then the absolute mediocrity that is Overwatch 2 so far, then this abortion of a Warcraft III remake and finally the fact that the upcoming Diablo IV is just like it's predecessor too going to be online only. A fatal mistake is a tragedy. A pattern is idiocy. Anything beyond that is natural selection.

EA is currently, as I'm writing this, working on a remaster of the original Command & Conquer: Tiberian Dawn and Red Alert. If by any miracle of God EA doesn't fuck this up, Blizzard has all the rights and obligations to Kurt Cobain itself. And no, when you fuck up this much you're way past Minecraft. How do you even live with yourself as a company when you go full Hindenburg in a potential scenario where Electronic Fucking Arts is having a redemption arc?

I wish I could go back in time and tell young teenage Fougaro, who was hyped for the Lord of Destruction expansion pack, about the absolute state of 2020 Blizzard just to see the reaction.

HOTS has been so abandoned, people don't even remember it.

 

[Slimy Time]

Not sure if someone has thrown this link up/been mentioned in a video. Here is an Aussie trying to get a refund under their Consumer Protection Laws and the Blizzard customer rep being an absolute mongoloid going "nuh uh, our TOS says otherwise. Said user has allegedly sent them legal notice and given a template by which other Aussies can use.

Info at 15:08, Jan 30:

Thank you for contacting us. An agent will be with you shortly.
Warcraft III: Reforged is live! We are experiencing unexpectedly high load, we are investigating the issue and currently working on a fix.
If you have received a lock on your account and haven't logged in for a while, you may need to reset your password to verify. Click Here!

Info at 15:10, Jan 30:

All agents are currently assisting others. Your estimated wait time is 4 minutes and 30 seconds. Thank you for your patience.

Info at 15:12, Jan 30:

All agents are currently assisting others. Your estimated wait time is 10 minutes and 0 seconds. Thank you for your patience.

Info at 15:14, Jan 30:

You are now chatting with Nypolden.

Nypolden at 15:14, Jan 30:
Hello hello, how is the day treating you so far?

You at 15:14, Jan 30:

ok

Nypolden at 15:15, Jan 30:
Good to hear

Nypolden at 15:15, Jan 30:
I see you were wanting to check out a possible refund for Warcraft 3: Reforged?

You at 15:15, Jan 30:

yes please

Nypolden at 15:15, Jan 30:

I can take a look and see. We do view all purchases as final so a refund will not be guaranteed.

You at 15:16, Jan 30:

well, unfortunately that's not how consumer law works here in australia

Nypolden at 15:17, Jan 30:
Our Terms of sale state that all purchases are final. Accepting those terms of sale does mean you agree to them.

You at 15:17, Jan 30:

again, your terms of sale do not override consumer rights

Nypolden at 15:17, Jan 30:
You purchased a game from a US shop from a US company.

You at 15:18, Jan 30:

in australia, in australian dollars

Nypolden at 15:18, Jan 30:

Governed by US laws. I'm afraid that there has been a considerable amount of game play so we will not be able to refund the purchase.

You at 15:18, Jan 30:

you mean the time that i spent trying to start a match

You at 15:18, Jan 30:

or crashing the campaign 18 times?

Nypolden at 15:20, Jan 30:
I would recommend posting on the tech support or bug report forums for Warcraft 3: Reforged.

You at 15:20, Jan 30:

will that add all the missing features that have been removed?

You at 15:21, Jan 30:

how am I meant to know these features are missing without actually trying to play the game?

Nypolden at 15:21, Jan 30:

You can send your feedback to the developers that way.

You at 15:21, Jan 30:

no, because the issue is, your website advertised a product that is inaccurate and misleading

You at 15:22, Jan 30:

there is a specific example of an improvement to a campaign cutscene that is not even in the final product

You at 15:22, Jan 30:

still advertised on a selling page for a live product

Nypolden at 15:23, Jan 30:

Again that is all feedback best suited for the community forums where the developers can see it.

You at 15:23, Jan 30:

no, that is false advertising, a completely different matter

Nypolden at 15:24, Jan 30:

Was there anything else I can address before I let you go?

You at 15:24, Jan 30:

yes

You at 15:24, Jan 30:

In 2016, US online game retailer Valve was fined $3 million for making false or misleading representations on its distribution platform, Steam, about consumers' rights to refunds for games that were not of acceptable quality.

You at 15:25, Jan 30:

"These proceedings, and the significant penalties imposed, should send a strong message to all online traders operating overseas that they must comply with the Australian Consumer Law when they sell to Australian consumers,"

Nypolden at 15:25, Jan 30:

I've already addressed that. Due to how much time has been spent in the game, we will not be able to refund.

Nypolden at 15:25, Jan 30:

Was there anything else other than your refund request that I can address? If not I will need to end the chat.

You at 15:25, Jan 30:

you have not actually addressed it, you have made an arbitary decision based off a factor that you ahve not explained

You at 15:25, Jan 30:

what is the limit in time for a refund per your policy?

You at 15:26, Jan 30:

and, can you tell the difference between time the game is open and actual time played of the game?

Nypolden at 15:26, Jan 30:

That's not information we are able to openly discuss as the terms state that all sales are final.

You at 15:27, Jan 30:

yes but, as a retailer that operates in Australia you are required to follow the law, which states a refund must be available for a product that does meet acceptable standards or has major defects that prevent it from being used for its intended process

Nypolden at 15:27, Jan 30:

Since there isn't anything else I can address I'll let you go. Take care.

Info at 15:27, Jan 30:

Thank you for chatting with us.

Did they hire the same PR guys from Fallout 76?

https://archive.fo/ASyu8

 

[Lemmingwise]

I heard that it's partially that the SC2 editor was about a thousand times more user unfriendly than Warcraft 3's World Edit, on top of things like the lobby system being way worse, and the idea of Blizzard just taking what you made.

I didn't grow up playing it or anything, I'm not actually that familiar with Warcraft 3 or Starcraft or anything, but it's just staggering to me how Blizzard managed to retroactively fuck up one of their most beloved games.




It's just greed. A game selling for $100 isn't enough anymore, now you need infinite growth possibilities.

Big businesses and money men ruined games as much as anything.

They really fucked up.

They control the IP for a game that became the national sport of a country.

But I know that they were so fucking salty behind doors that they never profited off of starcraft in korea. Many design choices for starcraft 2 were done to be able to force users and tournaments to use blizzard servers, but the result was lag and ping problems for lan tournaments. But more importantly korean esports organizations recognising the trap and saying: fuck that, why migrate from starcraft brood war to one where we are blizzard's bitch?

Of course it's also just selling to activision and the departure of many of their old guard after they became wealthy beyond measure with world of warcraft.

 

[Thiletonomics]

The game is bad enough to the point that it makes Age of Empires 2's Definitive Edition look even better than it is, despite that game also having it's own set of issues. And WC3 Reforged costs almost twice as much as AOE2 DE, so it's the "you pay more for less deal" all over again.

But is WC3 Reforged as bad as say, Command and Conquer 4, when EA pretty much took a massive shit on that franchise?

 

[Fagnacious D]

Not sure if someone has thrown this link up/been mentioned in a video. Here is an Aussie trying to get a refund under their Consumer Protection Laws and the Blizzard customer rep being an absolute mongoloid going "nuh uh, our TOS says otherwise. Said user has allegedly sent them legal notice and given a template by which other Aussies can use.


Did they hire the same PR guys from Fallout 76?

https://archive.fo/ASyu8

I hope there's a class action lawsuit big enough to put a dent in Blizzard's wallet.
If there is one I doubt it will do much to their coffers but, honestly I just want shit like this to stop. False advertising, buggy, unplayable messes and horrible refund systems - it's all here.

 

[That Chris Guy]

So all I gather from this is that they killed the modding potential the remake could have immediately. Well, that sucks.

I stopped playing Blizzard games since Diablo 3, but Blizzard has taken a massive nosedive in the past decade concerning consumer-friendly practices. They're absolute cancer now, and it's only the WoW fanbase that really keeps them alive anymore. I know a few laughable Blizz fans who still defend the company and buy everything they release though. When Blizzard tells them to suck cocks, they ask how many.

It's an absolute shame when WC3 was such a gigantic pool of creativity and fun when it came to Custom Games, and now all that's gone. I don't care if they remastered a few cutscenes from single-player; it's been far too long.

 

[Exceptionally Exceptional]

So all I gather from this is that they killed the modding potential the remake could have immediately. Well, that sucks.

I stopped playing Blizzard games since Diablo 3, but Blizzard has taken a massive nosedive in the past decade concerning consumer-friendly practices. They're absolute cancer now, and it's only the WoW fanbase that really keeps them alive anymore. I know a few laughable Blizz fans who still defend the company and buy everything they release though. When Blizzard tells them to suck cocks, they ask how many.

It's an absolute shame when WC3 was such a gigantic pool of creativity and fun when it came to Custom Games, and now all that's gone. I don't care if they remastered a few cutscenes from single-player; it's been far too long.

God some of the custom maps were incredible, weren't they? I remember a map someone made that basically lets you wage interstellar war against each other. Dude used some handy scripting to get around that pathetic 90 food limit (which was really my only problem with the game, the max food limit meant greatly reduced battle sizes and that was a fucking crap way to make an RTS) and allow huge armies you could load onto dropships and invade your opponent's planets. Fuck, you even had creep factions you had to beat the hell out of on your home planet as well as planets across the galaxy.
And now apparently the faggots at Blizzard have decided to retroactively ruin theoriginal by forcing you to update to Reforged's. Seriously, even without the new models it forces you to update, and that update is 30 fucking gigs. Yes, somehow the update WITHOUT the new models is 10x larger than the game itself, making even owning the original game absolutely not worth it.

 

[WhoBusTank69]

I reinstalled Warcraft 3 a few years back and found the online community killed itself using autohosting through bots, spamming the game list and making it impossible to find a match with real players. All the soul was gone because aforementioned programs didn't allow for nonstandard match names, either advertising the service or going by "Shit Map Game #42069" to be as uniform as possible. Nobody talked unless it was bitching about downloaders, lag, or there not being any players. The typical response to my observation would be, understandably, quite offended - hosting in the good old days was difficult as refreshing your spot on the game list involved filling and emptying all the slots in the lobby, and without doing so it would be hard to fill a game. But you could actually fill a game in those times, since there were people still playing.

I can't be bothered to mourn the game since I had my fair share of enjoyment and admittedly wasted hours, the community strangled itself and custom maps were losing their innovative touch. Whether you enjoyed a good MAUL, TD, Footman Frenzy, LOAP, _RP, etc etc; that time is over now and can be cherished as experienced during its heyday and not its piss-poor resurrection.

 

[Gravityqueen4life]

CHINA NUMBER TWO! TWAIN NUMBER ONE! REMEMBER HONG KONG!

 

[Never Scored]

The game is bad enough to the point that it makes Age of Empires 2's Definitive Edition look even better than it is, despite that game also having it's own set of issues. And WC3 Reforged costs almost twice as much as AOE2 DE, so it's the "you pay more for less deal" all over again.

But is WC3 Reforged as bad as say, Command and Conquer 4, when EA pretty much took a massive shit on that franchise?

Warcraft III is still Warcraft III which is a good game. It's just riddled with bugs. Last night alone I had two multiplayer games randomly end for no reason. They also shoehorned in a new slapped together user interface that is clearly unfinished and full of bugs. For example, I realized the hero stats on the results screen don't line up with the usernames when the scores are being tallied. That would be so easy to fix. They took a 18 year old game that had no bugs and put a bunch of bugs in it.

You know what blows my mind? I saw some kid on reddit yesterday talking about how Blizzard doesn't have a reputation for releasing polished products. They used to be the company that would not release a game unless it was a great product, but after a decade of bullshit and entire generation now knows them as a shitty developer.

 

[אΩ+1]

Warcraft III is still Warcraft III which is a good game. It's just riddled with bugs. Last night alone I had two multiplayer games randomly end for no reason. They also shoehorned in a new slapped together user interface that is clearly unfinished and full of bugs. For example, I realized the hero stats on the results screen don't line up with the usernames when the scores are being tallied. That would be so easy to fix. They took a 18 year old game that had no bugs and put a bunch of bugs in it.

You know what blows my mind? I saw some kid on reddit yesterday talking about how Blizzard doesn't have a reputation for releasing polished products. They used to be the company that would not release a game unless it was a great product, but after a decade of bullshit and entire generation now knows them as a shitty developer.

Have you considered pirating Warcraft III so you could play this map?