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

[thepianogeniusfromshine]

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.

Median XL is the diablo 2 remaster Blizzard will never give us

Home - Median XL

The most popular Diablo II overhaul modification. Median XL is an action RPG with extensive endgame content, deep character customisation and challenging gameplay.

www.median-xl.com

 

[Anonymus Fluhre]

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.

Blizzard still pays for certain addons for WoW to be kept up to date, however Steam will pay people to find exploits in their service, and it's far more than Blizzard pays for addons.

Should be mentioned that Activision has slowly been putting in their own people into positions of power in Blizzard over the years. We all know what Activision is like. It's why they wanted to make more WoW expansions even though the Warlords of Draenor was supposed to be last (they had plans for one more expansion for the Emerald Dream, they just never wanted to release it). Now they want an expansion ever 2 years minimum. It's why Legion, Battle for Azeroth, and Shadowlands get released and why the story in those is so poor and ruins some lore.

The don't care if the code can't do it more, they will make abuse that series until it's dead (the reason for item crunch is because the code can't handle high number calculation. It really needs a new engine).

 

[Smug Chuckler]

Should be mentioned that Activision has slowly been putting in their own people into positions of power in Blizzard over the years. We all know what Activision is like. It's why they wanted to make more WoW expansions even though the Warlords of Draenor was supposed to be last (they had plans for one more expansion for the Emerald Dream, they just never wanted to release it). Now they want an expansion ever 2 years minimum. It's why Legion, Battle for Azeroth, and Shadowlands get released and why the story in those is so poor and ruins some lore.

If they were planning a final expansion, Legion was supposed to be it. WoD was a last minute thing to be a tie in for the movie and it would explain the stupid time travelling plot pulled from someone's ass and why they gave up half way through (and then tried to justify it that demons aren't affected by time and you fighting Archimonde the second time actually meant something which opens a whole can of paradoxes). Legion tried to fix it a bit and tied some loose ends that weren't addressed since Cata but then came retcons and pushing cartoon lovecraft monsters as the big bad and fucking that up big as we saw with N'Zoth in BFA and it didn't help that they wasted half of expansion on another stupid faction war because they can't market tentacle monsters properly, also Azshara who should have had her own expansion was another big waste.

 

[The best and greatest]

Thank goodness Valve obtained the IP, where Dota is treated with the utmost tact and respect.

I think its unfair to mock Valve just because you have no taste and can't play barbie dress-up for shit.

If they were planning a final expansion, Legion was supposed to be it. WoD was a last minute thing to be a tie in for the movie and it would explain the stupid time travelling plot pulled from someone's ass and why they gave up half way through (and then tried to justify it that demons aren't affected by time and you fighting Archimonde the second time actually meant something which opens a whole can of paradoxes). Legion tried to fix it a bit and tied some loose ends that weren't addressed since Cata but then came retcons and pushing cartoon lovecraft monsters as the big bad and fucking that up big as we saw with N'Zoth in BFA and it didn't help that they wasted half of expansion on another stupid faction war because they can't market tentacle monsters properly, also Azshara who should have had her own expansion was another big waste.

The biggest waste right now is that Activision wants to act like they're hayday blizzard and just ride the money printing juggernaut they paid so much for. A new WoW or other MMO would probably do a lot to revitalize the brand but its unlikely they have the willingness to make such large investments until the last minute so we'd probably see WoW go F2P first.

 

[That Chris Guy]

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.

It was surprising how much more mileage came out of the game thanks to the ingenuity of its users and their own passion. We played platforming games, a Smash Bros.-like warlock game (Warlock Brawl), a whodunnit-like survival game (Elevator Murderer), levels in reference to things like Black Hawk Down, even one that tried to simulate WoW in WC3. I remember playing a Tower Defence variation with infinite waves in which our group was so successful that the corpses took too long to decay and - despite being severely PC-friendly - the game eventually failed to load all character models and we were fighting with just clickable player circles and accompanying FX. Those were good times...now Blizzard just pisses away the community they could foster out of that and the free advertising that would follow.

Related to the cutscenes, I might have cared about them a while back but...it's been over 15 years. I just don't give a rat's now. I wanted an updated Arthas vs. Illidan cinematic back when WotLK released, preferrably in the opening cinematic. We didn't get that, and it's been long enough that I've seen not only Warcraft's lore crash and burn, but also Starcraft's and Diablo's as well. Not only that, but it still plays out like a disjointed Final Fantasy battle since Blizzard didn't get that the disorganised appearance was due to the limitations of their game engine.

 

[Jaimas]

So some more news from the frontlines as to how much of a botch this fucking thing is:

* It managed to fuck up the original game. If you own the original WC3 (via CD), and use it to connect to Battle.net, it will force a download that will update you to the new UI, new EULA, and new interface, even if you don't want them. Dozens of user settings maps are now technically illegal and what happened to SC2's user creator community is about to happen to WC3's, a decade and a half after the game came out.

* Dial-up support is no longer available, because of course it isn't. Neither is local LAN play. Because fuck you. So better hope you didn't like those features in the original game, because both are gone in the update.

* Updated WC3 maintains the ability to edit and create user campaigns, but no longer allows you to actually play them.

* Multiple lines from various units have been removed, seemingly for PC reasons. The Dryad making jokes about using her human call and then drunkenly saying he's so wasted is gone now. The joke the Spellbreaker made about jail time for stealing buffs is also gone, as is the Archer's declaration that she said Bow-String rather than G-String. Because if there's anything we need more than anything else in a remaster, it's censorship of a game over a decade and a half old.

* They replaced Samwise Didier's easter egg icon (the dude who literally created the name "Warcraft") with a random dangerhair.

I'm still digging into this but more shit emerges by the hour. They deserve nothing but ridicule for this.

 

[Plunkie]

Reminds me of how they fucked up SC2's custom mapping scene by releasing only with the Arcade, a terrible browsing system which ensured only the most circlejerked DoTA clones would remain on everyone's screens. You had to click a map and just pray to god someone else had clicked the same one as well.

They came back later and fixed it with an actual server list, but the damage was done and it seemed like nobody cared about custom mapping anymore.

 

[Duncan Hills Coffee]

You know what I hate about this?

I'm gonna go on a limb here and say that I'm younger than most, if not all of the people posting here. I only seriously got into PC gaming a few years back and I always felt I missed out on Blizzard's games. I could never figure out where to find them on current storefronts (I also don't pirate games which probably makes things harder on myself), and I didn't really have the money to shell out for an external CD drive for my shitty laptop as well as the old game CDs. Hell when they released Diablo 1 on GOG, I was excited because I had wanted to play that game for fucking years.

Thing is, now that I'm actually capable of playing these games, Blizzard decided now would be a good time to go down the shitter. Warcraft III for example, why would I want to shell out money for an inferior remake of a classic that also fucks with the original if you happen to own it?

It sucks man. I waited years to play stuff like this but it's not worth the money anymore.

 

[Never Scored]

You know what I hate about this?

I'm gonna go on a limb here and say that I'm younger than most, if not all of the people posting here. I only seriously got into PC gaming a few years back and I always felt I missed out on Blizzard's games. I could never figure out where to find them on current storefronts (I also don't pirate games which probably makes things harder on myself), and I didn't really have the money to shell out for an external CD drive for my shitty laptop as well as the old game CDs. Hell when they released Diablo 1 on GOG, I was excited because I had wanted to play that game for fucking years.

Thing is, now that I'm actually capable of playing these games, Blizzard decided now would be a good time to go down the shitter. Warcraft III for example, why would I want to shell out money for an inferior remake of a classic that also fucks with the original if you happen to own it?

It sucks man. I waited years to play stuff like this but it's not worth the money anymore.

It's not even a remake, that's the crazy thing. This isn't like the AOE remakes where they overhauled the entire game. It is literally the same game, same engine, same code with minor updates, with some new 3D models and now it's riddled with bugs that weren't there before because they fucked up impementing a new interface so badly.

 

[An Ghost]

My friend spent thousands of hours in WC3 custom maps so I can’t wait to tell him the news hoo boy.

I loved a few Starcraft 2 arcade maps. One of the most popular maps, itself an adaptation of a WC3 map, had irregular updates but remained very popular and importantly fun. They got support from blizzard and started releasing new game modes and features and you could even use the blizzard client to buy cosmetics, and the money would go to the developers of the custom game. So glad to see blizzard killed it by pocketing all the cash with new TOS. The one good free online game, and it’s die.

 

[Dumpster dived waifu]

You know what I hate about this?

I'm gonna go on a limb here and say that I'm younger than most, if not all of the people posting here. I only seriously got into PC gaming a few years back and I always felt I missed out on Blizzard's games. I could never figure out where to find them on current storefronts (I also don't pirate games which probably makes things harder on myself), and I didn't really have the money to shell out for an external CD drive for my shitty laptop as well as the old game CDs. Hell when they released Diablo 1 on GOG, I was excited because I had wanted to play that game for fucking years.

Thing is, now that I'm actually capable of playing these games, Blizzard decided now would be a good time to go down the shitter. Warcraft III for example, why would I want to shell out money for an inferior remake of a classic that also fucks with the original if you happen to own it?

It sucks man. I waited years to play stuff like this but it's not worth the money anymore.

Well, time to break out the pirate hat and drop the black sails, pirates versions are still viable and wont include a metric ton a modern day "enhancements".

 

[Marissa Moira]

So some more news from the frontlines as to how much of a botch this fucking thing is:

* It managed to fuck up the original game. If you own the original WC3 (via CD), and use it to connect to Battle.net, it will force a download that will update you to the new UI, new EULA, and new interface, even if you don't want them. Dozens of user settings maps are now technically illegal and what happened to SC2's user creator community is about to happen to WC3's, a decade and a half after the game came out.

* Dial-up support is no longer available, because of course it isn't. Neither is local LAN play. Because fuck you. So better hope you didn't like those features in the original game, because both are gone in the update.

* Updated WC3 maintains the ability to edit and create user campaigns, but no longer allows you to actually play them.

* Multiple lines from various units have been removed, seemingly for PC reasons. The Dryad making jokes about using her human call and then drunkenly saying he's so wasted is gone now. The joke the Spellbreaker made about jail time for stealing buffs is also gone, as is the Archer's declaration that she said Bow-String rather than G-String. Because if there's anything we need more than anything else in a remaster, it's censorship of a game over a decade and a half old.

* They replaced Samwise Didier's easter egg icon (the dude who literally created the name "Warcraft") with a random dangerhair.

I'm still digging into this but more shit emerges by the hour. They deserve nothing but ridicule for this.

You gotta be kidding me, they added censorship on top of the mess?

I still have my OG Collector's Edition of Warcraft 3 in the big huge box, I shall treasure it always but fuck shit like that.

Unless Blizzard cleans house they're going to go down like Bioware.

 

[Stoneheart]

It was surprising how much more mileage came out of the game thanks to the ingenuity of its users and their own passion. We played platforming games, a Smash Bros.-like warlock game (Warlock Brawl), a whodunnit-like survival game (Elevator Murderer), levels in reference to things like Black Hawk Down, even one that tried to simulate WoW in WC3. I remember playing a Tower Defence variation with infinite waves in which our group was so successful that the corpses took too long to decay and - despite being severely PC-friendly - the game eventually failed to load all character models and we were fighting with just clickable player circles and accompanying FX. Those were good times...now Blizzard just pisses away the community they could foster out of that and the free advertising that would follow.

Battletanks/ships, a couple of realy nice Lord of the Ring maps, full blown RPGs...

 

[GogglyGoblin]

I was having a lot of fun with both with the campaign and multiplayer and while unoptimized and rushed I figured they'll either fix it or I'd get used to it, I'm used to janky games so it's probably why it doesn't bother me too much.
I'm worried though that with such a poor reception multiplayer will be dead in 6 months or become SC2 part 2 where all the fun gets removed in favor of balanced win rates among korean pro players.

 

[OmnipotentStupidity]

Well, time to break out the pirate hat and drop the black sails, pirates versions are still viable and wont include a metric ton a modern day "enhancements".

Yeah, good luck with that. Any pirated copies only go up to 1.27 (the patch without most of the QoL changes and widescreen fix from 1.29) you won’t be able to access any multiplayer or single-player content (save for the campaign), and of course, even if you were able to get through all that, you still gotta deal with the fact that it’s now online-only and requires log-in (yes: somehow, someway, even for your pirated version of the game because BNet is now literal cancer to your hardware, in that it can now detect which version you have).

Which is fine if you just want to play the campaign and nothing else, but sucks if you want to do anything more than that.

 

[Jaimas]

You know what I hate about this?

I'm gonna go on a limb here and say that I'm younger than most, if not all of the people posting here. I only seriously got into PC gaming a few years back and I always felt I missed out on Blizzard's games. I could never figure out where to find them on current storefronts (I also don't pirate games which probably makes things harder on myself), and I didn't really have the money to shell out for an external CD drive for my shitty laptop as well as the old game CDs. Hell when they released Diablo 1 on GOG, I was excited because I had wanted to play that game for fucking years.

Thing is, now that I'm actually capable of playing these games, Blizzard decided now would be a good time to go down the shitter. Warcraft III for example, why would I want to shell out money for an inferior remake of a classic that also fucks with the original if you happen to own it?

It sucks man. I waited years to play stuff like this but it's not worth the money anymore.

Allow this oldfag to steer you into alternatives.

While Blizzard was succumbing to the infestation it now has, EA, for all its problems, did something right: Embraced its fan community for Command and Conquer.

It gave the fans the source code to the early games, which they used to mod the shit out of them, make maps, and in many cases, take the games apart and put them back together again to make them work on new systems. Want to play any of the first like nine C&C games on a modern rig? The fan community can make it happen. Want to try fun spinoffs like C&C Renegade? Don't worry, the fan communities run the servers now. Want to try a fanmade free game that combines Red Alert 1 with Tiberium Dawn using Tiberium Sun's engine, and creates a fucking amazing gameplay experience? Done.

About 2 years ago, EA made a very quiet announcement that it was ensuring all further C&C games had dedicated end-of-life plans with full intention to allow them to be turned over to the community when their time was up with pre-set-up support for fan servers, LAN support, and so on. They got as much of Command and Conquer 1 and 3's staff back together as possible for the remaster, including Joseph David Kucan, Kane himself. About the only guy they couldn't get was the actor for Shepard, who passed away in 2019. It was the first sign that EA was getting ready to enter the final stage of the EA cycle, where it finally starts to get its shit together again, but the biggest sign of better on the horizon came from the announcement that EA was specifically working with CNCnet on the remasters, and announced that it was not going to file any copyright shit against fangames of any kind. This is a fucking fantastic thing. These are turbonerds who took the game apart and put it back together so many times that they know individual unit speeds and turning times from memory. Many have been around since the original games released back in the 90s. EA knows that if it wants to ever make this franchise sing again it's going to need the turbonerds that made it good in the first place.

This is the same mindset that gave birth to Command and Conquer 3, which is one of the best RTS games ever made, so there's a lot of potential here. Conversely if you want to go back to the past and see where RTS games began, fire up Dosbox and play Dune 2. It's clunky, slow, and and chunky as hell but the gameplay holds up generations later.

You gotta be kidding me, they added censorship on top of the mess?

I still have my OG Collector's Edition of Warcraft 3 in the big huge box, I shall treasure it always but fuck shit like that.

Unless Blizzard cleans house they're going to go down like Bioware.

Yep! And your big box battle chest will become the shitty censored version if you ever connect to battle.net with it.

Your copy of Warcraft 2 from the same box will still work fine, hilariously enough.

 

[Duncan Hills Coffee]

Allow this oldfag to steer you into alternatives.

While Blizzard was succumbing to the infestation it now has, EA, for all its problems, did something right: Embraced its fan community for Command and Conquer.

It gave the fans the source code to the early games, which they used to mod the shit out of them, make maps, and in many cases, take the games apart and put them back together again to make them work on new systems. Want to play any of the first like nine C&C games on a modern rig? The fan community can make it happen. Want to try fun spinoffs like C&C Renegade? Don't worry, the fan communities run the servers now. Want to try a fanmade free game that combines Red Alert 1 with Tiberium Dawn using Tiberium Sun's engine, and creates a fucking amazing gameplay experience? Done.

About 2 years ago, EA made a very quiet announcement that it was ensuring all further C&C games had dedicated end-of-life plans with full intention to allow them to be turned over to the community when their time was up with pre-set-up support for fan servers, LAN support, and so on. They got as much of Command and Conquer 1 and 3's staff back together as possible for the remaster, including Joseph David Kucan, Kane himself. About the only guy they couldn't get was the actor for Shepard, who passed away in 2019. It was the first sign that EA was getting ready to enter the final stage of the EA cycle, where it finally starts to get its shit together again, but the biggest sign of better on the horizon came from the announcement that EA was specifically working with CNCnet on the remasters, and announced that it was not going to file any copyright shit against fangames of any kind. This is a fucking fantastic thing. These are turbonerds who took the game apart and put it back together so many times that they know individual unit speeds and turning times from memory. Many have been around since the original games released back in the 90s. EA knows that if it wants to ever make this franchise sing again it's going to need the turbonerds that made it good in the first place.

This is the same mindset that gave birth to Command and Conquer 3, which is one of the best RTS games ever made, so there's a lot of potential here. Conversely if you want to go back to the past and see where RTS games began, fire up Dosbox and play Dune 2. It's clunky, slow, and and chunky as hell but the gameplay holds up generations later.

I've always been curious about Command & Conquer. It's like the game besides StarCraft people bring up when discussing classic RTS games.

You know what's absolutely crazy though? Origin has that Ultimate Collection which has 17 fucking games. All for $20 too, which is an insane deal. I could get way more out of that collection than this Warcraft III remaster, and that wouldn't even include all the fan community shit you're talking about.

We live in a world where fucking EA has a better deal regarding the classic RTS series than Blizzard and that's just bizarre.

 

[Smug Chuckler]

Red Alert 2 was the best CnC game.

 

[Exceptionally Exceptional]

I'm actually wondering if what Blizzard has done isn't outright illegal. They're STILL using the animated cutscenes, which aren't actually in the game, in their advertizing for the game. As well as fucking with the original copies of the game.
I'm no lawyer, but something tells me that if a class action lawsuit started there'd be no way in hell a judge would side with Blizzard.

Allow this oldfag to steer you into alternatives.

While Blizzard was succumbing to the infestation it now has, EA, for all its problems, did something right: Embraced its fan community for Command and Conquer.

It gave the fans the source code to the early games, which they used to mod the shit out of them, make maps, and in many cases, take the games apart and put them back together again to make them work on new systems. Want to play any of the first like nine C&C games on a modern rig? The fan community can make it happen. Want to try fun spinoffs like C&C Renegade? Don't worry, the fan communities run the servers now. Want to try a fanmade free game that combines Red Alert 1 with Tiberium Dawn using Tiberium Sun's engine, and creates a fucking amazing gameplay experience? Done.

About 2 years ago, EA made a very quiet announcement that it was ensuring all further C&C games had dedicated end-of-life plans with full intention to allow them to be turned over to the community when their time was up with pre-set-up support for fan servers, LAN support, and so on. They got as much of Command and Conquer 1 and 3's staff back together as possible for the remaster, including Joseph David Kucan, Kane himself. About the only guy they couldn't get was the actor for Shepard, who passed away in 2019. It was the first sign that EA was getting ready to enter the final stage of the EA cycle, where it finally starts to get its shit together again, but the biggest sign of better on the horizon came from the announcement that EA was specifically working with CNCnet on the remasters, and announced that it was not going to file any copyright shit against fangames of any kind. This is a fucking fantastic thing. These are turbonerds who took the game apart and put it back together so many times that they know individual unit speeds and turning times from memory. Many have been around since the original games released back in the 90s. EA knows that if it wants to ever make this franchise sing again it's going to need the turbonerds that made it good in the first place.

This is the same mindset that gave birth to Command and Conquer 3, which is one of the best RTS games ever made, so there's a lot of potential here. Conversely if you want to go back to the past and see where RTS games began, fire up Dosbox and play Dune 2. It's clunky, slow, and and chunky as hell but the gameplay holds up generations later.

You're shitting me, EA did all that? Wow, it's almost like they still have a minimum level of respect for their established players even with all of their bullshit.
I never thought I'd ever type this following line out, but.... EA > Blizzard
The fact that I unironically typed that really shows you how very hard Blizzard has fallen in recent years.

 

[Slimy Time]

So some more news from the frontlines as to how much of a botch this fucking thing is:

* It managed to fuck up the original game. If you own the original WC3 (via CD), and use it to connect to Battle.net, it will force a download that will update you to the new UI, new EULA, and new interface, even if you don't want them. Dozens of user settings maps are now technically illegal and what happened to SC2's user creator community is about to happen to WC3's, a decade and a half after the game came out.

Fuck that! I think I might still have the CD for Frozen Throne from way back when it and Dota became big either in my house or in storage. There goes any thought of firing up the old CD to play vanilla/expansion Warcraft 3. What utter nonsense.