> If only I could remember the name of that game... Games we will hear too much about this year

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Warcraft III
Blizzard/ Blizzard/ PC


The Orcs are back!

It seems to have become a standard marketing ploy in the gaming industry: Announce a game extremely early in its development, provide a pretty much impossible release date, get all of your fans extremely excited about your product, then announce difficulties and push the release back. Next, advertise some more to get your fans pumped up again then announce a change in game concept or the addition of some new technology. Push back the release date and work on building up even more fervor for your product. Repeat indefinitely (throwing in a limited beta test is an option) until the game is finally ready for release and pray your fans are still interested. The only question remaining is, who's dumber: the developers for creating this insane strategy or we the gamers for falling for it time and time again? Every year we are faced with a new slew of games about which we will hear endlessly and this year is no different. There is no worse offender in this whole production mess than Blizzard, and if recent events involving Warcraft III are any indication, Blizzard is preparing to begin the whole process once again.

Initial reports on Warcraft III were exciting; Blizzard was going to move away from a resource management large-scale battle model of Real-Time Strategy gaming and towards a hero focused small unit Role-Playing Strategy title. Warcraft fans were excited and started gathering as much information as they could (make note of opening paragraph). Recent news items from Blizzard have revealed that Warcraft III has now changed directions (remember the formula) and will return to some of it's Real-Time Strategy roots.

Stay calm; there is no reason to panic. The direction of Warcraft III may have changed but many of the new and intriguing features are still in the plans. Heroes will definitely play a major role in the game and will still have a personal inventory and an ability to collect magical items to enhance their power. Heroes will also still accrue experience, advance in levels and receive new abilities during a campaign. All of these important features seem to have survived the changes to the game. However, there will be a greater focus on resources than was originally planned as well as a more traditional use of buildings and structure upgrades to develop your units. Initial plans requiring normal units to be under the command of a hero and limiting camera movement to your hero's location have both been dropped in favor of allowing all units to act autonomously and the return of a free roaming camera perspective.

New additions to the Warcraft universe will also include neutral races, of which centaurs and an arctic yeti-like race were presented in the E3 demo, that will protect certain goals or provide the player with quests and items. It is uncertain at this time if any of these neutral races will be available for recruitment to fight with the player's armies.

Combat has also received an overhaul with units increasing in toughness and abilities, allowing more strategic unit-to-unit battles as the player will have more time to retreat, flank, use spells and activate special abilities. Heroes are much more powerful than normal units and in the combat demonstrated at E3 definitely made a difference in the battle's outcome. Normal unit stats and abilities also increase if a hero is within a certain distance, providing an advantage over a group of leaderless troops. Interestingly, many objectives within the game will be obtainable via standard warlike methods or through a more carefully thought out peaceful approach.

The graphics and sounds are very Warcraftian and although greatly improved from the days of Warcraft II, they are not jaw dropping. One of the biggest surprises was that the terrain in the game will remain two-dimensional eliminating a wide variety of strategy options that many new games are now offering. Similar to Diablo II, the changes in Warcraft III are great but could have gone even further and provided an even greater amount of new game play.

Where will Warcraft III go from here? Only Blizzard really knows, but an educated guess would lead one to believe that the first quarter 2001 release date will probably be pushed back as the game is tweaked and adjusted. Between now and then, gamers can only guess at the amount of advertising, trailers, hints and message board discussions that will occur as Blizzard preps fans for the game's impending release. There is no doubt that we are going to hear way too much about Warcraft III in the next year. The sad part is, most of us are going to love every second of it as we wait in anticipation of an old friend returning home and providing us with hours of single and multiplayer real-time strategy/role-playing strategy fun.

-Sean Miller

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