Warcraft III: Reforged - now with lowest user metacritic score of all time

I'm not really talking about an outright rollback, so much as a "hey you know that thing you asked for, here is is!" but, in retrospect, you are right. I don't think enough people outside of competitive WC3 players would care. All the people casually checking in on an old favorite already left.

 

Based on how long people were clamoring for WoWClassic (pretty much as soon as Cata launched iirc), and assuming that the rumors of animosity and resentment between the Classic and "Current" WoW teams are true, there's no way this debacle is getting fixed anytime this decade. Only way it'll happen is if Winne-the-Pooh flexes the might of Beijing to lean on Blizzard; then it will happen instantly.

 

The big difference is that with Classic, the state of WoW that necessitated that movement was slow and gradual. The game did not become functionally "broken" or have the lowest metacritic score ever, it merely moved away from its original design philosophies over the course of a decade. Warcraft 3 was actually wrecked in the space of a day.

 

It's Actard.

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Lol, they're just sticking their fingers in their ears and humming louder and louder.

 

For those interested, the wc3 community made its own ladder since blizzard couldnt figure out how to do this before launch https://www.w3champions.com.
It's also called Pad's ladder because it has largely been coded by one person: Pad. Yes, one guy decided to code his own ladder to keep the European community alive accomplishing what blizzard couldn't.
It comes with match histories, stats and rankings for each player and the game modes are divided into numerous divisions according to your skill level, ranging from bronze to grandmaster. For now only 1v1 and 2v2 is supported, but FFA is currently being worked on. It's still very much an ongoing project, and Blizzard will never make an integrated ladder which comes anywhere near the quality of wc3champions.

 

Works towards a roadmap? What the heck have they been doing all this time, then?

And still no mention of replacing the garbage cutscenes that were the biggest lie in the original marketing.

 

They won't be touching the cutscenes and graphics any more if you ask me. Too much resources for uncertain gain.

 

pretty miserable

 

Oh god, just imagine what this dev team will do for "balance" patches.

 

I've been playing Warcraft 1 casually lately and the atmosphere is great. Since there are no control groups it's kinda hard to micro manage spells but other than that it's surprisingly playable (with a mouse-helper program that allows you to use your mouse like a "modern" RTS). It's a pretty good little game and it's tragic how the mighty have fallen.

 

It's a good game. Much more worthy of a remaster than WC3, in my opinion. WC3 is still mechanically "modern" by RTS standards. It has a very particular textured/low poly look that wouldn't be preserved without enormous care, as we've seen. Warcraft 1 (and 2) on the other hand, much like Starcraft, is a game you could remaster while preserving its feel, while including little unintrusive QOL changes here and there if that's the way you wanted to take it. Though given what has happened, I think the treatment GOG gave it where they just added functionality like borderless windows and other modern features, while leaving the game itself untouched, that's how you really ought to treat old games now.

 

I don't know how a remaster of WC1 would look like. The pixelization is part of the charm, if they give it the SC1 remaster treatment it's just going to look like WC2 probably. WC1 is less silly though, so it depends on whether they'll keep that vibe I guess.

 

If I were Blizzard, I'd do a hard reboot of this franchise. WoW can go on with the current universe due to its undead-like properties and many people's decade-long commitment, but the RTS should go back to Warcraft 1 and do something else with the plot. That way they can do a WoW2 too and get out of this mire they've been in for almost a decade that keeps getting worse and worse.

 

Rather than rebooting back to the state of WC 1, they could just create a new fantasy franchise, (called, to keep the naming convention ConflictForge), with green gnomes fighting against humans. Because the decisions on what to keep and what to throw away from Warcraft will never please everyone, so they could just start over from a blank slate.

 

A reboot of this franchise would come with quite a big PR bonus, though. It also needs cleaning, they've written themselves into a corner and there are no believable or exciting conflicts anymore. It would even be a good way to divert attention from this disastrous remake. If there's any attention paid to it anymore. They have to remove any cosmic forces at play because that's what drags it down, the constant scaling up of villains to fight. There shouldn't be villains against whom everyone can ally and in turn castrate the whole war part of Warcraft. The demons can still be a faction, but not embroiled into the whole "titans vs Sargeras" thing, the old gods should be done away with too. The minions can still be a faction, but again no cosmic-level shit. Maybe not factions, more like mysterious creatures with unknown motivations and no formal command/social structure. Something should be done about the night elves too, no 3edgy5you bad-anime-tier characters like Illidan, no aloof immortal smugness, no weird plotlines like the well of eternity thing. Thrall should be mercilessly incised too, this franchise doesn't work when everyone is working towards peace.

 

But if you do all of that to the WC franchise, you're removing most of the well-known parts of the lore (WC 3 + WoW), so better just start as a new franchise. Maybe you don't care about all this, but for most people into WC, it's all they know, so such a reboot wouldn't work. A new franchise wouldn't be hamstrung by having to sort among all the crap and then having to deal with the whining of idiots because their favorite character had been removed.

 

Ah, music to my ears. Really, though, you'll just have to rewrite a few things to tell the same story, just better. Nothing is stopping the Lich King from becoming that without the involvement of demons. You don't need that extra motivation for Arthas, he's already down for the slaughter from day 1. The undead could assault mount Hyjal on their own. You'll just remove Illidan basically and every mention of demonic hierarchies. Kel'Thuzad could just be summoning a mass of demons without being forced to by the demons themselves. The characters need their own motivations without external puppetry. The first game in this hypothetical reboot would be a retelling of WC1 and 2. That way the groundwork can be set up to change the story of WC3 a little bit. I honestly think this is their best option going forward. A new IP is not Blizzard's strong suit atm, Overwatch is garbage as a setting/universe for example.

 

Interesting. It could be done story-wise, but I'm not seeing Blizzard trying anything new with Warcraft in the short term

 

You seem to be forgetting the demons were in it from the start. They are responsible for the Orcs' arrival in Azeroth. I am not saying changes would not be possible. But their scope would be too large to retain any benefit of keeping it a WarCraft setting.

 

Medivh could research the spells needed to open the dark portal on his own. I don't remember how that looked like from the orcs' perspective, but they could use their warlock magics to contact Medivh in order for him to know to open the portal in the first place. If you mean the demons were in WC1 as a unit summoned by the warlocks, that's not an issue at all. The demons as creatures can still exist and be summoned by warlocks, just no hierarchies and grand cosmic plans.

As for the demons in WC3, especially Mal'Ganis, his role can be taken over by Kel'Thuzad himself. Instead of dying in like the fourth mission, he could be the one to lure Arthas to Northrend. Then his resurrection by Arthas would be more poetically ironic.