Was Warcraft 3 historically considered bad?

[RaggleFraggle]

They do clone those. You just named them in plurals.

Torrasque is singular. And sure, maybe they can clone them, but not at speed. Zerglings are implied to morph fully grown, maybe devouring ones actually need a growth cycle of years. So maybe overmind could make more kerrigans, but it would take ~20 years to grow them?

There is clearly some kind of limit to producing them as implied by the game mechanics anyway.

in any case, the zerg’s MO is to assimilate desirable qualities by consuming worlds and mass produce monsters with those qualities. They don’t value individuals like humans claim to.

So Kerry Sue shouldn’t exist. The writer breaks the rules of the universe to create her. For what? We already have humans. We don’t need the zerg to be hijacked and turned into humans.

Seriously, if you were writing your own bug war setting, then would you do that?

 

[Dr1f7]

yes wc3 was a commercial failure

 

[Storyfag]

They do clone those. You just named them in plurals.

Torrasque is singular. And sure, maybe they can clone them, but not at speed. Zerglings are implied to morph fully grown, maybe devouring ones actually need a growth cycle of years. So maybe overmind could make more kerrigans, but it would take ~20 years to grow them?

Or maybe it needed more time to absorb her DNA properly, and decided to use the single infested one it had available in the meantime? Her singular existence can be made sense of. Her (and more importantly, the PC Cerebrate) sparing Raynor, however, cannot.

 

[Storyfag]

*cue Terran theme 1 on my YT random playlist.

 

[Storyfag]

ruining them in a similar way to how the borg queen ruined the borg. Arguably she’s worse

She is. The Borg was shown to value the capabilities of individual drones, such as Locutus, very early on. The Borg just doesn't work quite like the Zerg do.

 

[Alex]

They do clone those. You just named them in plurals.

Torrasque is singular. And sure, maybe they can clone them, but not at speed. Zerglings are implied to morph fully grown, maybe devouring ones actually need a growth cycle of years. So maybe overmind could make more kerrigans, but it would take ~20 years to grow them?

Or maybe it needed more time to absorb her DNA properly, and decided to use the single infested one it had available in the meantime? Her singular existence can be made sense of. Her (and more importantly, the PC Cerebrate) sparing Raynor, however, cannot.

Wasn't the point of transforming Kerrigan into a zerg to put her supposed psychic potential to use? Is psychic power something purely biological in Starcraft? I mean, the archons didn't seem particularly biological anymore. If the point was to use her psychic abilities but psychic abilities aren't something purely biological, it would make sense they were stuck having to deal with some of Kerrigan's original personality. As for the player cerebrate, wasn't it supposed to be loyal to Kerrigan herself: I think I remember she praising it in some mission intro.

 

[ArchAngel]

Exactly. That’s how the zerg are established to work in literally every other instance across the games… except Kerry Sue. The writing is schizophrenic and inconsistent af, as to be expected from scatterbrained Metzen.

Eh. There's also the torrasque, the devouring ones, super hydralisks, etc, etc. Seems the zerg are not quite able to clone everything, or why would they ever build normal versions of those units?

She is unique in similar way Overmind is unique.

Overmind isn't unique. There's the original, and iirc two copies in brood war.

If I remember well Overmind regrows itself if you do not kill him using Dark Templar energies. It is same creature, not just similar one. Still unique.

2nd Overmind was all his Cerebreates combining to create a new one, this was after original was killed by dark templars. I would guess this one is not identical to original since it is combination of Cerebrates which do have a degree of freedom and self thought.

 

[Storyfag]

As for the player cerebrate, wasn't it supposed to be loyal to Kerrigan herself: I think I remember she praising it in some mission intro.

Not during that mission. The briefing you recall is from Brood War.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

Is psychic power something purely biological in Starcraft?

Yes. The manual says a minority of humans have psychic mutations and within a few generations they’ll rival the protoss. The zerg wanted to eat them to get these mutations and make better killing machines to fight the protoss, because otherwise the zerg would lose.

It would be completely idiotic to capture just one person and send that one person against the protoss. They rule a full eighth of the galaxy, many millions of planets. They have fleets of solid gold death stars. One person would die in seconds against that.

I mean, the archons didn't seem particularly biological anymore.

Humans are not archons. Other protoss are biological.

 

[Larianshill]

Nobody outside of RPG Codex (bitter boomer central) believes that WC2 is the best out of three. Not a single person.

 

[Jaedar]

As for the player cerebrate, wasn't it supposed to be loyal to Kerrigan herself: I think I remember she praising it in some mission intro.

Not during that mission. The briefing you recall is from Brood War.

But also Tassadar in sc1 campaign does a bamboozle, and the blame for falling for that is placed on Kerrigan and not the cerebrate. So I think Kerrigan is closer to a cerebrate than a normal zerg. Also, in bw the PCs of the other factions get retconned (It was all Raynor for terran, and you were playing as artanis for protoss), so maybe the intent/canon is that the PC cerebrate was under kerrigan in the command structure.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Nobody outside of RPG Codex (bitter boomer central) believes that WC2 is the best out of three. Not a single person.

Gameplay wise, it was too primitive to be really the best of anything. WC2 was great for its time but the genre back then was still in its infancy, literally just the next stage after Dune 2.

I will say aesthetically i liked it better than Warcraft 3. I'm undecided whether Starcraft was superior or not. My rational mind tells me it is but there's something about Warcraft 2 that still has an hold on me, especially that damn soundtrack. I honestly think i got into classical music because of the Warcraft 2 soundtrack. My first exposure to classical music was through the keyboard concertos of Bach as performed by Trevor Pinnock and his harpsichord there actually sounded similar to that in the Warcraft 2 soundtrack, so it made me nostalgic and i bought the whole Bach set and then from there i got into the whole genre.

 

[ArchAngel]

Is psychic power something purely biological in Starcraft?

Yes. The manual says a minority of humans have psychic mutations and within a few generations they’ll rival the protoss. The zerg wanted to eat them to get these mutations and make better killing machines to fight the protoss, because otherwise the zerg would lose.

It would be completely idiotic to capture just one person and send that one person against the protoss. They rule a full eighth of the galaxy, many millions of planets. They have fleets of solid gold death stars. One person would die in seconds against that.

I mean, the archons didn't seem particularly biological anymore.

Humans are not archons. Other protoss are biological.

I does not matter what manuals says. Game lore always beats manual lore.

 

[ArchAngel]

As for the player cerebrate, wasn't it supposed to be loyal to Kerrigan herself: I think I remember she praising it in some mission intro.

Not during that mission. The briefing you recall is from Brood War.

But also Tassadar in sc1 campaign does a bamboozle, and the blame for falling for that is placed on Kerrigan and not the cerebrate. So I think Kerrigan is closer to a cerebrate than a normal zerg. Also, in bw the PCs of the other factions get retconned (It was all Raynor for terran, and you were playing as artanis for protoss), so maybe the intent/canon is that the PC cerebrate was under kerrigan in the command structure.

Considering Kerrigan has the power to become new Overmind like creature it is clear she can also command Cerebrates. From sc1 and later sc2 she was created like that on purpose so she can fight the big bad from Sc2 as Overmind could not.
She was never just another psionic human harvested to give all Zerg Psi powers. They probably cannot do that as Xel'Naga created them differently. Even in sc2 after Kerrigan takes over fully she never has units made based on her DNA that have Psi powers.
Only corrupted Psi users are ever only other zerg like Psi users

 

[Tavar]

Warcraft 3 did phase out Starcraft everywhere but Korea.

Funny how Tavar agrees, despite Brood War competitive matches being shown here on TV as late as 2006 or maybe 2007. But of course, Warcraft III was more popular and had more screen time.

As for Warcraft II popularity, C&C games were definitely more popular here. I hear it was different in the US, kinda like how Sierra reigned there while LucasArts was a lot more popular in Europe.

Where is here and were they matches from South Korea league or some local boys?

Since Tavar is from Germany, obviously Germany. And none of the South Korean leagues, we had our own stuff.

You can just @ me directly when talking about me. Then, I actually have a chance to respond in time. In my experience, Warcraft III largely replaced Brood War in Germany. Even though my peer group played a lot of Brood War, we completely switched to Warcraft III after it's release. It was a great online and LAN game, especially because of the thriving custom maps scene. Warcraft III pro scene was also big with Waaagh!TV and the Grubby/Moon rivalry. I'm not sure whether it was ever shown on TV, though. DotA also became massive in the later 2000s and extend Warcraft III's life span quite a bit. At that time, nobody cared about Brood War.

 

[ghardy]

I will say aesthetically i liked it better than Warcraft 3. I'm undecided whether Starcraft was superior or not. My rational mind tells me it is but there's something about Warcraft 2 that still has an hold on me, especially that damn soundtrack. I honestly think i got into classical music because of the Warcraft 2 soundtrack. My first exposure to classical music was through the keyboard concertos of Bach as performed by Trevor Pinnock and his harpsichord there actually sounded similar to that in the Warcraft 2 soundtrack, so it made me nostalgic and i bought the whole Bach set and then from there i got into the whole genre.

Great choice. Those performances by Pinnock are magnificent.

I too find that WarCraft 2 retains a hold on me, even though I grant that StarCraft and WarCraft 3 are better games in some respects.

In regard to the effect of a soundtrack, I'll point to that of Captain Claw (1997). A good game with captivating music.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

so maybe the intent/canon is that the PC cerebrate was under kerrigan in the command structure.

You’re making a thermian argument using your headcanon as evidence. That’s not what is given in the game scripts. The scripts are badly written. I’m criticizing Metzen creative choices because he’s a hack and his writing is stupid.

Jesus Christ dude, this is fiction. You’re treating it like it’s real and making the worst excuses for it. You don’t need to do that. This is fiction, bad writing, written by an incompetent moron who got lucky. It doesn’t deserve your respect or excuses. You’re smarter than that.

You can accept that you liked something as a child while acknowledging its stupidity as an adult. It’s okay to have diametrically opposed opinions on something in different parts of your life. That doesn’t make you a fake fan or a hater, despite what toxically positive idiots online say. Toxic positivity is real and harmful.

I does not matter what manuals says. Game lore always beats manual lore.

The game lore is incoherent bullshit written by a braindead monkey and the manual lore sounds halfway competent. This garbage IP only sounds remotely reasonable to impressionable children and immature manchildren who refuse to look at their childhood likes with a critical eye.

Kerry Sue is a shitty mary sue girlboss who ruins the zerg’s concept by existing and quite frankly makes no fucking sense because the writer kept forgetting what he wrote between scenes. If she was written today, then everyone here would despise her. You’re only defending this shit writing because of irrational childhood nostalgia.

Grr. Argh.

I’m tired of trying to explain this. I’m sick of encountering so much obtuse stubbornness. I give up. Congratulations, you win.

 

[Lucumo]

Warcraft 3 did phase out Starcraft everywhere but Korea.

Funny how Tavar agrees, despite Brood War competitive matches being shown here on TV as late as 2006 or maybe 2007. But of course, Warcraft III was more popular and had more screen time.

As for Warcraft II popularity, C&C games were definitely more popular here. I hear it was different in the US, kinda like how Sierra reigned there while LucasArts was a lot more popular in Europe.

Where is here and were they matches from South Korea league or some local boys?

Since Tavar is from Germany, obviously Germany. And none of the South Korean leagues, we had our own stuff.

You can just @ me directly when talking about me. Then, I actually have a chance to respond in time. In my experience, Warcraft III largely replaced Brood War in Germany. Even though my peer group played a lot of Brood War, we completely switched to Warcraft III after it's release. It was a great online and LAN game, especially because of the thriving custom maps scene. Warcraft III pro scene was also big with Waaagh!TV and the Grubby/Moon rivalry. I'm not sure whether it was ever shown on TV, though. DotA also became massive in the later 2000s and extend Warcraft III's life span quite a bit. At that time, nobody cared about Brood War.

Thought briefly about it but I generally never directly @ someone when it's not absolutely necessary. And what you write is basically what I was writing too, with Warcraft III being more popular here. I also watched gamess via Waaagh!TV and like I said, it had more screen time than BW which means it was shown more on TV. It had, IIRC, two hours on Wednesday, sometimes stuff like King of the Hill on Thursday (where matches between top players like Grubby, ToD etc were shown) and the live games on Friday (just like BW). Something like DotA was maybe seen on Saturday as part of the diverse showing like Call of Duty 2, Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, Arena Wars, The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth, some racing simulation game etc etc etc. Brood War fell off in the later 00s, Warcraft III continued and I was still watching in early 10s but by that point on Twitch then. DotA was also massive from the start and then it split off into different clients (just like Brood War and Warcraft III).

 

[Brancaleone]

I will say aesthetically i liked it better than Warcraft 3.

Art direction in WC2 is nothing short of amazing, with its 'bloody fairytale' atmosphere. And on top of that from a bird's eye view, which is not exactly the easiest for bringing out the best of it. For lack of a better word, I'll call it endearing, to a point which maybe only Heroes of Might and Magic 2 ever managed to match.

 

[Hoodoo]

This feels like a troll topic. Argue about art direction etc all you want (wc3 was/is a beautiful looking game imo) but wc3 probably ranks as maybe one of the Top 5 most influential games ever made. Name a game that spawned more games than wc3. You can't. Tower defence. MOBA's. And all the thousands of gems that exist because of the custom map generator. The heyday of warcraft 3 was peak gaming for me.

 

[ind33d]

I literally used to have a WC3 LAN set up in my basement and now with the retards at Blizzard patching the game I don't even know if I can play it anymore. amazing how we allegedly live in the pinnacle of human history but everything gets worse every day

 

[Storyfag]

This feels like a troll topic. Argue about art direction etc all you want (wc3 was/is a beautiful looking game imo) but wc3 probably ranks as maybe one of the Top 5 most influential games ever made. Name a game that spawned more games than wc3. You can't. Tower defence. MOBA's. And all the thousands of gems that exist because of the custom map generator. The heyday of warcraft 3 was peak gaming for me.

It is a topic that has been split by Infinitron from the Warcraft Refunded thread. It isn't quite a troll thread, but neither is it an organic one.

 

[Just Locus]

You play as Arthas in the human campaign. Arthas also shows clear signs of not being quite hero material all over the campaign, then you have the whole "Purge this City" thing which is pretty hardcore anti-hero stuff. Arthas loses Jaina and Uther as his moral support, and he only gets worse from here.

From memory, I don't really remember Arthas showing clear signs of not being hero material, he isn't all-out-there in terms of wanting to save everyone but throughout the campaign, he's consistently cordial and friendly with everyone, until Chapter 6, when he orders the entire city to be purged, relieves Uther of his command and it just ends up feeling very contrived. The only hint towards this is him going "I'm going Uther. With. or Without you." in the chapter before, but this just comes across as heroic determination instead of any actual sign that he will eventually become a death knight.

 

[L'ennui]

Nobody outside of RPG Codex (bitter boomer central) believes that WC2 is the best out of three. Not a single person.

Gameplay wise, it was too primitive to be really the best of anything. WC2 was great for its time but the genre back then was still in its infancy, literally just the next stage after Dune 2.

I will say aesthetically i liked it better than Warcraft 3. I'm undecided whether Starcraft was superior or not. My rational mind tells me it is but there's something about Warcraft 2 that still has an hold on me, especially that damn soundtrack. I honestly think i got into classical music because of the Warcraft 2 soundtrack. My first exposure to classical music was through the keyboard concertos of Bach as performed by Trevor Pinnock and his harpsichord there actually sounded similar to that in the Warcraft 2 soundtrack, so it made me nostalgic and i bought the whole Bach set and then from there i got into the whole genre.

I too mostly blame Warcraft 2 for my enjoyment of the harpsichord and baroque music generally. And the manual's gorgeous art also pushed me to draw a lot as a kid. Unexpectedly beneficial side-effects I guess.

As for the thread topic: No, Warcraft 3 was never considered a "bad game" as far as I recall. I was somewhat disappointed by it in retrospect because of the aesthetic and tonal changes that everyone has already gone over at great lengths. I would add that I had been excited by the initial previews for the game, which hinted at a much more tactical game on a smaller scale with a tight focus on unit management and positiong, a bit like the Myth series by Bungie that I was a huge fan of back then. The game we got instead was a bit of a mix of that vision and a more traditional RTS game, I suppose. It was really well made, but took the games in a trajectory that led to a WoW-ification of everything Warcraft, so the series is more or less dead to me now.

Join the army, they said...
See the world, they said!

 

[RaggleFraggle]

You play as Arthas in the human campaign. Arthas also shows clear signs of not being quite hero material all over the campaign, then you have the whole "Purge this City" thing which is pretty hardcore anti-hero stuff. Arthas loses Jaina and Uther as his moral support, and he only gets worse from here.

From memory, I don't really remember Arthas showing clear signs of not being hero material, he isn't all-out-there in terms of wanting to save everyone but throughout the campaign, he's consistently cordial and friendly with everyone, until Chapter 6, when he orders the entire city to be purged, relieves Uther of his command and it just ends up feeling very contrived. The only hint towards this is him going "I'm going Uther. With. or Without you." in the chapter before, but this just comes across as heroic determination instead of any actual sign that he will eventually become a death knight.

As stated earlier, Arthas’ writing comes across schizophrenic. There’s evidence for both him being a born sociopath and a good person driven insane by extreme circumstances. None of this seems to be intentional, as none of the other characters who went through similar arcs are remembered (including post-evil Arthas). 99% of warcraft story discussions are “poor wretched Arthas in the human campaign, he needs a tv show.”

I find it rather frustrating myself. Arthas’ memorability seems to be a fluke of luck and timing more than anything else (the actual logic of the story is nonsensical: among other things, people don’t eat raw grain and it’s not evil to kill zombies), but RTS stories have stagnated for decades trying and failing to copy him.