WarCraft III: When Men Were Men, Orcs Were Orcs, and Customs Were Fun

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Retro Games > WarCraft III: When Men Were Men, Orcs Were Orcs, and Customs Were Fun

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Flayer: Sep 13, 2003; by Fluffdaddy; Buglord

I had so much fun playing Uther Party with friends when we got bored of laddering or just wanted to mess around. Speaking of ladder, does anyone still play the regular ladder these days?! I have fond memories of playing ladder and watching all the pro players. I guess WC3 was really the prototype for the big e-sports scene in the west these days. It's the first game I remember where top players became e-celebrities in the west.

# ¿ Dec 31, 2013 02:48

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# ¿ May 6, 2024 01:32

Flayer: Sep 13, 2003; by Fluffdaddy; Buglord

It's amazing that I can search solo queue games and get matched up within 30 seconds a full ten years after the originals release. It's a testament to the greatness of the game that it's still more fun to go onto old BNet and play WC3 than it is to play SC2. I really hope that WC4 comes out one day.

# ¿ Jan 1, 2014 19:39

Flayer: Sep 13, 2003; by Fluffdaddy; Buglord

Tykero posted:

I played hours upon hours of Island Defense.

This game was the best. I loved being the Titan and trolling the hell out of the little builder players. Many, many hours wasted on that map, all as the Titan.

# ¿ Mar 26, 2014 11:06

Flayer: Sep 13, 2003; by Fluffdaddy; Buglord

I've forgotten exactly how to do this but I remember back in the day that if you opened up a map in the WC3 editor you could see the code for any given spell and then you could just add a line into customkeys.txt in the WC3 install folder and map it to any key you wanted. I used to do that to map certain keys in custom games.

# ¿ Jul 16, 2014 15:32

Flayer: Sep 13, 2003; by Fluffdaddy; Buglord

Night Elf were OP for pretty much the whole of vanilla WC3 due to Huntress, Demon Hunter and Ancients. Not to say that other races didnt have there own incredibly powerful ways of playing. Pretty sure Undead was the weakest class in Vanilla. It was something like NE -> Orc -> Human -> Undead. I used to play a lot of Orc in vanilla and so many games came down to basically how the early game duel between Blademaster and Demon Hunter went.

FT was much more balanced.

# ¿ Dec 20, 2014 15:06

Flayer: Sep 13, 2003; by Fluffdaddy; Buglord

If they release Warcraft 4 and keep the characters good I'll be in heaven. It's travesty what they did to Kerrigan and Raynor in SC2, two amazing characters reduced to unrecognisable trash.

# ¿ Jan 6, 2015 21:14

Flayer: Sep 13, 2003; by Fluffdaddy; Buglord

Billy Jo Robidoux posted:

After defeating Sargares and saving Azeroth the dwindling WoW players jump through a portal crated by Khadgar to find the lost paladin and elf from War2, Endless planet hoping WoW expansions.

Meanwhile back on Azeroth the new found peace grows tense as the two main factions split up into separate groups, war is on the horizon! Warcraft4 war! Humans, Dwarves, and Gnomes vs Undead and Blood Elves vs Draenei, Night Elves, and Wargen vs Orcs, Trolls, Tauren, and Goblins. Or maybe just balance 12 playable factions!

No way you could balance 12 factions. It could use the Red Alert 2 system where you pick your side but then pick a racial perk in addition.

# ¿ Jan 8, 2015 16:19

Flayer: Sep 13, 2003; by Fluffdaddy; Buglord

UrAClassAct posted:

didn't someone create a custom version of echo isles that was rigged for or against orc and it wasn't discovered for a long time? I googled but I couldn't find anything on it. I remember the map was branded with insignia from sponsors or the replay site or whatever (like http://war3.replays.net) and the random damage was tinkered with either up or down for the orc. pro players played on it for tournaments.

Yeah this happened. The guy who ran a Korean professional league thought that Night Elf was too strong and Orc was too weak so in every match between Orc and NE special versions of maps would be used that nerfed NE and buffed Orc in just about every way that couldn't be easily spotted. Those Korean leagues used to used edited versions of regular maps with sponsors logos and stuff all imprinted upon them so it wasn't weird to have non-standard ladder maps for tournament games.

# ¿ May 30, 2017 16:44

Flayer: Sep 13, 2003; by Fluffdaddy; Buglord

The lowered latency cap is exciting. While adapting to 250 was possible it was an annoying issue to deal with in a game that was based around micro.

# ¿ Jun 21, 2017 17:57

Flayer: Sep 13, 2003; by Fluffdaddy; Buglord

Having 4 such distinct factions is very hard to balance, exponentially harder than balancing with only 3. Off the top of my head I can't think of another RTS which has 4 or more unique factions that is even remotely balanced. In that regard I think WC3 is very good as depending on the meta all of the factions have been considered OP at points, regardless of patches. The only real balance issue that has consistently popped up is Orc vs UD, which is mainly an issue with Blademaster, Hex and Raiders somewhat negating the Undead hero synergy advantages that makes traditional armies like mass Fiends work.

# ¿ Dec 12, 2017 16:28

Flayer: Sep 13, 2003; by Fluffdaddy; Buglord

I like the buffs to Farseer. I hated how Orc became the Blademaster class in TFT. Orc vs Orc and especially Orc vs Human could now move to a place where both BM and FS are viable first hero's - the increased HP of the wolves giving FS an improved creep clear and the lower exp from wolves dying being less punishing on micro fails (extra wolves HP helping with this too). I still think BM will be first choice in the NE and UD match ups due to DK sniping with BM/Hex and Blademasters ability to compete with DH.

# ¿ Feb 22, 2018 19:01

Flayer: Sep 13, 2003; by Fluffdaddy; Buglord

Been waiting for this to drop. Hopefully the issues are fixed soon! Excited for the new colours.

# ¿ Apr 12, 2018 12:46

Flayer: Sep 13, 2003; by Fluffdaddy; Buglord

Mooseontheloose posted:

Its sad because it feels like the RTS genre is dead at the moment but I am sure that will change in the next few years.

It's dead because MOBAs came along and stole the playerbase for that type of game (THANKS FOR STARTING THAT, WC3 DOTA).

Played a few 1v1 games post patch on the Bnet servers. All seems good. Liking the new Farseer - 1 Wisp can no longer dispel a lvl1 Spirit Wolf. gently caress yeah.

# ¿ Apr 16, 2018 12:41

Flayer: Sep 13, 2003; by Fluffdaddy; Buglord

Groovelord Neato posted:

and "ladder anxiety" is lessened when you have other people to blame.

This is so real and a big reason for team games being more popular. I've played a ton of 1v1 and love the format but even so I'd often jump into games of meaningless 4v4RT because the pressure of a solo felt too high. It doesn't help that WC3 is such a micro intensive game so it takes a lot of effort to try hard.

# ¿ Apr 18, 2018 10:30

Flayer: Sep 13, 2003; by Fluffdaddy; Buglord

Brood War isn't really balanced by virtue of each side being asymmetrical yet equal but rather by clever map design by third-parties. For instance when Starcraft was originally released the now traditional structure of starting positions having a close ramp was not ubiquitous - plenty of the original Blizzard maps designed for multiplayer have completely open starting positions or only have choke points miles away from the base. Great maps cleverly designed to get the best out of the game is what really made Starcraft viable as a competitive game. Apart from the base game nothing that Blizzard did had any effect on turning Starcraft into ultimately the game with the best pro-scene ever.

Warcraft 3 is a better balanced game in a vacuum but the maps never got as well defined as they did for Starcraft (probably due to Blizzard being aware of the pro-scene and keeping tighter control over it). The fact that Warcraft 3 had a healthy and vibrant pro-scene (featuring periods of dominance for every race) for many years while largely relying on unaltered Blizzard ladder maps is testament to how well the game is balanced, especially considering the difficulty of balancing 4 factions.

# ¿ May 13, 2018 01:26

Flayer: Sep 13, 2003; by Fluffdaddy; Buglord

Hail to the motherfucking king.

CAN

NOT

WAIT

# ¿ Nov 2, 2018 21:04

Flayer: Sep 13, 2003; by Fluffdaddy; Buglord

From what I remember the campaign AI cheats with resources by having its workers carry far more gold per trip than the human player (I think x10). So while you can technically run them out of gold you have to basically shut down their economy so completely that you would have won by force at that point anyway.

# ¿ Nov 10, 2018 01:35

Flayer: Sep 13, 2003; by Fluffdaddy; Buglord

It may have also been to give Blizzard better copyright protection because the names Catapults/Ballista/Wyvern are generic while the new names are more specific to Warcraft. Gyrocopter and Steam Tank seem less likely for that reason but who knows.

Gruntapult was/is my favourite strategy to crush Elves with so Catapults for life yo

# ¿ Nov 16, 2018 14:09

Flayer: Sep 13, 2003; by Fluffdaddy; Buglord

General Battuta posted:

Huh, that's crazy. You'd think a bunch of basic grunts/footmen would just overwhelm them, even if the casters had ranged piercing attacks, but I guess their spells were just that good? Or was piercing damage just universally good in RoC?

Casters cost 2 food and did damage commensurate to that cost without using spells. Shamans with Bloodlust for Orc and Sorcs with Slow for Human therefore massively out DPS'd any type of standard unit. NE and UD didn't tend to mass casters in RoC because they didn't have such strong DPS advantage spells. The go-to strat for NE was mass Huntress, a fast semi ranged unit that had ridiculous DPS and was available at t1 while Undead relied on triple hero nukes while teching to tier3 Ghouls which were absurdly fast and had huge DPS allowing UD to easily trap and nuke enemy hero's. The whole game was basically entirely rebalanced for The Frozen Throne and none of those strats worked after release (although triple hero UD remained but usually utilizing Fiends instead).

# ¿ Nov 25, 2018 01:07

Flayer: Sep 13, 2003; by Fluffdaddy; Buglord

Milo and POTUS posted:

The best thing about old Warcraft 3 was almost everything had its moment in the sun as far as imbalance was concerned.

It was kinda the opposite. Hero choice was pretty much solved in each match-up - the only real big change in the meta I remember was NE going full on Ancient abuse by the time Frozen Throne was coming out. It got quite ridiculous with whole armies of AoWs. Most of the important meta changes were based around creeping patterns.

# ¿ Dec 17, 2018 13:52

Flayer: Sep 13, 2003; by Fluffdaddy; Buglord

My favourite balance change was when they made Anti-Magic Shell non-dispellable.

# ¿ Dec 17, 2018 14:34

Flayer: Sep 13, 2003; by Fluffdaddy; Buglord

Cripple available soon after hitting tier2 is pretty big. Potentially you can have DK/Lich/Cripple pretty early giving enemy heroes a torrid time.

Frenzy being AoE sounds amazing on the face of it but since Frenzy also damages the units it's on you'll have to be careful about nuking your own casters.

# ¿ Apr 27, 2019 13:55

Flayer: Sep 13, 2003; by Fluffdaddy; Buglord

Is this ever coming out. I just want to ladder like its 2003 again.

# ¿ Jul 30, 2019 12:37

Flayer: Sep 13, 2003; by Fluffdaddy; Buglord

I'll be happy with just an HD update of the original on the current balance patch so shoving it out might just fine.

# ¿ Sep 2, 2019 15:11

Flayer: Sep 13, 2003; by Fluffdaddy; Buglord

The new models are pretty looking on their own merits however I can't help but feel a certain chunkiness and weight has been lost, particularly on the Grunt. It looks like an Orc that has been working out to look good for his modelling shoot rather than a tough as nails melee fighter.

# ¿ Nov 4, 2019 16:47

Flayer: Sep 13, 2003; by Fluffdaddy; Buglord

Why are like 90% of the new icons duller than the originals? Really don't understand that at all. The old icons are in general considerably brighter and more readable as a result.

# ¿ Nov 25, 2019 13:33

Flayer: Sep 13, 2003; by Fluffdaddy; Buglord

I was hoping to get back into War3 with the release of the update so I definitely think there would at least be a small boost.

# ¿ Jan 15, 2020 13:57

Flayer: Sep 13, 2003; by Fluffdaddy; Buglord

I wish I could get my old icons back!

# ¿ Jan 15, 2020 14:12

Flayer: Sep 13, 2003; by Fluffdaddy; Buglord

Orc towers have longer range than Human ones, which I imagine plays some part in it. There is also no better late game assassin than the Blademaster so when it's a hero vs hero stalemate you always want a Blademaster on your side.

# ¿ Jan 24, 2020 11:35

Flayer: Sep 13, 2003; by Fluffdaddy; Buglord

To be fair making your own custom text file for your hotkeys is from the original WC3 release and it's actually really good considering the sheer amount of units. You can even use the text file to create custom hotkeys for UMS games if you go into the map and find the unit code (at least you could in the past!).

# ¿ Feb 21, 2020 18:55

Flayer: Sep 13, 2003; by Fluffdaddy; Buglord

Milo and POTUS posted:

Dota will survive the heat death of the universe I think.

Anyway, what were WC3 numbers like back in its peak? I remember logging onto bnet and seeing xxxxxx number of players playing xxxx of games (across all bnet games) but if I had to put an actual number to those I'd probably embarrass myself. The scene was certainly impressive though. It was definitely in the tens of thousands but I'm trying to recall if it ever peaked 100k

There were four servers (East/West, Euro, Asia) all fairly evenly populated so it certainly punched through a hundred thou several times over at its peak.

# ¿ May 26, 2020 11:42

Flayer: Sep 13, 2003; by Fluffdaddy; Buglord

I always assumed they changed the names of units that were generic to something more unique, probably for some copyright reason. Wyvern is a well known fantasy creature while Wind Rider is something specific to this game etc etc

# ¿ Jun 1, 2020 10:42

Flayer: Sep 13, 2003; by Fluffdaddy; Buglord

The SC1 Terran vanilla story is actually a pretty good one. Not mindblowing or anything but a good story with plenty of atmosphere and character. It does go downhill after that, especially the Protoss stuff, but is passable throughout.

SC2 on the other hand is utter poo poo. Raynor and Kerrigan as characters in particular are completely destroyed and eviscerated as interesting people. Personally I think they were afraid to make Kerrigan into the proper villain she deserved to be so she feels very neutered and watered down while Raynors transition from space cowboy/survivor to unbeatable superman takes everything that made the character work and throws it in the trash. The less said about the romance angle, the better.

# ¿ Aug 10, 2020 10:33

Flayer: Sep 13, 2003; by Fluffdaddy; Buglord

They even managed to throw in some random rear end temple which contained a prophecy that they were the chosen ones to save the universe. Just jamming in every lame cliche they possibly could.

# ¿ Aug 13, 2020 16:08

Flayer: Sep 13, 2003; by Fluffdaddy; Buglord

Only if spamming basic units with the AFK base is a vastly more effective tactic than whatever idiotic ploy the actual RT player would do if he was still playing.

# ¿ Sep 4, 2020 12:22

Flayer: Sep 13, 2003; by Fluffdaddy; Buglord

Ancients having Fortified armour even when uprooted and giving full experience to heroes when they killed creeps.

MASS HUNTRESS

# ¿ Dec 1, 2020 10:44

Flayer: Sep 13, 2003; by Fluffdaddy; Buglord

The best strategy in early RoC was playing as Orc, turning off all the maps that had more than 2 spawns, blind tower rush off the best treeline with a Farseer and if they managed to eventually fight that off then RAWRRARWWAARWARW you've teched to mass Shaman in the meantime!

Or just play as NE and have everyone hate you for being a poo poo

# ¿ Dec 1, 2020 17:31

Flayer: Sep 13, 2003; by Fluffdaddy; Buglord

Mass Banshees was OP in the patch when they made Anti-Magic Shell undispellable. Anti-Magic Shell at the time gave a unit total magic immunity (rather than just eating up some magic damage like it does now) so in the days of mass casters having your army be completely immune to magic was incredible. Instant Possess was just the icing on the cake but it was Anti-Magic Shell and the nature of the game back then that was the actual reason they were amazingly good for that one patch.

# ¿ Dec 4, 2020 13:39

Flayer: Sep 13, 2003; by Fluffdaddy; Buglord

Levelling up in RA2 was mental though. 1 Elite Rhino could level a base in no time at all or just lay waste to enemy armour. In Tib Sun the veterancy was still good but more nuanced.

I remember that killing off your own Grunts (or other low health units) was a thing all through WC3 to deny the enemy heroes exp. Last hitting before last hitting was a MOBA mainstay. Although in WC3 you could run your near death units into creeps because enemy heroes only got exp from a certain radius around them rather than map wide.

# ¿ Dec 7, 2020 16:07

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# ¿ May 6, 2024 01:32

Flayer: Sep 13, 2003; by Fluffdaddy; Buglord

I don't think Sappers have ever been able to go in transports and I got WC3 on release or very close to it. Maybe in the beta? I forget if there was one.

# ¿ Jan 26, 2021 12:28

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