Warcraft 3

[Serendib]

Stopping in to say Hi :)

Warcraft 3... is amazing.

Ranks among the top 5 single player games of all time IMO, along with Metal Gear Solid, Wonder Boy 3 (SMS version), Final Fantasy 6, and Quake 1.

Been playing the beta for a few months but just recently played the retail.. holy shiat.

Anyone else been fooling around with it?

[Trazz]

Waiting for NWN to come out. Should be good!

[Zarxen]

I have been playing it Seren and it owns. I am on the 3rd campaign atm. The Heroes are alot of fun aswell as the new races.

[Bram]

Bought my copy of NWN today. Now between work, EQ, and NWN I will not have any time <sigh>. I am really looking forward to making my own content in NWN.

Too bad WC3 is coming out at the same time. I'll have to wait another month.

Bram

[Eomer]

Can't find the damn thing here, I think it should be around tomorrow though. Kind of silly that the city where the game made seems to be the last to get copies of it :/. Damn the manufacturing process, damn it all!

[Andaas]

The EB near me didn't have it today either.

[Eomer]

Screw it, ima just drive down to Bioware and demand a copy from their secretary!

[Trazz]

Haven't checked the local software store. Hope to soon!

I'm sure I will have a DM server up soon though, or a buddy of mine.. He bigger into it then anyone I know hehe

[Bram]

Hehe...

I'll be running a persistent world, hopefully with more than one server. We'll see what happens with money. Nothing will be out for a couple months at least. I play EQ, you see...and I have to pay the rent...and...well...I am slow that way ;>

I'll mention it here when I get done. Or at least done enough.

Now to figure out the server requirements if using Linux...;>

P.S. Both EB and Software Etc in my local Maul (spelled correctly, it really is) had it. Software Etc got 20 extra copies this morning (total of 80). They had 5 left by the time I left, 2 hours after opening.

[Torrid]

War3 is NOT out yet. Its going to be out July 3rd. Everyone who has it now (like me) downloaded it. Razor 1911 released it on the 14th.

War3 simply kicks ass. Anyone who got ahold of it early BETTER fucking pay for it. I still can't wait to get the $80 collectors edition on the 3rd!

[Elkay]

wtf is a torrid?
-LK

ps I am hotter than Rhedd

[Rhedd]

Elkay had a mistype there if you didnt know he ment to say

ps

Rhedd is hotter than Elkay


np elkay glad to correct you anytime

[Eomer]

Got my hands on a copy of NWN today finally! Soon I will have my brothel *ahem* server up and running, porn campaigns for all!

On a serious note, anyone know how it works for running a dedicated server? If I were to use my secondary comp to run campaigns on, would I need to get a second copy of the game? That would be gay :/

Price was 79.99 CDN, which isn't too bad. Only 10-20 bucks more than the price of a standard game, and this game is gonna be anything but standard.

[Bram]

I was told that the dedicated server was a download from Bioware. You just have to put in your cd-key and register. I have not checked this for myself yet, Eomer so I can't vouch for its veracity.

It will be a couple months before I get my persistent world up and running. EQ, work, the usual stuff will get in the way. And I really should be writing before WorldCon. I need to have a project in the works when I am talking to editors.

Bram

[Ydmos]

Not sure why anyone would say warcraft 3 is 'all that'. Granted it does have very nicely done graphics and animations... but the shallow gameplay will likely bore you to death after the first time. When you're done the single player campaigns (and it wont take you that long, even on hard mode), and try to move on to multi player you find out that there's only one or two viable strategies for playing each race (that is if you like to win). Sure, you can get cute with numbered amounts of different units, but in the end, game comes down to mass producing the two appropriate units. The entire so-called strategy is learning whether to pursue plan A or plan B for your class, given your enemy's chosen play style.

Sure, awesome game; the first time through. I don't mean to completely bash it, game is a lot of fun and will probably sell millions (having the Blizzard logo on it isnt gonna hurt). The only reason I'm speaking ill of it at all is because someone mentioned it being "best single player game ever" or something similar. I couldn't let that slide; it's a quality game, blizzard has long tradition of making quality games. But it's definitely not gonna redefine the gaming industry in any way shape or form.

If I remember correctly theres some fewls here who are STILL playing starcraft. I bet they'll be back at it a month after they're done with war3. Hell they were already back at it when war3 was still in beta :p

NWN on the other hand is looking awesome. For people who like the genre, it's a pretty amazing game. Except it does seem to suffer a bit from Morrowinditis... gets so much easier as you go through it. I'm not done it yet so maybe I'll prove myself wrong. Regardless, is looking mighty solid.
As for multiplayer, I haven't really looked into it but I'm pretty sure you're stuck with the server program they ship with the game. Which really fucking sucks because it takes up 80% of system resources just to sit there and idle. I don't even wanna imagine what kinda processing power it eats up when you try to squeeze in lots of people.

[Khael]

Having blizzard logo on it makes me not buy it :p I lost all faith in them after they released D2 - that also being a dead boring game after the first time through. The expansion made me pick it up again.. for 5 days. I expected nothing more from them than another game that sucked once 'storyline' was finished, and the same reason is why I think WoW will just.. suck :)

[Eomer]

Only Blizzard game I have owned was Diablo. That game was incredibly fun for two weeks, then all of the sudden all at once it was boring. Cheating was too easy, you could dupe items at will. My King's Sword of Haste and Godly plate of the whale owned though :).

[Guntak]

Cheating is part of EVERY game. Trainers, hacks, and exploits will only disappear when the games disappear. Saying that cheating ruined a game is an invalid excuse for your disapproval of it. Every great online multiplayer game I have become engrossed in has been corrupted by some form of cheating.

Amuel's character and my character were both hacked at one point in our EQ careers - so do not think EverQuest is cheatless!

And before that, we lost a 2v2 Starcraft Broodwar tournament to 'map hackers'.

Now we play Counter-Hack.. err I mean Counter-Strike. The cheating has become so bad you cannot tell the legit "godly" players from the cheating ones. Every time you die in a questionable manner you think "This person could have an altered personal hack." Some of the best thought-to-be legit Counter-Strike players have been caught cheating.

The same thing happened to Team Fortress Classic (HL Engine). One of the biggest clan based online games was demolished and is now almost non existant due to the cheating community.

[Eomer]

Didn't mean that cheating ruined the game for me. That was just one of the many things about Diablo that led to me only playing it for awhile.

My main problem with it was that it was just plain boring after awhile. There just wasn't all that much to do.

And I know that cheating happens everywhere, but in Diablo it was just so GD easy. I can't remember exactly how to do it anymore, but there was one duping bug where all you had to do was make a few quick clicks on the inventory or drop an item on the ground quickly, something like that. And that was just one of many. Although, I do have to say that town nuking my friends was incredibly fucking funny the first couple times I did it.

[Khael]

I got my own KSOH and godly plate on mah legit char :) Wasn't of the Whale though :(

[Lola]

I totally disagree Guntak. Yes cheating exists to some level in pretty much every game. What's important is, what lengths do both the communities and the developers go to to prevent it, and respond to it.

Using your Everquest example - VI is fairly good about restoring/reimbursing characters that are hacked. If they had a policy of never helping anyone who was a victim, that would "ruin" the game.

When a majority of the community cheats in a game, and the developers do nothing about it, it's ruined.

When not many do, and the devs jump in to do something about it when they do, yes it's still there and you have to be aware of it, but the game overall is much more enjoyable.

[Eomer]

My stuff was duped Khael :).

[Khael]

Ya I figured as much from what you said :p

Btw, they removed Godly plates from dropping in a later version I think :)

[Zarxen]

I like diable 1, but yes the cheats did go overboard and ruined the game.

Diablo 2 was boring for me anyway as it wasn't that much of an improvement over Diablo 1, i.e same game engine and so on.

Warcraft 3 though is a new 3-d engine, it has a good story too it, you get the heroes and the new races and nice new animations and voices etc.

Diablo 3 should be interesting in a new 3-d engine aswell.

[Torrid]

First of all, Diablo was made by Blizzard North, not the same people who made the RTS games. Blizzard North was a company making Diablo when Blizzard acquired them.

Second of all, Blizzard IS dealing with cheating in Diablo 2, just not doing the best job. But comparing them to EQ is outright ridiculous, since EQ is getting $13 a month from each player. Diablo 2 has server stored characters and server controlled environments without anywhere near the resources of an MMORPG.

Btw, duping still exists in EQ. Go check out playerauctions for the guys selling shit loads of manastones for dirt cheap. Guntak is correct. There will be some level of cheating no matter what the game is.

Oh, and calling every blizzard game crap just because you didn't like one of their titles is the most ridiculous statement I've heard in awhile. Also Diablo 1 is so fucking old its not even fair to compare it to anything modern. It was damn good for its day.

[Eomer]

Khael, you evil evil man :/

And I agree, you can't say one game company sucks cause of one game. I mean Ion Storm put out Daikatana, but also Deus Ex. Although again it was a separate team.

[Khael]

Naw, I'm just saying I don't expect much from blizzard anymore. The only game I really found enjoyable was diablo though. I might stretch as far as starcraft, but I never really liked that either. Was a fairly good game though.

I just didn't expect WC3 to be a *great* game. They've always released *good* games, but they only hit that *great* game once.

[Torrid]

Yeah, all those game of the year awards Blizzard gets from the top PC mags don't mean shit! All those hundreds of thousands of people playing a game made in 1998 are so stupid. Blizzard makes such shitty games!


I'm happy with my new RTS, anyway. Fuck anyone who bashes my favorite company.

[Khael]

Just chill down. Didn't mean to hit a nerve or anything. This is what I think and I stand for it. Gotta realize though that this is coming from a guy that thinks id softwares best game ever was quake (well, once quakeworld was released anyway). I long since stopped reading those magazines you speak of, cus they just don't agree with my taste of games.

[Rhedd]

I would have to agree with Torrid. Ive been a gamer for quite a few years now and have over 60 pc games. Every game blizzard has released from Warcraft , Warcraft 2, Diablo, Starcraft, has been top of the line. AND won game of the year awards. With the exeption of maybe D2 which still was a number 1 seller for over 6 months...


Out of all the gaming companies, Blizzard is the one I respect most. They release high quality games time and time again and they don't release stuff in beta like Verant.

[Inizen]

blizzard comes in second somewhere behind id for me =)

[Eomer]

It's all a matter of opinion on what games you like, I don't see any reason to bash someone because they don't like the same games as you do.

Personally, I don't like RTS games (I have owned one, Total Annihilation), and I don't like click fests like Diablo. So basically that means I don't like Blizzard games, as that's what they make. I DO respect them however. I just don't feel the need to get down on my knees and give them a good blow.

[Zarxen]

The only game company that (for me anyway) didn't stay consistant with their product is Westwood studios. I think they started off great with C&C, and Red Alert was decent, but since then I haven't had a desire to purchase many of their games. But I agree with with Tor and Rhedd on Blizzard and Id I will allways have respect for on many lvl's.

[Khael]

I like all kinds of games. I've probably played over 1000 games through the course of my 20 year old life. That's not the point here though, I think, even though it does mark me as a freak :p

What is a good game? Well, a game that keeps me occupied for as long as possible is my opinion. A game that keeps me interested, and bids me to drive on, regardless for the reason. Games that are innovative usually have a sense of doing this. Games that have an unreachable goal of some kind also usually manages this fairly well, as long as the goal is within sight and you THINK it's attainable, only to find out that when you reach the goal - another is revealed... and so forth. (think EQ)

Games that are cardboard copies of older games require some kind of addition to it, besides graphics, to make it worthwhile and entertaining. The reason Starcraft lasted as long as it did is quite obvious to me, to take an example. It had things that Warcraft and other RTS games lacked. It had much more complex gameplay and issues that made it MORE FUN in multiplayer than any other RTS previously was. It lasted longer than any other RTS to me - probably around 5 months.

Now diablo 2 was a clear mistake to buy imo. It had new graphics, it had new characters, it had a new story. But that was it. Other than that, it was the same game as diablo. It lasted a week, and that only because I wanted to try more than one char. It was a bad purchase in my book.

To continue, they try to beat their near-masterpiece that starcraft had turned into. They release Warcraft 3. And they do the same thing all over again that they did with D2. Flashier graphics, new story, new races and stuff. But what else? They loose their complex tactics from starcraft, and really produce a game that's weak on the multiplayer side - the side that made starcraft strong in the start. While being one of the BEST RTS out there for singleplayer, I have yet to find a singleplayer game to hold more than a month of playtime in my book, thus putting it at the bottom end of a long list of games.

Now I could start talking about id here too. I could tell you how they make one of the best games in Quake, with the fun factor breaking the scales, and the realism bottom low. I could tell you how many times I wished for a good followup, and I can tell you how many times I've been disappointed. I won't though, since this post is probably long enough already.

As for the magazines and their test results to produce game of the year awards... You HAVE to keep in mind these people try games dialy. They rarely stick with a game for over a week even if they like it. I have respect for what they do, and their opinions, but I do not think they have any fucking idea about how long a good game should last.

When you produce a game that can beat - actually, that can even COME CLOSE TO - the 6 years I put into Quake (QW mostly), or even the 3 years I put into EQ.. hell, even if you come close to the year and a half I put into diablo.. THEN I'll agree that it's a great game. Until then you can flap your arms and shout at me cause I think your fav company sucks. Really don't care.

PS. Yes, I know that companies rarely think in the terms of enjoyment and time spent playing the game unless it's actually giving them cash - as it does in MMORPGs. They make game for one thing, sales. Maybe this is why the older a company gets the more time they spend on making the game LOOK good instead of FEEL good. *shrug*

[Torrid]

Id would be number two for me. Carmack is a fucking programming God with a genius unmatched in the industry. However all Id ever makes is an improved FPS. Plus playing FPSs over high latency connections (modems) sucks, otherwise I'd play quake more.

[Aneeluv]

that blizzard mary kate and ashley olsen rts game owns all.




:rolleyes:

[Inizen]

Heh yea I know how ya feel Torrid, I've had cable for 3+ years (its very good here), and I used a friends modem to try and play q3 a few weeks ago....shiver hehe. I've always loved id and their support of player made mods. Yea I know, sometimes it seems like they just put out a somewhat bland product and expect others to make it better, but hell, people will ALWAYS have a way to make a product better than the production people do.

Don't get me wrong though, I usually end up just playing straight TDM, (it's all i play) I just like companies that support the community and such =)

[Syana]

Khael, you're just not an RTS fan. Warcraft 3 is an excellent RTS game. I think it will win the RTS game of the year award from many publishers. The single player campaign was awesome. The four races seem pretty much balance in multiplayer at first glance. They took some of the concepts from Starcraft and incorporated into the Warcraft world. I think WC3 has less units than previous games. Simple and balance gameplay = good RTS.

The only flaw in the game I'd say so far is that there is too much emphasis on the heroes. But then again, maybe that's intended. =P

You can't compare FPS and RTS games. Two different genres. Oh yeah, Medal of Honor was pretty awesome. =D

[Khael]

I compared two RTS games if you read the post. And then I compared games in general.

Starcraft > Warcraft 3 in multiplayer. Sorry.

[Karendra]

w3 multiplayer with friends just ended with winning of those who can klick fastest:)

[Guntak]

Blizzard's RTS games are all about micro and macro management. If you think its about swarming, well then you are a newbie.

[Karendra]

ya not realy strategy guntak :/ should be called RTM real time manager.

[Guntak]

go play TA damnt! :)

[Ind3]

War3 is actually kinda fun. It does involve strategy, although somewhat different than SC.

Then again, its better than staring at 35 BGH, 12 1v1@LT, and 53 Starcraft RPG games on Bnet hoping for a good game with some "strategy".

[Lothbah]

Whats NWN?

[Zarxen]

Never Winter Nights by Bioware, who are the same people that made Baldur's gate( which was alot of fun 3 years ago or so). I am interested in it myself, but I haven't tried it out yet.

[Guntak]

I just spent $80.00 on W3, it better own...

[Torrid]

I don't care what anyone says. Night elves (or at least some NE hero abilities) and bloodlust are overpowered :D

[Ind3]

So far, Humans seem to be the weakest imo. I play Night Elves and like them quite a lot. They are similar to Terran by starting slow and needing good micro to do well.

[Myztlee]

Quake CTF, back where I originally met many of the yahoos I still play with, was definitely fun. Those were some good times.

But I think I'd have to say my most favourite game is Wing Commander: Prophecy. The graphics, music and sound effects were phenomenal, and the radio chatter during battles completely made you feel like you were part of something real. Games like Xwing, Tie Fighter, XWing Alliance, etc etc etc were all good, especially for their time, but they complete lack of variety in the radio chatter constantly drove home you were just playing a game. WC:P was immersive. Even the live action cutscenes were done well, and I never entirely felt like I was being funnelled along a specific storyline.

NWN is fun in some ways, but the biggest flaw, and what kills any game for me, is that it's 3rd person. I'm controlling a character, not BEING the character. In EQ, I look through my characters eyes, it's as if I'm the one in the world. 3rd person, I'm just looking down on something I control, it's a game.

Which is why Star Wars Galaxies is going to be the new game of choice for me. Even if the gameplay ends up sucking, I will finally be able to run around and see, with my own "eyes", the worlds of Star Wars. To come over the hill and see a AT AT walker stomping along, hop in a landspeeder and zip off, yeah, that's where it's at.

[Vendel]

I've always questioned your taste MH but WC:P? ouch :p
Tie Fighter = ownage.