Warcraft 3

[Aegis]

Ok, just bought the game todfay, after shelling out $90. Got home, played, and I must say. This is by far one of the most impressive games I have ever played! Blizzard has certainly redeemed themselves from Diablo 2. The game itself, though it is RTS, combines more RPG elements then Diablo did, but with the great RTS gameplay I've come to expect from Blizzard. After I play it some more, I'll give it a thorough reveiw.

[KidD01]

I happen to be able to play the Warcraft 3 despite my PC probs on my cousin house.

The graph is great, gameplay is OK since it's still got the feel as Warcraft 2 & Starcraft with a little improvement. Warcraft 3 use Starcraft system on single player campaign story - it's where you have to finish a specific race campaign before you can play another race campaign. The thing I like most is Blizzard still apply their hillarious speech on severe unit clicking as they do on Warcraft 2 and Starcraft

Some tip for those "Goldmine destroyers" on Warcraft 2 : Gold mine are now invulnerable ! So you better think of different tactics !

The Wolf Riders unit from Warcraft 1 are back !

The ending movie after you finish the hard level is very very funny

Hint :
There's a Zerg unit, Hydralisk hidden on a Night Elf mission, which you can recruit to aid you on the mission! - You just have to find out yourself. I don't want to spoil all the game playing fun

[KidD01]

Some additions :

Story line :
It's good to see how Blizzard develop Warcraft 3 as continuance of Warcraft Saga. You can see how characters like Warchief Thrall - an orc which was raised by human, Mediv (mentioned on Warcraft 2 expansion Beyond Dark Portal - Book of Mediv), Uther Lightbringer the paladin on Warcraft 2 and Grom HellScream

New Units :
The Human Steam Tanks are cool yet have a close range
The Human Dwarven Artilery unit is the best ! It can shoot the trees too !
And those crazy Ogres and Trolls also avaliable on Mercenary store ! remeber their crazy quotes ?

Some advice for cheaters :
If you use the cheat codes on certain level, you can't finish the level !

Blizzard also add some RPG enhancement by applying RPG genre stats on the units and item slots for chars. Sadly the item slots are not like on those RPG games or Diablo where you can asign it on certain area i.e. rings on fingers or helms/masks on head

[frogus]

True true...it's a great game everybody...
@KidD01, Steam Tanks are solid! They are slow and very short ranged, but for the cost they are incredibly powerful...Their massive Armour and HP means that a team of four can almost always take out at least four buildings in a well defended base... I like the mortar teams too, but they are so weak that if enemy infantry get on their case they don't survive...I haven't played elves yet (only got the game four days ago) but amazingly I like each of the other races...I always played Soviet in Red Alert, and always Celts in AoE2 and then Aztecs in the upgrade - but in WIII I like all the races. I slightly prefer humans, but Frost Wyrms and self-building buildings persuade me to play Undead a lot, as do tauren for the Orcs (love that chieftain ).

Anyway, CE and Vicsun have already expressed interest in playing multi-user, so if there are two others we could probably have some big rumbles .

@Kid, have you mastered the world editor? I am making a map at the moment but haven't quite figured out cinematics yet...any help would be appreciated, or if you know of any good tutorials...

And have you got any tips for Chapter 8 of the undead campaign (the one where you have to protect your man for 30 mins - not to spoil the story for anyone ) So far I have only managed to survive for 29 ins 15 seconds on average, and then I can't deal with the final rush... Ideas?

After thought - @ Aegis, CE, Vic and Kid, does anyone want to have a game of War Chasers on BNet while we are all relatively inexperienced (apart from KidD#)?

[KidD01]

@frogus : I haven't played all the campaign since I play it on my cousin PC. I play it only when I stop by his house. yet he manage to finish all the campaign - I think he cheats since he also pull some cheat stunts when he plays Starcraft with me using local network at his house

The good thing is I can access all campaign levels since he already finish the whole campaign. I'll check around for Chapter 8 of the undead campaign if I stop by his house again. IIRC the Goblin mines might come handy if you plant it on the correct place comboed with ranged units. And the Kerberos should be placed to protect those ranged units

As for the world editor, I haven't try it yet. Sorry

[fable]

Do they let you pause the game, look at all your options, and consider your moves, issuing commands before starting things up again?

Just wondering. I really like stop/time and turn-based games. I enjoy developing strategies, and usually realtime games don't offer this. Thanks.

[KidD01]

Quote:

Originally posted by fable Do they let you pause the game, look at all your options, and consider your moves, issuing commands before starting things up again? Just wondering. I really like stop/time and turn-based games. I enjoy developing strategies, and usually realtime games don't offer this. Thanks.

All Westwood RTS games have that option; where you can pause the game, look at the map carefully so you can presume which is the best place to deploy the troops or turrets, move to attack enemy base, etc. That's why I got hooked up with Command & Conquer games till now even though Westwood only patch a little enhacements on their games.

I've played Warcraft 3 for about 8 missions on different races (thanks to my cousin ) Yet I failed to see this option is availiable, unlike on Warcraft 2.

[fable]

Quote:

Originally posted by KidD01 I've played Warcraft 3 for about 8 missions on different races (thanks to my cousin ) Yet I failed to see this option is availiable, unlike on Warcraft 2.

So you're saying you can't pause the game, analyze the situation, give instructions to units, then resume again?

[frogus]

Sadly not @Fable...however, I think the system works well in the game. Whereas in Diablo it was just frustrating to frantically run around trying to whack whatever you could and drink potions with your left hand, in warcraft the hotkeys come in handy...you can organize your troops properly into command groups, and then use hotkeys to have them pull off clever things amid the action...but it definately is an action game, not a turn-based type...

[fable]

Quote:

Originally posted by frogus Sadly not @Fable...however, I think the system works well in the game. Whereas in Diablo it was just frustrating to frantically run around trying to whack whatever you could and drink potions with your left hand, in warcraft the hotkeys come in handy...you can organize your troops properly into command groups, and then use hotkeys to have them pull off clever things amid the action...but it definately is an action game, not a turn-based type...

Damn, too bad. I really do like to spend my time analyzing things at leisure. Oh, I'm not criticizing what Blizzard has done; after all, the RTS genre is not the same as others. I'm just stating my own preference, and registering my frustration. Well, perhaps somebody will discover or implement a pause key that lets you still interact with the game. (That happened in Sacrifice.) I'll buy it, then. Thanks for the info, @frogus.

[Vinin]

I'll be getting Warcraft3 very soon, within the next week, so I'm in for the multi-player sessions. I'm actually rather talented at these games so it'd be nice to see how good the rest of you are.

(note: I play a lot at my cuz's house)

[frogus]

Oh dear I'm not much cop at RTS's, but I'll have a go, and if you're really good then maybe me and another rookie can gang up on you ...anyway, when are you free to play, and do you have any map preferences? Anyone else wanna play?

[Phantom Lord]

I opened the box yesterday (had it already for a week but didn't have time to install) and tried a skirmish against the computer. I'm no campaign player type, I love plain battles against the computer or friends.

Within short time my undead got seriously whacked by the AI's night elves ... ... a friend already told me the AI was pretty good.

The game looks pretty good and after a few test games this week I'll probably play online too - if I find time because I'm in the middle of finding myself a new job.

[frogus]

Quote:

Originally posted by Phantom Lord Within short time my undead got seriously whacked by the AI's night elves ... ... a friend already told me the AI was pretty good.

I recommend the campaigns...the story is excellent....
You don't hear much praise for the AI, but I think that's just because it's so solid. It really is remarkable - none of your own units ever do anything stupid, and playing the cpu is just like playing another person (one thing that baffles me though is how the computer always has more units and buildings in the same length of time ....) I can't beat the computer regularly yet - I think one of the tricks of the game is that the difficulty of skirmishes encourages you to play the campaigns first, which are easier...

still can't beat that Undead Chptr 8 though...rggh

[Phantom Lord]

Most AIs are pretty good at ressource management and take off for a quick raid in no time - that's where calculation skills can rather easily be used. Anyway the AI surprised me with a (in the eyes of a beginner) tremendous attack on my base.

I'll have a look at the campaign because many people mentioned it's great - but a friend just convinced to play battlenet now - so my second WC3 game ever will be a battlenet game. I'm just waiting for patch download to finish at the moment.