I played hundreds of hours of WC2 and WC3 over LAN in college, awesome games. Starcraft too. I mean quotes and terms from WC RTS games haven’t entered the modern lexicon the way that “zerg” has but they’re part of the same cultural continuum and are important to understanding how we got here.
Edit: also, WoW was huge but it’s where Blizzard lost their way and will always be tainted in my mind. RTS is more my scene than those sleazy MMOs
Yeah, I never got into MMOs (probably because WoW got big before I had a disposable income lol), so RTS was also my scene back then. I dabbled in SC, and played WC2 at a friend’s house, but WC3 is where I really cut my teeth.
That game was so much goddamn fun to play online (dial-up, don’t pick up the phone mom!). I remember getting caught every now and then in some kind of surprise rush that I had never seen, so I’d save the replay of the game and watch back to see how they did it, and then try it out against other people… I think I learned some kind of wyvyrn rush with Night Elves that way, if I recall correctly. Shit was tight. My memory is shit, I can’t believe I can recall that. There were so many crazy strategies I picked up that way.
That was the golden age of RTS gaming. For me at least. Good times.
I’ve heard a lot of mixed opinions on the WC3 Leaders mechanic, as it focuses gameplay around farming and single points of failure (losing a leader at the wrong moment often meant losing the game)
In that light, Starcraft was the pinnacle of PC RTS gaming and WC3 was an experimental variation that branched off into an RTS variant that would eventually congeal into DOTA, the pinnacle of PC MOBA gaming.
I played DotA for 14 years, but WC3 was home to so many more incredible custom maps. Element TD is an example of another that became a standalone game. But there was also Footman Frenzy, Uther Party, Wintermaul Wars, Hero Line Wars, X Hero Siege, and countless others that made WC3 the greatest RTS platform ever conceived. I hope the suits that pushed out the piece of garbage that is “warcraft reforged” rot in hell forever
I loved WC3 because of the Hero mechanic. It made it added just enough RPG to it… You could usually resurrect your Hero, and if I recall, you can upgrade to make the cooldown faster. Been so long though and I didn’t play the unfortunate remake.
I did not lose interest in 2. I simply couldn’t get it. I think we had some demo versions but they just… didn’t work. I have a functioning copy now, but I haven’t played it much. It is a fantastic game.
When I first got WC2, I discovered that my 1x CD couldn’t read from the disc fast enough for me to play it. The game would run for about five or ten minutes, then crash. I made it about half way through first campaign - 5 to 10 minutes at a time - before I was able to afford a 4x CD and play it normally.
For me, it is just that the game never ran. To make it clear, I don’t think I ever had the WC2 full game, but the demo, but that didn’t do much either. I remember being at a cousin’s place who seemed like he had it, but again… it just didn’t run. It seems like all the forces that be in the 90s just didn’t want me to play that game.
I find this especially interesting as I bought the game from a garage sale and when I got home I found out it was just a burned disc with a home-printed label. I was too young to understand the dangers of putting that shit in my cd-drive but old enough to know there was a good chance the game wouldn’t work at all. To my great surprise it worked fine and I played the crap out of it. Probably one of the first games where I finished the single player campaign.
That’s like saying “A hamburger is good, but I just can’t into bacon double cheeseburgers.”
I mean, I would say this unironically.
I’ll add that WC1 had fewer variances between factions. Orcs and Humans were almost identical. That made the game more akin to a real time digital chess than WC2, which made Orcs marginally more aggressive and Humans more defensive. I think WC2 is more fun because of the asymmetry, but that’s purely a question of taste. I’m not going to begrudge someone who has a fondness for the original.
I can understand hating WOW. I can even understand not getting into WC3. But how do you enjoy WC1, but lose interest at WC2???
That’s like saying “A hamburger is good, but I just can’t into bacon double cheeseburgers.”
I cannot. Could be nostalgia talking, but WC3 was the pinnacle of the PC RTS gaming era imo. WC3 and AOE2.
I played hundreds of hours of WC2 and WC3 over LAN in college, awesome games. Starcraft too. I mean quotes and terms from WC RTS games haven’t entered the modern lexicon the way that “zerg” has but they’re part of the same cultural continuum and are important to understanding how we got here.
Edit: also, WoW was huge but it’s where Blizzard lost their way and will always be tainted in my mind. RTS is more my scene than those sleazy MMOs
Yeah, I never got into MMOs (probably because WoW got big before I had a disposable income lol), so RTS was also my scene back then. I dabbled in SC, and played WC2 at a friend’s house, but WC3 is where I really cut my teeth.
That game was so much goddamn fun to play online (dial-up, don’t pick up the phone mom!). I remember getting caught every now and then in some kind of surprise rush that I had never seen, so I’d save the replay of the game and watch back to see how they did it, and then try it out against other people… I think I learned some kind of wyvyrn rush with Night Elves that way, if I recall correctly. Shit was tight. My memory is shit, I can’t believe I can recall that. There were so many crazy strategies I picked up that way.
That was the golden age of RTS gaming. For me at least. Good times.
100% the explosion of custom maps from WC3 set the stage for the next generation of RTS.
HoN, HOTS, DOTA, League, etc relied upon these foundations.
I’ve heard a lot of mixed opinions on the WC3 Leaders mechanic, as it focuses gameplay around farming and single points of failure (losing a leader at the wrong moment often meant losing the game)
In that light, Starcraft was the pinnacle of PC RTS gaming and WC3 was an experimental variation that branched off into an RTS variant that would eventually congeal into DOTA, the pinnacle of PC MOBA gaming.
I played DotA for 14 years, but WC3 was home to so many more incredible custom maps. Element TD is an example of another that became a standalone game. But there was also Footman Frenzy, Uther Party, Wintermaul Wars, Hero Line Wars, X Hero Siege, and countless others that made WC3 the greatest RTS platform ever conceived. I hope the suits that pushed out the piece of garbage that is “warcraft reforged” rot in hell forever
I loved WC3 because of the Hero mechanic. It made it added just enough RPG to it… You could usually resurrect your Hero, and if I recall, you can upgrade to make the cooldown faster. Been so long though and I didn’t play the unfortunate remake.
I did not lose interest in 2. I simply couldn’t get it. I think we had some demo versions but they just… didn’t work. I have a functioning copy now, but I haven’t played it much. It is a fantastic game.
When I first got WC2, I discovered that my 1x CD couldn’t read from the disc fast enough for me to play it. The game would run for about five or ten minutes, then crash. I made it about half way through first campaign - 5 to 10 minutes at a time - before I was able to afford a 4x CD and play it normally.
For me, it is just that the game never ran. To make it clear, I don’t think I ever had the WC2 full game, but the demo, but that didn’t do much either. I remember being at a cousin’s place who seemed like he had it, but again… it just didn’t run. It seems like all the forces that be in the 90s just didn’t want me to play that game.
I find this especially interesting as I bought the game from a garage sale and when I got home I found out it was just a burned disc with a home-printed label. I was too young to understand the dangers of putting that shit in my cd-drive but old enough to know there was a good chance the game wouldn’t work at all. To my great surprise it worked fine and I played the crap out of it. Probably one of the first games where I finished the single player campaign.
Rose tinted glasses
I mean, I would say this unironically.
I’ll add that WC1 had fewer variances between factions. Orcs and Humans were almost identical. That made the game more akin to a real time digital chess than WC2, which made Orcs marginally more aggressive and Humans more defensive. I think WC2 is more fun because of the asymmetry, but that’s purely a question of taste. I’m not going to begrudge someone who has a fondness for the original.