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On May 22 2015 13:54 lestye wrote:
Hmm, the fact they dont get movement speed makes blight suck compared to creep. The only real advantage to blight is the health regen. I know undead units dont recover HP off blight, but when they are on blight is it more passive regeneration than an orc/human unit would normally have?
I think it's twice the normal regeneration on blight and zero off-blight, that's why unholy aura is so important and why you have to cycle ghouls because they will mine lumber while on blight. I once tested drastically increasing the regeneration on blight to make it more significant and it leads to some funny effects.
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as far as I know, blight adds 2 hp regeneration per second.
unholy aura also adds an amount of hp points. I always thought it made the regeneration 100%/200%/300% faster, but thats not true. I think it was like that in earlier patches and would of course have immensely helped on blight.
funfact: UA also regenerates mechanical units
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UA make units so fast too, oh god good memories. I remember when mana burn made 100/200/300 damage... T_T
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On May 26 2015 00:38 3point14 wrote:
as far as I know, blight adds 2 hp regeneration per second.
unholy aura also adds an amount of hp points. I always thought it made the regeneration 100%/200%/300% faster, but thats not true. I think it was like that in earlier patches and would of course have immensely helped on blight.
funfact: UA also regenerates mechanical units
If the regeneration is a percentage it wouldn't heal mechanical units. It's nice for meat wagons although those aren't very important units.
By the way, in the mod I made where the blight regeneration was increased to 4 health per second you could never contain the undead player because the close proximity to blight meant that you could risk a lot of damage to your units and heroes and still recover quickly. I was a bit naive those days, I would often come up with my own patch lists with buffs to, like, frost armor and such, yet my changes for the mod I made and played with my friend never seriously improved the game. I think it's hard to be a developer. But I did realize it was fun to play alternate versions of the game once in a while, I think that's something which starts missing when games get into legacy mode and stop changing.
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I wanted to do a post about retracing development of Warcraft 3, without sources just by looking at what would be likely first causes and extrapolate from there to see if it matches up with the final result. I wanted to promote the idea that basically every idea in Warcraft 3 derives from two fundamental ideas, the first being simply that Blizzard was now poised to develop a Warcraft sequel and the second that they wanted to take this game into a more tactical direction because people seemed to enjoy the unit control aspect.
Starcraft was successful with its three asymmetrical races and it seemed like a natural idea to extend this approach and devise four asymmetrical races. Two of them, humans and orcs, were legacy factions from earlier Warcraft iterations and had to feature in the sequel for obvious reasons. As Warcraft is based on Warhammer, -- originally it was supposed to be a direct adaptation, it made sense to draw from its universe for the additional races. Available are humans, orcs, ogres, goblins, lizardmen, skaven, dwarves, undead, chaos and elves. Out of these dwarves, high elves and humans are already coupled as an existing faction, so are orcs, ogres, goblins. Lizardmen and skaven are more creatively conceived (i.e. weird) races that don't entirely fit the simple fantasy story line of Warcraft which draws not only on Warhammer but also on the recently released Lord of the Rings movie for inspiration. Even so, you can find traces of the lizardmen in trolls and the naga. The Warhammer wood elves are the most similar to the elves of Lord of the Rings and are the natural enemies of various chaos factions and naturally suggest themselves as an available faction.
Undead and chaos would serve to round out the set since originally chaos was supposed to be the fifth races titled as the burning legion, but this was cut before release. Here might be an explanation why, since I recall this being mentioned in the podcast, but I couldn't find an exact quote. Perhaps it's the case that having three (including orcs) evil races would have been too much. The undead faction is already strongly derivative of the human faction, with the dark knight, ghoul, necromancer and banshee being in some sense twisted variations on alliance units (paladin, footman, priest, archer). The burning legion uses satyrs and corrupted beasts and could be seen as the dark mirror to the elvish race and the developers could have been accused of formulaic design. Furthermore, the undead and burning legion draw on some of the same concepts such as the dreadlord, which would otherwise have been a burning legion hero. Having to develop an additional race is simply quite difficult and is more ambitious than necessary because even four races represents a higher number than was the case for Brood War. On a side note, I'm wondering what races will feature in Warcraft IV because WoW added so many potential factions.
So, I think the decision to create a game with four (or five) asymmetrical races makes perfect sense given the context.
I actually wanted to look more at gameplay with this post, since the number of races is sort of besides the point I wanted to make, but I'll save that for my next post tomorrow (stay tuned ^^ ).
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On May 28 2015 05:43 Grumbels wrote:On a side note, I'm wondering what races will feature in Warcraft IV because WoW added so many potential factions.
Warcraft 4 will be a Moba, featuring a red and blue team, and the classes Warrior, Assassin, Specialist. It will mostly be Warcraft 3 heroes, including some Warcraft 3 units promoted to hero status. It will also include a handful of heroes from Diablo and Starcraft. WoW's existence will be more or less ignored.
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On May 28 2015 06:32 Yoav wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2015 05:43 Grumbels wrote:On a side note, I'm wondering what races will feature in Warcraft IV because WoW added so many potential factions. Warcraft 4 will be a Moba, featuring a red and blue team, and the classes Warrior, Assassin, Specialist. It will mostly be Warcraft 3 heroes, including some Warcraft 3 units promoted to hero status. It will also include a handful of heroes from Diablo and Starcraft. WoW's existence will be more or less ignored.
Do you think that an RTS would cater to a different age group than an MMO? I'm just wondering whether WCIV would be aimed at younger gamers who could accept a new story line very easily or whether it will try to connect with people that have played WoW & WC3 and that care about the continuation of the story (especially since WCIV won't be released before 2020 even if Blizzard started developing the game right now).. I stopped caring about the story line myself after Wrath of the Lich King, in all honesty, and it seems to me that everything after that is not serious canon outside of the naga story line.
I think one of the issues is that there are so many factions by now and you can't just play Alliance vs Horde because there are a million different evil factions that people would want to play. I want to play as the burning legion, as the scourge, as the naga, as an example. And I don't think the Forsaken and Blood Elves would be a good fit for the Horde in an RTS because of lack of thematic unity. You can't have a race based on zombies, elves and orcs in the same army. Realistically every race in WoW could be its own faction. There is also the question of whether you should still have the burning legion and scourge as available factions given that WoW can easily conclude with the defeat of Sargeras and various other bad guys clearing the way for new enemies.
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On May 28 2015 05:43 Grumbels wrote:+ Show Spoiler +I wanted to do a post about retracing development of Warcraft 3, without sources just by looking at what would be likely first causes and extrapolate from there to see if it matches up with the final result. I wanted to promote the idea that basically every idea in Warcraft 3 derives from two fundamental ideas, the first being simply that Blizzard was now poised to develop a Warcraft sequel and the second that they wanted to take this game into a more tactical direction because people seemed to enjoy the unit control aspect. Starcraft was successful with its three asymmetrical races and it seemed like a natural idea to extend this approach and devise four asymmetrical races. Two of them, humans and orcs, were legacy factions from earlier Warcraft iterations and had to feature in the sequel for obvious reasons. As Warcraft is based on Warhammer, -- originally it was supposed to be a direct adaptation, it made sense to draw from its universe for the additional races. Available are humans, orcs, ogres, goblins, lizardmen, skaven, dwarves, undead, chaos and elves. Out of these dwarves, high elves and humans are already coupled as an existing faction, so are orcs, ogres, goblins. Lizardmen and skaven are more creatively conceived (i.e. weird) races that don't entirely fit the simple fantasy story line of Warcraft which draws not only on Warhammer but also on the recently released Lord of the Rings movie for inspiration. Even so, you can find traces of the lizardmen in trolls and the naga. The Warhammer wood elves are the most similar to the elves of Lord of the Rings and are the natural enemies of various chaos factions and naturally suggest themselves as an available faction. Undead and chaos would serve to round out the set since originally chaos was supposed to be the fifth races titled as the burning legion, but this was cut before release. Here might be an explanation why, since I recall this being mentioned in the podcast, but I couldn't find an exact quote. Perhaps it's the case that having three (including orcs) evil races would have been too much. The undead faction is already strongly derivative of the human faction, with the dark knight, ghoul, necromancer and banshee being in some sense twisted variations on alliance units (paladin, footman, priest, archer). The burning legion uses satyrs and corrupted beasts and could be seen as the dark mirror to the elvish race and the developers could have been accused of formulaic design. Furthermore, the undead and burning legion draw on some of the same concepts such as the dreadlord, which would otherwise have been a burning legion hero. Having to develop an additional race is simply quite difficult and is more ambitious than necessary because even four races represents a higher number than was the case for Brood War. On a side note, I'm wondering what races will feature in Warcraft IV because WoW added so many potential factions. So, I think the decision to create a game with four (or five) asymmetrical races makes perfect sense given the context. I actually wanted to look more at gameplay with this post, since the number of races is sort of besides the point I wanted to make, but I'll save that for my next post tomorrow (stay tuned ^^ ).
Next post!
Historically Blizzard developed Warcraft: Legends before changing it to RTS gameplay and calling it Warcraft 3, but some concepts of that title survived in the form of the focus on smaller army combat and the inclusion of heroes. However, if you ignore this bit of historical information the decision to use heroes still makes sense. If Blizzard asked itself what would be an interesting approach to a micro-focused RTS game, the concept of special units with abilities seems like a good answer because that's something people enjoyed from the Starcraft campaign. I don't know what was the exact chain of decisions, but I think that placing heroes in your game is one of those fundamental decisions that affects the shape of the game a lot.
The obvious issue historically with having heroes in the game is that they don't scale. People often put aside heroes in the Starcraft campaign as they were a liability and would die too easily. This immediately suggests the following four ideas: 1) heroes should be able to respawn; 2) heroes should be able to scale over the course of the game; 3) units in the game should have a high health : damage ratio to avoid heroes dying too quickly; 4) unit numbers should stay relatively similar throughout the game.
Some of these points can be connected to other ideas. The first point leads to the altar building where you can then choose your hero, which leads to the higher starting resources to be able to build an altar right away. The second point becomes the idea that you can upgrade your hero, above and beyond the already existing unit upgrades. Of course the implementation chosen for this is the experience mechanic, but that doesn't strictly follow from the second point since you could imagine buying upgrades or even items too, so more on that later. The third point stands on its own, but is also related to unit design choices. The fourth point informs the need for upkeep (a tax on higher army size) and the change from growing to static economy since WCII & Starcraft. After all, if you can constantly improve your economy then even with upkeep, unless the latter is extremely taxing, you will eventually be able to overpower heroes easily, again unless heroes can become extremely strong and able to face hundreds of units.
Now you've created an environment where heroes can be used, but you haven't really created incentives to use heroes. You're also left with implementation details about the number of abilities that heroes should have. Experience is an obvious mechanic that was already used in other games, including Blizzard's very own Diablo. By letting heroes be affected by experience the player has an incentive to use his hero units in fights directly rather than indirectly.
Some ideas combine here and the leveling system as a way to upgrade the hero, based on experience points can take shape, with new abilities to purchase every level. Because the hero needs to scale, the abilities should have different levels of strength too, which is why you have three levels per ability.
There still is a problem though, maybe there are now incentives to use heroes in fights, but in a zero-sum multiplayer game you might still want to avoid fights in order to not give your opponent a chance to get an advantage. And since the economy had to be changed you can easily run out of things to do. For the game to work there need to be constant fights, since that's where heroes shine and that's what's supposed to replace the focus on economy. Creeps suggest themselves here, which by the way already existed in Starcraft alpha as a mechanic before they settled on empty maps. Hostile, neutral units that give you some reward for fighting them, which encourage you to be out on the map and which still encourage player interaction because of creepjacking.
Two additional points about the experience mechanic: there is an issue with experience in that you'll probably get more of it later on since there will be more units around, so you might have most of the game with no exp points to spend, and second of all experience counts as a positive feedback loop mechanic that doubles your gameplay advantage after killing an enemy unit. That's why you need increasingly more experience to level up as the game progresses. And of course experience should simply be given after killing a unit, which is the simplest and clearest approach, and that's what later on became last hit and denies in moba games.
Finally to diversify hero usage and to make killing creeps more exciting there would be item drops and items you could use, which of course is a standard idea in rpg games as well. This means that shops can exist in the game and it also suggests neutral buildings, different sort of shops for different types of items and neutral shops where you can buy units instead of items.
So the point is that the Warcraft III economy, unit balance and hero system seem to naturally follow from the idea to have a smaller scale, micro focused game.
Tomorrow I might do one about the unit design and the symmetries in game, based on 3point14's very interesting post on the last page.
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About the story line, you didn't really need to know wc2 story line to follow wc3. The lore was almost nothing, but still it was a rather independent sequel. Blizzard can pull the same with wc4, even with this rich lore, what matters the most to a story is the plot, not the lore, the lore is just a nice extra.
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On May 29 2015 00:52 TMG26 wrote:
About the story line, you didn't really need to know wc2 story line to follow wc3. The lore was almost nothing, but still it was a rather independent sequel. Blizzard can pull the same with wc4, even with this rich lore, what matters the most to a story is the plot, not the lore, the lore is just a nice extra.
I'm not up to date on recent WoW lore. Would there be an interesting villainous race available given recent WoW story developments? I was wondering that since the old gods are too powerful they don't make for good heroes, but they could still be a faction involving the qiraji, naga and faceless ones that would fight against the alliance and the horde in a game with three factions. But as far as I know that ceases to be based on Warhammer, which has always been a positive influence on Blizzard design.
One of the issues with new lore is that all the areas of the world have already been discovered, so that Blizzard is forced into actions like making up new continents or revisiting worlds from the past with time travel, at least in WoW. They could decide on doing this, just recreate the alliance vs horde and have it set in some time in the past.
Personally I wouldn't mind a new IP at all (as long as they can get rid of Metzen) as long as Warcraft III-esque gameplay is kept.
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On May 29 2015 01:59 Grumbels wrote:Show nested quote +On May 29 2015 00:52 TMG26 wrote:
About the story line, you didn't really need to know wc2 story line to follow wc3. The lore was almost nothing, but still it was a rather independent sequel. Blizzard can pull the same with wc4, even with this rich lore, what matters the most to a story is the plot, not the lore, the lore is just a nice extra. I'm not up to date on recent WoW lore. Would there be an interesting villainous race available given recent WoW story developments? I was wondering that since the old gods are too powerful they don't make for good heroes, but they could still be a faction involving the qiraji, naga and faceless ones that would fight against the alliance and the horde in a game with three factions. But as far as I know that ceases to be based on Warhammer, which has always been a positive influence on Blizzard design. One of the issues with new lore is that all the areas of the world have already been discovered, so that Blizzard is forced into actions like making up new continents or revisiting worlds from the past with time travel, at least in WoW. They could decide on doing this, just recreate the alliance vs horde and have it set in some time in the past. Personally I wouldn't mind a new IP at all (as long as they can get rid of Metzen) as long as Warcraft III-esque gameplay is kept.
Ok so ignoring my joke that WC4 will never happen and Heroes of the Storm is as close as we're getting (b/c its heroes fighting among minions and most are actually WC3 heroes....
If you actually did it you'd have Alliance, Horde, Naga (and various Old-God aligned stuff), and Legion (demons, undead, etc.) Conceivably you could save one of the villainous factions for the expansion.
You'd have nods to WoW: the eight heroes for alliance and horde could be the classic WoW classes (except Warlock) more or less...
Alliance: Paladin, Priest, Mage, Druid
Horde: Warrior, Shaman, Rogue, Hunter
(Expansion could add more, like a hunter type for alliance and a mage type for horde.)
Plot would basically be Alliance and Horde finally launch wars to defeat each other entirely. Fight, fight, fight. When they're both sufficiently weakened, the Old Gods and Burning Legion both say, hey, let's do this, and invade. Unfortunately for them, they hate each other and didn't count on the other guys doing the same thing. So they sweep aside the weakened Alliance and Horde and fight each other for dominance, discounting the tenacity of those plucky mortals. Luckily for Azeroth, the plucky mortals get their shit together and, in a campaign that starts and guerrilla warfare and ends with apocalyptic battles, drive their enemies whence they came. Expansion deals with the disorganized, but still formidable, remnants of the Burning Legion and Naga forces. Maybe adding one as a multiplayer playable race.
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It might actually be odd to have Warcraft IV with the exact same heroes that already exist in Heroes of the Storm, which will still be developed for the next few years. I guess it might seem a bit like a rip off. If I was Blizzard I would try to come up with some other product in between Heroes and Warcraft IV.
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On May 30 2015 01:25 Grumbels wrote:
It might actually be odd to have Warcraft IV with the exact same heroes that already exist in Heroes of the Storm, which will still be developed for the next few years. I guess it might seem a bit like a rip off. If I was Blizzard I would try to come up with some other product in between Heroes and Warcraft IV.
It isn't any odder than having Zeratul or Kerrigan in HotS while LotV has yet to be released. Or any odder than having Diablo in HotS when he is dead/deincarnated in D3:RoS.
That sort of thing does not matter, methinks. If anything, it could help them turn HotS into an advertising medium for their other franchises. "Oh, that hero is from the Warcraft lore and they just released WC4... maybe I should check it out!"
I still don't think we are ever getting WC4.
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On May 30 2015 02:34 Spaylz wrote:Show nested quote +On May 30 2015 01:25 Grumbels wrote:
It might actually be odd to have Warcraft IV with the exact same heroes that already exist in Heroes of the Storm, which will still be developed for the next few years. I guess it might seem a bit like a rip off. If I was Blizzard I would try to come up with some other product in between Heroes and Warcraft IV. It isn't any odder than having Zeratul or Kerrigan in HotS while LotV has yet to be released. Or any odder than having Diablo in HotS when he is dead/deincarnated in D3:RoS. That sort of thing does not matter, methinks. If anything, it could help them turn HotS into an advertising medium for their other franchises. "Oh, that hero is from the Warcraft lore and they just released WC4... maybe I should check it out!" I still don't think we are ever getting WC4.
I wish Blizzard would decide to add an RTS mode for Heroes of the Storm.
So, I was wondering the other day about what factions should exist in a hypothetical WCIV, and now I have another idea: one faction for every franchise, so Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo, all organized around the already existing heroes from HOTS. It should be a lot of work to develop something like this since they also have to create units and game mechanics and the gameplay needs to be independent of Heroes, so I don't think it's too likely they'll consider this. However, it might be more realistic than creating a completely new WCIV in the next few years.
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Honestly, I would be more than happy if they released a new RTS with an entirely new franchise. The Warcraft franchise is tiiiiiiired. It has been way overdone. Just villains never completely dying or, when they do die, coming back to life and whatever. Space ships.
SC2's story is pretty subpar. Wings of Liberty's story was decent, but Heart of the Swarm basically tore the plot apart and undid everything it achieved.
Diablo 3's story is okayish. Nothing outstanding. At this point, Diablo games are basically a newish story with an ending we already know: we defeat Diablo. Then he somehow comes back.
Overall, I think Blizzard would do well to leave behind their franchises and turn them into legacy stuff. Then they could build new worlds, like what they are doing with Overwatch. We need new things, new stories, plots which can surprise us. All three of Blizzard's franchises have been rehashed to death.
So I want a RTS à la WC3, but within a new franchise. But I doubt it will happen.
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A WC3-style RTS in the Witcher universe would be sick.
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I was playing through Mass Effect the other day and realized a Mass Effect RTS game would be very viable, in case someone wanted to compete with SC2. The game revolves around ground combat for the most part and not spaceships, and also the lore is compatible with multiple factions fighting for world domination, exactly like Starcraft. There are lots of studios that could make some sort of RTS game if they really wanted to, I think.
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On May 30 2015 03:22 Spaylz wrote:
Honestly, I would be more than happy if they released a new RTS with an entirely new franchise. The Warcraft franchise is tiiiiiiired. It has been way overdone. Just villains never completely dying or, when they do die, coming back to life and whatever. Space ships.
SC2's story is pretty subpar. Wings of Liberty's story was decent, but Heart of the Swarm basically tore the plot apart and undid everything it achieved.
Diablo 3's story is okayish. Nothing outstanding. At this point, Diablo games are basically a newish story with an ending we already know: we defeat Diablo. Then he somehow comes back.
Overall, I think Blizzard would do well to leave behind their franchises and turn them into legacy stuff. Then they could build new worlds, like what they are doing with Overwatch. We need new things, new stories, plots which can surprise us. All three of Blizzard's franchises have been rehashed to death.
So I want a RTS à la WC3, but within a new franchise. But I doubt it will happen.
at this point if Blizz made WC4 i wouldnt have a problem if the storyline followed TFT and completely ignores WoW/ i think it would be the best option.
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On May 30 2015 03:33 Grumbels wrote:
I was playing through Mass Effect the other day and realized a Mass Effect RTS game would be very viable, in case someone wanted to compete with SC2. The game revolves around ground combat for the most part and not spaceships, and also the lore is compatible with multiple factions fighting for world domination, exactly like Starcraft. There are lots of studios that could make some sort of RTS game if they really wanted to, I think.
S2, the former developers of HoN, could have made a great RTS. At least, I think so. The whole world of Newerth is okay story-wise, and the developers who used to work there (and now work for another studio on HoN still) made a damn fine game.
I am convinced that if S2 had decided to make a RTS instead of a new MOBA as they did, they would be much better off today. Now, I'm pretty sure S2 will die very soon.
The only recent RTS we had is Grey Goo, I believe. It actually had some decent following on TL, but died out pretty quickly. I'm sure that eventually, we will get another RTS. There is literally no competition on the market, and a fair chunk of the SC2 playerbase is eager to play another type of RTS that is more action-filled.
Maybe a decent developer will pick up on that, and make a good RTS. One can hope.
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On May 28 2015 23:45 Grumbels wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2015 06:32 Yoav wrote:On May 28 2015 05:43 Grumbels wrote:On a side note, I'm wondering what races will feature in Warcraft IV because WoW added so many potential factions. Warcraft 4 will be a Moba, featuring a red and blue team, and the classes Warrior, Assassin, Specialist. It will mostly be Warcraft 3 heroes, including some Warcraft 3 units promoted to hero status. It will also include a handful of heroes from Diablo and Starcraft. WoW's existence will be more or less ignored. Do you think that an RTS would cater to a different age group than an MMO? I'm just wondering whether WCIV would be aimed at younger gamers who could accept a new story line very easily or whether it will try to connect with people that have played WoW & WC3 and that care about the continuation of the story (especially since WCIV won't be released before 2020 even if Blizzard started developing the game right now).. I stopped caring about the story line myself after Wrath of the Lich King, in all honesty, and it seems to me that everything after that is not serious canon outside of the naga story line. I think one of the issues is that there are so many factions by now and you can't just play Alliance vs Horde because there are a million different evil factions that people would want to play. I want to play as the burning legion, as the scourge, as the naga, as an example. And I don't think the Forsaken and Blood Elves would be a good fit for the Horde in an RTS because of lack of thematic unity. You can't have a race based on zombies, elves and orcs in the same army. Realistically every race in WoW could be its own faction. There is also the question of whether you should still have the burning legion and scourge as available factions given that WoW can easily conclude with the defeat of Sargeras and various other bad guys clearing the way for new enemies.
WC4 will go the same way as SC2.
Absolutely horrific writing aimed at the main stream, with flashy graphics and big-name voice actors to distract you from the drastic drop in writing quality.
The gameplay will still be fun, as it always is with Blizzard games.
As for races, they will definitely stick with the 4 from WC3, but they will probably make Blood Elves a separate race. I don't see the need for them to add any more than that. Maybe Draenei. They really just have to account for the playable races in WoW; Goblins/Trolls/Tauren can stick with Orcs, Dwarves/Gnomes/Worgen can stick with Humans, and Pandaren can stay as mercenaries.
An idea about story; as others have already mentioned, SC/Diablo/WC have all pretty much hit dead ends in terms of story. SC2's story is God-awful and won't have anywhere to go after LoV, Diablo's story is just really boring at this point and sums up to "Diablo's found yet another way to return. Kill him", and WoW has completely sucked out all of the remaining story potential from the WoW universe (and the writing has, of course, dropped in quality significantly).
However, WC still has the potential to play through parts of the WoW story, only from an RTS perspective. Pick basically any time period after WC3 that WoW covers and you could make an RTS out of it. I think it would be really interesting to do. I'd love to see various moments in WoW lore (e.g. invasion of Outland, invasion of Northrend, Cataclysm and the renewed wars, etc.) in an RTS format.
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EPT
