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On May 30 2015 04:35 Stratos_speAr wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2015 23:45 Grumbels wrote: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.
NElfs got folded into Alliance, which is just as well due to how thematically monochrome they were. Alliance, Horde are guarenteed. Undead could be great, especially with more Demon stuff at higher levels, like what the Campaign gives them, and expanding from just Doom Guards. Naga/Old Gods/Horrors without name could be a really cool fourth faction, if it comes to that.
Note that you could do most of the great WoW battles with these factions (or slightly modified versions of them). You would, of course, want to have "sub-factions"... kinda like the High Elves in WC3 were a human subfaction, you could have subfactions for each of the major races, or for Iron Horde, or for Forsaken/LichKing/BurningLegion.
There's actually a monetization opportunity in skins due to the WoW heritage: the "basic" Alliance, for instance, could be human footmen, elven archers, dwarvish mortars, gnomish flying machines, draenei priests, worgen dark templar and the like. But there'd be a "Dwarven Kingdom" skin set based on the campaign sub-faction that you could get that would replace the models with dwarven equivelents for everything. Do this for every race and a few other subfactions (corrupted skins and the like), and you could have a lot of paid content that had zero gameplay effect. Do it for heroes and you've got a business model.
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On May 30 2015 05:36 Yoav wrote:Show nested quote +On May 30 2015 04:35 Stratos_speAr wrote:On May 28 2015 23:45 Grumbels wrote: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. NElfs got folded into Alliance, which is just as well due to how thematically monochrome they were. Alliance, Horde are guarenteed. Undead could be great, especially with more Demon stuff at higher levels, like what the Campaign gives them, and expanding from just Doom Guards. Naga/Old Gods/Horrors without name could be a really cool fourth faction, if it comes to that. Note that you could do most of the great WoW battles with these factions (or slightly modified versions of them). You would, of course, want to have "sub-factions"... kinda like the High Elves in WC3 were a human subfaction, you could have subfactions for each of the major races, or for Iron Horde, or for Forsaken/LichKing/BurningLegion. There's actually a monetization opportunity in skins due to the WoW heritage: the "basic" Alliance, for instance, could be human footmen, elven archers, dwarvish mortars, gnomish flying machines, draenei priests, worgen dark templar and the like. But there'd be a "Dwarven Kingdom" skin set based on the campaign sub-faction that you could get that would replace the models with dwarven equivelents for everything. Do this for every race and a few other subfactions (corrupted skins and the like), and you could have a lot of paid content that had zero gameplay effect. Do it for heroes and you've got a business model.
Night Elves are actually really distinct from the rest of the Alliance (Dwarves/Humans/Gnomes) thematically.
I think the game would be much better served to keep the distinct races from WC3 as opposed to rolling Undead/Night Elves into their respective factions for RTS play.
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I still don't think WC4 will ever be a thing. For so many reasons.
The first one being that Blizzard is apparently seriously switching its focus on to casual games. Hearthstone was the first step, then Heroes of the Storm, and finally Overwatch. All of those games have a very versatile art style (read: they cater to players of all ages by being cartoon-like, and do not narrow down to a serious/mature theme), and the gameplay itself is easy to approach while still retaining enough depth to have actual strategy.
Of all of Blizzard's current games, Diablo III and SC2 remain the only ones that are adult-themed. I just don't see Blizzard coming up with another really competitive RTS/game after SC2. There is far more money to be made in other areas.
There is definitely, definitely a demand for a competitive RTS that is not SC2 though. So many players are asking for changes which would bring on more action in SC2 games, and especially changes which would allow for longer fights. Typically what was found in BW and later WC3. But Blizzard doesn't really seem to be flinching on that point. I remember the insanely detailed and thorough article TL published about LotV's economy, which got an answer out of David Kim, who basically threw back empty words and spelled out "we're sticking with what we're planning".
Anyway. We need to make our own RTS! Let us band together and create the game that will dethrone SC2! We shall call it... Liquidcraft.
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On May 30 2015 07:47 Spaylz wrote:
I still don't think WC4 will ever be a thing. For so many reasons.
The first one being that Blizzard is apparently seriously switching its focus on to casual games. Hearthstone was the first step, then Heroes of the Storm, and finally Overwatch. All of those games have a very versatile art style (read: they cater to players of all ages by being cartoon-like, and do not narrow down to a serious/mature theme), and the gameplay itself is easy to approach while still retaining enough depth to have actual strategy.
Of all of Blizzard's current games, Diablo III and SC2 remain the only ones that are adult-themed. I just don't see Blizzard coming up with another really competitive RTS/game after SC2. There is far more money to be made in other areas.
There is definitely, definitely a demand for a competitive RTS that is not SC2 though. So many players are asking for changes which would bring on more action in SC2 games, and especially changes which would allow for longer fights. Typically what was found in BW and later WC3. But Blizzard doesn't really seem to be flinching on that point. I remember the insanely detailed and thorough article TL published about LotV's economy, which got an answer out of David Kim, who basically threw back empty words and spelled out "we're sticking with what we're planning".
Anyway. We need to make our own RTS! Let us band together and create the game that will dethrone SC2! We shall call it... Liquidcraft.
I don't think any of this prohibits Blizzard from making WC4. WC3 was the first game that Blizzard did that started their transition from "adult/serious theme" (seen in D1/2, WC1/2, and SC/BW) to "cartoonish" (WC3 is quite cartoony and over-the-top). There's also no need to make WC4 into a vehicle for esports like Blizzard tried to do with SC2.
I think that Blizzard will inevitably make WC4, but it might not be for a long time. Diablo, Starcraft, and Warcraft are three of the most recognizable fantasy/video game IP's in the world, with Warcraft being far more popular than either of the other two. To retire any of them, let alone the most popular one, would be a pretty stupid business endeavor.
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On April 17 2015 20:10 Tchado wrote:
I hope Blizzard does another ladder reset + shake the maps again.
when they did it a year ago or something is was fucking amazing , loved the new maps especially the 4v4 and 1v1 map pools , but now I'm bored of them again (4v4) , hell i miss some of the old ones despite that we played them for years ! I only started missing maps like "friends" just recently.
OMG THEY DID IT !!!! Playing the new maps now !!!! :D
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HIlls of Glory in the 1v1 ladder ! XD hilarious map
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On May 30 2015 07:47 Spaylz wrote:
I still don't think WC4 will ever be a thing. For so many reasons.
There is definitely, definitely a demand for a competitive RTS that is not SC2 though. So many players are asking for changes which would bring on more action in SC2 games, and especially changes which would allow for longer fights. Typically what was found in BW and later WC3. But Blizzard doesn't really seem to be flinching on that point. I remember the insanely detailed and thorough article TL published about LotV's economy, which got an answer out of David Kim, who basically threw back empty words and spelled out "we're sticking with what we're planning".
Anyway. We need to make our own RTS! Let us band together and create the game that will dethrone SC2! We shall call it... Liquidcraft.
What demand? There's no one making RTS nowadays because they're selling less and less every year. You mentioned that Blizzard is focused more on casual games, but the fact is the industry is basically insisting on them. Hell, the casual ness doesn't start at "nowadays" but look at WC3, when people talk about WC3, they don't really talk about WC3 competitively like a lot of BW fans do, all they talk about is the custom games. I would argue that the demand you would make a game that's that just WC3's map editor and custom game finder, and ditch the whole RTS/campaign aspect entirely.
On May 30 2015 03:39 Topin wrote:
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
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
.
I don't see how that's the best option. They've have expanded so much lore over the years. To make that pointless is really dumb.
The only hard part of the "lore" in WC3, is usually in a Blizzard RTS, you have matchups versus all the other races in the campaign. So if we bring back the 4 main races from WC3, we'd probably rename them factions instead of races nowadays.
Scourge, Alliance, Horde, and Night Elf.
The only pain in the ass thing to do is rename night elf or make a splinter night elf faction that's separate from Tyrande/the Alliance.
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I just notice that Blizzard has reset the WC3 ladder and updated the map pool. Just played my first WC3 game in like 6 years. Still the best game, the best B.net and ladder experience that Blizzard has ever made.
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On May 30 2015 17:38 paralleluniverse wrote:
I just notice that Blizzard has reset the WC3 ladder and updated the map pool. Just played my first WC3 game in like 6 years. Still the best game, the best B.net and ladder experience that Blizzard has ever made.
Meh, the ladder has like 350ms delay on everything, isn't that still true?
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On May 30 2015 17:54 Grumbels wrote:Show nested quote +On May 30 2015 17:38 paralleluniverse wrote:
I just notice that Blizzard has reset the WC3 ladder and updated the map pool. Just played my first WC3 game in like 6 years. Still the best game, the best B.net and ladder experience that Blizzard has ever made. Meh, the ladder has like 350ms delay on everything, isn't that still true?
Yeah it feels like it. I dont remember it being this bad but apparently people tell me that it was always like this.
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On May 30 2015 17:59 lestye wrote:Show nested quote +On May 30 2015 17:54 Grumbels wrote:On May 30 2015 17:38 paralleluniverse wrote:
I just notice that Blizzard has reset the WC3 ladder and updated the map pool. Just played my first WC3 game in like 6 years. Still the best game, the best B.net and ladder experience that Blizzard has ever made. Meh, the ladder has like 350ms delay on everything, isn't that still true? Yeah it feels like it. I dont remember it being this bad but apparently people tell me that it was always like this.
Lol, yup. It was always this bad. We only began to notice when Internet connections began to skyrocket and we started to have good speed.
And honestly I don't know about keeping their franchises forever. Sure, it's super well-known and SC/WC/Diablo are three of the most recognizable franchises, probably a step down Final Fantasy and The Legend of Zelda, but ehhh... As opposed to the last two franchises, Blizzard hasn't been renewing the story every time to make independant titles. They have been expanding.
I just personally think that the 20 years of development and progress in the storylines of the franchises is beginning to show. They started another franchise with Overwatch, who knows if they won't keep going. I certainly would like it.
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On May 30 2015 05:36 Yoav wrote:Show nested quote +On May 30 2015 04:35 Stratos_speAr wrote:On May 28 2015 23:45 Grumbels wrote: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. NElfs got folded into Alliance, which is just as well due to how thematically monochrome they were. Alliance, Horde are guarenteed. Undead could be great, especially with more Demon stuff at higher levels, like what the Campaign gives them, and expanding from just Doom Guards. Naga/Old Gods/Horrors without name could be a really cool fourth faction, if it comes to that. Note that you could do most of the great WoW battles with these factions (or slightly modified versions of them). You would, of course, want to have "sub-factions"... kinda like the High Elves in WC3 were a human subfaction, you could have subfactions for each of the major races, or for Iron Horde, or for Forsaken/LichKing/BurningLegion. There's actually a monetization opportunity in skins due to the WoW heritage: the "basic" Alliance, for instance, could be human footmen, elven archers, dwarvish mortars, gnomish flying machines, draenei priests, worgen dark templar and the like. But there'd be a "Dwarven Kingdom" skin set based on the campaign sub-faction that you could get that would replace the models with dwarven equivelents for everything. Do this for every race and a few other subfactions (corrupted skins and the like), and you could have a lot of paid content that had zero gameplay effect. Do it for heroes and you've got a business model.
A free-to-play idea for Warcraft IV could be modeled on Age of Empires. In that game (AoE II at least) you have many different factions, but they're essentially all the same except that they have different focuses. What if Blizzard expanded on this idea and created perhaps three or four main factions that would serve the same role as the current WC3 races, which would stylistically be very dissimilar, but then added sub-factions within the races that would play quite similar but have their own models, lore, themes.
Let's say that the common units for the alliance faction are like you said: human footman, elven archer, dwarven mortar, but then you could choose to buy the dwarf pack, which would replace all the standard units with dwarven units that are quite similar but thematically slightly different (sturdier, unique spells).
I thought maybe that would be easy enough to balance, since all the sub-factions are essentially similar, but it would still feel unique to play. That way you can have asymmetrical faction design for the main three or four races, plus the ability to add new units for sale without breaking the gameplay. And it would be more exciting than skins.
Because offering new units for sale in Starcraft is a recipe for breaking the competitive integrity of the game, but this need not be the case in a new RTS game.
Other free-to-play ideas would be the standard skins, voice packs, but also neutral heroes, mercenaries, items. One problem with introducing a hero that you have to buy in a moba is that you might not have the right counters available, so that the game becomes essentially pay-to-win. However, in a team game that effect is mitigated since everyone will have different heroes available, so it's not that bad. I think that for related but different reasons in a game like Warcraft 3 the effect of one hero is not that significant as introducing one unit to Starcraft would be.
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On May 30 2015 20:24 Grumbels wrote:Show nested quote +On May 30 2015 05:36 Yoav wrote:On May 30 2015 04:35 Stratos_speAr wrote:On May 28 2015 23:45 Grumbels wrote: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. NElfs got folded into Alliance, which is just as well due to how thematically monochrome they were. Alliance, Horde are guarenteed. Undead could be great, especially with more Demon stuff at higher levels, like what the Campaign gives them, and expanding from just Doom Guards. Naga/Old Gods/Horrors without name could be a really cool fourth faction, if it comes to that. Note that you could do most of the great WoW battles with these factions (or slightly modified versions of them). You would, of course, want to have "sub-factions"... kinda like the High Elves in WC3 were a human subfaction, you could have subfactions for each of the major races, or for Iron Horde, or for Forsaken/LichKing/BurningLegion. There's actually a monetization opportunity in skins due to the WoW heritage: the "basic" Alliance, for instance, could be human footmen, elven archers, dwarvish mortars, gnomish flying machines, draenei priests, worgen dark templar and the like. But there'd be a "Dwarven Kingdom" skin set based on the campaign sub-faction that you could get that would replace the models with dwarven equivelents for everything. Do this for every race and a few other subfactions (corrupted skins and the like), and you could have a lot of paid content that had zero gameplay effect. Do it for heroes and you've got a business model. A free-to-play idea for Warcraft IV could be modeled on Age of Empires. In that game (AoE II at least) you have many different factions, but they're essentially all the same except that they have different focuses. What if Blizzard expanded on this idea and created perhaps three or four main factions that would serve the same role as the current WC3 races, which would stylistically be very dissimilar, but then added sub-factions within the races that would play quite similar but have their own models, lore, themes. Let's say that the common units for the alliance faction are like you said: human footman, elven archer, dwarven mortar, but then you could choose to buy the dwarf pack, which would replace all the standard units with dwarven units that are quite similar but thematically slightly different (sturdier, unique spells). I thought maybe that would be easy enough to balance, since all the sub-factions are essentially similar, but it would still feel unique to play. That way you can have asymmetrical faction design for the main three or four races, plus the ability to add new units for sale without breaking the gameplay. And it would be more exciting than skins. Because offering new units for sale in Starcraft is a recipe for breaking the competitive integrity of the game, but this need not be the case in a new RTS game. Other free-to-play ideas would be the standard skins, voice packs, but also neutral heroes, mercenaries, items. One problem with introducing a hero that you have to buy in a moba is that you might not have the right counters available, so that the game becomes essentially pay-to-win. However, in a team game that effect is mitigated since everyone will have different heroes available, so it's not that bad. I think that for related but different reasons in a game like Warcraft 3 the effect of one hero is not that significant as introducing one unit to Starcraft would be.
This is why everyone gets away with a pay for advantage model.
"I admit that it's pay for advantage, but it's not very pay for advantage."
How about no pay for advantage?
F2P multiplayer , sell the campaigns episodically, sell skins, sell custom maps, sell UI, sell non-standard game modes; or the CSGO business model.
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On May 30 2015 21:15 paralleluniverse wrote:Show nested quote +On May 30 2015 20:24 Grumbels wrote:On May 30 2015 05:36 Yoav wrote:On May 30 2015 04:35 Stratos_speAr wrote:On May 28 2015 23:45 Grumbels wrote: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. NElfs got folded into Alliance, which is just as well due to how thematically monochrome they were. Alliance, Horde are guarenteed. Undead could be great, especially with more Demon stuff at higher levels, like what the Campaign gives them, and expanding from just Doom Guards. Naga/Old Gods/Horrors without name could be a really cool fourth faction, if it comes to that. Note that you could do most of the great WoW battles with these factions (or slightly modified versions of them). You would, of course, want to have "sub-factions"... kinda like the High Elves in WC3 were a human subfaction, you could have subfactions for each of the major races, or for Iron Horde, or for Forsaken/LichKing/BurningLegion. There's actually a monetization opportunity in skins due to the WoW heritage: the "basic" Alliance, for instance, could be human footmen, elven archers, dwarvish mortars, gnomish flying machines, draenei priests, worgen dark templar and the like. But there'd be a "Dwarven Kingdom" skin set based on the campaign sub-faction that you could get that would replace the models with dwarven equivelents for everything. Do this for every race and a few other subfactions (corrupted skins and the like), and you could have a lot of paid content that had zero gameplay effect. Do it for heroes and you've got a business model. A free-to-play idea for Warcraft IV could be modeled on Age of Empires. In that game (AoE II at least) you have many different factions, but they're essentially all the same except that they have different focuses. What if Blizzard expanded on this idea and created perhaps three or four main factions that would serve the same role as the current WC3 races, which would stylistically be very dissimilar, but then added sub-factions within the races that would play quite similar but have their own models, lore, themes. Let's say that the common units for the alliance faction are like you said: human footman, elven archer, dwarven mortar, but then you could choose to buy the dwarf pack, which would replace all the standard units with dwarven units that are quite similar but thematically slightly different (sturdier, unique spells). I thought maybe that would be easy enough to balance, since all the sub-factions are essentially similar, but it would still feel unique to play. That way you can have asymmetrical faction design for the main three or four races, plus the ability to add new units for sale without breaking the gameplay. And it would be more exciting than skins. Because offering new units for sale in Starcraft is a recipe for breaking the competitive integrity of the game, but this need not be the case in a new RTS game. Other free-to-play ideas would be the standard skins, voice packs, but also neutral heroes, mercenaries, items. One problem with introducing a hero that you have to buy in a moba is that you might not have the right counters available, so that the game becomes essentially pay-to-win. However, in a team game that effect is mitigated since everyone will have different heroes available, so it's not that bad. I think that for related but different reasons in a game like Warcraft 3 the effect of one hero is not that significant as introducing one unit to Starcraft would be. This is why everyone gets away with a pay for advantage model. "I admit that it's pay for advantage, but it's not very pay for advantage." How about no pay for advantage? F2P multiplayer , sell the campaigns episodically, sell skins, sell custom maps, sell UI, sell non-standard game modes; or the CSGO business model.
I don't think it's that bad to be honest, Blizzard could always guarantee that the standard options to play are sufficient to compete. I mean, I'm not world's biggest free-to-play fan and mostly as I prefer the old model where any further customization was left to modders who would do this for free out of passion. But if the developers are creating further content it's fair enough to pay them for it. Maybe it creates bad incentives for the developers, but still, if nobody plays the game because they can't afford the new Panda Pack(tm) and therefore can't compete, I'm sure Blizzard would learn to be more careful in balancing and making available new content like that.
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Played about 20 games.
Not sure how I feel about the new mappool. It's pretty subpar. I have mostly been playing on Hills of Glory, which is pretty damn awful for Human due to the double-opening of your base.
I also played once or twice on Deadwater Drop. This map is down right horrible for creeping. When you go ahead and pull the green camp on the side, you pull the gold mine orange creep spot too. It happened to me twice, and the layout of the map doesn't seem to help much. I think you have to aggro the green camp then pull back, but still...
Still had fun, but these maps really aren't great.
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On May 31 2015 01:51 Grumbels wrote:Show nested quote +On May 30 2015 21:15 paralleluniverse wrote:On May 30 2015 20:24 Grumbels wrote:On May 30 2015 05:36 Yoav wrote:On May 30 2015 04:35 Stratos_speAr wrote:On May 28 2015 23:45 Grumbels wrote: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. NElfs got folded into Alliance, which is just as well due to how thematically monochrome they were. Alliance, Horde are guarenteed. Undead could be great, especially with more Demon stuff at higher levels, like what the Campaign gives them, and expanding from just Doom Guards. Naga/Old Gods/Horrors without name could be a really cool fourth faction, if it comes to that. Note that you could do most of the great WoW battles with these factions (or slightly modified versions of them). You would, of course, want to have "sub-factions"... kinda like the High Elves in WC3 were a human subfaction, you could have subfactions for each of the major races, or for Iron Horde, or for Forsaken/LichKing/BurningLegion. There's actually a monetization opportunity in skins due to the WoW heritage: the "basic" Alliance, for instance, could be human footmen, elven archers, dwarvish mortars, gnomish flying machines, draenei priests, worgen dark templar and the like. But there'd be a "Dwarven Kingdom" skin set based on the campaign sub-faction that you could get that would replace the models with dwarven equivelents for everything. Do this for every race and a few other subfactions (corrupted skins and the like), and you could have a lot of paid content that had zero gameplay effect. Do it for heroes and you've got a business model. A free-to-play idea for Warcraft IV could be modeled on Age of Empires. In that game (AoE II at least) you have many different factions, but they're essentially all the same except that they have different focuses. What if Blizzard expanded on this idea and created perhaps three or four main factions that would serve the same role as the current WC3 races, which would stylistically be very dissimilar, but then added sub-factions within the races that would play quite similar but have their own models, lore, themes. Let's say that the common units for the alliance faction are like you said: human footman, elven archer, dwarven mortar, but then you could choose to buy the dwarf pack, which would replace all the standard units with dwarven units that are quite similar but thematically slightly different (sturdier, unique spells). I thought maybe that would be easy enough to balance, since all the sub-factions are essentially similar, but it would still feel unique to play. That way you can have asymmetrical faction design for the main three or four races, plus the ability to add new units for sale without breaking the gameplay. And it would be more exciting than skins. Because offering new units for sale in Starcraft is a recipe for breaking the competitive integrity of the game, but this need not be the case in a new RTS game. Other free-to-play ideas would be the standard skins, voice packs, but also neutral heroes, mercenaries, items. One problem with introducing a hero that you have to buy in a moba is that you might not have the right counters available, so that the game becomes essentially pay-to-win. However, in a team game that effect is mitigated since everyone will have different heroes available, so it's not that bad. I think that for related but different reasons in a game like Warcraft 3 the effect of one hero is not that significant as introducing one unit to Starcraft would be. This is why everyone gets away with a pay for advantage model. "I admit that it's pay for advantage, but it's not very pay for advantage." How about no pay for advantage? F2P multiplayer , sell the campaigns episodically, sell skins, sell custom maps, sell UI, sell non-standard game modes; or the CSGO business model. I don't think it's that bad to be honest, Blizzard could always guarantee that the standard options to play are sufficient to compete. I mean, I'm not world's biggest free-to-play fan and mostly as I prefer the old model where any further customization was left to modders who would do this for free out of passion. But if the developers are creating further content it's fair enough to pay them for it. Maybe it creates bad incentives for the developers, but still, if nobody plays the game because they can't afford the new Panda Pack(tm) and therefore can't compete, I'm sure Blizzard would learn to be more careful in balancing and making available new content like that.
Lol you summoned the ghost of pay to win, ParallelUniverse. Good luck.
But seriously, I really do think the paid parts should be cosmetic, at least in multiplayer. It's unbalancable otherwise.
Put it this way: in classic WC3, Horde are really hurting when it comes to healing. Say there was a Troll version of the Horde, with extra regen.... that would be clearly better, even if Orcs got more damage and Tauren more HP.
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wow, I am surprised that there is still quite some discussion going on here in this thread 
amazing fun to read all the comments!
@Grumbels: thanks for your very dedicated posts! It would be nice to hear what you think about the symmetries or design of the races (my weird post :D ). The making of Wc3 is a huge rich story in itself, one that must feel legendary to have been part of, and the way it turned out so perfectly can be seen as a rare alignment of stars, a manifestation of pure art and harmony. The lore, the races, the campaign, the multiplayer; everything feels so well rounded.
I was about 12 when Wc3 came out and I remember the previews (in a german magazine called Gamestar) were showing a different game every time, simply because Blizz kept changing the game (from Roleplay based to RTS).
Wc3 could have easily ended up with vastly different mechanics; it must have taken a lot of soul and courage for the developpers to make all the final decisions.
here are some early screenshots (this german Wc3 site has many amazing resources btw) http://warcraft.ingame.de/cms.php?id=94152 .
Heres a recent podcast with Rob Pardo about the making of Sc and Wc . talk about Wc3 starts at 1h35m or so.
Back then, AoE2, Sc and CC were the big games and the idea of experiencegain was the new coming innovation (wasnt Sc2 the first game to completely cut that feature again?). So it wasnt the experiencesystem that made Wc3 special (Age of Mythology, Dawn of War and one of the CC had it aswell), but the items, the shops the creeps and their implications on the game (like the Townportal or the Healing Potion).
The Wc3 experiencesystem has its little problems:
like Grumbels said: losing a unit costs you twice.
but also: hitting lvl 3 is huge because it gives you twice the power on your main skill, giving you a huge window of opportunity.
also: Ultimates are very situational but dont play a role for choosing a hero. a Dh wins you the game, a Dk doesnt.
and: hitting lvl 8+ does usually not make a difference anymore.
Somehow Wc3 is still more of a comeback game than Sc despite the first 2 mechanics above, prob thanks to creeping and base defence.
about Wc4 design: it is hard to follow up on Wc3 for many reasons. WoW and mobas have torn Wc3s soul apart.
But also, Wc3 itself was an unstable brew that profited from geniuses that were courageous enough to put their ideas in, yet were able to find a balance in design, that keeps the game together.
One thing, that is a universial problem in movies and games, is: what to put into a sequel, when the prequel is already perfect on its own? Its hard to make a movie like matrix, but its harder to expand the lore from the crew of a spaceship to a whole community (in Matrix 2), because ideas are either boring or risky. The thing with Wc3 is: it has used each and every idea and counteridea and created a perfect and complete product.
As I said in my weird post about symmetries of the races, there is already every fantasy idea included somewhere in Wc3. There is almost nothing to expand. So Blizz can do only 2 things:
-make better graphics and shuffle some unit mechanics but keeping the game mostly the same (like Sc2 to Sc)
- or do it all again from scratch like Wc3 to Wc2 and try to be insanely lucky again, that something awesome new comes out
That is why, it is unrealistic to want the whole revolutionary magic all over again. Wc3 was a masterpiece of a lifetime, thats why I will celebrate a Wc4 thats only half as good
btw, there are lizardmen in Wc3, luckily only as creeps 
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I was a bit busy but I'm still planning to do a post on it. :p
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another symmetrie that I like, is that in the campaign, every race fights every other race at some point.
Some conflicts are natural: Human vs Orc or Ud . Nightelf vs intruders.
Some are unusual: Human vs Human because of rivalry and closemindedness, same for Orc vs Orc
Some are hard to bring up: Ud vs Ud, Ne vs Ne
the last two are introduced quite interestingly in the campaign. Nighelves are attacked by their savage brethren, when they want to reunite with them.
Ud vs Ud comes up in TFT when Sylvanas fights some remaining Dreadlords for revenge. Not sure if there is Ud vs Ud in Roc.
So everytime one plays a specific 1on1, one can use these scenarios as underlying themes. Like Humans want to purifiy the world of the Ud, yet also want to drive out their human competitors.
But then it doesnt make sense, that NEs kill creeps, when they want to preserve nature
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On June 05 2015 05:39 3point14 wrote:another symmetrie that I like, is that in the campaign, every race fights every other race at some point. Some conflicts are natural: Human vs Orc or Ud . Nightelf vs intruders. Some are unusual: Human vs Human because of rivalry and closemindedness, same for Orc vs Orc Some are hard to bring up: Ud vs Ud, Ne vs Ne the last two are introduced quite interestingly in the campaign. Nighelves are attacked by their savage brethren, when they want to reunite with them. Ud vs Ud comes up in TFT when Sylvanas fights some remaining Dreadlords for revenge. Not sure if there is Ud vs Ud in Roc. So everytime one plays a specific 1on1, one can use these scenarios as underlying themes. Like Humans want to purifiy the world of the Ud, yet also want to drive out their human competitors. But then it doesnt make sense, that NEs kill creeps, when they want to preserve nature
Creeps dying is part of the circle of life though. Just because you want to preserve nature doesnt mean everything must live.
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EPT
