Warcraft 3 – The game without exaggeration is great. Not one generation of players managed to grow on it, but the MMORPG following the strategy World of warcraft and even more so blew up the gaming industry. Yes, there were Warcraft 1 and 2, but most of all the players liked the third one. The phrases of the heroes from it have long come into use, like some kind of “jellied fish” from “The Irony of Fate”. Remembering all this, scolding modern reincarnation Warcraft 3 with title Reforged I don’t feel like it at all. But, alas, have to.
The problem here is not even that the reissue itself turned out to be somehow too bad. No, by the standards of modern remasters it turned out to be … average. For example, the same Assassin’s Creed The Ezio Collection or Fable anniversary with incredibly poor management were much worse. The problem is that we were repeatedly promised very cool reissue from Blizzard. And then it turned out that people naturally lied, releasing just an average remaster. Remember the scene with Blizzcon 2018where Arthas removes Uther from command? She was simply removed from the game. There are no other similar videos in it.
Upon the fact of qualitative changes in Warcraft 3: Reforged not so much. Yes, the developers completely replaced the old angular models with new ones, and they look really cool and modern, but the scenes on the game engine look just as ridiculous and static as before. But only if earlier it could be attributed to technology, then in 2023 this will not work. Especially when we were shown how it might look. Take another example: the scene of Uther’s death at the hands of Arthas. In the game, this looks rather ridiculous, while back in beta times simple players pulled models out of the client and made this is. Simple people. Against developers from Blizzard.
In some scenes, heroes even stand in front of each other a pillar. Thanks at least, added an animation of the movement of the lips. For example, in an episode when the Prophet addresses the prince, he does not even bother to turn around. Obviously, beautiful models in this case no longer save. For a publication with pulling up textures and new character icons, this would be enough, but obviously not for the bar set Blizzard. One could even say that the fans themselves fantasized a new animation and redesigned cutscenes, which are purely problems of their perception, but the campaign itself promised a completely different level. There is no excuse for this. At worst, the game could again be rescheduled and brought to mind.
Moreover, in some places it is clear that normal directing was still planned. For example, in the scene with Muradin and Frostmourne there are even camera spans and close-ups. An ambiguous situation emerged with the famous cinematics. Only the introductory video and the scene of the battle of Arthas with Illidan, which, by the way, came out quite mediocre. Everything else looks as soapy as in bearded times Warcraft 3 . But just the cinematics from Blizzard and waited. And again: from the same Blizzardwhich supplied Battle for Azeroth an unprecedented amount of the coolest videos for a year and a half. After all, even far from the most significant events of the supplement there were accompanied by scenes of fantastic qualities. But just this “Metelitsa” can be forgiven with an exaggeration, because at a closed presentation, the company representatives somehow mentioned that nobody plans to remake the videos. Although already after the pre-order was announced.
An incomprehensible situation came out with the content of the game. Initially, we were promised that the gameplay itself will be supplemented with new details, and the maps are modernized, so that the locations are more like what we know from Wow. Needless to say, none of this is here at all, and everything remained exactly as it was before? Unless some phrases of characters in the Russian dubbing preferred to remove or reduce.
Localization, by the way, is a separate issue in general. If the English version was left unchanged (and thank God), then the Russian version was rewritten from scratch. Completely. All with the same message: so that the heroes speak in the same voices as in World of warcraft. And from this we had an extremely mixed impression. Yes, getting a storyteller to speak in the voice of a popular blogger was a good idea. Yes, the same Thrall and Sylvanas from Wow sound great. But for some reason, many characters received corny new voices, and very rarely – better than before. Perhaps the main failure was Arthas. If an actor from Warcraft 3 due to the tragic combination of circumstances, it’s definitely impossible to attract to the scoring, than the company did not like the voice of Wow – unclear. One way or another, to lose the lion’s share of emotions in, in fact, the main character of the game – this should be tried. Even if you agree with an actor of the times Lich king for some reason it didn’t work, there is always an old version of the dubbing, which for 18 years has long been native to fans of the original.
Another problem Reforged – optimization. Our game periodically hung for 2-3 seconds, for which an untreated fighter often managed to die. And this is on a machine where the last parts Total war go without any complaints. Somehow, the next mission simply refused to start, throwing us back into the campaign menu over and over again. And the performance as a whole at certain times dropped pretty much. Someone’s textures disappear altogether and, for no reason, defeats are counted, so alas, there were enough technical problems and bugs here.
If nothing of the promised features was added to the game, then remove something – remove it. For example, now there is no way to play on the local network, and the possibilities for modders are significantly limited. Yes, and many other networking features have been greatly curtailed. And if you still decide to create content for the game, then all rights to it will now belong to Blizzard. And this applies not only to the cards themselves, but also to the concept. Obviously, the creative fervor of experienced modders in this situation will significantly decrease.
41 minutes of gameplay Warcraft 3: Reforged. Source: Starclan 03
Cherry on the cake can be called another, quite ugly from the side of the company act. After the release of “remaster” the owners of the old version Warcraft 3 they were surprised to find that instead they became the owners of a kind of truncated version Reforged without new models, but with most of the features described above. Yes old Warcraftseems to be no more. As there are not all saved cards and developments. So simple. Needless to say, this did not add popularity to the project. Depriving people of choice is bad.
However, play in Reforged interesting at least because it’s still Warcraft 3 that we know and love for as long as 18 years. New models look cool, and the remaster’s release is a good reason to recall how strategies looked in those days. To do this, however, it is necessary to ignore promises Blizzardwhich she did not fulfill and, ideally, did not have from the reprint of the original expectations. It happened with us, for example, because we followed the PR campaign half-eye.
