"WarCraft 1" After years, part 1/3

I once committed a few texts on "Warcraft", its impact on online games, the promotion of e-sport, and how it laid the foundations for the MOBA game genre, but I'm not satisfied with them. In addition, I made a few minor mistakes that would require more changes than correcting typos, rewriting some sentences. Instead of scrambling with this job, I thought it would be better to start again.

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Old Blizzard was a great brand. Whatever they produced, you played it for a long time - both in single and multi. Some for months, others for years, some play their classic games to this day. Few companies can boast of such titles in their portfolio. Although the price was high (20 years ago, the D2 + add-on was paid PLN 200), but it was worth it. Large content, intriguing single-player campaign, super multiplayer, outstanding atmosphere and fun for several months if not years. Although in 2019 I did not play much in WC3, but earlier I devoted a lot of time to it. Anyway, I'm going to train myself before buying his remake, only first I will relax Geralt in part 3 of "The Witcher" and go "Ion Fury". Either way, Blizzard games were popular among many players in China, Korea, Europe (probably even more so in our Eastern rather than Western) and both Americas. They were also games that could make you an esports star or make you hug a lot of cash. My peer, a friend who went to a parallel class through elementary school, junior high school, high school, once dropped an item in "Diablo 2" which was then worth about a thousand zlotys at online auctions. In the days when I went to secondary school, it was a lot. When it comes to skills, apart from my brother, I don't know any pro manager live. I met some, but only through the internet. Several have played in tournaments, be it Dota or Warcraft.

Well, but enough about me, let's get down to history. I will not give a lecture or a detailed description, because others have done it better. E.g. Player from YT, I recommend his RTS videos. As a veteran of this species, I give a quality stamp. When I look at games and movies released in 1994, it seems to me that it was a very good year for the then fans of games and cinematography. I was with my dad on "The Lion King", "Forrest Gump", "Shawshank Stuck", "Mask", "Stupid and Stupid", "Four Weddings and a Funeral", "Pulp Fiction", "True Lies", "Interview with a vampire. " When it comes to games, they premiered then, among others "Donkey Kong Country", "Doom 2", "Final Fantasy VI", "Super Metroid", "Need for Speed", "Tekken 1", "System Shock", "Jagged Alliance", "Jazz Jackrabbit", and "WarCraft 1" just now.

It was not the first title in the RTS genre, and we can play strategies since the 1970s. However, they differed from what we understand today as a "strategic game". Let's start with the fact that until the premiere of "Dune 2" there was no real-time strategy genre. Strategy games, until around the 1990s, were mainly turn-based, because it was thought that it was impossible to combine strategy with dynamic management of the army, base and resources, which boils down to jumping around the windows, as in some dexterity or platformer. Because this is essentially micro and macro, if you think about it so well - a mix of strategy and arcade. Fortunately, Don Daglow didn't know about it and in 1981 he published Utopia. A game that was one of the precursors of 4X games (explore, expand, exploiot, exterminate) or city-builders. The game that inspired Westwood to create "Dune 2", which in turn certainly contributed to the creation of a world inhabited by people, orcs, demons, elves etc. It's worth remembering "Utopia" because who knows how the RTS genre would develop if it wasn't for this game. The fact is, Westwood defined this genre (just like "Dragon Ball" defined the concept of shounen-battle for many years), but I'm pretty sure that Don's product had its share in this success.

Blizzard was a bit lucky with his "WarCraft". It beats with it even more archaisms than from the second part of the "Dune" and if you do not know how to deal with annoying schemes or problems of the game about orcs and people, then you can have a hard time nowadays. I think that even fans of the genre, who, like me, grew up with this world, will complain about the need to save and load from a certain stage of the game, high schematic, too OP catapults, the need to build roads to erect buildings, too many dexterity elements, customization fixed scripts and not enough strategies. And there were no major differences between the races, except for the individual spells of their wizards, clerics, necromancers, and warlocks, which made the game boring quickly.

"Dune" was not perfect and suffered from its problems, and above all, it was 2 years older, but in those days Westwood felt the RTS genre better than programmers from Blizzard. Their later "Command and Conquer" won the hearts of many players, and "Red Alert" only boosted their popularity. Westwood's problems began during the creation of "Tiberian Sun", the continuation of the first part of the C&C series. I do not know the exact subject, but already at that time I met with criticism both in some magazines and among players. The fact broke the then Guinness record in the number of copies sold at some time, but ultimately this did not translate into a long product life, as in the case of previous games. The graphics were so-so, the campaign was not too difficult, generally as a fan of part 1 I am a bit disappointed. I will not say that it was a bad game, but it was a step backward. Fortunately, the 3rd part, which hit store shelves in 2007, was good. And as I often criticize EA, I will defend them here. The fact that they totally fucked C & C4, brought the brand to some cellular game, but the third part they released was epic good. I felt like a child when I played three and saw the perfect development of ideas known from ones.

Let's go back to older times and orcs. In the same year as RA, the second part of "Warcraft" came out, which was already a complete RTS. I think it even passed the test of time better than the above-mentioned works from Westwood. Fortunately for us players, Blizzard was lucky. Why are we lucky for us? Because Blizzard has defined the real-time strategy genre with its Warcraft and StarCraft. And as for the latter, not only the gameplay itself was a bit lame, but also the plot did not really captivate. It was a pretext and the whole could be summarized in a short time. Just a mage brought green and brown creatures to the human world, so nap * go to death and life. The orcs won, Stormwind burned, the invaders won the first war and banished the people overseas. Let's add some fart-fart, world-building scraps, and that's it. There was no such emphasis on the heroes as in the three, the game did not have a rich lore, like two. Sure, there was Garona, there were Lothar and Medivh, but they were not significant figures. Well, except maybe the prophet who braces the entire trilogy perfectly. First, he brought the Orcs to Azeroth, and then helped to unite many rational races against the mighty Burning Legion, devoured by the worlds, thereby atoning their sins.

Well, but from the perspective of today. Then they felt a bit fuzzy, like CDPR at the premiere of 3 parts of "The Witcher". Many studies in their place would have at least screwed up, and many things get lost. As I mentioned, it is hard to play today and requires some perseverance. You need to keep a specific formation, so as not to lose the too-expensive army in a stupid way, do scouting maps and reconnaissance from the mission in which deadly catapults appear. One of them can make a game unbelievable - if we lose our mind, and despite this it is not difficult, we will lose too much army and we have gg no re, we start again. The computer cheats (faster expi, develops, has more resources) and is generally more difficult than in parts 2 and 3 (in which the computer also cheats). I also see no reason to play it for the plot. It's better to watch the videos on YT, and if someone really cares, let them buy for 35 PLN GOG version of the game. At this price we will also get the "Beyond the Dark Portal" add-on, which is difficult.

When it comes to music, it's nice, but it doesn't catch you. The soundtrack is 2 times shorter than what Blizzard recorded for the needs of one. It has some nice songs that I'd love to hear in a remastered version, but that's all. Far from the iconic soundtracks of previous games. Maybe not every player knows the pieces from W2, but it's hard to be about 30 years old, be interested in games and hear at least once in, like the Village of Tristram, a song that flew on the StarCraft menu, or some epic, momentous fantasy song from W3/WoW. Unfortunately, "WarCraft 1" itself was poor in this respect.

It is hard to believe that from this inconspicuous game a cycle arose that set trends in the RTS genre. I will write about this game and the full bloom of Blizzard in the next part of the text. The same with gradual refinement of the formula. With each subsequent RTS, Blizzard has grown more and more, not only in conducting single-player campaigns, but also in online games.