131–140 of 210 posts
The other games we were playing at that time were Doom II and various other first-person shooters (Rise of the Triad, Hexen, etc) - which were also pretty incredible. But the WarCraft II experience really took things to the next level with far richer gameplay.
I still remember the 3 level demo CD they made. Awesome demo levels that made me buy the game, which is still one of my favorite games of all time.
This is a really good and I think sadly under played and discussed game. It was very popular in the mid 1990s on release but it seems like it was immediately forgotten about once Starcraft arrived. It's unfortunate because yes it's a simpler and more straight forward game, and not as balanced, but it is very fun and pure. Warcraft 1 is maybe too slow paced and basic to be enjoyable, but Warcraft 2 remains very playab…
> This is a really good and I think sadly under played and discussed game WarCraft II sold 3M copies.
In contrast contemporary SNES games have had more remakes and had their audiences grow remarkably over time. The franchise hasn't been cared for and so it's relatively obscure despite being a top tier best in class game on its release.
Tbh in general I think you could say the same of a lot of top tier successful PC games of that era.
And now that disco easter egg is stuck in my head... (although technically I think that was part of Beyond the Dark Portal).
(Yes, that was from Beyond the Dark Portal. Could play it in the game with a "cheat" code or it was at the end of the Redbook audio tracks if you put it in a music CD player.)
This is a really good and I think sadly under played and discussed game. It was very popular in the mid 1990s on release but it seems like it was immediately forgotten about once Starcraft arrived. It's unfortunate because yes it's a simpler and more straight forward game, and not as balanced, but it is very fun and pure. Warcraft 1 is maybe too slow paced and basic to be enjoyable, but Warcraft 2 remains very playab…
All the RTS games are underplayed nowadays. Starcraft 2 is maybe the most active still and has been all but abandoned by Blizzard. A good RTS has an extremely harsh learning curve and is not super monetizable. Someone would have to rethink the genre: make it easier for casual players and figure out how to get the addicting money making patterns in. Otherwise big companies are gonna have no interest. Sucks, I love Sta…
And frankly, that's not fun for a lot of people.
I don't want to win by clicking and mashing hotkeys like a schizophrenic on speed.
You cannot imagine the lengths we had to go to play this game in our home. We were lucky enough to have two apple computers and so my brother and I would play each other using the battle net technology over appletalk. The thing was, the only appletalk cable in our house was barely long enough to make it between the two bedrooms, so when we wanted to play the cable would hang in the air stretched across the hallway where the slightest tug would rip it out of the port killing the match.
The number of times that cable got unplugged mid-game and the inter-household rancor that would ensue is the stuff of legends. I honestly remember the fits we had about whose fault it was that the cord got unplugged more than I remember any specific aspect of those Warcraft games.
It just goes to show, networking topography matters.
WCII ToD is absolutely one of the most insane games to ever be birthed unto the world. It was so brain breaking compared to everything else we were playing at the. time. Just a real quantum leap in terms of dopeness.
Blizzard really hit it out of the park with Warcraft and Diablo.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think Brood War is the true apex - more than two races with significant differences and aggressive balancing. Warcraft II was what I LAN played the most so it has a special place in my heart though.
Personally I think Dawn of War is the apex. That game really fired on all cylinders. And then for whatever reason Relic completely abandoned the formula and made the next game something different entirely. Dawn of War 2 remains one of my greatest gaming disappointments to this day because of poorly it stood up to its predecessor.
This is a really good and I think sadly under played and discussed game. It was very popular in the mid 1990s on release but it seems like it was immediately forgotten about once Starcraft arrived. It's unfortunate because yes it's a simpler and more straight forward game, and not as balanced, but it is very fun and pure. Warcraft 1 is maybe too slow paced and basic to be enjoyable, but Warcraft 2 remains very playab…
All the RTS games are underplayed nowadays. Starcraft 2 is maybe the most active still and has been all but abandoned by Blizzard. A good RTS has an extremely harsh learning curve and is not super monetizable. Someone would have to rethink the genre: make it easier for casual players and figure out how to get the addicting money making patterns in. Otherwise big companies are gonna have no interest. Sucks, I love Sta…
Potentially that simplification hurts the genre too much though because then you don't have hardcore players sticking with it for years and years.
Maybe a game could have that as a "simple mode" that players can opt in to.
The potential addictive money making pattern is the same as other games imo. Skins. The units being smaller mean the developer is probably going to have to go to more effort to shove them in to peoples faces. Maybe a screen before/after the match where all the players units in their skins can be clear seen in a more zoomed in manner. Have them marching around the border of the end scoresheet or doing a little dance while waiting for players to load.
Some additional stuff: 1) you can find the War 2 for PSX source on Archive. It has all the Windows stuff commented out. It might be possible to uncomment and compile with something like Borland C or Watcom C or whatever they used. 2) the modding scene was phenomenal. Not mentioned is StarDraft for obvious reasons but a counterpart to WarDraft. This is where our story takes a turn and the name Camelot Systems emerges,…
1. Wow, I did not know that. Thanks for sharing! 2. Indeed - I'm happy to hear someone know their Blizzard modding community history. To my knowledge, King Arthur never finished his studies as he got offered a job at Blizzard. He worked at Blizzard from around 2000 to 2020. He's now at Dreamhaven it seems, along with former Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime. And indeed - Jorsys is very much inspired by Camsys =) 3. I think…
1) in addition to Kali, people played War2 on MSN Gaming Zone. It was available under the TCP/IP section.
2) before war2bne, you could use a program to change the color of your in game name, and use non-ASCII characters. So people went wild in multiplayer games.
3) I think MPlayer also supported War2? I don’t think anyone played it there.
4) StarCraft modding community was tight knit. Lots of great maps with tools available only to friends of the modders. We see the tail end of this when mappers finally get so good their maps are used by KeSPA and are not possible with stock editor.
5) Warcraft 3 alpha comes around. Warforge server is the first and only private server. The first map editor is leaked, janky but works for alpha. the first tower defense map ever for Warcraft 3 is made by a fellow called Mr123 on Warforge. The rest is history.