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30 Year Anniversary of WarCraft II: Tides of Darkness

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Re: 30 Year Anniversary of WarCraft II: Tides of Darkness

#171

Post by coffeebeqn »

Tiktaalik wrote: post #93

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…

I have great memories from the Warchest which had I, II and expansions. Personally though Warcraft III perfected the RPG elements and storytelling and completely overshadowed the earlier installments - it’s still probably the best game I’ve played

Re: 30 Year Anniversary of WarCraft II: Tides of Darkness

#172

Post by Torzelan »

Tiktaalik wrote: post #93

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…

[dead]

Re: 30 Year Anniversary of WarCraft II: Tides of Darkness

#174

Post by animal531 »

kqr wrote: post #162
stackghost wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the problem is simply that for a large part of the playerbase, increasing your APM is directly correlated with increasing your win rate/ranking. 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.

I don't think this is true. Granted, last time I tried to get good at an RTS was toward the end of the Brood War era but the established wisdom at that time was very clear that hour-for-hour, time spent practicing resource management was much more effective than time spent practicing clicking quickly. Yes, really good players click fast, but they also have impeccable resource management. The group I played with did r…

Yeah, I played a lot of StarCraft 2. By myself, 2v2 with a really talented friend and 3v3 with two other friends that were total beginners that I could beat 1v2.

At the bottom to upper mid level all you need to win is to figure out the macro game of building construction while also getting enough workers and units. With enough of that no micro is needed, just attack-moving into the enemy is more than enough.

Then at the upper mid level you're going to run into people who often don't build as effectively but they'll micro every unit or they'll be constantly doing raids when you don't expect it, scouting better than you and/or just understanding which units are better vs which so as to counter you.

From that point on it becomes much more of an effort to play the game because then you need to become better in all of those fields, while also becoming faster. But to be honest that point is probably 2/3rd's up the tree of all the people playing.

Re: 30 Year Anniversary of WarCraft II: Tides of Darkness

#175

Post by chongli »

kqr wrote: post #162
stackghost wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the problem is simply that for a large part of the playerbase, increasing your APM is directly correlated with increasing your win rate/ranking. 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.

I don't think this is true. Granted, last time I tried to get good at an RTS was toward the end of the Brood War era but the established wisdom at that time was very clear that hour-for-hour, time spent practicing resource management was much more effective than time spent practicing clicking quickly. Yes, really good players click fast, but they also have impeccable resource management. The group I played with did r…

When people complain about APM in an RTS like StarCraft, they’re really not complaining about the spam clicking done by players at the pro level. They’re talking about multitasking which is an essential skill at all levels of the game.

Not even at the lowest rankings are you permitted to ignore what your opponent is doing and focus on building workers and base facilities. StarCraft is infamous for the ability of anyone to sacrifice their economy to perform an early rush attack (most infamously with a ton of early zerglings).

To combat early rush attacks you need to be able to multitask: send out early scouts to see what your opponent is doing, if they have any hidden building on the map, how many workers they have, etc. You need to be able to do this while building your own workers, base facilities, and units for defence. This is the multitasking that so many struggle with and it’s required to be able to play at the most basic level!

Re: 30 Year Anniversary of WarCraft II: Tides of Darkness

#177

Post by Cthulhu_ »

Tiktaalik wrote: post #133
29athrowaway wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is a really good and I think sadly under played and discussed game WarCraft II sold 3M copies.

Yes it was one of the most successful PC games of the 1990s, but that doesn't say much today. Have a look at its subreddit and it's a ghost town. Wasn't remade and re-released often since and little to no effort has been put into growing the franchise. 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…

How many 1995 games have active subreddits though? There was a 2024 remaster, and I believe that the game remained playable throughout.

Besides, the Warcraft franchise moved to WoW, which is still highly popular. Sure, I miss the RTS games, and the remaster of the 3rd bombed hard because it was low-effort, but it's not dead.

Re: 30 Year Anniversary of WarCraft II: Tides of Darkness

#178

Post by Cthulhu_ »

black3r wrote: post #107

> Development stared in the first months of 1995, and the game was released in North America and Australia on December 9, 1995. This feels absolutely insane for today's standards. And not just in the gaming world. Somehow with all the advancement of libraries, frameworks, coding tools, and even AI these days, development speeds seem so much slower and it seems like too much time is spent on eye candy, monetization an…

> it seems like too much time is spent on eye candy, monetization and dark patterns and too few times on things people actually like to see

Not necessarily, but you need to look at the indie (PC) game space instead of AAA and mobile.

Top level game development in the 90's is comparable to indie games today, although granted, in the 90's they made huge technological leaps and the developers needed a lot more in-depth knowledge. But I can guarantee that someone can build Warcraft 2 today within a year. Hell, you can get the basics set up in a weekend I'm sure.

That said, even indie games suffer a bit from scope creep, and few developers actually limit themselves by saying "we release within a year and that's it". If a game is successful, continued development is beneficial. And with Kickstarter they can get money upfront (like what a publisher would pay initially), and with early access they can start making revenue to fund continued development. Which is a self-reinforcing cycle - as long as they publish updates and new features, people will keep playing and buying the game. Some games (like Factorio) end up in early access and continuous development for 10 years.

Re: 30 Year Anniversary of WarCraft II: Tides of Darkness

#179

Post by Cthulhu_ »

mvdtnz wrote: post #129
black3r wrote: post #107

> Development stared in the first months of 1995, and the game was released in North America and Australia on December 9, 1995. This feels absolutely insane for today's standards. And not just in the gaming world. Somehow with all the advancement of libraries, frameworks, coding tools, and even AI these days, development speeds seem so much slower and it seems like too much time is spent on eye candy, monetization an…

Even smaller games now have ludicrously long development cycles as developers have learned they can exploit mentally challenged gamers by selling them "early access" (unfinished games).

I resent the insult, you can do better.

Early access sometimes means unfinished, but in other cases they're fine - Factorio is an example, it had a fully fleshed out game in early access, then they spent another 5+ years adding features and fixes and the like. During that time, a lively modding community sprung up which added loads of playable content to the game.

Re: 30 Year Anniversary of WarCraft II: Tides of Darkness

#180

Post by dhdhdkfjf »

Tiktaalik wrote: post #133
29athrowaway wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is a really good and I think sadly under played and discussed game WarCraft II sold 3M copies.

Yes it was one of the most successful PC games of the 1990s, but that doesn't say much today. Have a look at its subreddit and it's a ghost town. Wasn't remade and re-released often since and little to no effort has been put into growing the franchise. 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…

> Wasn't remade and re-released often since and little to no effort has been put into growing the franchise.

I’m certainly disappointed that it hasn’t gotten more love, but it got its first balance patch in 25 years(!) last year, following a rerelease that added higher resolution graphics and better online play, so your information is out of date.

The community doesn’t exist on Reddit, it’s in communities like that one around war2combat, old Russian forums and discord rooms. It’s not big but there are still some folks keeping it alive.

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