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The Making of Warcraft 1: Origin of the series & creation of multi-unit select

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Re: The Making of Warcraft 1: Origin of the series & creation of multi-unit select

#31

Post by meric »

netcoyote wrote: post #14
sukuriant wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ditto. Especially for Starcraft.

Actually the influences for Starcraft were -- I think -- much broader than those for Warcraft. Warcraft was heavily inspired by Tolkien and Warhammer, whereas Starcraft drew inspiration from basically every sci-fi series ever made, most particularly the Alien series (compare the Zerg Hydralisk to Giger's Alien) and of course from the art direction of Starship Troopers. But yeah, Warhammer 40K was inspirational too. T…

It was playing warcraft & starcraft that got me into warhammer and warhammer 40k when I was in high school, rather than the other way around. Funny that.

Re: The Making of Warcraft 1: Origin of the series & creation of multi-unit select

#32

Post by jameskilton »

MikeCapone wrote: post #24

I spent my youth playing Dune 2 (and then Warcraft, etc). This brings back so many memories. I had to find some Dune 2 gameplay on youtube... Hoping some people here will enjoy it too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiJLOjeyDxs Being a fan of Starcraft 2, I can't believe how painful it was to have to select each unit individually... Glad the mechanics of RTSes have evolved.

Same here. Dune 2 is the game that made me a gamer. It's also the game I beat the most times consecutively (iirc twice per side, so 6 times), with the next closes being Westwood's Nox (which coincidentally was the game that showed me how awesome multiplayer could be).

Ah nostalgia hit, thanks OP!

Re: The Making of Warcraft 1: Origin of the series & creation of multi-unit select

#33

Post by agumonkey »

netcoyote wrote: post #13
knowtheory wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, apropos of nothing, i just wanted to say this was a great article to read, and I hope you won't mind me indulging in a fan-boy moment by saying that the original Warcraft was a formative experience for me, and I spent much of middle school dreaming up and sketching out a game that was almost identical to Starcraft. :)

Glad you enjoyed the game, and thanks for the kind words. It was very exciting to build the game, particularly after the multiplayer code was functional -- we just knew folks were going to like it!

I discovered time travel with warcraft1, 25 min in mind-time, 8 hours in realworld-time.

Re: The Making of Warcraft 1: Origin of the series & creation of multi-unit select

#35

Post by MikeCapone »

I can't wait for part 2. I wish there was a book written about the early days of Blizzard or Westwood Studios and those kind of great companies, kind of like the book Masters of Doom about id Software, or Revolution in the Valley about Apple.

Re: The Making of Warcraft 1: Origin of the series & creation of multi-unit select

#36

Post by netcoyote »

frinxor wrote: post #22
light3 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'we decided to allow players to select only four units at a time based on the idea that users would be required to pay attention to their tactical deployments rather than simply gathering a mob and sending them into the fray all at once.' Damnation! Sometimes I would just build huge mobs for the fun of it, but trying to get them to attack at the same time was a pain. Great game though, artistically I enjoyed it more…

Looking back, I really wished warcraft2 would've allowed you to bind groups of 9 to numbers.

Actually, you can; I wrote that feature all the way back in Warcraft 1.

Select a group of units. Press Ctrl+# (where # is 1..4 or maybe 1..9; I can no longer remember) to bind that group of units to that number key. Then press the # key by itself to select that group.

Re: The Making of Warcraft 1: Origin of the series & creation of multi-unit select

#37

Post by esrauch »

phaus wrote: post #30
cpeterso wrote: post #18

I read that World of Warcraft was born when playtesting prototypes of Warcraft III, the first 3D version in the Warcraft series. People were having so much fun just running around with their 3D heroes that the concept grew. This is a great example of letting the product lead you .

Unfortunately, while the heroes may have inspired WoW, they also ruined the series. With the 3rd installment, Warcraft ceased to be a real-time strategy game and became an action-rpg. The heroes were so overpowered that you could win by focusing entirely on power-leveling your hero instead of building a city and managing units.

Do you mean the single player? While Warcraft 3 is much more micro-focused than earlier games, in even mildly competitive online play 1 grunt early on or mildly incorrect base layout is often the difference between winning and losing. You couldn't possibly win with only heroes.

Re: The Making of Warcraft 1: Origin of the series & creation of multi-unit select

#38

Post by chj »

phaus wrote: post #30
cpeterso wrote: post #18

I read that World of Warcraft was born when playtesting prototypes of Warcraft III, the first 3D version in the Warcraft series. People were having so much fun just running around with their 3D heroes that the concept grew. This is a great example of letting the product lead you .

Unfortunately, while the heroes may have inspired WoW, they also ruined the series. With the 3rd installment, Warcraft ceased to be a real-time strategy game and became an action-rpg. The heroes were so overpowered that you could win by focusing entirely on power-leveling your hero instead of building a city and managing units.

Heroes are definitely the fun part in war3, it brings a lot more strategy to the game.

Update: Whoever down voted me, you never understand the game.

Re: The Making of Warcraft 1: Origin of the series & creation of multi-unit select

#39

Post by michaelbuckbee »

MikeCapone wrote: post #34

This makes me wonder; would it be possible to get software patents on various game mechanics? What if the first RTS producer had patented a lot of it? Is that so different from smartphone interface patents?

Yes, there are some that have already been granted. The most famous one I'm aware of is the patent on having mini-games in loading screens:

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2008/03/patents-on-video-game-...

Re: The Making of Warcraft 1: Origin of the series & creation of multi-unit select

#40

Post by Auguste »

phaus wrote: post #30
cpeterso wrote: post #18

I read that World of Warcraft was born when playtesting prototypes of Warcraft III, the first 3D version in the Warcraft series. People were having so much fun just running around with their 3D heroes that the concept grew. This is a great example of letting the product lead you .

Unfortunately, while the heroes may have inspired WoW, they also ruined the series. With the 3rd installment, Warcraft ceased to be a real-time strategy game and became an action-rpg. The heroes were so overpowered that you could win by focusing entirely on power-leveling your hero instead of building a city and managing units.

I agree. Although the hero units were a nice spin on the RTS genre, I would have preferred to play without them. I was glad to see that they weren't used in Starcraft 2 multiplayer.
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