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
#2> Before I started in the game industry I had worked extensively with several low-end “Computer Assisted Design” (CAD) programs like MacDraw and MacDraft to design wine-cellars for my dad’s wine cellar business, so it seemed natural to use the “click & drag” rectangle-selection metaphor to round up a group of units to command.
> I believe that Warcraft was the first game to use this user-interface metaphor. When I first implemented the feature it was possible to select and control large numbers of units at a time; there was no upper limit on the number of units that could be selected.
I wonder if this wasn't a possible case of patent infringement given the current definitions folks are using to sue.
Re: The Making of Warcraft 1: Origin of the series & creation of multi-unit select
#3> Stu is quite memorable as a voice actor in the role of Human Peon, where his rendition of a downtrodden brute-laborer was comedic genius.
Nice to finally know the person behind the still-funny-in-my-head warcraft phrases - "Yes me lord", "Who me", "Uhuhuh"
Re: The Making of Warcraft 1: Origin of the series & creation of multi-unit select
#4He admits to the Warhammer influence.
Mass fanboy seppuku in 5, 4, 3...
Re: The Making of Warcraft 1: Origin of the series & creation of multi-unit select
#5He admits to the Warhammer influence. Mass fanboy seppuku in 5, 4, 3...
I thought that influence was common knowledge?
Re: The Making of Warcraft 1: Origin of the series & creation of multi-unit select
#6> Before I started in the game industry I had worked extensively with several low-end “Computer Assisted Design” (CAD) programs like MacDraw and MacDraft to design wine-cellars for my dad’s wine cellar business, so it seemed natural to use the “click & drag” rectangle-selection metaphor to round up a group of units to command. > I believe that Warcraft was the first game to use this user-interface metaphor. When I fi…
[note: I wrote the Warcraft article]
/agree
If the patent-standards for the 80's and 90's were as awful as today, I'm sure that some CAD company would have locked up the idea of drag-select, and the Macintosh WIMP interface (and hence MacDraw/MacDraft) would have been legally impossible to create.
On a related note, after Blizzard Entertainment was acquired along with Sierra Entertainment in a corporate merger, I got to meet one of the principal developers of some of the old Sierra-style adventure games. One of his first questions was about the Warcraft path-finding algorithm. When I explained how I had written the algorithm (which I invented independently -- never having done any reading on path-finding), he said (more or less) "yeah, Sierra has a patent on that, but we don't enforce it". Incidentally, the algorithm was awful but functional -- it's apparently known as "crash and turn", but was clever in using minimal CPU since it had to run on the limited computers of the day.
The fact that it was possible for Sierra to patent something that a junior programmer like myself (at that time, 3 years of professional experience) could invent from whole cloth shows how weak the patent system is for software engineering.
Re: The Making of Warcraft 1: Origin of the series & creation of multi-unit select
#7> Stu is quite memorable as a voice actor in the role of Human Peon, where his rendition of a downtrodden brute-laborer was comedic genius. Nice to finally know the person behind the still-funny-in-my-head warcraft phrases - "Yes me lord", "Who me", "Uhuhuh"
Re: The Making of Warcraft 1: Origin of the series & creation of multi-unit select
#8It's a great illustration, this story, about how seemingly unimportant decisions can be made that then get carried down through a company for years into the future.
Re: The Making of Warcraft 1: Origin of the series & creation of multi-unit select
#9Thanks so much for the article. I grew up on W2, C&C and after 15 years, it's always nice to know how it all came to be/worked in the back ground and the little details of it all.
"Work, work."
Re: The Making of Warcraft 1: Origin of the series & creation of multi-unit select
#10> Before I started in the game industry I had worked extensively with several low-end “Computer Assisted Design” (CAD) programs like MacDraw and MacDraft to design wine-cellars for my dad’s wine cellar business, so it seemed natural to use the “click & drag” rectangle-selection metaphor to round up a group of units to command. > I believe that Warcraft was the first game to use this user-interface metaphor. When I fi…
[note: I wrote the Warcraft article] /agree If the patent-standards for the 80's and 90's were as awful as today, I'm sure that some CAD company would have locked up the idea of drag-select, and the Macintosh WIMP interface (and hence MacDraw/MacDraft) would have been legally impossible to create. On a related note, after Blizzard Entertainment was acquired along with Sierra Entertainment in a corporate merger, I got…
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. :)