On WarCraft III Game

While I wrote an article about how WarCraft III was remastered, I did not cover the question about the game itself or why it even deserved a remaster to begin with

Why Warcraft III matters

WarCraft III was an important game for the world and large as well as for me personally. Worldbuilding for hugely successful World of Warcraft was done by the WarCraft III.  It is this game that explains the players how fractions, races and territories came to how they were at the launch of WoW. It is thanks to this game, WoW became the global phenomenon it was. Once their departed too far from the origins game 'lore' started to suffer and players began to complain.

This game, together with its predecessors: Warcraft I and II actually has a very compelling and interesting story that will make you want to play just to see what will happen next. And afterwards replay the game to experience this awesome writing all again.

This game introduced and developed many of the beloved characters that later starred in World of Warcraft. Fans beloved Arthas, the Lich King and Illidan, Lord of Outland are introduced in this game. Most importantly however is that each gets a long story that actually fleshes out their characters. Both 

Arthas and Illidan are tragic characters who tried to do what they thought for the best, despite opposition from their own ranks. Both ended up suffering unreasonably for doing that. The conclusion of their stories is both original and creative. They are neither heroes, nor villains in a traditional sense, but rather believable human beings with reasonable goals, hopes and aspirations that lead them towards this unusual path.

Arthas felt betrayed by his Kingdom and defected to Scourge to eventually become Lich-King himself. However, I always felt that he is too much of a pawn of the original ghostly Lich-King, Ner'Zhul. However, I like how he acts like a boss with people like Sylvanas. Kel'Thuzad makes for a very nice assistant, everyone might want to have.

Illidan was expelled from Night Elf society by Furion for using demonic Fel energy as his own. Then was chased down by that nasty woman Maiev. Eventually he assembled quite a fraction of characters and races who were as unfortunate as he was. Kael'Thaes and Blood Elves, Lady Vashj and Nagas and even Akama and his Broken-Lost Drenei. Each had their own problems and managed to get help from Illidan. Eventually they conquered and claimed as their own the entire Outland. Last mission of this campaign, the assault on the Black Citadel, is my favorite in the game.

WoW writers cling to characters such as Jaina and Sylvanas precisely because they also used to be in Warcraft III. Their role in the events of the game made fans like them more than those invented by WoW scriptwriters. You might even say they earned their fame. Just as Garithos earned his hate, but he was intended to be a hate-able character from the start, unlike Garrosh for example. In fact, Sylvanas and Varimarthas probably have some of their love precisely because they killed Garithos.

Thrall too was in this game, as much as later developers wanted to replace him with Garrosh, that did not work out as fans hated Garrosh. That however not so much because Garrosh was cruel: Orgrim Doomhammer, Blackhand, Gul'dan and Ner'zhul were cruel too, but rather because he was stupid. War Chiefs of the past used their cunning to defeat their often-overwhelming opponents. They did show cruelty together with cunning when dealing with enemies to achieve victory. Garrosh in contrast acted like an annoying spoiled boss from hell who bitch when subordinates do something wrong.

Me and Warcraft III

To me warcraft was probably the most favorite game of my teens. Sure, I replayed Legacy of Kain series games and Max Payne 1 and 2 many times. Beat Diablo II LoD several times with different characters. I played Need for Speed Underground, GTA and many other games. I played Warcraft III predecessors: Starcraft and Warcraft I and II. Its successor Starcraft II. I played competitors: C&C: Red Alert 2, Dune 2000, Emperor: Battle for Dune, Age of Empires III, Heroes of Might and Magic III, IV and V, even Civilization I and IV.

However, I probably spend more time on Warcraft III than on any other game out there. I played more than 1000 games in online multiplayer and managed to reach level 26 in solo ladder. I played and replayed campaign multiple times as well.

Only Europa Universalis III and IV possibly eclipsed Warcraft III in my most favorite game ranking.

Some more about remaster

Original Warcraft III was released in 2002 and looked reasonably good by 2002 standards. It had bulky and dodgy models if you looked too close to them, but game tried to hide the imperfections to the best of its abilities. Hardly any other game of 2002 looked noticeably better, and many looked a lot worse.

Reforged came in 2020 and only looks OK by the standards of the times. After stunning Witcher III and Doom 2016 people reasonably expected no less stunning looks here. The results fell far short of that. That was all the more exacerbated by better remasters of Age of Empires II and Diablo II that ticked all the boxes. That made people wonder, why they did not get the same level and quality remaster of this timeless classic game.