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Games Entertainment

Beta Sign-Ups for WarCraft III 191

Posted by CmdrTaco from the games-people-play dept.
Alcachofo writes "Blizzard Entertainment has announced the long waited Beta Sign-Ups for their newest game: Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos. Individuals residing in the USA or Canada will be able to register for a chance to be one of the 5,000 players chosen. The beta signup is scheduled for a 24-hour period, beginning on January 7th at 11:00 p.m (GMT -8) and ending on January 8th at 11:00 p.m (GMT -8)." I couldn't even count the number of great hours of fun WC2 provided us back in the day. What an absolute classic. I wonder if WC3 will be reboot worthy.
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Beta Sign-Ups for WarCraft III

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  • First Orc? (Score:1, Funny)

    by vb.warrior ( 242890 )
    Just curious.....
  • Heard a lot of good things about it... maybe this is the one to jump in on
    • Find the "Warcraft Battlechest" in your friendly local computer games store. It has Warcraft I, Warcraft II, and the Warcraft II expansion.

      The original Battlechest is probably about $10 now and I think I saw the Battle.net (you can play Warcraft II over the Internet) enabled version of the Battlechest for like $20.

      Warcraft I is way too old to enjoy now, but it was good for its time and you will want to play it to see how everything started. Warcraft II is definitely an all time classic.

      Tim

  • reboot worthy? (Score:3, Informative)

    by Lumpy ( 12016 ) on Wednesday January 02, 2002 @03:29PM (#2774867) Homepage
    the pace that wine is going, you wont need to.

    I'm betting that by the time it comes out as a retail product you'll be able to run it under wine or the special mandrake version.

    You'd be suprised at how many games and apps actually run nicely under wine.
    • Certainly TransGaming [transgaming.com] will see this as a very important game to support. With TransGamings current patch Wine [winehq.com] can run some of the very latest games and development appears to be moving foward rapidly.

      Support Wine [winehq.com] by developing, testing or bug reporting.

    • Re:reboot worthy? (Score:2, Informative)

      by JWhitlock ( 201845 )
      I'm betting that by the time it comes out as a retail product you'll be able to run it under wine or the special mandrake version.

      I wonder if they already have a Linux port in the works? In that case, there may be a business reason to keep it out of the hands of the Wine team.

      If you are a wine developer signing up to be a beta tester, be safe and don't use the same name you use in the wine source!

      • Re:reboot worthy? (Score:2, Informative)

        by DRO0 ( 252117 )
        I highly doubt a Linux-native port is in the works, but I'd love to be proven wrong.
        • No Blizzard titles have ever been ported to Linux
        • Loki does not appear to be in a position right now to do a "AAA" port of this magnitude


        Maybe the fact that Sam Latinga(sp?) was at Loki and now at Blizzard may help the LInux cause, but I'm not holding my breath.
        • Not to mention that Blizzard has been openly negative about the idea of Linux ports. Plus, while having Sam there certainly means there's someone who likes Linux in the company, he's specifically stated he's not working on Linux-related items. I'm only suggesting breath-holding to people it'd be funny to see pass out.

          Oh well. Wine runs Diablo II pretty damn well. :D

      • Re:reboot worthy? (Score:2, Interesting)

        by bigbadwlf ( 304883 )
        Blizzard finally seems to be acknowledging that Linux exists, at least.
        On their movie download page, the links now say "Download for PC/Linux" and are in DivX format.
        (as if it's not a PC if it runs Linux, right?)
        *snicker*
  • Blizzard has had a good track record. Even though WC3 has seem some delays, Blizzard has always lived by the motto of only releasing the best product they can produce. Even if it is not worth buying, it is worth signing up for the beta to see what it does.

    From the last time I looked at the game specs, it should be interesting.

    • I seem to be the only person who thinks so, but...

      Blizzard doesn't have a good track record.

      1) Warcraft II was a good game, and so was Starcraft, but they were both a little heavy on the micromanagement and a little light on actual strategy.

      2) Diablo and II were both very addictive, but enormously shallow. After four hours of play, you've seen everything the game has to show, and all that's left is to explore every possible combination of random item and skill.

      3) None of their games have been groundbreaking in any catagory, and they tend to spend a metric assload on graphics and sound but not too much time worrying about gameplay Exploding Sheep was probably their only original idea.

      4) They have never strayed from their one game concept - control one sprite and make it try to kill other sprites by clicking on them.
      • One thing about Blizzards games though is that they are always released with less bugs then the competition. No Blizard game that I've played (WCII, SC, Diablo, D2 ) has ever hosed my system or needed a patch to play.

        Most need tweaks to prevent gameplay bugs, but this is not unsual. At least you can play the game for MANY hours without requiring a reboot or having to save every 5 steps.

        Actually, D2 had some problems with my friends machine, but he had to reinstall his video drivers anyway.... ;) (couldn't run in 3d mode)

        If you are looking for groundbreaking gameplay, then look elsewhere, Blizzard only releases tried and true gameplay that they know will sell. (One reason they cancled the Worlds of Warcraft game, those adventure style games were tanking at the time) Their games always are at least 1 or 2 years behind the tech curve, SC came out as 3d accelerators got popular, and D2 doesn't even really use any 3d features of a 3d accelerator.

        Actually, sometimes I wish that game developers took Blizzards approach to development, then there would be more quality games and less patching.
      • 1) Warcraft II was a good game, and so was Starcraft, but they were both a little heavy on the micromanagement and a little light on actual strategy.
        No, not really. If anything, I think that starcraft, especially, needs less micromanagement than some of its competitors. In Age of Kings and Age of Empires (both are Microsoft games) there are like 6 different kinds of resources for you to worry about. Blizzard kept it simple with just minerals and vespene.

        It would be nice to see a button for selecting idle workers, and possibly the ability to have unit groups of more than 12, but these aren't things you really need. Starcraft is the only RTS that I know about that offers "attack mode" where you can tell your units to walk to a location *but fight back if they're attacked on the way*. Sounds like a little thing, right? Wrong.

        Warcraft II isn't usually that complicated, but starcraft strategy gets *very* complicated. True, basically you build up an army and then attack, but you have to decide what units to use, who to attack, and where. Since you don't usually have complete information about what the enemy is doing, this gets really complicated real fast.

        I can tell you this much: someone who knows when to attack, and what to build, will almost always win over someone who can micromanage his workers, or build 3 bases simultaneously.

        As regards Diablo I and II, I've never played them. I've never been a fan of hack n' slash.

        3) None of their games have been groundbreaking in any catagory, and they tend to spend a metric assload on graphics and sound but not too much time worrying about gameplay Exploding Sheep was probably their only original idea.
        Actually, I think the exact opposite is true. Almost all of Blizzard's games have been groundbreaking. They tend to spen a lot of time worrying about gameplay and less about graphics and sound. Their graphics have traditionally been a year or two behind the tech curve. You don't need the latest greatest box to play. But, their graphics have looked good. It doesn't look like an ancient NES game (unlike command and conquer.)

        Especially in starcraft, Blizzard spent a lot of time worrying about things like unit balance (unlike Command and Conquer), playability, and convenience. The average length for a game isn't 4 hours, unlike Age of Empires.

        If you want a game that requires hard thinking, try chess or go. But even in those games, memorization of previous board positions and learning through experience play a large part. And looking down your nose at "clicking on sprites" doesn't make you 1337. It just makes you someone who probably got his ass kicked in starcraft or warcraft, and wants to make excuses for himself.
  • WarCraft 3 looks to bring something to RTS that hasn't really been seen since Star Craft. Different races (4 in warcraft 3!) with completely different buildings, units, and strategies.

    Hopefully they'll make the game as balanced as starcraft, and, hopefully, longer lasting online than starcraft (it takes less than 15 minutes for most starcraft games, unless you are super-defense).
    • Balanced as starcraft expansion. The first edition was not so balanced. War2 however was superbly balanced based off min/lumber.

      I am twitching in anticipation.
    • Frankly, I wish they'd make a Starcraft II, or at least start making more Maps of the Week|Month. Starcraft is still a popular game, it still has about a zillion players and mappers, and its trigger system is intricate enough that you can do just about anything with it--witness all the "Magic: The Gathering," "Sniper Paintball," "Pokemon," and even "Bomb Bin Laden in Tora Bora" maps that are being played at any given time. One fellow even made a terrific Battle Chess style map for Starcraft that plays really well.

      I'm disheartened by the lack of support Starcraft has received in comparison to Warcraft and Diablo.
      • If they'd allow mod'ing of starcraft (like halflife), we'd see a boom in RTS. Since starcraft is only 2.5-D (with the ramps and three possible levels), and warcraft 3 is full 3D, they'd still be able to sell a product, and get people interested in blizzard with the mod'ing.

        I would jump at the opportunity to use the StarCraft engine to make mods.
        • That Bunkers "mod" released by Blizzard was funner than Starcraft itself in a lot of ways. It required tactical strategy w/o all the micromanagement hell, the action very fast-paced, and the games finished quickly.

          Will WC3 have King of the Hill and other multiplayer variants? That would be very fun IMO.
    • "most starcraft games" probably take 15 minutes because one or both players are no good at the game. It's become harder to find good games (_period_), but in its heyday it was not uncommon to have long, good games. Super-defense is actually an incredibly poor strategy which rapidly results in a loss.

      The only real problem with starcraft ended up being the players: too many just wanted to play mega-money maps and all strategic decisions went out the window. I'm sure WC3, no matter how good a game it is, will suffer the same problem. Too many people just don't have the patience (or brainpower?) to actually play the game...they just want to build lots of units and run around the map.

      (Which is fine I guess if that is what gets you going)
      • Amen to that. It seems like every time I go online the only thing I find is a bunch of Big Gay Hunters games set on fastest. Nobody seems to want to do anything other than just build a bunch of units and rush. That's why I usually play with friends (on normal mode with speed set at normal or merely fast). It lends to a much more strategic game overall.
        • Damn Skippy !! I myself haven't been in an online game in oh prolly bout 3 years now. LAN only here baby!! we even setup a few house rules just to make sure no one tries anything brainless (a few of our other players are...um, questionable at times) like "cannon-expanding", or "grunt rushing".
          Interesting games are much more fun to play than the typical 15 year-old "I rush you, you rush me, we're a grunt rush fam-i-ly" type of game.

          just my 2 cents

  • I can't wait (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Wind_Walker ( 83965 )
    Warcraft III is, by far, one of the most eagerly anticipated games of, oh, the past EPOCH. My only problem is this: To be a Beta tester, you have to have a lot of free time to play and debug the game, especially online. This means long hours of sitting at night, playing Warcraft III endlessly. Why is this bad? Oh, let me count the ways:
    • Civilization III
    • Halo
    • GTA3
    • Final Fantasy X
    • Super Smash Brothers: Melee
    • Pikmin
    Not to mention the countless TV programs, and...

    They say that Truth is the first casualty of war. I say that sleep is the first victim of Beta testing...

  • Is that unlike WC2 and SC, you'll be working with a much smaller number of units. No more groups of Bloodlusted Orcs or speed upgraded zealots pounding on your front door. Its going more towards small groups of specialized troups where using special abilites will be of greater importance than pure numbers.

    Though I really enjoyed both SC and WC(I & 2) it will be nice to try this out. I'll be picking it up the day it's released, though hopefully I'll make it as a beta tester and get some experience before the rest of the world :)

    • Re:What I'm interested in... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Wind_Walker ( 83965 ) on Wednesday January 02, 2002 @03:38PM (#2774922) Homepage Journal
      If you're interested in not having tons and tons of units, with the focus more on strategy (you know, the "S" in "RTS"?) then I suggest Kohan: Immortal Sovereigns. Here's the reviews over on gamerankings.com [gamerankings.com]. And guess what? If you don't like booting out of Linux (if you boot *into* Linux), it's even been ported over there by Loki!

      It's a very good game, with heavy focus on flanking units, configuring well-balanced troops, and actual STRATEGY, with an innovative and streamlined resource management model. It's highly recommended to anybody who wants to play a strategy game.

    • what!!!! no more pig farm defence!!!!

      I loved that thing, set up 2 or 3 rows of pig farms then line the area behind with towers....no orc ruch would stand a chance.....of cource.....a dragon or a wizzard Ice attack realy put a damper on things.........

  • Gamespot preview (Score:5, Informative)

    by DeadBugs ( 546475 ) on Wednesday January 02, 2002 @03:32PM (#2774891) Homepage
    As always Gamespot [gamespot.com] has a good preview including screenshots
  • There are so few games that actually leave a lasting impression on you, and this was definiately one of them.

    I think this redefined RTS in the 90's.
    WarCraft I/II for RTS
    Half-Life for FPS
    BattleZone I/II for hybrid RTS/FPS (if you haven't tried this one, go buy it! It's in the $5 bin)
    • I think you are leaving out Dune 2. I think it was truly the first widespread RTS (real time strategy). It's only fault was that it didn't have multi-player and you couldn't select multiple units. But it was way ahead of its time.

      Too bad Westwood blew it with Command and Conquer.
  • Their website appears already slashdotted, otherwise I would investigate for myself.

    Do I need a 64MB water-cooled graphics card? Will it require an as-yet unreleased 3 GHz processor due to the wealth of debug code? Will the silly arsed Mac users of the world (such as myself) be able to participate? If not, do they ever intend to release a Mac version?

    Justin

    • It's going to be Mac and Windows when it ships.
    • actually Blizzard has a good track record for making impressive games with low requirements, their code seems to be very tight, and i remember playing endless games of starcraft on my old 166 without a hitch, while age of empires (released around the same time, and same type of game) bogged everything down within 15 minutes of game play..

      really though, when it comes to optimized code, great game play, and solid support, you know Blizzard will deliver, no need to even ask.. their only flaw is delivering ON TIME, but hey, i can live with the wait, cause i know i know its gonna be worth the wait.
      • Blizzard games have always been on time. After all they never publish release dates and they only release "when it's done". :)
        • hate to argue, but i remember waiting for diablo 2.. waiting for fall of 99, then spring of '00 and then so one and so on.. ok so they didnt give a specific date, but they were way behind their "around this time" release dates, but again i dont care, much better to release their best, than to cut corners to release on time...

      • really though, when it comes to optimized code, great game play, and solid support, you know Blizzard will deliver, no need to even ask..
        Clearly you haven't been playing much Diablo II.

        Diablo II has been plagued with graphics slow downs - including obvious redundant overdraws! - that meant that it ran unsteadily even on top of the line hardware at release date.

        Despite marketting it as an online game with secure servers, the servers in question were regularly overloaded and unstable. They were - and still are - not close net-wise to a large number of players, yet the gameplay is very intolerant of high latency connections to servers.

        Play over a local network is plagued with inexplicable latency spikes.

        It was (and with the expansion still is) a hugely popular game, yet promised continued support in the way of new runewords, cube recipies and the like have never materialised.

        They changed gameplay rather than address underlying flaws in the graphics code of the game.

        By all accounts, Starcraft is a well designed, well coded, and well supported game. Their more recent project - Diablo II - is good fun, but in spite of rather than because of the game's support and performance.

        I am wary of Warcraft III. If it fulfills its promise it will be grand. I'll wait and see.

    • Actually they want a variety of 3d card ranging in power, as they want to be able to test the game in as many configurations as possible. (Obviously as debug code is still in there they will be aiming a bit higher end than the final though)
    • I played a demo of wc3 at E3 last year and the year before that. Don't know if it was a top of the line machine last year, but even if it was.. how top end would that be now?

  • January 7th (Score:2, Informative)

    by eAndroid ( 71215 )
    Looks like January 7th is shaping up to be a great day. Apple's dropping hype bombs about the Jan 7 Macworld keynote, and now this.

    Spectacular.
  • hmmm beta testing... now a really neat idea would be if they included source code with the test, that way we could fix any bugs we find instead of prolonging the testing phase...

    Ah hell, who am I kidding, I just wanna see the source code... and the damned NDA they make you sign would prevent me from having any fun with it... bah...
    • Blizzard does not require you to sign an NDA for their beta tests.

      Adding text waiting for the 20 seconds to pass... fuck me for typing fast!

      Tim
  • or is Blizzard /.ed already?
  • I wonder if WC3 will be reboot worthy?

    Has there been a Blizzard game that hasn't been?

    Seriously, you can talk all you want about the Diablo's being a hack-n-slash fest, or the Warcraft/Starcraft games being nothing more than Dune/C&C knockoffs, but pound for pound, you'd be hard pressed to name me another PC game developer that has consistently produced better games over the past 6-7 years.

    Too bad this isn't the World of Warcraft beta, but I suppose we'll have to wait until late '02 for that.
    • Diablo and Diablo II were just shallow graphical ripoffs of Roguelike RPG games. Go play Nethack, Angband, or ADOM. They have much more depth and gameplay, although they are lacking in storyline.

      Diablo was good for its time, but Diablo II isn't. It barely improved....

      Tim
  • Seems to me that WC3 doesn't bring anything new to the RTS table for gameplay. Sure, there are new races, units, items, and a 3D world, but this has been done before(Starcraft). It won't be long before some 12 yr. old will have the game boiled down to the best race, units to build, and building order so that he will be unstoppable!

    Can you say "bloodlusted-ogre attack, followed by a few death-and-decay spells"?

    I'll stick with Baldur's Gate: at least that game has more challenges that last longer, making the game playable for longer!
    • Have you ever actually played SC:BW? There are many, many strategies that work. The thing that makes the game so interesting is that there is no such thing as a "winning" strategy: against a good opponent it comes down to economics (do more cost in damage to your opponent than the cost of your units) and risk-taking/luck.

      Believe me, every time I've seen an "unstoppable" build order, strat, etc it's been fun for a bit figuring out a counter...but there always is one.

  • Dear Blizzard (Score:5, Funny)

    by Xerithane ( 13482 ) <xerithane.nerdfarm@org> on Wednesday January 02, 2002 @03:42PM (#2774945) Homepage Journal
    Please choose me to be a beta tester. Not only have I purchased about 6 copies of Warcraft 2 (For me, for friends, more for me after first two copies were stolen at a lan party, one more for battle.net), 1 copy of Warcraft 1, the Warcraft Battle Chest (Just cause) and Starcraft, and the Starcraft Battle Chest but I have an unhealthy addiction to strategy games. I require little sleep, and have submitted a bug report for starcraft already.

    I promise to give you my first born child for a chance to be a beta tester.

  • Whore nicht! (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The beta signup is scheduled for a 24-hour period on www.blizzard.com, beginning on Monday, January 7th at 11:00 p.m Pacific Standard Time (GMT -8). and ending on Tuesday, January 8th at 11:00 p.m Pacific Standard Time (GMT -8). Following the registration period, we will randomly select 5,000 testers based on a variety of system configurations and locations. Please note that multiple submissions will result in disqualification.

  • Will be worth the wait (Score:2, Interesting)

    by bfire ( 444125 )
    Typical of Blizzard to hype their games years in advance, but they always end up producing classics. The betas always signal that the going gold is coming fast. I will definitely sign up for this one.

    By the way, a great site to read up more on War3 is here [warcraftiii.net].
  • As much as I loved playing Warcraft I/II, I fear that they really have to got some new great ideas. When these types of games were introduced to the public, the game concept was new and fresh and with the help of coax ethernet it gave a new dimension to the PC games market. But now we have seen so many games since, most of them "updated" version with better graphics. So one hopes that they have managed twist the gameplay just enough to have us oldtimers excited again(it seems to require more that just fancy attributes these days). If they fail at that, there's always a new crowd that haven't the pleasure of the old games and are ready for this.

  • This sucks!!!!! (Score:2, Interesting)

    by The Fold ( 242121 )
    Well, not that there's a WC3 beta signup, that rules! But these things are always limited to the US and Canada, what about us poor UK peeps who play the games as well? Can't we get a look in :(
    • too bad, get your own game development companys :P
      • We have them, thanks, and very pretty Black and White is too :p

        I'm with the original poster, though (as an avid fan of WCs 1 and 2, and StarCraft and BroodWar) - we in the UK can access Battle.net, and have PCs, so why can't we take part in the beta?

        It's just not fair, I tell ya! :-(

        (Hey, I've got to have something to really show off the capabilities of my soon-to-arrive GeForce3 + ADSL connection...)

        Cheers,

        Tim
        • 1.) Black and White may be pretty but it is a horribly boring game.

          2.) Blizzard wants people to be in US/Canada so that everyone can be close in timezones. Thus there will be more people online during the beta.

          3.) Blizzard also doesn't feel like paying shipping to everywhere in the world.

          4.) Can you imagine if someone in Hong Kong or Taiwan won a beta? There'd be $3 Warcraft 3 Beta CDs for sale all throughout Asia, and they'd probably set up their own Battle.net so they could play without Blizzard shutting off that CD Key.

          Tim
          • 1.) Well, each to their own - I admit that I've not played it much since completing the single player game, but then it keeps crashing on my machine...

            2.) Fair enough, but for WC3, I'd take a two week holiday and shift my sleeping patterns to match ;-)

            3.) So make it available via a password/IP-protected download. No shipping, minimal bandwidth costs, and no greater risk of copying.

            4.) What makes you think that there won't be copies of the beta up on warez sites within 24 hours of the first CDs being shipped anyway? Sure, Hong Kong, etc have bigger, more open piracy problems, but don't imagine that the US and Canada are piracy free.

            Don't mind me, I'm just disappointed that the beta is closed to me :-(

            Cheers,

            Tim
  • I wonder if WC3 will be reboot worthy.

    What do you mean? I don't think this game work in Linux.

    Regards, Tommy

  • Warcraft III info (Score:5, Informative)

    by proxima ( 165692 ) on Wednesday January 02, 2002 @04:00PM (#2775036)
    I've already seen a few simple questions that are answered in the Warcraft III FAQ [blizzard.com]. Some highlights: Yes, there will be a Mac version. No, there won't be a Linux version.

    From the looks of things, WarCraft III will continue the age-old tradition of requiring decent hardware to run well. Fortunately, they apparently are making a full-featured map editor (probably similar to Starcraft's, which was VERY impressive, unlike Civ II/IIIs).

    Also, they finally are providing high resolution support, while still (somehow) maintaining lower resolution support for those of us with not-so-good video cards.

    Looks like it's going to be another addicting Blizzard game for me, but I'm glad it won't compete with my Civ III playing time for awhile.

    • Warcraft II was a demanding game? I remember it (the original DOS version) seeming to run flawlessly on the DX4-100 I had at the time, and just as well on my friend's SX-25... in the age of 120+ MHz Pentiums, it was one of the few games that weren't a stretch of my system specs.
      • I was referring to computer games in general. It would seem that most of Blizzard's games are in production so long that by the time they are released they can be played in a broad range of computers.

        However, now that they have added 3D chip features, Warcraft III will probably need either a decent video card (Geforce or greater) and/or a relatively fast processor (600-700 Mhz+). Of course, these are guesses.

        Yes, WarCraft II ran on everything, but Starcraft is pretty slow with 48 megs of RAM on a P150 (my laptop). Having more than a few computers in a lan-based multiplayer makes it too slow to enjoy.

        • System requirements (Score:3, Informative)

          by e-Motion ( 126926 )
          "However, now that they have added 3D chip features, Warcraft III will probably need either a decent video card (Geforce or greater) and/or a relatively fast processor (600-700 Mhz+). Of course, these are guesses."

          The system requirements are listed in the FAQ (http://www.blizzard.com/war3/faq/faq-features.sht ml [blizzard.com]):

          "What will the system requirements be?
          It is important to us to make our games playable on as broad a range of machines as possible, and we do not see WarCraft III as an exception. We are planning on having a requirement of a PIII 400 system with a 3D accelerator card and 64megs of RAM. Currently, we are working on game performance and should be able to give more concrete information soon."

          Since they are requiring only 400 Mhz and 64 MB of RAM, they most likely will not require a Geforce+ card to run this. That's a relief for me! Whew!
    • Hey, if I can buy a Linux edition of The Sims, why not Warcraft III? Just make it WineX compatible and I'll pay for the game ....

      -
    • Blizzard has a history of making games that don't need the latest in processor / vid card to run. I ran the beta and release of Diablo II (spring / summer 2000) on my P200 / 64MB / Voodoo2 card. That was below minimum requirements. DII did have some compatibility problems that left people with much faster computers with bad framerates and other problems, but that isn't exactly a performance problem. IIRC Starcraft asked for a 75 MHz or 90 MHz Pentium in late spring of '97. That was about the same time the Pentium II was coming on the market. And indeed, Starcraft played well on the P90 we had at work. Didn't play the original Diablo when it came out (early '96?), I think that required a Pentium. That may have pushed the requirements a bit. Warcraft II? Don't remember the requirements, probably any 486 would do well with it. It did get choppy if you had all 8 players maxed out to the population limit and only 8MB of memory but that was pretty rare, smaller games performed just fine. Warcraft I? Again, probably a decent 386 would handle it OK. That was a while ago... I think Blizzard has done a great job of releasing games that perform decently on 2 year old hardware. While a PII 400 is huge compared to its predecessor, it isn't much compared to a new 'budget' computer today.

  • Reboot worthy? (Score:2, Troll)

    by Derek ( 1525 )
    "I wonder if WC3 will be reboot worthy."

    Uhhh, is that anything like being "sponge worthy"?

    -Derek
  • I wonder if WC3 will be reboot worthy.

    I see some posts have touched on the "reboot to Windows" aspect of this. Has anybody else noticed that, with most Windows games, you also have to reboot when you're done? My girls got at least one game this Christmas (Tony Hawke 2) that causes more strange stuff than even the average Microsoft Windows upgrade.

    I think we need a Linux box for serious stuff and a Windows box to play with. But a Playstation would be cheaper.
  • This isn't a very exciting prospect if it's only playable on Battle.Net as the site says. Well, that is, if you happen to have a dialup nibblenet connection like mine!
  • I'm guessing he was refering to rebooting from linux to windows. But how many people reboot windows before playing a game to get maximum proformance?

  • I certainly hope they kept the most important ... (Score:5, Funny)

    by wo1verin3 ( 473094 ) on Wednesday January 02, 2002 @04:10PM (#2775089) Homepage
    ... aspect of WC II.

    Clicking on a character multiple times of course!

    Click 1 starts with Zug Zug.
    yes...
    what?
    stop bothering me
    don't you have anything better to do?
    I would not do such things if I were you
    my tummy feels funny
    BURRRPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP@#@##$@#$@#$@
    Say hello to my little friend...

    I spent more time clicking on characters then playing.

  • Beta Period Moved! (Score:5, Funny)

    by jmoriarty ( 179788 ) on Wednesday January 02, 2002 @04:36PM (#2775241)
    I know a guy who has a brother whose girlfriend has been sleeping with someone at Blizzard in an attempt to get him on the Beta list. She said that there is a typo on the Beta page and signup really isn't until the January 9th.

    That's right, as a service to all of my fellow /.ers I am passing on this invaluable piece of information. So none of you should waste your precious time trying to register on the 7th. Spend that day downloading patches to your favorite OS, or go see LOTR for the 12th time. Don't go anywhere near the Blizzard site.

    I appreciate... uh, I mean Blizzard appreciates your support.
    • I've heard the same thing from an anonymous source.
    • I know a guy who has a brother whose girlfriend has been sleeping with someone at Blizzard in an attempt to get him on the Beta list. She said that there is a typo on the Beta page and signup really isn't until the January 9th.

      I find this VERY hard to believe!

      I mean, you actually know someone that has a girlfriend? Yeah, whatever...
    • Actually the information in regards to the beta being moved is totally accurate. I heard from the president of Toshiba which heard from the president of Blizzard while they were hanging out a local gentlemans club.
  • From what I've seen and heard in regard to Warcraft 3, they seem to be focusing on making it some kind of bastardization between a RPG and a RTS (real time strategy). I sure hope they don't mess it up. The two sure don't sound like they mix well

    To be perfectly honest, I'd have preferred to get Starcraft 2 instead. Starcraft was an epic masterpiece of a game, the only game I've spent more time playing than I have reading Slashdot. =)
    • Go out and purchase "Sacrifice" [sacrifice.net]. It is an RTS game where you have a definite character. You are a wizard who can summon creatures to fight other wizards. You will be running around in the middle of the battle commanding your creatures and casting spells. You can even be killed, but usually you come back to life rather soon. (Only when you have lost do you not come back to life.)

      Tim

  • Just when I was getting excited to reclaim those 7 gigs that I have Win 98 installed on....Someone had to remind me that someday there is going to be another Warcraft. This folks is the type of thing Linux needs to "make it" on the desktop. Right now we have 15 office suites that introduce 400 new file formats and 20+ games that they have ported from the cut-out bin. Can you imagine if you could get Blizzard games for Linux on the day of release....That would be a good day.

  • I was hoping that this little nugget of information would stay quiet so i'd be
    sure to be one of the ones picked...

    now i've got to contend with thousands of
    other fans vying for one of the 5,000 beta
    testor spots

    I got one of the spots in the Diablo 2
    stress test, it was so cool :)
  • Let me be the first to point out that the signup times are NOT the ones posted on the front page. The time are really from January 17th at 11:00 p.m (GMT -8) to January 18th at 11:00 p.m (GMT -8). So don't even try on the posted 7th, because nothing will come of it. Don't try. Please.
  • The one game that I've stumbled upon lately is Kohan: Immortal Sovereigns. While not set in the world of aziroth its the type of game war3 should have been now. Not high on the graphic glitz but definately a great game to play. Heh the music kind of reminds me of the war2. Everything else is more or less a nice evolution of the war2 genre with a slightly different world. Download the demo from loki [lokigames.com] or from the kohan [kohan.net] site itself. P.S. I'm not affiliated with either of the companies. I'm just someone who got his warcraft 3 fix from a different source early.
  • Well, if it works under transgaming's winex, then no reboot will be nessisary!

  • ...something Bob or Enzo [mainframe.ca] might play. ;)

  • Warcarft III - LotR redux? (Score:4, Funny)

    by WillSeattle ( 239206 ) on Wednesday January 02, 2002 @06:33PM (#2775938) Homepage
    Hmm. I looked at the screens and the first thing I thought was - someone's been reading too much Lord of the Rings recently.

    I mean, they added:
    magical cloaks
    rings
    spell books

    Oh, yeah.

    Now if I could just locate that nice ring I got for my birthday present ...

    -
  • From the WC3 FAQ [blizzard.com]:
    When is the beta?

    We honestly can't say for sure yet.

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