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Real Time Strategy (Games) Entertainment Games

Warcraft III Expansion Released, Reviewed 40

Posted by simoniker from the crafty-war-mongers-rejoice dept.
Vladimir Niksic writes "According to the official Blizzard site, Frozen Throne, the long-awaited expansion to Warcraft III is out. The review at GameSpy marks it 'another quality expansion that plays like a full game.'" There's also a review at ActionTrip which praises the new features which "enhance every facet of gameplay, great storytelling, [and] varied mission types", but notes the $35 price as "..a bit steep for an expansion pack."
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Warcraft III Expansion Released, Reviewed More

Warcraft III Expansion Released, Reviewed

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  • Question about "Frozen Throne" (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 01, 2003 @10:34PM (#6345865)
    Am I the only person that thought about my outhouse in the middle of February?

  • Interesting missions (Score:4, Informative)

    by TheOnlyCoolTim ( 264997 ) <tim.bolbrockNO@SPAMverizon.net> on Tuesday July 01, 2003 @10:43PM (#6345918)
    One thing that struck me about this expansion was that the missions were in general a lot more interesting and varied. There were fewer of the plain "destroy all the enemy bases" missions, but they didn't make them all the standard "hero and some men, no base, only found reinforcements" RPG missions that were always the alternative either. For example, there's a mission where you have to assault an enemy base. You have a base, but no gold mine. You find gold in the enemy base to build reinforcements. You also have a squad of stealth assassin/saboteur type guys that you have to sneak around to defeat some of the base's defenses. Pretty cool.

    That said, I found it rather easy... I have to replay it on the Hard setting.

    Tim

  • I was in the beta, here's my reaction (Score:5, Interesting)

    by pezpunk ( 205653 ) on Tuesday July 01, 2003 @11:16PM (#6346130) Homepage
    first of all, as with all Blizzard products, the production value is very high. Not only does the gameplay feel tight and sturdy, but even the menus are in the exact right place and have the exact right options.

    graphics: for their first 3D engine, it certainly is pretty. i can even play it on my laptop, with it's pseudo-3d graphics card. the individual models are stylistic -- bright, and cartoonish -- although very polygonal. that's understandable, though, seeing as there are often several dozen units on the screen at one time. i have noticed virtually no slowdown even during enormous battles wit multiple spell effects flying around on top of all the twitching polygons. that amazes me.

    the new units are fun, and the single player campaign is more interesting and engaging than the original WarCraft III campaign was. Voice acting is, as is typical for Blizzard, somewhat above average for a video game ... but still not exactly feature film quality. the story's top-notch though. great characters.

    multiplayer is really the only thing i can complain about. i played literally hundreds of games online during the beta, and was ranked in the top 500 (of 30,000 participants). my reaction is that online play is actually LESS varied and strategic than WarCraft III classic. yes, there are more units, but because of changes to how armor and damage works (and other tweaks), there are actually fewer viable strategies. in addition, although no one race is overpowered, some matchups are are a foregone conclusion -- night elves are at an undeniable disadvantage vs the undead, for example. even with all the new units available, the average game at the highest levels of competition in The Frozen Throne actually features less unit variety than classic WarCraft III.

    i suppose that's a gripe that is not likely to effect the majority of players very heavily, however. it's still a great game, just not the home run that Brood War was.

    now World of WarCraft ... THAT looks tasty ...
    • I have never once played a game that is a "forgone" conclusion.

      NE is no weaker against UD than they are against HU or Orc or NE. What, they go ghouls and you go archers? Duh, of course you die. Hunts > Ghouls. Oh, they went all fiends and you went Hunts? Duh, Fiends > hunts. They went all necros? Duh, you have fairy dragons, which IIRC DO stack. Couple that with some hunts, moutain giants, and a Druid of the Claw, boom, one dead undead. The other thing is that NE has the best Tier 1 unit in the Huntr
      • the problem is hunts only counter ONE unit -- ghouls, and after that they are worthless. archers are adaquate against, but not really a "counter" to fiends.

        The other thing is that NE has the best Tier 1 unit in the Huntress

        this isn't the place for a debate on balance, but you, sir, are smoking some serious crack. in classic, yes, Huntresses were great, but with their current armor and HP status, the ONLY things they are effective against are foots and ghouls.
        • and T2 casters, if you throw in some dryads. and T3 melee if you throw in some support, like dryads for slow and DotC for roar, plus you need to upgrade upgrade upgrade. 1v1, yes, the hunt sucks. However, 1v1 the only units that should truly "beat" another unit is T3 melee vs T1 melee, and possibly air. The problem with the hunt was she was TOOO powerful before, and now she's balanced, so people cry nerf. WC isnt SC where you can spam 1 unit and win, it takes some thought.

          • you're not completely off-base, but hunts ARE an utter waste against spellcasters and especially tier 3 melee, even if i do "throw in some support". AOE eats them up as well (which, as a tier one unit, is i suppose as it should be).

            my original point, though, was that the undead can come after the night elf with either ghouls or fiends or both, using either the DL or DK or CF and have a pretty decent chance of dominating the night elves early unless the night elves *specifically* counter what the undead is
  • I'm still waiting on the Linux version... hello blizzard!! Linux has almost equal desktop share to the Mac and we still get no official support :(

    • Re:Linux Version (Score:4, Informative)

      by Yorrike ( 322502 ) on Wednesday July 02, 2003 @09:34AM (#6348810) Journal
      I've just been playing in Linux, thank you very much. These guys [transgaming.com] do a very good job at making games work in Linux, and Frozen Throne worked perfectly, first time for me. It runs just as smoothly and reliably in Linux as Windows.

      Give them some cash, as the binary versions are better than the source (they've got some propriatry stuff in there). Honestly, I paid a tiny sum about 6 months ago, and so far I've been able to play WCIII, Civ 3 and Counterstrike with no problems what-so-ever (then I've got Quake3 and Mutant Storm [pompom.org.uk] as native Linux binaries, but that's a different story).

      Yes, official support would be nice, and it's a shame that only the likes of Carmack, UT developers and Bioware are willing to give us Linux gamers what we want, but the more noise we make, the more likely people like Blizzard are to take notice. They'd also start paying attention if TransGaming start posting profits of hundreds of thousands of dollars (so go pay them).

      • > I've just been playing in Linux, thank you very much. Yea, I do know about Transgaming, but its only a partial solution. > It runs just as smoothly and reliably in Linux as Windows. I hear its about 90% of the time. >They'd also start paying attention if TransGaming start posting profits of hundreds of thousands of dollars (so go pay them). Good Point, I do however dislike paying for a game and then having to pay additional money to play it on my system of choice, especially when an equally
        • Good Point, I do however dislike paying for a game and then having to pay additional money to play it on my system of choice, especially when an equally popular system (Mac) is fully supported.

          That argument doesn't hold up. The amount you sepnd on a top of the line linux based PC will always be more than $120 less than the amount you spend on a Windows box or a Mac (C'mon! I like Macs, but they're much too expensive).

          For that $120, you can have two whole years of Trans-Gaming binaries and support, plus

      • ... it's a shame that only the likes of Carmack, UT developers and Bioware are willing to give us Linux gamers what we want ...

        Such games are not developed for Linux because of gamers, the ports are justified due to the use of Linux servers. Once you have the server, the client game is a small incremental cost. If the client game had to "pay for" all of the Linux development it would never happen. Most Linux gamers dual boot or emulate so there is no new income generated by a client, see post above.

        Exce
    • ... Linux has almost equal desktop share to the Mac and we still get no official support

      Linux desktop numbers are highly debatable but I won't bother arguing that point.

      The Linux and Mac situations are not comparable. Mac users can not effectively use the Win32 version of the game, Linux user can. Mac users have no dual boot option and "emulation" involves emulating a "foreign" CPU not merely an API, way too slow for games. From a developer's perspective Linux gamers are already customers since most

  • But did they... (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    remove the upkeep and the 90 unit limitation? Those two things really killed "classic" Warcraft III for me.

    • Re:But did they... (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      They raised the cap by 10 food at each upkeep stage (low upkeep starts at 50, high at 80, and unit max is 100). I'm sorry you don't like innovation :(

    • Re:But did they... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by FroMan ( 111520 ) on Wednesday July 02, 2003 @08:18AM (#6348218) Homepage Journal
      I prefer the low unit cap. It makes keeping your units alive a higher priority. You have to think how to create/group units. In starcraft you could simpley make 70 zerglings fully upgraded for damage and take out just about any town, then when they are all dead make a dozen or so slower units for clean up while the other player is trying to rebuild his town.
    • the point was to make it more strategic and tactical. it's not supposed to be like starcraft or C&C where you just grab everyone and htrow them at the enemy base. individual units are more important.

      having said that, yeah, they raised the food limit from 90 to 100 and raised the thresholds of low, medium, and high upkeep.
    • The upkeep and the unit limitation are and will continue to be one of the strong points of Warcraft III. It's the best way I've found to penalize the mass early zerging, and give a tangible benefit to those who economize.

      There are dozens of RTSes out there that don't have upkeep or unit limits built in. Good old Total Annihilation/TA: Kingdoms. C&C Generals. SW:GB lets you set the limit up to 250 (though prepare to get swarmed by the computer, even on easy). Or you could try to adapt your strategy

    • Oh, you mean... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by devphil ( 51341 ) on Wednesday July 02, 2003 @09:42AM (#6348886) Homepage


      ...the main two things that prevented the game from degenerating into a "build up a horde of zerglings and rush" scene, much like every other RTS? The same two things that encourage an active strategy and decision-making?

      Upkeep is an excellent realistic step. For those who don't get out much, no nation has ever raised an army by paying its soldiers an initial fee, and nothing else for the rest of their career. I don't imagine Orcs are much different.

      The 90-unit limitation is partially there to put a maximum load on the graphics engine, and partially to "strongly encourage" more active play, i.e., you can't just camp in your base building up a 500-member horde before finally setting foot outside.

  • Do we love or hate Blizzard today ? (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I can't remember - Isn't Blizzard an evil [slashdot.org] closed source [slashdot.org] empire ? Let me check my calendar...
    • oh come on, this gets posted 20 times every time something related to Blizzard comes up. fact is, slashdot readers aren't a single entity, and therefore don't require a consistent philosophy that we all adhere to. i like Blizzard. you don't have to.
    • I love Blizzard today, and always do. I could care less about whether Blizzard is open or closed source, because I buy their software to do one thing: play it. I don't pay a continual subscription fee (or license renewal fee) to do so; Battle.net is free to use.

      Fact of the matter is, I have thoroughly enjoyed every game that Blizzard has created. I can't say that about *any* other developer out there, though some come close. Blizzard's games aren't for everyone, but the one thing they do know is their

  • High Price? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by TalMaximus ( 681873 )
    but notes the $35 price as "..a bit steep for an expansion pack."

    I don't know, considering the amount of content they have introduced into this expansion pack, I don't see the price as being too steep at all, IMHO.
    • I've seen mention of it for $25 online, but can't seem to find a good store. As nice as free shipping and a $10 coupon for future purchases is from www.ebgames.com, I'd rather just get it cheap from the start. Any ideas?
      • In my experience, the options are to either wait a couple weeks for the "newness" to die down and then try and grab a copy at ebay. When a game is as fresh and as popular as Frozen Throne is though, you'll probably be best off picking it up from a local shop or, as you mentioned grabbing it from ebgames.com [ebgames.com]. I mean if you're going to have to pay $35 for it anyway, might as well get whatever else extra that you can.
    • if you know someone in Brazil, ask then to buy one and send to you, lol

      i live in Sao Paulo and warcraftIII - the frozen throne is selling for 15 bucks down here. i know, i just bought it
  • When starcraft came out, why would people still consider playing war2?

    THE SHIPS!

    Having sea battles was one of the biggest hopes I had for war3 when it first came out. The least they could have done was give the giant turtles a cameo appearance. Alas me lads, no boats be sailing with this shipment.

    I lost interest in warcraft my brother had the beta but I just wasn't interested. I'd look at the screen load up, and reminise about the days of sea battle... when it loaded i'd just hit exit and go sit it my ro
  • 1. Blizzard won't go Linux for a long time. If you want to run Blizzards games on an *nix-based/like system, get a Macintosh (shameless plug, I know. But I'm just speaking the truth).

    2. Blizzard will never, ever, never remove creeps, the harsh food-limit and upkeep. Producer Robert Pardo has said many, many times that those things are to stay and will never be removed from the game. If Blizzard removed the, what would the game be? Starcraft in a fantasy world with heroes and a fourth race? Not pretty in

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