Just an Idea: "War3EE"

Warcraft 3 Logo.

Two years ago, a day before Warcraft 3: Reforged released, I published a post on Reddit called "What about... Samwise Didier?" that talked about him not being involved with the project (as if it wasn't already obvious by looking at the art style), initial absence from "Special Thanks" section in credits and a couple of other things. It was received well, and then I went on writing two more posts of proper critical nature regarding the game's "remaster"/expansion. Ultimately, that led me to open up this Hall.

Even though I've covered pretty much everything I thought I could after "True Tragedy of Warcraft 3: Reforged", I knew there's something else that I needed to do in order to tie up loose ends. When it comes to people criticizing (in good, bad or "popular" ways), one of the most typical answers people come up with are something along the lines of "what's your solution then". Although I tried my best to acknowledge this situation with all the complexity surrounding it, I knew that this is an angle I pretty much missed out on.

And that's something I wanted to change for a long time, but struggled to come up with the right approach to it. Which resulted in me writing a few posts related to Warcraft 3 over the last 5 months as a "build up" of sorts. Now there's no better time to try my best and contribute to this fragmented community in its way to prospective in only way I really can: by throwing a bunch of ideas around I can't realize as if I know what I'm talking about. Many people seemed to enjoy it before, and I hope some will deem it worth their time now. 

Catacombs' Bittersweet Future

Catacomb 3-D Screenshot. Taken from MyAbandonware.

After long considerations, I just looked up at my Commander Keen & Wolfenstein 3D posts from this month and decided to wrap things up by talking about another id Software game... kind of. While first three games were developed by id Software (even before the company was formed, in fact), after Catacomb 3-D the series moved on without much of their involvement (besides the engine). Initially I thought that id carried on the ownership of the series after the gradual end of SoftDisk, but I did a poor job at (or rather haven't put any effort into) digging up the information and therefore was wrong.

Thankfully, I had all the job done for me already and really this post will serve as a compilation of publicly available information (as usual) about Catacomb series' current status and its story in recent years, which is both more happy and tragic than "lost" Commander Keen titles. That might seem a bit odd to some of you, but trust me: it'll make more sense later.

Just an Idea: "War2EE"

Warcraft 2 Dragon Render Promo. Taken from MobyGames.

A week earlier I shared my perspective on how I would've handled an "Enhanced Edition" of Warcraft: Orcs & Humans. Despite not thinking it just wouldn't happen (or even necessary), there's still actually a few things that could be implied to the first game of the series via remaster or different kind of re-release, but I think I might've went a bit overboard in my scuffed pitch in spite of my initial intend. This series of posts is all ideas and not reality, so it's fine either way: I mean, I do enjoy this concept overall.

Now I would like to follow it up with my vision of "Enhanced Version" for Warcraft 2, but it's going to be more different in comparison to my prior material. Although, much like with War1, we pretty much have the second game in the great spot nowadays. Doesn't mean I can't throw in a few thoughts about what could've been, but this time it surely wouldn't be as lengnthy as previous "article" and you'll understand why.

My Current Go-To Pico-8 Tetris Games.

PICO-8 Tetris Games Compilation Screenshot.

Since my initial post about PICO-8, I wanted to come back to it in some form. Thankfully, I already had a topic in mind that's the most experience I had with the games for this fantasy console. Even though there're a lot of many great and truly spectacular titles made for it that some would deem impossible to pull off within console's technical limitations. Despite all of this, the only type of game I revisit on somewhat regular basis is Tetris.

Of all the games that were created for PICO-8, I focus my attention primarily on classic Soviet puzzle game... or rather games like it, to be more accurate. All thanks to good old simplicity of its gameplay and the ability to grab your attention for at least 10 minutes. Just quickly open the page to play one session until you hit your "dead end" in order to refresh your head. I often get distracted by two titles in particular for a little break.

January 2022 Update

Improvised "Hall Update" Thumbnail.

A New Year has started for me with typical holiday break from my current job that I spend on playing some nice games and writing posts for Ilko's Hall. I'm about halfway through my January roadmap, and I'm determined to follow on that with the highest amount of "articles" I've written in a single month by far.

Besides that, there're a few thoughts I would like to mention regarding upcoming weeks.

Just an Idea: "War1EE"

Blackrock Dungeon Promo Screenshot. Taken from MobyGames.

My opinion regarding the remastering of Warcraft: Orcs & Humans is that it's just not really necessary as the game's visuals are pretty much timeless and the same implies to Warcraft 2. It's not that you can't make it, just that a simple re-release would be just fine. However, recently I've been thinking of how remaster of this game could've actually worked and I accumilated a lot of thoughts to that.

I'm going to be looking at it from the perspectives both community projects and a greenlighted project by Blizzard Entertainment as if either of  those come to life. Funny thing about my vision for Warcraft: Enhanced Edition is that for the most part it's close to reality via WinWar: a fan-made port of the original game on Windows & Android based on Monogame framework and written in C#, according to clearly outdated GitHub page.

Overthinking the 30th Anniversary of Wolfenstein 3D

BJ Blazkowicz's Key Art for Quake Champions. Taken from Bethesda.

In my recent post about Commander Keen, I've mentioned the potential reveal of Wolfenstein 3D re-release as a part of celebration for its 30th anniversary. Now I would like to redirect my attention to Blazkowicz's franchise and what could be stored for it this and the next year. I've done something similar with Quake before, and I ended up being partially right... Not that it was really hard, but a couple of times I was at least very close to the truth regarding re-releases of classic games with other example being Blizzard Arcade Collection.

Besides additional thoughts on previously mentioned re-release of classic game, I would suggest two more older titles from Wolfenstein series that could get more attention from id Software & Bethesda and do a short recap on what's up with the third "New" game based on publically available information. You know, my usual stuff.

Just an Idea: Tales of Warcraft

"Tauren it up!" by Samwise Didier. Taken from BlizzGame.

There's been a lot of ideas for Warcraft floating around my head. As a fan of the series, you tend to look at certain parts of its narrative and things like me and ask yourself "how I would've done that". That's especially the case when you're not fond of the current direction the franchise has unfortunately taken under the leadership of those who have no passion or care for it. Although you might be delighted to see that more and more people are started to realize how bad things have actually become, it doesn't really matter at this point in time.

It's too late at point, and there's no way current Blizzard would be able to properly solve multitude of story/lore problems of Warcraft that became worse ever since Chris Metzen was gone and Steve Danuser took over the narrative. That leaves old fans of the series with only one option: fanfiction. Not the current official one, or typical cringe low quality material that's usually associated with the term nowadays. No, something that tries to be much better.

Missing Holidays of Commander Keen

Improvised Thumbnail. Credits to Bethesda & Foone's Death Generator.

With another Winter Sale getting started on Steam & GOG, I was looking through several titles in order to see how much discounts have changed in comparison to previous ones. Overall there doesn't seem to be huge changes, but then I stumbled across Commander Keen Complete Pack on both platforms and... Nothing. These classic platformers arrived on GOG back in February 2021 and even then they had usual 70% sale. But now this seem to be the first time Commander Keen games skipped New Year's sale, which seems odd. I even tried to contact id Software (as they're the sole publisher of these games) through their website, but obviously didn't get any kind of response from them.

Something like that can happen whenever publisher abandones their game or... I don't really know. Examples that come to my mind are Rune Classic and Full Throttle Remastered with the first one not getting on Steam sales ever since that peculiar closure of Human Head Studios. Either way, I decided to take my time and look at what's up with Commander Keen nowadays and what could be stored for Billy Blaze in the near future.