Some Thoughts about Warcraft 30th Anniversary Direct

Warcraft 30th Anniversary Key Art. Taken from Blizzard.

Despite having some ideas and intentions to write something prior to Warcraft 30th Anniversary Direct, life have kept me too busy for me to dedicate some time to that. All I could manage is post some tweets about Warcraft 3's Patch 2.0 and Warcraft 2: Remastered "leak". It was quite rejuvenating to be kind of exciting about Blizzard event after stepping away from Warcraft franchise. World of Warcraft Classic's Season of Discovery managed to reignite the remaining appreciation for the series that laid mostly dormant in my mind.

Since my interest are centered around the good old days of Azeroth, I won't have much to say about Hearthstone, Warcraft Rumble and remaining World of Warcraft news. You know, something like Undermine would've been very interesting to me... around 6-7 years ago, but the few things from The War Within that I saw didn't really have any reaction on me. I guess the Khadgar nonsense has a potential of being interesting if they take some inspiration from Earthsea's Ged, but even then I have my doubts. And the same can be said about Housing in Midnight expansion: neat on paper, who knows how it'll turn out.

Either way, it's time to throw some general thoughts from my messy mind into the void to clear my head. Maybe someone will even waste their time reading it and have only themselves to blame for it, but still thanks for that time.

Warcraft 1 & 2 Remastered.

As I've mentioned previously, seeing Warcraft 2: Remastered's Internal Alpha appear on the Blizzard's public server was quite intriguing. Prior to the Direct it went from Patch 0.1.0 to 0.2.5, and I was sure that we'll see an early look of their current progress to gather feedback alongside the Warcraft 3 news. Seeing them just shadowdrop everything was very surprising and not just because all RTS offerings were clearly rushed to this deadline. This part actually feels rather organic for current times and it's just sad. Now I'll go over some of the issues I managed to see thanks to people uploading gameplay videos on YouTube.

It seemed weird to see Blizzard go in opposite direction here, so I assumed that Warcraft: Orcs & Humans would likely get a remaster as well. Similarly to many re-releases and remasters, Warcraft: Remastered have decided to not bother with keeping original's multiplayer. A few similarities between two remasters make it look like both were built on the same foundation, so I can't see why just let two players duel each other. Trying to upscale introduction cinematic with AI was a mistake and it looks horrendous. The lack of animation in both briefings and victory/defeat screen is also very disappointing. Another thing that bothers me in both remasters is increased unit selection limit. Would've been nice to have an option to go back to the original limits for those who want it (like me).

Likewise, Warcraft 2: Remastered isn't without issues either. Its victory/defeat screen are also too static in a sense that it just loads all information unlike the original and Battle.net Edition. The art itself is also questionable in a few areas, but I'll get to that. Multiplayer is present there, but it's seemingly like a simplified version of what you can get now by playing GOG or community servers + no Local Area Network. I'm not a fan of Remastered visuals here either as they remind me of Star Wars: Dark Forces Remaster and its approach. Same goes to Warcraft: Remastered's look to: it feels exactly like War2's, but kind of more pixelated? There're a few indications that AI upscaling without further touch-ups were used for pretty much all visual aspects of both releases. While it was also likely used in creation of Classic portraits for Reforged and I mostly like those (aside from a few artifacts), I don't think I'm quite as welcoming to it in this case.

Considering the build numbers remastered version of War2 had on Internal Alpha servers, it seems like the work on both remasters started a few months ago and RTS team did as much as they could before just proclaiming whatever they had as "Patch 1.0" and rolled it out in sacrifice for subsequent announcement throughout the rest of Direct.

Patch 2.0 for Warcraft 3.

The same can definitely be said about Warcraft 3 as well, which lead to at least a partial repeat of the cycle. Patch 2.0 was a long-time coming update and there're a lot of things that show some nice promise for the game's future, even though part of me is still convinced that Blizzard's plans for RTS team include doing the bare minimum to secure positive reputation for themselves and their Warcraft projects. In that regard, this gambit was clearly successful. Some people would've followed their old habits of pretending to care about War3 simply to follow the trend of badmouthing Blizzard regardless. They have valid points to do that as before, but it'll be empty and clueless complaining all the same.

My point here is that you can only rely on personal observation and reports of people close to War3 community. Not gaming media and content creators since their focus is a surface level coverage and engagement bait. So what does community say? Well, it seems more fixed to me: a step in the right direction that needs more work. There're some positives, but at the same times RTS team has to work more on present issues and further additions.

One of the highlights is definitely the menu and ladder redesigns that brings Warcraft 3 closer to its Pre-Reforged form. This is a nice thing that I actually mentioned in my Just an Idea post. I believe the game still has the ranked system inspired by StarCraft: Remastered, but the old leveling system is there too. Some portraits from War1 & War2 Remastered look alright and the addition of both games' soundtracks as an option is a nice touch too.

Aside from initial technical issues that were addressed, there're still many rough edges in a form of various bugs that must be fixed. More features are also needed like the Classic audio selection in Reforged's Addon system and original background screens for main and campaign menus. Classic HD visuals shows many signs of rushed (AI?) upscale that were seemingly just made and dumped into the game without looking. There was also a fiasco with "Gameplay Stills-but-actually-Concepts" that were uploaded to Press Center and game's shop page, causing quite a bit of confusing and additional annoyance to some people. Screenshots might kind of remind you of a Grunt concept I mentioned in "Recent Tides of Warcraft 3", but they have their flaws.

I'll keep observing further developments in Warcraft 3 and likely try to push some suggestions (like the background screens) on forums or something. This Warcraft RTS team shows some promise and only time will tell how much freedom and capabilities they actually have.

Season of Discovery.

Lastly, there's a tragic tale of discovery. Season of Discovery is a promising take on WoW Classic that reignited people's believe in a future where an illusive and always debated Classic+ can be a reality. However, a few development missteps and oversaturation of WoW content have severely damaged most of momentum and interest from players. It got bad to a point where you still can't find a video of quest playthroughs for some epic weapons added in Phase 5 with Blackwing Lair & Zul'Gurub.

We already have a great idea of what next Phase brings since Classic team talked about Ahn'Qiraj, Dragons of Nightmare and Scarab Lord. All we got regarding Season of Discovery was a teaser of instanced versions of Tyr's Hand (or The Scarlet Enclave) and Karazhan Crypts being available alongside Naxxaramas in Phase 7. Based on shown footage, the narrative in each instance or raid might likely be focused on Mal'Ganis' meddling with the Scarlet Crusade and adventurers breaking into somewhere they shouldn't go in a hunt for potential treasures or being guided there by someone.

Narrative parts of SoD were really interesting to me so far, even if they're still part of current continuity and some of them tie into modern cosmology nonsense. This is a rare case where I felt comfortable ignoring all of things and focus on these so-called "untold stories" with certain admiration, reminding myself about the parts of Warcraft series I like to this day. Even if the endgame direction of SoD mostly leaves much to be desired, I'm very interested to new story and lore content that future Phases might bring.