Beta Sign-Ups for WarCraft III 191
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.
First Orc? (Score:1, Funny)
Re:First Orc? (Score:1)
is nothing sacred..
Re:First Orc? (Score:1)
never got to play WC before (Score:1)
Re:never got to play WC before (Score:1)
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)
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.
Re:reboot worthy? (Score:2, Informative)
Support Wine [winehq.com] by developing, testing or bug reporting.
Re:reboot worthy? (Score:2, Informative)
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)
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.
Re:reboot worthy? (Score:2)
Oh well. Wine runs Diablo II pretty damn well.
Re:reboot worthy? (Score:2, Interesting)
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*
If anything, it's worth trying for beta (Score:2)
From the last time I looked at the game specs, it should be interesting.
Re:If anything, it's worth trying for beta (Score:1)
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.
Re:If anything, it's worth trying for beta (Score:2)
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....
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.
Re:If anything, it's worth trying for beta (Score:1)
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.
WarCraft3 like StarCraft (Score:2)
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).
Re:WarCraft3 like StarCraft (Score:2)
I am twitching in anticipation.
Re:WarCraft3 like StarCraft (Score:2)
I'm disheartened by the lack of support Starcraft has received in comparison to Warcraft and Diablo.
Re:WarCraft3 like StarCraft (Score:1)
I would jump at the opportunity to use the StarCraft engine to make mods.
Re:WarCraft3 like StarCraft (Score:1)
Will WC3 have King of the Hill and other multiplayer variants? That would be very fun IMO.
Re:WarCraft3 like StarCraft (Score:1)
Tim
Re:WarCraft3 like StarCraft (Score:2)
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)
Re:WarCraft3 like StarCraft (Score:2)
Re:WarCraft3 like StarCraft (Score:1)
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)
They say that Truth is the first casualty of war. I say that sleep is the first victim of Beta testing...
Re:I can't wait (Score:2)
Oh, if only they had delivered the beta on Monday. Then we would have had something to do [slashdot.org] on New Year's Eve.
What I'm interested in... (Score:2)
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)
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.
Re:What I'm interested in... (Score:1)
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)
Game Impressions (Score:1)
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)
Re:Game Impressions (Score:1)
Too bad Westwood blew it with Command and Conquer.
Any news on system requirements? (Score:2, Interesting)
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
Re:Any news on system requirements? (Score:1)
Re:Any news on system requirements? (Score:1)
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.
Re:Any news on system requirements? (Score:1)
Re:Any news on system requirements? (Score:1)
Re:Any news on system requirements? (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Any news on system requirements? (Score:1)
Should be okay. (Score:1)
January 7th (Score:2, Informative)
Spectacular.
I have a few ideas for improving beta testing... (Score:2)
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...
Re:I have a few ideas for improving beta testing.. (Score:1)
Adding text waiting for the 20 seconds to pass... fuck me for typing fast!
Tim
Re:I have a few ideas for improving beta testing.. (Score:2)
If I send Blizzard my resume, then I would end up working for THEM, hence defeating the purpose.
The reason I suggested letting us (the testers) fix the bugs is because Blizzard will rate most of them as low priority, or simply overlook them. As a tester, I can concentrate on fixing one issue. OTOH if I worked for Blizzard, they would then tell me which bugs I could and couldn't fix, letting them slip through...
I do however agree that very few companies have had success with open source game dev... but it could happen...
Is it just me... (Score:1)
Damn straight (Score:1)
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.
Re:Damn straight (Score:1)
Diablo was good for its time, but Diablo II isn't. It barely improved....
Tim
RTS games are soooo boring! (Score:1)
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!
Re:RTS games are soooo boring! (Score:2)
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)
I promise to give you my first born child for a chance to be a beta tester.
Whore nicht! (Score:1, Informative)
Will be worth the wait (Score:2, Interesting)
By the way, a great site to read up more on War3 is here [warcraftiii.net].
Let's cross our fingers. (Score:2, Insightful)
This sucks!!!!! (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:This sucks!!!!! (Score:1)
Re:This sucks!!!!! (Score:2)
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
Re:This sucks!!!!! (Score:1)
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
Re:This sucks!!!!! (Score:2)
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
Reboot worthy? (Score:1)
What do you mean? I don't think this game work in Linux.
Regards, Tommy
Warcraft III info (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Warcraft III info (Score:2)
Re:Warcraft III info (Score:1)
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)
The system requirements are listed in the FAQ (http://www.blizzard.com/war3/faq/faq-features.sh
"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!
Warcraft III faq - Why NOT a Linux version? (Score:1)
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Blizzards games (Score:2)
Reboot worthy? (Score:2, Troll)
Uhhh, is that anything like being "sponge worthy"?
-Derek
Re:What? (Score:1)
Sienfeld reference (Score:2)
Elaine uses the sponge as her preferred method of birth control. There is a shortage of sponges, so she (and all women in that episode) start using very strict criteria to determine if a man is "sponge worthy".
I know it doesn't sound very funny now, but it made a great sub-plot.
-Derek
Reboot worthy (Score:2)
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.
Re:Reboot worthy (Score:1)
Re:Reboot worthy (Score:2)
"Hey, tired of rebooting your computer after playing a game? Buy an X-box and reboot it instead!"
Only Playable On Battle.Net? (Score:1)
reboot worthy? (Score:1)
I certainly hope they kept the most important ... (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Re:I certainly hope they kept the most important . (Score:1)
Not sure why more games don't have fun stuff like this.
Re:I certainly hope they kept the most important . (Score:2)
No, just "Luke"
You'll find I'm full of surprises
Noooo!!!
Z-Z-Z-Z-ZAP!!! "Ouch!"
Re:I certainly hope they kept the most important . (Score:1)
Really?
No, not really, I have nothing to back that up with
* AustinP has quit IRC (Ping Timeout: 180 seconds)
Re:I certainly hope they kept the most important . (Score:2)
Re:I certainly hope they kept the most important . (Score:1)
Clicking on a character multiple times of course!
I always liked that the sheep go "Baa! Ram! Ewe!" myself. A nice touch.
If I were to look for an additional feature, it would be someway of telling someone at the back of a group (like archers) to stay in the back, instead of racing ahead of the slow armored folk who are protecting them. I lose more heroes that way
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Re:I certainly hope they kept the most important . (Score:1)
Tim
Re:I certainly hope they kept the most important . (Score:2)
You must have given up too soon. If you continue clicking the sheep (or seals or whatever the other maps' animals were) they will eventually explode.
Starcraft/Brood War characters know it's a game... (Score:3, Funny)
*click*
"This is NOT "Warcraft In Space"!"
*click*
"It's much more sophisticated!"
*click*
"I KNOW it's not in 3-D!"
Re:I certainly hope they kept the most important . (Score:3, Informative)
Beta Period Moved! (Score:5, Funny)
That's right, as a service to all of my fellow
I appreciate... uh, I mean Blizzard appreciates your support.
Re:Beta Period Moved! (Score:1)
Re:Beta Period Moved! (Score:3, Funny)
I find this VERY hard to believe!
I mean, you actually know someone that has a girlfriend? Yeah, whatever...
Re:Beta Period Moved! (Score:1)
Real-time strategy or RPG? (Score:1)
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. =)
RPG and RTS do work well together... (Score:1)
Tim
Errr... (Score:2)
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.
Damn you Slashdot!!! (Score:1)
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
Time correction for sign-ups (Score:2, Troll)
Warcraft 3 Now (Score:1)
well, if you use winex... you won't need to reboot (Score:1)
This doesn't look like... (Score:2)
Warcarft III - LotR redux? (Score:4, Funny)
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
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Liars! (Score:2)
Wow! (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Be nice if... (Score:2)
The FAQ provides the answer: no. There WILL be a unix version...for Macs, but that doesn't do linux a lick of good (nor *BSD flavors either).
I have given up asking game companies to release linux versions. They simply will not do so - they do not want the user support headache and do not believe the effort will be made up for in sales (see id Software's failed attempt at boxed linux games).
Instead, I ask game companies (that are not owned by M$) to consider producing and releasing an unsupported linux game binary for download - like id Software does now (and before their failed boxed game trial). It allows them to produce a simple binary with little extra effort on their part and it doesn't require them to provide customer support for it. That is left to the community or the goodness of company coders providing information/support in newsgroups on an ad hoc basis.
Seriously, it is much more like that at this stage of linux user-hood that one could convince a company to release a near-painless unsupported linux game binary than to try to convince them to release a full-blown, supported linux version of some game...barring a deal with Loki, that is.
Re:I'm sorry but... (Score:2)
A significant problem with this sort of beta testing procedure is that other countries are likely to get shafted on the network play aspect.
If the only reasonable network play is going to be over the Battle.Net servers, and they are only testing the game with people who live on the same continent as the best connected servers, then clearly they won't be examining the game's performance under higher latency conditions.
Unless they pop well-connected Battle.Net servers all over the world - and they certainly did not for Diablo II - then they are effectively saying they just don't care about their foreign market.
Which is probably true, just not very pleasant.