No WarCraft 1 & 2 Remasters Because They "Aren't That Fun Anymore"

[Zulnam]

Well then, fu*k you and your standards, Frank Pearce.

 

[RaikuFA]

This all sounds familiar... It's like you don't know what you want...

 

[Jeyl]

I look at this from the perspective of someone who believes that games, like movies, novels, comics and even TV shows should be preserved and be accessible. This whole argument that the first two WarCraft games don't hold up well by today's standards, while understandable, can apply to a lot of material from other mediums.

The idea that these once monumental and important games are being deliberately abandoned is disheartening. Imagine if Nintendo told the whole world that they weren't going to release any of their old titles from previous systems. NES, GB, SNES, N64, GBA, DS? Gone. That'd be disheartening, don't you think? Well even though Nintendo is still developing new games, a console and getting stuff onto the mobile market, they still are using resources towards the Mini NES who's sole purpose is to play old NES games. And the system's presentation of older titles is so much better than the previous emulated efforts we got with Nintendo's Virtual Console.

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

Well then, fu*k you and your standards, Frank Pearce.

You are never gonna play the game even if it does come out and don't speak for me when you say "but what about the players that want to play this"

On the one hand....he's right. Games that old just don't measure up anymore mechanically. They come from genres which have evolved significantly

On the other hand, people who would buy it are doing so based of nostalgia and should theoretically be totally fine with that.

Bullshit

If this were any other media, people would be in uproar. Books and works release prior to the 50's haven't aged well in the writing, so let's never never make those easily available for future generations (Or, even attempt to abridge them). Films are being constantly remade today, so let's not have them rerelease and restore the original Ben-Hur, Ghostbusters, Ocean's 11, Magnificent Seven, Psycho, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Walter Mitty, King Kong, etc.

Also, why not just declare the games abandonware, or even just release the source code? It's pretty obvious that Blizzard doean't want to do anything with the games, so why not let the community take the games and run with them?

And, to top it off, who can really declare what people will define as "fun"?

Don't really get how what I said is bullshit. I admitted they've aged terribly and don't hold anymore.....but the primary audience who would buy them are totally aware of that fact.

But since you wanna go down this path, I will say what no one else is saying.

A huge swath of Blizzard's audience wasn't alive for WC1&2. Many of those same people will instabuy anything with a Blizzard logo on them. Young people are terribly critical of the tech curve, and will not appreciate the humble origins and nostalgia of the originals. They will just see a shitty product. Not putting the originals out is pure brand protection, because if you're old enough to remember them you're also no longer the primary demographic being chased by these companies . Especially one like Blizzard who keeps a small handful of IP's and goes for the 'loyal for years' customer set.

Technically I was alive.

But I was introduced to Starcraft 1 first.

And of course everyone, EVERYONE is upset, but seriously they are dated. And take my word for it as a Hardcore Blizz fan because I played the games, I have the games working on my PC.

And they are dated, more so Warcraft 1. Sometimes I wish every Traditional Base Building RTS has the same controls and smoothness and polish as Starcraft 2.

Warcraft 1 you have only 4 units to control at a time, no right clicking to move or attack you have to press the A move button first and then click on the area you want to go. And everything is on a square grid.

And whatever huge story events that would happen? Barely anything, its all just text.

 

[CrazyGirl17]

While I never played Warcraft 1, I do have fond memories of Warcraft 2, and even 3. So why are the first two games being ignored? Because kids nowadays won't get it? What about people like me who want to relive a childhood favorite?

Or does Blizzard want to forget they ever made RTS games? It's not just me, right?

 

[Saelune]

Thats why you re-make them. Ya know, make them again, but better. I dont give a fuck about Warcraft, but Im sure the people who do, who were late to the party, might like to see the old games plots firsthand. Why not remake them, and use the chance to fill in the holes made by later additions?

...honestly, the plot of the first game makes no sense anyway, and has seen so many retcons over the decades that the only relation they have to the current storyline is in name alone. Hell, Warcraft 1's plot was literally 'You are humans/orcs, you go and kill Orcs/Humans, final level is blow up Blackrock Mountain/Stormwind'. They wouldn't so much be filling holes as just copy-pasting from a Wikipedia page on 'History of the First War' at this point.

As for remakes... ehhhh. It'd be much better to just do a GoG with 'em than spend THAT many resources rebuilding the things. Especially with Warcraft 1 - They'd be better off making a friggin' Warcraft 4 rather than try and bring that piece of garbage (note, I played it when it was new and it's what got me into Blizzard games) into a modern era. Really hard to remake a game that had no Voice acting, minimal animations, barebone gameplay, non-existant AI and an idiotic plot faithfully. Warcraft 2 maybe could fair better, but that's mainly because someone could probably slap all the War2 assets onto the Starcraft 1 engine and call it a day.

Sounds like a relative blank canvas to me. The lack of voice acting, animations, gameplay etc means there is little restrictions in what you do with it. Fewer people going to be mad if its different.

 

[SirSullymore]

WC1 I kind of get, but I think WC2 is still fun *shrugs*.

 

[loa]

Then hand it over to gog.
This is not a matter of how "fun" it is by their standards, this is a piece of blizzard history and needs to be archived, if only to remember that warcraft once wasn't some glorified chatroom.
Why would blizzard who cares ohsodeeply about their franchises willfully abandon it?

 

[Zulnam]

Well then, fu*k you and your standards, Frank Pearce.

You are never gonna play the game even if it does come out and don't speak for me when you say "but what about the players that want to play this"

Sorry to break it to you, Nostradamus, but I have Warcraft 2 installed on my PC at all times and play the campaigns about once a year. Also I didn't say that.

WC1 I kind of get, but I think WC2 is still fun *shrugs*.

Even WC1 would be fun with a few tweaks. Bring the mines closer, increase unit selection, add easier select & order for mouse and there you go.

But what's the point if they can't add Microtransactions, eh?

 

[Wrex Brogan]

Thats why you re-make them. Ya know, make them again, but better. I dont give a fuck about Warcraft, but Im sure the people who do, who were late to the party, might like to see the old games plots firsthand. Why not remake them, and use the chance to fill in the holes made by later additions?

...honestly, the plot of the first game makes no sense anyway, and has seen so many retcons over the decades that the only relation they have to the current storyline is in name alone. Hell, Warcraft 1's plot was literally 'You are humans/orcs, you go and kill Orcs/Humans, final level is blow up Blackrock Mountain/Stormwind'. They wouldn't so much be filling holes as just copy-pasting from a Wikipedia page on 'History of the First War' at this point.

As for remakes... ehhhh. It'd be much better to just do a GoG with 'em than spend THAT many resources rebuilding the things. Especially with Warcraft 1 - They'd be better off making a friggin' Warcraft 4 rather than try and bring that piece of garbage (note, I played it when it was new and it's what got me into Blizzard games) into a modern era. Really hard to remake a game that had no Voice acting, minimal animations, barebone gameplay, non-existant AI and an idiotic plot faithfully. Warcraft 2 maybe could fair better, but that's mainly because someone could probably slap all the War2 assets onto the Starcraft 1 engine and call it a day.

Sounds like a relative blank canvas to me. The lack of voice acting, animations, gameplay etc means there is little restrictions in what you do with it. Fewer people going to be mad if its different.

This is a Blizzard game we're talking about here - any change, no matter what, is going to make people mad. Hell, having fewer people to make mad is going to retroactively make more people mad. Don't ask how, I didn't make the rules, it's just how this shit works when it comes to Blizzard games.

 

[Saelune]

Thats why you re-make them. Ya know, make them again, but better. I dont give a fuck about Warcraft, but Im sure the people who do, who were late to the party, might like to see the old games plots firsthand. Why not remake them, and use the chance to fill in the holes made by later additions?

...honestly, the plot of the first game makes no sense anyway, and has seen so many retcons over the decades that the only relation they have to the current storyline is in name alone. Hell, Warcraft 1's plot was literally 'You are humans/orcs, you go and kill Orcs/Humans, final level is blow up Blackrock Mountain/Stormwind'. They wouldn't so much be filling holes as just copy-pasting from a Wikipedia page on 'History of the First War' at this point.

As for remakes... ehhhh. It'd be much better to just do a GoG with 'em than spend THAT many resources rebuilding the things. Especially with Warcraft 1 - They'd be better off making a friggin' Warcraft 4 rather than try and bring that piece of garbage (note, I played it when it was new and it's what got me into Blizzard games) into a modern era. Really hard to remake a game that had no Voice acting, minimal animations, barebone gameplay, non-existant AI and an idiotic plot faithfully. Warcraft 2 maybe could fair better, but that's mainly because someone could probably slap all the War2 assets onto the Starcraft 1 engine and call it a day.

Sounds like a relative blank canvas to me. The lack of voice acting, animations, gameplay etc means there is little restrictions in what you do with it. Fewer people going to be mad if its different.

This is a Blizzard game we're talking about here - any change, no matter what, is going to make people mad. Hell, having fewer people to make mad is going to retroactively make more people mad. Don't ask how, I didn't make the rules, it's just how this shit works when it comes to Blizzard games.

This is Blizzard we're talking here. Any change, no matter what, will still get legions of people eating it up.

 

[Worgen]

Weirdly enough Command and Conquer aged better than warcraft 1 or 2.

Unfortunately the Command and Conquer franchises were both murdered and had their desecrated corpses paraded around town.

Um, how? Tiberian Twilight was dog-shite, I agree, but Red Alert 3 was pretty good (actually my favorite Red Alert game), and Generals 2 was never 'born' to be 'murdered,' so to speak.

If anything, I feel Blizz could take a leaf from EA (never thought I'd say that), and at least make the old Warcraft games (heck, Diablo I also) available to purchase, similar to how all the Command and Conquer games can be bought in a pack now.

Yeah, Red Alert 3 was really good but the last 2 command and conqure games were bad. Well the last one was just terrible and c&c3 was kinda meh. Its story was really stupid.

 

[Zydrate]

I am under the opinion that games do sometimes have a shelf life. I can't play games under a certain graphical threshold, personally.
Or mechanics. I'm trying to play Witcher 1 because I have 10 hours on Witcher 3 and I just can't get into how the first one plays.

 

[Thaluikhain]

As mentioned, the W1 interface is really annoying to use. They improved a lot for W2, but in essence it was still much the same.

In any case, I still like W3, but that's a massively different game to W2.

 

[Kahani]

One of the most nostalgia-laden announcements from this year's BlizzCon was the remake of Diablo 1 in the Diablo 3 engine [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/168768-Diablo-3-Necromancer-Class-Pack#&gid=gallery_6609&pid=1].

No it wasn't; no such thing has been announced. What they've actually said is that there's going to be an "event" in which something that looks vaguely like Diablo will be playable in Diablo 3. It will not have the same classes, monsters, items, story, environments, or even the same basic gameplay as Diablo, so clearly it is not in any way similar to a remake of the original game. Judging from the screenshots, it's not even going look anything like the original, which had four different environments, none of which looked anything like that.

I am sorry, but WC1 was not a great game. Not for its time and not during its time. I was there when we all shrugged and said: "Nay, that's just a Dune2-clone with a fantasy setting and one faction less." Seriously, WC1 was not a big deal back then.

Indeed. I think it's partly due to Elijin's point that many, likely even most, of Blizzard's current audience weren't alive, or at least weren't old enough to be gamers, back when these games were released, so they often don't realise the history of what are now big franchises. The original Warcraft was never anything special; it's not a great old game that has aged badly, it was a mediocre game that didn't see massive success even when it was new. The franchise only gained any popularity at all with Warcraft 2, and even that was never as big as Starcraft or C&C. It was only WoW that made the Warcraft franchise as big as it is today. Diablo has a similar sort of issue. Although the original was a legitimately good game in its time, almost everything gamers today know about the franchise began with Diablo 2. People almost always seem to assume that a franchise has always been as it was when they first discovered it, and for those who only did so somewhere in the middle that often has little to do with how it started out.

But as far as I remember WC2 ran in Win95, right? I'm pretty sure it worked easily on Win7, so where's the problem here? Why remaster it anyway? To have a 1080p resolution? Or 3D graphics? I don't know...

Yes, Warcraft 2 (and 3) both work fine for me on Win7. I certainly wouldn't say no to Warcraft 4, but I can see absolutely no point in doing anything with the earlier games. They're still there and playable if you want, and slightly shinier graphics won't change a thing.

 

[TheMigrantSoldier]

Didn't they announce a re-release for these games as far back as 2013? Seems dickish to now say this.

At the very least it would be nice for them to pull a Bethesda and allow these games to be downloaded for free, or hand them over to GOG. Warcraft 2 is still worth a play, despite its age and quirks.

 

[Janaschi]

What a shame.

It's a niche market, as the games would have to appeal to a certain sense of nostalgia - but I still think that it'd be worth it, as my rose-tinted glasses are constantly on, regardless.

Hell. I still play Warlocked for the GameBoy Colour. So I know for a fact that I'd play the original Warcraft games again.

 

[Karadalis]

And whats with this argument that "blizzard has only so many resources" when a couple of sentences before pearce said that they basically had it allready running on a new machine?

You DO realize that a remaster is infinitely, INFINITELY more than just jerry-rigging the old thing in a window, right?

...Who am I kidding, this is the Escapist, we don't allow "definitions" and "word meanings" get in the way of our incessant bitchfests.

Warcraft 1 and 2 werent very complex games to begin with. They could remake it with their current Starcraft engine, they allready have the platform and the engine, are you going to tell me that having a small team work on models and textures somehow overburdens the "resources" that ACTIVISION BLIZZARD has?

This is still blizzard we are talking about, a studio that is swimming in so much money they where able to buy themselves back from vivendi at the height of comercial success. Something impossible for anyone else.

And youre telling me they dont have the "resources"? Thats a half arsed justification from Pearce and nothing more... if you translate this bullshit into normal english all it says is: "We cant be arsed"

And thats the point of offense here, they are so self absorbed that they really dont give a shit about the customers who helped them get where they are now. And ofcourse this attitude of "you think you do, but you dont"

 

[Janaschi]

I am sorry, but WC1 was not a great game. Not for its time and not during its time. I was there when we all shrugged and said: "Nay, that's just a Dune2-clone with a fantasy setting and one faction less." Seriously, WC1 was not a big deal back then. I personally don't know anybody who ever played more of it than the first couple of missions back in the day. And me and my guys loved our RTSs!

WC2 was a great game, there's no doubt about it. It was at least as big as its biggest competitor Command & Conquer (which, by they way, was from the same guys who did Dune2 before). But as far as I remember WC2 ran in Win95, right? I'm pretty sure it worked easily on Win7, so where's the problem here? Why remaster it anyway? To have a 1080p resolution? Or 3D graphics? I don't know...

The universe does not revolve around you. :/ I played through the first game multiple times with my dad, and back when I hosted LAN parties, I know for a fact that most of the friends that I had over had done the same, too. Even then, I'm still not going to make some grandiose claim off of my personal experiences, because I, nor my friends, represent the entire community. So it would be nice if you'd do the same, and let the factual numbers speak for themselves.