Yesterday I've visited a friend who has beta access and I had a chance to play Reforged for myself.
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Before I go into my impressions and thoughts, I have to share a certain discovery that we've made.
You know how Reforged has the collection tab where you can unlock the portraits? As it turns out, some of them are obtained by completing the campaign. The kicker here is that instead of saying which campaign is required to unlock a portrait, it lists all the missions you have to do.
Now... Remember that "lost missions" tease from the leaked campaign selection menu? Well, we went over all the missions listed in the collection tab and compared them to the maps available in the classic game. What we've found is:
1) There are no new campaign missions in Reforged - everything is exactly as it was with one exception...
2) Exodus of the Horde campaign contains all 3 missions from the demo campaign (i.e. the ones dealing with the Darkspear Trolls, Naga Sea Witch and so on).
Based on that, it appears that "lost missions" refers to the demo campaign, so if you were hoping for some cut missions making a come back or some new maps - chances are you are going to be disappointed.
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Okay, impressions:
1) Game performance really needs some serious work. We've played on my friend's laptop that can run Starcraft II on max settings without breaking a sweat and the only time when Reforged run smoothly in 1v1/2v2 was when we used the lowest settings. All medium with shadows off was okay-ish for the most part as well, though especially in bigger fights it sometimes got a bit choppy. Oh, and no matter what settings we've used, random frame drops happened from time to time.
2) As for the looks - the game does look and feel significantly better when played. At least to me.
- Night Elves are by far the best looking race for me - units, buildings, animations, effects and portraits look amazing. Huge fan, seriously. The only exception is the rainbow-fighter Hyppogryph that I still think looks hideous. But other than that, I really loved them.
- Oh and adressing a concern that I've seen around here - yes, the Archer is hunched over, but it doesn't feel like it's a Headhunter rip off. I got the vibe that she's sneaky and the fact that she doesn't stand straight actually makes it easier to notice her in the thick of things.
- Orcs and Undead are really nice too. I wasn't a huge fan of Blight, but it actually looks pretty dark. In general, the whole game seems a bit darker than what I've seen in the videos, which for me is a good thing, because I really didn't like how bright everything was in the early beta. And yes, they've added the effect thing to Necroplis' training animation, so that's fine too.
- I'm not really a huge fan of Humans, but they aren't "bad" either. The one thing that stood out the most for me was that their portraits often look weird-ish. I mean, a lot of faces seem low-quality, armor looks a bit fake and the portraits are too "bright". Not going to go into much details about portrais, though since a lot of them are still not animated, i.e. not really finished.
- Terrain... It's pretty meh, but not as bad as I've originally thought. Foliage really helps, though I feel some of it could use to stand out a bit more. But generally it's... acceptable, I guess.
3) Readability - it's not perfect or on the level of classic W3, but it is better than what I've expected. I've played or watched my friend play a couple of 1v1s and 2v2s and not once have I run into any serious issues with telling units apart or noticing player colors, though there were some short moments where I found myself a tiny bit confused. The good part is that if something looks really different, you get used to it pretty quickly. With some minor tweaks here and there I think it will be fine.
One bad thing I did notice, though, is that sometimes it's a bit difficult to click on things like items or specific units.
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Overall - I was pleasantly surprised. If you're a purist, you probably won't like how Reforged looks, because despite the game still feeling like Warcraft 3, there are some pretty serious differences. But if you're like me and you approach the game with an open mind - it looks okay and with some minor tweaks here and there, I think most folks are going to be satisfied with the graphics. The only big concern that I have right now is performance. And I'm still salty about the big cutscene removal of 2019.
Generally, though - it's better than I've expected. And yes, I will say it - after playing Reforged for myself, I'm actually really tempted to buy it.
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P.S. I took one of my old maps with me and tried opening it with the Reforged Editor - it's noticeably slower than the live one. Like, seriously slower. I didn't count, but I'd say that loading this map took about 2-3 times longer in Reforged than in the classic game. Other than that, I didn't really want to tinker with the WE all that much to not be impolite to my friend. So, no other impressions here.
