Blizzard Botched Warcraft III Remake After Internal Fights, Pressure Over Costs — Bloomberg

[Hyperdrift]

Writing for Bloomberg, gaming journalist Jason Schreier has finally released his full investigative piece into the failure of Warcraft III: Reforged. I won't paste the contents of the entire article in this post, but I will include some highlights below. The impression that I received after reading the article is that the Classic Games division bit off way more than they could chew given their team's small size and limited budget, and were unwilling to postpone the game's release because they had already taken pre-orders. Reforged would have never received the budget that it needed to deliver all of its promised features because of budgetary constraints imposed on Blizzard by Activision.

Blizzard chose to plow ahead with a premature release of Warcraft III: Reforged largely because it had already taken pre-orders from players, according to people familiar with the decision. The company couldn’t bump the game too much more without potentially being forced to send out refunds and risking that fans wouldn’t buy the game again.

In notes from an internal postmortem of the game reviewed by Bloomberg, developers on Warcraft III: Reforged acknowledged this issue. "We took pre-orders when we knew the game wasn't ready yet," they said, adding later that the company needed to “resist the urge to ship an unfinished product because of financial pressure.”

The Blizzard spokesman said that “in hindsight, we should have taken more time to get it right, even if it meant returning pre-orders.”

Members of the team began worrying that they had promised more than they could deliver. Remastering Warcraft III was more complicated than their previous remake, StarCraft, thanks to its three-dimensional models. The team was small, the production was disorganized and the amount of work in front of them was daunting. It had taken months to revamp one of Warcraft III’s levels; now they would have to do the same for dozens more.

Morale plummeted. Rob Bridenbecker, the head of the Classic Games team, was known for an aggressive managerial style, for taking frequent trips out of the country during production and a tendency to give unrealistic deadlines. Miscommunication became a serious issue across the team, as did arguments over the scope and art style, according to people familiar with the matter. Bridenbecker, who left Blizzard in April, declined to comment.

The team, which had a reputation of taking on outcasts from other Blizzard departments, was restricted in hiring due to a limited budget. Some people had to do multiple jobs at once, working many nights and weekends to try to finish the game. Technological obstacles and conflicts among the team only exacerbated the problems. A mass layoff of nearly 800 people in February 2019 hollowed out Blizzard’s support departments, which also hurt the team. “We were missing and/or had the wrong people in certain lead roles," the postmortem said. "The team structure didn't set up the project for success."

Warcraft III: Reforged began gradually losing features. Management threw out the revised scripts and re-recordings the team had done, according to the people familiar with the process, choosing instead to stick with the original dialogue and voice acting.

[David Fried], who departed the project as it was rescoped, pinned the blame for these shifts on Blizzard’s corporate parent. “I am deeply disappointed that Activision would actively work against the interests of all players in the manner that they did,” he said. He added that it was “quite telling” that Morhaime had resigned just weeks before Warcraft III: Reforged was presented in November 2018 at Blizzcon, the company’s annual fan convention.

The developers of the game blamed Bridenbecker and other executives. "Leadership seemed totally out of touch with the velocity and scope of the project until extremely late in development,” the team said in the postmortem. "Senior voices in the department warned leadership about the impending disaster of Warcraft on several occasions over the last year or so, but were ignored."

The Blizzard spokesman said the company has “a new team dedicated to updating Warcraft III: Reforged with improvements. In these efforts, we realize our work and actions will speak louder than our words. Across many projects, we’ve made process improvements, implemented better milestone planning, and improved visibility into work-in-progress.”

But a year and a half after launch, Blizzard’s Warcraft III: Reforged remains incomplete. And the company is left facing questions, including whether it will be able to recover from the brand damage caused by the missed expectations.

 

[stein123]

Blizzard is a hot mess right now, and i'm pretty sure things will get worse, knowing the gross things their employees have been suffering on that company: Activision Blizzard Sued Over ‘Frat Boy’ Culture, Harassment (1)

 

[Bitterman]

I think its time for A Warcraft 3 Source port on par with Belzebub or even OpenMW, OpenRA or Stratgus

 

[Vibe]

After more than a decade of barbaric growth, the community still creates a lot of excellent content without the support of Blizzard.

Now that Blizzard offers new model icons and even local voice, there is no need for the community to stagnate.

I don't mind waiting for Blizzard to fix it in three or five years. I don't even mind if Blizzard doesn't fix it. I just want the community to move on, not stop.

We can program, we can crowdfunding, we should continue to work on the current project. We don't have to make a wish to Blizzard every day. Shareholders of listed companies will not recognize the payment market of RTS/ Warcraft.

 

[Retera]

I think its time for A Warcraft 3 Source port on par with Belzebub or even OpenMW, OpenRA or Stratgus

Warsmash Mod Engine

Warsmash is a Warcraft III modding project that aspires to eventually make Warcraft III modding easier by providing a replacement component for the game program that can be more easily modified -- while still requiring the Blizzard Warcraft III game and assets to be installed on the computer...

www.hiveworkshop.com

Even if I get lazy, maybe someone else can help us. Seems there are many people who tell me they want this, but I have not heard of a lot of other people doing it.

 

[Bitterman]

Warsmash Mod Engine

Warsmash is a Warcraft III modding project that aspires to eventually make Warcraft III modding easier by providing a replacement component for the game program that can be more easily modified -- while still requiring the Blizzard Warcraft III game and assets to be installed on the computer...

www.hiveworkshop.com

Even if I get lazy, maybe someone else can help us. Seems there are many people who tell me they want this, but I have not heard of a lot of other people doing it.

Just look at Wargus, the guy is updating the engine of lately and its now a welcome replacement for the GoG exe's and even dosbox for warcraft 1
OpenRA is going thanks to Petroglyph's help, and some guys are porting Dark Reign 1 into it.

And recently russians reverse engineered Chasm: The Rift for a source port that is receiving slow but steady updates.
A War 3 source port that not only reads the game files but its free of the thrice cursed Chromium menu and even compatible with external file assets, And even game versions, with extra modding bonuses like Upscaled menu files, new and proper shaders or even custom Cutscenes would be great.
even a mp4 upscaled upgrade for the old original DVD collectors edition war chest would be a welcome release

Even Vulkan would be a good idea for War 3

 

[Retera]

A War 3 source port that not only reads the game files but its free of the thrice cursed Chromium menu and even compatible with external file assets, And even game versions, with extra modding bonuses like Upscaled menu files, new and proper shaders or even custom Cutscenes would be great.
even a mp4 upscaled upgrade for the old original DVD collectors edition war chest would be a welcome release

Did you go checkout what I linked? So, it's not as ambitious as what you're saying, but also does it need to be? Who are you proposing is going to put in the effort to do what you are asking? So like for example tonight I got off work and I turned on my War3 rewrite. And it's really like I am writing a new game engine to load War3 map files and assets, and then I play maps that dont have very many features. And my game is written on LibGDX game engine and doesn't have menus or HD or whatever. I believe LibGDX does not have a good solution to play an mp4 file or an avi or any of these things. But when I got into the game tonight I had peons and a hero and built a little base and killed some creeps, and this was in a 3d rendered world that loaded icon Warcraft 3 assets from my War3 installation.
And I have spent so much more time building and running this 3d world simulation than I would ever spend watching a cinematic.

No offense meant here but it just feels to me like you're suggesting a lot of technological buzzwords that are not very grounded in any reality and not useful. For example, Vulkan is probably a superior rendering pipeline, but when I was created a 3d rendered simulation I borrowed a ton of code from other OpenGL HiveWorkshop projects because I was using OpenGL. So, in order to use Vulkan, you would have to rewrite all of that. Who are you suggesting will do that effort? Are you going to do that effort, and then publish it for the world for free?

So anyway, I am not suggesting these kind of pie in the sky ambitious ideas like you are, but I am playing an open source Warcraft 3 style of strategy game simulation system that I wrote, and so I am having a good time.

Okay if you really like youtube videos man, watch this video and then understand in your heart that it is NOT A VIDEO OF WARCRAFT 3:

Get what I'm saying?

It's buggier and stutters more than Reforged because it's just one guy's code project made from a bunch of Hive tools, duct tape, and dreams. And you're over here saying we need Vulkan. Why? Why do I need Vulkan when I have this?

 

[Kyrbi0]

Posting here too to subscribe.

It's bittersweet to finally get a look at what went on behind the scenes at Blizzard.

 

[Retera]

It's bittersweet to finally get a look at what went on behind the scenes

Wait, the article actually had new information?

 

[Kyrbi0]

Wait, the article actually had new information?

Well, depending on who you are... But I consider myself pretty well-connected/-informed & there was a new thing or two.

The bit about Rob Bridenbecker, the length of time it took to revamp campaign levels, the lack of allotted budget from Activision, the fact that David Fried (one of the OG devs) was briefly brought back to work on it, the misalignment/miscommunication re: remake vs. remaster, the bad team structuring, the lack of a fun launch party... Etc.

 

[Dr Super Good]

Why? Why do I need Vulkan when I have this?

Vulkan is a superior API for games long term as it was designed as such, with performance and modern programming features in mind. Especially if you plan to support mixing classic with higher quality assets such as those from reforged the added performance on modern GPUs could pay dividends. However this very much is a feature that would be implemented if you had a larger development team since it basically means rewriting a lot of the graphic code to support it. Better to have some performance issues or bugs than high performance code that is incomplete and so nothing at all.

Given the perceived dire state of Warcraft III you might be able to recruit people to help with development.

A War 3 source port that not only reads the game files but its free of the thrice cursed Chromium menu and even compatible with external file assets, And even game versions, with extra modding bonuses like Upscaled menu files, new and proper shaders or even custom Cutscenes would be great.
even a mp4 upscaled upgrade for the old original DVD collectors edition war chest would be a welcome release

Warcraft III is a very complicated game. Probably far more complicated than it needed to be given it started life with the idea of being World of Warcraft. Without access to the source code directly or doing rather hacky code modifications it is unlikely to get anywhere near a state that it could run most custom maps.

 

[Bitterman]

Vulkan is a superior API for games long term as it was designed as such, with performance and modern programming features in mind. Especially if you plan to support mixing classic with higher quality assets such as those from reforged the added performance on modern GPUs could pay dividends. However this very much is a feature that would be implemented if you had a larger development team since it basically means rewriting a lot of the graphic code to support it. Better to have some performance issues or bugs than high performance code that is incomplete and so nothing at all.

Given the perceived dire state of Warcraft III you might be able to recruit people to help with development.

Warcraft III is a very complicated game. Probably far more complicated than it needed to be given it started life with the idea of being World of Warcraft. Without access to the source code directly or doing rather hacky code modifications it is unlikely to get anywhere near a state that it could run most custom maps.

Which is why im praying to God in Heaven, Jesus His Holy Son and the Nine Divines that some mad raging disgruntled employee leaks all of it later this year, since Warcraft 2 Dark Saga is out in the wild since early this year.

because its obvious at this rate that activision blizzard is done, and not even a miracle will save them from the hell they carved for them, even the ripcord was cut down, and their shareholders opened a investigation too because of that.