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Official WarCraft IV Discussion

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I believe Warcraft IV will almost definitely happen, it just might take literally another 5-10 years. Yes, WoW has taken the storyline and fucked it 16 ways to Sunday, but they've already introduced alternate universes, time travel and all that jazz so that they could recycle and rehash the lore from Wc1-3 and let the WoW players experience it. Lore is literally the last issue that will prevent WC4. Blizzard is a great developer but they are about money.

So thats the next question - is there any money in an RTS? The answer is yes, but not as much as other types of games. Its too hard to play a serious RTS. You need certain skills, and while kids today will play hours and hours of stuff like HotS and DOTA, its much different than micro and macro in competitive RTS.

Ultimately I think that there is a reason they keep supporting Wc3. They are seeing if there is a desire for such a game. I think SC2 wasn't what they hoped; they made money but it didn't really establish itself as the new titan RTS. It faded. I think they need time to let everyone reset from SC2, continue to milk WoW for what it's worth, and then come out with some very fresh ideas for a new Warcraft RTS game. We are likely to see Diablo 4 and some other AAA game before then, but I think theres too much money and possibility there for Blizzard never to open that door.
 
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Yes, WoW has taken the storyline and fucked it 16 ways to Sunday, but they've already introduced alternate universes, time travel and all that jazz so that they could recycle and rehash the lore from Wc1-3 and let the WoW players experience it. Lore is literally the last issue that will prevent WC4. Blizzard is a great developer but they are about money.

When Blizzard will mess up with the current WOW, they will make Warcraft 4 with an alternate timeline where:
Malfurion as the Betrayer
Shan'do Illidan
Maiev Shadowsong Priestess of the Moon
Tyrande the Warden
Jaina the Lich Queen
and introduce World of Warcraft 2.0.
 
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@OP

Story wise WC4 would be more viable if wow didn't have 16 expansions (sry i think i lost count), the classic wow doesn't screw up too much story.

That being said, looking at what blizzard has become... Do you WANT then to make wc4? Personally I'd rather not.
 
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Somebody was able to rewrite the WC3 code into Java...... somebody make an open source project already. call it "The Art of War" and be done with hoping for greedy scumbags to suddenly stop being greedy scumbags.
 
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If you're looking for a new Blizzard RTS, I think that Starcraft 3 is a billion times more likely than Warcraft 4, but even so it's let's say.....hundreds of light years away.

Even if it does come out don't expect it to be any "good". I mean don't expect it to be a masterpiece AAA game, expect it to be an average game with a limited budget. It would probably be reuseing Starcraft 2's engine and graphics, and a lot of assets, with added new content, some new mechanic (like e.g. a third resource) and maybe a new race (e.g void beings? hybrids? or something simmilar). They can easily come up with a story for it, cause Starcraft's lore was never really even closely as deep as Warcraft's.

As for Warcraft 4, you can just as well cross it off the list as impossible. If anything, Reforged has shown us just how much money, stuff, other resources and care Blizzard is willing to invest in an RTS. And thus, to an extent how much potential it has according to them. So in the end it might even be better that we won't be seeing Warcraft 4.

RTS genre is simply not that popular anymore, it's not the "thing" anymore, however sad I may be for that fact. So don't expect Blizzard to invest money in making a completely new RTS in a forceeable and even unforseeable future.
 
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deepstrasz

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cause Starcraft's lore was never really even closely as deep as Warcraft's.
If you're referring to StarCraft II, yeah, otherwise you're misinforming people. The fact that there's no World of StarCraft game doesn't mean StarCraft's story isn't deep.
RTS genre is simply not that popular anymore, it's not the "thing" anymore, however sad I may be for that fact.
Popularity has little to do with it. People nowadays tend to think less. This is also a maintaining factor for trends.
 
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I remember back 15-20 years ago people used to play fewer games. Games might have been cheaper on release but the price would not drop as quickly as nowadays. No steam sales etc. We would buy 3-4 games a year max and focus on those. I remember even with a short linear game like Max Payne, i finished it over a dozen times and played various mods.

Now that prices have dropped people play more games with little time for each game. People habe developed the "backlog" mentality, having bought dozens of unplayed games. Sometimes I play games not out of enjoyment but to tick it off my list.

This habit has influenced the types of games I buy. I rarely get a game with unknown mechanics, focusing more on linear shooters. No time to get into base building mechanics with their untransparent economy and tech-trees.

If RTS want to become popular again then their approachability needs to change. Streamline techtrees and controls, automate more (what if every skill was autocast?). But Make it so individual micro always triumphs over automation.

===
In my opinion a WC4 should be even more hero focused. Maybe the hero is the one building stuff; forget peons etc.
 

deepstrasz

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If RTS want to become great again then their approachability needs to change. Streamline techtrees and controls, automate more (what if every skill was autocast)? But Make it so individual micro always triumphs over automation.
Good that people can spend hours daily with lame repetitive series but when it comes to some thinking in video games, they rather play AoS/MOBAs, ARPGs and shooters...
I don't think it's about time but rather the laziness of the century which leads to unthoughtfulness.
 
I remember back 15-20 years ago people used to play fewer games. Games might have been cheaper on release but the price would not drop as quickly as nowadays. No steam sales etc. We would buy 3-4 games a year max and focus on those. I remember even with a short linear game like Max Payne, i finished it over a dozen times and played various mods.

Now that prices have dropped people play more games with little time for each game. People habe developed the "backlog" mentality, having bought dozens of unplayed games. Sometimes I play games not out of enjoyment but to tick it off my list.

This habit has influenced the types of games I buy. I rarely get a game with unknown mechanics, focusing more on linear shooters. No time to get into base building mechanics with their untransparent economy and tech-trees.

If RTS want to become popular again then their approachability needs to change. Streamline techtrees and controls, automate more (what if every skill was autocast?). But Make it so individual micro always triumphs over automation.

===
In my opinion a WC4 should be even more hero focused. Maybe the hero is the one building stuff; forget peons etc.
This feels spot on for me. I feel like the sheer quantity of options and the endless march of better graphics and more expensive hardware has pretty much killed my enjoyment of gaming.
I played C&C Generals, WC3, CoD1/2/4 for years on end in multiplayer, but that's not really possible anymore because the landscape changes so quickly. There's not much of a point to forming clans and playing semi-competitively anymore. The incentive to really invest into a game, let alone the hardware to run it, is gone for me.
The same goes for single player games. Everything I've played over the years just seems like a rehash of the same old stuff, with some new gimmicks here and there and shinier visuals. The new gimmicks and mechanics aren't worth learning if the experience overall is pretty dull and the excitement fades quickly.

Good that people can spend hours daily with lame repetitive series but when it comes to some thinking in video games, they rather play AoS/MOBAs, ARPGs and shooters...
I don't think it's about time but rather the laziness of the century which leads to unthoughtfulness.
I dunno, I feel like "these days" explanation is always a bit short sighted. It doesn't actually explain much and doesn't offer any insights or a way forward. And anyway, people have been saying similar things for thousands of years.
 

deepstrasz

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I dunno, I feel like "these days" explanation is always a bit short sighted. It doesn't actually explain much and doesn't offer any insights or a way forward. And anyway, people have been saying similar things for thousands of years.
Ah, excuse me. Must be the evolution I cannot understand. That is why RTS has fallen out of favour because it is primitive.
This feels spot on for me. I feel like the sheer quantity of options and the endless march of better graphics and more expensive hardware has pretty much killed my enjoyment of gaming.
I played C&C Generals, WC3, CoD1/2/4 for years on end in multiplayer, but that's not really possible anymore because the landscape changes so quickly. There's not much of a point to forming clans and playing semi-competitively anymore. The incentive to really invest into a game, let alone the hardware to run it, is gone for me.
The same goes for single player games. Everything I've played over the years just seems like a rehash of the same old stuff, with some new gimmicks here and there and shinier visuals. The new gimmicks and mechanics aren't worth learning if the experience overall is pretty dull and the excitement fades quickly.
Indeed, games become more like movies and like with movies nowadays (your favourite word), games too get rebooted in one form or another.
 
Ah, excuse me. Must be the evolution I cannot understand. That is why RTS has fallen out of favour because it is primitive.
That's not really what I meant. I just don't think there's anything new happening. I don't think it's a matter of people's mentality changing in a significant way (in this context), but rather that capitalism is doing what it has always done. The gaming industry has become extremely profitable, so companies produce as many games as possible, and make them as accessible as possible. If they find a formula that works, they stick to it. Every now and then they try to stand out by throwing out something 'different' and 'exciting'. And most people pick the low hanging fruit and then move on to the next one.
None of that is anything new, it's just that games haven't been that profitable for very long compared to movies or music, for example. And yeah, it definitely stifles innovation and encourages superficial products.
 

deepstrasz

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but rather that capitalism is doing what it has always done
Oops.
duff-beer-commie-picture.png

The gaming industry has become extremely profitable, so company's produce as many games as possible, and make them as accessible as possible. If they find a formula that works, they stick to it
It's not capitalism's fault. It's people's fault buying the garbage. Sure, computers were not that accessible back then but still in the US, Japan and most of Europe they were and still there was little to no such agenda being pushed down kids' throats because they're the first line in this affair.
I'm very confident that if Blizzard would make great games as before they'd still be on top but they opted not to and went along with the other miserable corporation movements. RTS doesn't work anymore because game companies have shifted their attention to mass production and what they thought would be more profitable games as seen on other companies' success. And so, people have also been improperly educated to buy into this trash bin trend instead of daring for the good stuff.
While capitalism might be the basis on which this happens, fact is that what's actually going on is induced greed. If everyone played the marketing game fairly, this thing would not have escalated the way it did since recent years.

Supporting indies isn't viable because too few people do it. Instead they eagerly wait for the big Cs to release the next installment and would happily throw their money away on microtransactions while the indie developers die out.
 
It's not capitalism's fault.
No, but capitalism is the system we have, and this kind of market evolution is the logical result of that system, because the only immutable motive for a corporation is a profit motive, as you point out yourself:
game companies have shifted their attention to mass production and what they thought would be more profitable


people have also been improperly educated
Yes, because people are informed on entertainment products almost entirely by marketing. The biggest companies have the biggest budget for marketing, so their products will be the most visible.

induced greed. If everyone played the marketing game fairly, this thing would not have escalated the way it did since recent years.
Greed is just another way of saying maximizing profit, i.e. capitalism. "Fair" marketing is simply not the optimal strategy for maximizing profit.

To be clear, I'm not expressing any judgement about capitalism here. It's just a general trend that lucrative markets tend to consolidate and centralize, maximizing efficient production and general marketability.
 
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Honestly, I don't want any new games from Blizzard until they drop their online DRM scheme and start producing *good* games again. Dropping the ball on Warcraft 3 Reforged like they did is just... ugh.
 
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I remember back 15-20 years ago people used to play fewer games. Games might have been cheaper on release but the price would not drop as quickly as nowadays. No steam sales etc. We would buy 3-4 games a year max and focus on those. I remember even with a short linear game like Max Payne, i finished it over a dozen times and played various mods.

Now that prices have dropped people play more games with little time for each game. People habe developed the "backlog" mentality, having bought dozens of unplayed games. Sometimes I play games not out of enjoyment but to tick it off my list.

This habit has influenced the types of games I buy. I rarely get a game with unknown mechanics, focusing more on linear shooters. No time to get into base building mechanics with their untransparent economy and tech-trees.

If RTS want to become popular again then their approachability needs to change. Streamline techtrees and controls, automate more (what if every skill was autocast?). But Make it so individual micro always triumphs over automation.

===
In my opinion a WC4 should be even more hero focused. Maybe the hero is the one building stuff; forget peons etc.

I don't think that's entirely true. Nowadays gaming isn't what it used to be, due to it going mainstream. If you look at it from a percentage perspective, yeah, lot of classic genres are economically unviable, or outright dead.

However, if you discard the percentages and go back to the raw numbers, the interest is still there. The original communities are still around, dormant, just waiting for a reason to come back. Some of the really successful remasters/remakes from these last years prove it to be true.

Gaming has been a shitshow since a few years ago, and most of the original videogame audience has moved away, sticking to old games, moving to indies, or getting new hobbies altogether. These disenfranchised players crave for the good old days, and they will rush back the moment someone takes the first step.

You can't revive the RTS genre by going mainstream. You have to stay loyal to the core values of the genre, and then build up from there. If you try to please both audiences at once, you will fail spectacularly. The key is to keep the classic formula, with some quality of life features here and there, and the game will grow up from there. Just like videogames used to work in the past.

Warcraft 4 won't happen in many years, and when it does, it won't look like an RTS, or it will be a bad copy of its spiritual successor, which is bound to be released some day.

I wouldn't mind talking RTS game design though, but maybe we should open another thread.
 
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The one "big" idea I have for WC4 is, instead of following multiple heroes across multiple campaigns, you have one big campaign with your own custom hero. Not like SC2, but like SpellForce 3 (or Mass Effect). You have some long-term customization for your hero and play with the races you ally with.

Secondly, yes, I would actually continue with the WoW canon, to keep it all in line. E.g. WC4 plays after Shadowlands. If another WoW addon is released it will play after WC4 or its addon(s), depending on when they are released. Maybe including some overlapping. Think of it like the Marvel movies. They mix a lot, but it mostly depends on which heroes' perspective you follow. You don't necessarily need to watch all of the movies to know what's going on.
(I don't really like time-travel when it used to reset stuff - only when it's its own contained plot-device, like Terminator or Back to the Future).
 
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To everyone hoping for Warcraft IV, I wouldn't get my hopes up.

After Reforged fiasco and BfA failure, the best thing we can hope for is Warcraft Immortal.

Don't you guys have phones?
 
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The last good game I knew was Warcraft III and I think that is the last game of good old Blizzard.

Reforged, seems to be unexistent and its a dish served cold to the fans.

Warcraft IV is as far as Half Life 3 from ever happening.
 
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The one "big" idea I have for WC4 is, instead of following multiple heroes across multiple campaigns, you have one big campaign with your own custom hero. Not like SC2, but like SpellForce 3 (or Mass Effect). You have some long-term customization for your hero and play with the races you ally with.

Secondly, yes, I would actually continue with the WoW canon, to keep it all in line. E.g. WC4 plays after Shadowlands. If another WoW addon is released it will play after WC4 or its addon(s), depending on when they are released. Maybe including some overlapping. Think of it like the Marvel movies. They mix a lot, but it mostly depends on which heroes' perspective you follow. You don't necessarily need to watch all of the movies to know what's going on.
(I don't really like time-travel when it used to reset stuff - only when it's its own contained plot-device, like Terminator or Back to the Future).

The problem with that idea is that you would only be able to cover one race/faction at once, which sucks for both player and product reasons. If you push forward anyway and try to cover all of them at once, the campaigns will be far too short for your character progression to matter; and if you still manage to make said progression matter, your players won't be happy when they lose it.

Also, you seem to imply you want more RP choices, like being able to choose who to ally with. That would be terrible for storytelling, since a scripted campaign will always give better results than a sandbox approach, specially in single player.

Finally, you would be throwing away the modular mission model we have now, which works really well for RTS games, since each mission can be themed around different story and gameplay elements. Modular missions allow difficulty and cooperative modes too.

Personal opinion: Too much freedom is a bad idea, and things get to shine when given proper limits.

Bump. Since Battle for Azeroth has been confirmed to be the canon Fourth War, I think Warcraft IV would take place in BFA timeline

But yeah I ain't getting any hope for it

WoW story is a huge mess, I don't think they can salvage anything for either a potential W4 or WoW2. A soft reset using a parallel universe approach is the best option, you get to keep the iconic locations and characters, but the story is different. What if scenarios are really popular if done right; for example, what if Arthas hadn't gone evil and got to be king, with Jaina as the queen. Same characters everyone knows and loves, with new scenarios to play.

An alternative is to destroy Azeroth and move everyone into new worlds/realms/planes, including shattered fragments of the old world among the new stuff, or just set everything into the distant future, turning the current locations into ancient ruins, which we can explore to understand what happened in the decades/centuries between each title.
 
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The best thing they could do for Warcraft IV is create a new world and new races. The plot would be that Azeroth fell as Draenor did against but this time is not against the fell but the scourge and survivors from Azeroth arrived throught the Exodar last forces of the Naaru.

Old Alduin is their formal leader and died on the land site. They said that the Scourge are looking to destroy the light of the World Soul in order to open portals to the Void Walkers can come and feed from our plane.

Sylvanas has become their avatar and armies commander. She does it in order to save her soul of the eternal darkness. In order to close the portals of the Void Walkers, The Alliance of the Light must look for the lost Artefacts of several characters of Azeroth like Medivh's summoning book, The Soul Eater (jewel in the helm of domination)... Featuring races:

- Dark Elves: Elves turned like vampires that takes damage over the sunlight due their connections to the void but have strong power dealing against their magic. Leadered by Alleria Windrunner.

- Azeroth Alliance: Ruled by the Council of Azeroth, a regent of each survivor race of Azeroth. Commanded by Alleria's son (Arathor), Moira, Thrall's elder son.

Extinted races are gnome, troll, orcs, tauren, draenei... in Azeroth remain a few specemines that hate the Azeroth Alliance and others who keep fighting (something like Outland).

The horde stay in Azeroth sacrificing themselves together with the night elves in order to stop the Void Walkers to leave Azeroth and to prevent the corruption expand over other worlds. Anduin and the Exodar arrived to this new world because the void opened a portal.

Bad guys races staring by:

- Ether: a force army of the void sent throught the portals from azeroth in northrend. Is a mix of the Undead cultists and void walkers with swarm brain (something like the zerg). The brain are of course the Old Gods.

- The Iron Horde: the horde from Outland and Alternated Draenor joint forces to destroy Azeroth portals and to conquer new worlds using the ideals of Ner'zul.

The ultimate goal of the Void Walkers is to consume the Pantheon to destroy our reality. They just need energy of the living things of our plane to materialize here and their use the undead bodies and the voidwalkers as their enbodyment.

The fell army of the Legion (commanded by Sargeras) was a way to stop them.
Also the scourge and undead armies... but they faild.

The dragons are gone. The old gods destroyed them all or corrupted them turning them into Neather Drakes. The alliance will need the dragon soul from Azeroth to stop them all or their will destroy the new world (other item from Azeroth that is bond to the soul of each dragon flight). Only Kalec survived to the corruption 'cause he was with Jaina in the Exodar when the dragons in northrend felt. Their were looking a way to stop the expansion of the neather portal in ICC where the helm of domination was broken and he is the mage with most magical knoweldge alived.

He is corrupted and betray the alliance of Azeroth at some point of the expedition of the new world when the new old god starts whispering to him. Instead of close the void portal he uses the book of medivh to open several more over the new world. You defeat him but the new portals are opened. That's the end of the Alliance of Azeroth Campaign.

The Void Campaign begins then with their will to conquer the new world and enslave them all corrupting them with the new old gods of this world.

The dark elves prevent the corruption using the energy of the portal to create a magical barrier over the world defeating the newborn old god before he becomes full awaken (something like the final mission of the protoss of Starcraft original).

The Iron horde expasion would be exploration of outland and Azeroth to keep control of the resources to build their new portals and armies.
 
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deepstrasz

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The best thing they could do for Warcraft IV is create a new world and new races. The plot would be that Azeroth fell as Draenor did against but this time is not against the fell but the scourge and survivors from Azeroth arrived throught the Exodar last forces of the Naaru.
Nah, that's what Heroes of Might & Magic series did and it obviously ended up being a reboot every time.
 

Dr Super Good

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The dragons are gone. The old gods destroyed them all or corrupted them turning them into Neather Drakes. The alliance will need the dragon soul from Azeroth to stop them all or their will destroy the new world (other item from Azeroth that is bond to the soul of each dragon flight).
Azeroth is a god not a dragon as far as I am aware. The Dragons were just a blessed race of monsters gifted power by other gods (not Azeroth) to help protect Azeroth during development. Azeroth is meant to be in an immature state and so incapable of direct intervention, which is why it is up to the heroes of WoW to fight instead against the many threats. Any Void Lord touched being would be capable of permanently corrupting Azeroth upon contact with her core, which is why the Old Gods posed such a threat despite being weak compared to their creators.

Due to the corruption of Death Wing and the resulting events the dragon flight was forced to give away most of their gifted divine power. This has left them in a state of limbo where lore wise there is no detail as to what they are mostly doing and what is happening to them. This was likely done for gameplay reasons to prevent players becoming to attached to them and starting to think about every Dragon they killed in WoW being a sentient being with little to no malice which would make the "heroes" the evil. Honestly they really should have been turned into a playable race in WoW, after all one can play as anthromorphic Pandas and Dogs so why not Dragons?
 
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Azeroth is a god not a dragon as far as I am aware. The Dragons were just a blessed race of monsters gifted power by other gods (not Azeroth) to help protect Azeroth during development. Azeroth is meant to be in an immature state and so incapable of direct intervention, which is why it is up to the heroes of WoW to fight instead against the many threats. Any Void Lord touched being would be capable of permanently corrupting Azeroth upon contact with her core, which is why the Old Gods posed such a threat despite being weak compared to their creators.

Due to the corruption of Death Wing and the resulting events the dragon flight was forced to give away most of their gifted divine power. This has left them in a state of limbo where lore wise there is no detail as to what they are mostly doing and what is happening to them. This was likely done for gameplay reasons to prevent players becoming to attached to them and starting to think about every Dragon they killed in WoW being a sentient being with little to no malice which would make the "heroes" the evil. Honestly they really should have been turned into a playable race in WoW, after all one can play as anthromorphic Pandas and Dogs so why not Dragons?

just shorten this into: "I play retail wow and preach garbage lore"
 
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Tbh, this whole thread is kinda sad in one way or another. Seeing how people still want the game that, we can now safely say, we know isn't gonna happen, ever.

And after the whole Refunded fiasco, we can basically confirm our suspicion that it's never gonna happen, not that any of us were thinking it was likely to happen even before Refunded. And WoW BfA being a failure certainly isn't gonna help either.

To top it all off, RTS is (sadly :() pretty much a dead genre, so if Blizzard ever decides to do another RTS, which seems really unlikely in a long long time, chances that it's gonna be Starcraft 3: Warcraft 4 are something like 10:1.
 
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