Warcraft 3 Reforged Blizzcon Recap

[Archian]

So, BlizzCon 2019 is over and we've gotten new information about Warcraft 3 Reforged. If you havn't seen the BlizzCon 2019 opening ceremony then be sure to check it out here.

I've tried putting together some of the news and updates regarding Warcraft 3: Reforged.
New information will be added to the list as they become available, so check back later for more updates. Feel free to comment below if you have addtional information.

[Updated 04-11-2019]

Thanks @MasterBlaster

1. General:

• Warcraft 3 Reforged is still set to come out in 2019*, the release date announcement will come soon.
• The game will receive additional content after launch, but "not necessarily campaigns".
• They're currently in a "polishing" stage.
• Performance improvements will come closer to release.

2. Beta:

• All people who pre-purchased Reforged will get access into the beta. They are still rolling out BETA waves.
• First in line are people who bought the Spoils of War edition, then normal edition, then Virtual Ticket.
• Undead race will become available in the live BETA on Tuesday 5th Nov.
• Night Elves will be ready for testing in 2 weeks.
• The World Editor and Custom Games are coming to the live BETA on Tuesday 5th Nov. UPDATED
• 3v3, 4v4 and FFA are also coming next week.
• The BETA will also include an old graphics option.

3. Multiplayer & Balance:

• Ladder WILL be available on release. UPDATED
• Reforged will feature a global matchmaking system just like Starcraft Remastered.
• The team is very interested in community feedback on matchmaking.
• The game will feature both race and game mode specific MMR.
• Arranged teams are coming back.
• They're considering community made maps for multiplayer.
• There are no plans to add a 5th playable race to multiplayer.
• The 12 unit selection limit will not be increased in multiplayer.
• An Observer Mode with a zoom-out feature is coming.
• Balancing is hard - they admit they've made some mistakes in 2018, when balancing they're looking at how the game feels and make changes on a case-by-case basis, trying to preserve race uniqueness and ensure that both pro-players and casuals have an enjoyable experience.
• Overall they feel like the balance is in a pretty good place, but some issues still need to be adressed (like Turtle Rock close spawns).

4. Readability, art & sound:

• The team has heard the feedback about readability issues.
• They're working on improving silhouettes and team colors.
• They're adding team-colored health bars to improve visibility.
• Heroes will have a special health bar to make them stand out a bit more.
• Mountain King will be made bigger.
• Blademaster's running animation will be changed to look more like in the original.
• Animations are a bit limited, because they had to match classic timings.
• All named heroes (from the campaigns) will have their own models.
• All unit models will be unique.
• In total there are over 2200 new models.
• UI and menus aren't final.
• Classic chain sounds and UI elements remain in the client.
• They're keeping the original unit voice overs.
• There's some new music being added to Reforged.

5. Campaign and story:

• Cutscenes from the Blizzcon 2018 demo (The Culling of Stratholme) were scrapped. However more than 8 campaign maps have been significantly redesigned. UPDATED
• They are returning to old-style cinematic mode cutscenes, some with new camera angles, lightning and terrain.
• Cinematics will get a remaster with higher resolution and better quality.
• In contrast to the Polygon article, they've hinted at some changes to the campaigns.
• They want the campaign to "bridge" into WoW.
• Reign of Chaos, Frozen Throne & Rexxar campaign will be available at release.
• There's a special "story mode" difficulty in the campaign for WoW players (players not famillar with RTS)
• The Arthas vs. Illidan cinematic has been reforged. Preview:

6. Mapmaking:

• They're excited to see what the community does with the improved editor features.
• Some features they've mentioned is changing a unit's health and new camera tools.
• We will get an option to change the 12-unit selection limit in custom games.
• No plans to allow mapmakers to monetize their maps.

Artwork and Night Elf previews

 

[Embu]

- There's some new music coming to Reforged.

Interesting, but what kind of music exactly and for which part of the campaign - if that's the case. Or maybe it is for the multiplayer mode.

 

[MasterBlaster]

Yay, I'm featured in a Hive news post My life is now complete

---

By the way, the second part (Deep Dive panel recap) is already included in the first one (points 1-6)

The Arthas vs Illidan teaser + some Night Elf in-game footage are available online, I've had a nice link to a video that shows both

There were some new screenshots, also had links in my original post. They're also on Wowhead and MMOChampion.

Another thing, you've found that patches are going to come every 3 months - personally I haven't seen that anywhere and thus it's not on the list above, but if you've seen it, I think it'd be good to add it

 

[FeelsGoodMan]

6. Mapmaking:
- They're excited to see what the community does with the improved editor features.
- Some features they've mentioned is changing a unit's health and new camera tools.
- We will be able to control where our opponents spawn.
- We may get an option to change the 12-unit selection limit in custom games.
- No plans to allow mapmakers to monetize their maps.

What.about.the.damn.doodad.limit?! I will rejoice the day they remove stupid limitations.

 

[MapVision]

Wait the map editor is coming 05.11.2019 or 12.11.2019? Anyone?

 

[Tauer]

- Cutscenes from the Blizzcon 2018 demo were scrapped.
- They are returning to old-style cinematic mode cutscenes, some with new camera angles, lightning and terrain.

Um, isn't that false advertisement? One of the reasons I bought this was because I wanted to see the "4+ hours of reforged in-game cutscenes":

Hidden

I've been pretty quiet and cool about Blizzard's lack of communication regarding this game because I figured they were just busy creating an awesome remaster for us. But this... this is not alright. You can't just scrap one of the major selling points for the game just because you can't make the deadline you set for yourself.

Honestly considering canceling my preorder because of this. Not cool, Blizzard.

 

[MasterBlaster]

Wait the map editor is coming 05.11.2019 or 12.11.2019? Anyone?

There wasn't a specific date given as far as I know, definetely not this week.

What.about.the.damn.doodad.limit?! I will rejoice the day they remove stupid limitations.

I don't think this issue has been brought up anywhere.

 

[wc3neverdies]

Um, isn't that false advertisement? One of the reasons I bought this was because I wanted to see the "4+ hours of reforged in-game cutscenes":

Hidden

View attachment 336577

I've been pretty quiet and cool about Blizzard's lack of communication regarding this game because I figured they were just busy creating an awesome remaster for us. But this... this is not alright. You can't just scrap one of the major selling points for the game just because you can't make the deadline you set for yourself.

Honestly considering canceling my preorder because of this. Not cool, Blizzard.

Reforged cinematics : New camera angles, new models and animations

 

[deepstrasz]

What.about.the.damn.doodad.limit?! I will rejoice the day they remove stupid limitations.

Another thing, you've found that patches are going to come every 3 months - personally I haven't seen that anywhere and thus it's not on the list above, but if you've seen it, I think it'd be good to add it

[Feedback] Request Features for JASS and the World Editor

Also
Warcraft III Reforged Cinematics and Screencaps

 

[Archian]

Yay, I'm featured in a Hive news post My life is now complete

---

By the way, the second part (Deep Dive panel recap) is already included in the first one (points 1-6)

The Arthas vs Illidan teaser + some Night Elf in-game footage are available online, I've had a nice link to a video that shows both

There were some new screenshots, also had links in my original post. They're also on Wowhead and MMOChampion.

Another thing, you've found that patches are going to come every 3 months - personally I haven't seen that anywhere and thus it's not on the list above, but if you've seen it, I think it'd be good to add it

Thank you. I'm still updating the thread, making some adjustments and adding more information.

What.about.the.damn.doodad.limit?! I will rejoice the day they remove stupid limitations.

I believe they already have stated that the limit has been removed

 

[Tauer]

Reforged cinematics : New camera angles, new models and animations

Yeah, that's bull. The "reforged cutscenes" we were promised were definitely referring to the Culling of Stratholme ones they showed us last year. They are clearly backtracking because they don't have time to finish them all before New Year.

 

[MrRious]

- They want the campaign to be less generic and more like WoW.

The FUCK do you mean by that? That this "RTS" game will no longer fit that genre? Maybe it should become a text-based adventure instead?

Please, stop pleasing WoW fans by destroying the original game.

WC3 =\= WoW (and it never will)

 

[FeelsGoodMan]

I believe they already have stated that the limit has been removed

Really? If so then that's awesome. Do you have a link or similar to the statement?

 

[Archian]

The FUCK do you mean by that? That this "RTS" game will no longer fit that genre? Maybe it should become a text-based adventure instead?

I changed that. They really said they wanted the campaign to "brigde" into WoW.

Yeah, that's bull. The "reforged cutscenes" we were promised were definitely referring to the Culling of Stratholme ones they showed us last year. They are clearly backtracking because they don't have time to finish them all before New Year.

Yeah, thats true. I wonder how they are going to deal with that. I mean, they probably should update their website following these news.

 

[FeelsGoodMan]

Please, stop pleasing WoW fans by destroying the original game.

 

[MrRious]

Yeah, that's bull. The "reforged cutscenes" we were promised were definitely referring to the Culling of Stratholme ones they showed us last year. They are clearly backtracking because they don't have time to finish them all before New Year.

Although I do like the idea of having SC2-like cutscenes, I don't think the one we saw was executed too well.

Arthas standing on a hill and telling Uther they're traitors in front of his people was much more impactful than him saying that to his face.

 

[micca]

being able to change unit's health, controlling where the opponents spawn

Can someone explain this to me in a little more detail?

 

[Tauer]

Although I do like the idea of having SC2-like cutscenes, I don't think the one we saw was executed too well.

Arthas standing on a hill and telling Uther they're traitors in front of his people was much more impactful than him saying that to his face.

I completely agree. There were other factors that made the original better as well, such as the fact that it was raining as well as night time. But my issue is not so much with that particular cutscene being scrapped, but rather with all of them apparently being scrapped. It's so blatantly false advertisement and honestly pretty insulting.

 

[MrRious]

Can someone explain this to me in a little more detail?

The health part is probably just more advanced handicap system.

Place where opponent spawns = Starting location (OH YEAH, FINALLY)

 

[deepstrasz]

Although I do like the idea of having SC2-like cutscenes, I don't think the one we saw was executed too well.

It was work in progress.

Arthas standing on a hill and telling Uther they're traitors in front of his people was much more impactful than him saying that to his face.

That's true.

Place where opponent spawns = Starting location (OH YEAH, FINALLY)

You mean like in StarCraft II where you can set it so that enemies don't spawn at the starting location near yours? That'd be swell as people were relying on triggers to do it and made melee maps non-melee.

 

[Morrowind135]

Im sure most of us are very eager to test the World Editor Beta! Looking forward to upgrading some of my maps

 

[Archian]

I've updated the first post.

Im sure most of us are very eager to test the World Editor Beta!

Hell... yeah!

 

[MasterBlaster]

Looking forward to upgrading some of my maps

Well, I'd advise making a back-up before you open any of your maps in the Reforged editor and waiting with upgrading them until the game is out, because going by their patch history, there's a very strong chance that some things will be broken, at least initially.

 

[Razorclaw_X]

I completely agree. There were other factors that made the original better as well, such as the fact that it was raining as well as night time. But my issue is not so much with that particular cutscene being scrapped, but rather with all of them apparently being scrapped. It's so blatantly false advertisement and honestly pretty insulting.

Then go order your refund if you feel so strongly about it.

 

[Archian]

Honestly considering canceling my preorder because of this. Not cool, Blizzard.

I understand your frustration. I was looking forward to seeing all those new cutscenes too. But I don't think you should cancel just yet There is still SO MUCH content coming our way. And I'm sure the cutscenes will still be amazing with all the new models, terrain etc.

I know for a fact that some cutscenes will be absolutely magnificent and unique!

 

[_Guhun_]

Yeah, that's bull. The "reforged cutscenes" we were promised were definitely referring to the Culling of Stratholme ones they showed us last year. They are clearly backtracking because they don't have time to finish them all before New Year.

Actually, they stated in a panel that they were toning down the changes they were making due to player feedback, since many people weren't into them changing the campaign so much, and many were afraid of retcons to the story.

Sure, they could be lying, but the feedback WAS there, so if you assume they're lying it's basically a catch 22. Sure, you were personally excited about the new cutscenes, but many people complained about them, too.

 

[MasterHaosis]

Hey, one question. Will be Reforged in Game Shops on CD/DVD, or just online to purchase? What did they say?

 

[Morrowind135]

Well, I'd advise making a back-up before you open any of your maps in the Reforged editor and waiting with upgrading them until the game is out, because going by their patch history, there's a very strong chance that some things will be broken, at least initially.

Oh absolutely, i would mainly be swapping out some custom models to use the new HD ones. I would be hesitant to alter triggers at this stage.

 

[A Void]

Hey, one question. Will be Reforged in Game Shops on CD/DVD, or just online to purchase? What did they say?

I would prefer a physical release, too! Any word on this?

 

[Frotty]

actual recap:
-reforged is still just a cashgrab
-blizzard is a garbage company

 

[Archian]

actual recap:
-reforged is still just a cashgrab
-blizzard is a garbage company

That is, as they say, your opinion and I disagree. That's not fair to the people working on Reforged.

We know some of the men and women working on Reforged and your statement is rather demeaning to the passion and dedication they have poured into Reforged.

 

[FlameofChange]

"- The game will receive additional content after launch, but "not necessarily campaigns"."
WHAT ? AND THE CROSSPLAY ??!

"- The 12 unit selection limit will not be increased in multiplayer."
YES ! But without the pathfinding buffer increase, it's almost useless in large scale maps.

"- Reforged will feature a global matchmaking system just like Starcraft Remastered."
WHAT ?! WE HAVE TO PAY JUST TO PLAY COMPETITIVE ?!!! What a joke !

"-There are no plans to add a 5th playable race to multiplayer."
PLEASE-DON'T-BREAK-THE-CROSSPLAY

"-The 12 unit selection limit will not be increased in multiplayer."
Fair enough.

"- There's a special "story mode" difficulty in the campaign for WoW players (players not famillar with RTS) "
"- They want the campaign to "bridge" into WoW."
Those damn WoW Fanboys !

"We will get an option to change the 12-unit selection limit in custom games."
YES AT LEAST but again without the buffer increase it's useless

"No plans to allow mapmakers to monetize their maps.
Monetize is useless, because some makes money from stolen maps, also everything is free right now.

 

[Walichrage]

"There's a special "story mode" difficulty in the campaign for WoW players (players not famillar with RTS)"

Funny that this special mode is actually in game right now, we can't use it from campaign menu because there are only hard and normal difficulty option. However once you extract campaing and play it as custom you can choose easy and play this "new" story mode XD

 

[knight26]

As I do with all games, I will wait for a final / complete version of the game before buying it. And yeah I am that patient ^_^

A bit of a shame we won't be having new campaigns by the looks of it, I was looking forward to that. Or maybe a few chronological ones, at the very least.
Heck, a new expansion would be quite nice too. Perhaps Blizzard needs to look at some campaign makers here on THW and pay them to do the majority of the campaigns while they add voice lines and small details to it.

 

[Nightmare2077]

- They're considering community made maps for multiplayer.

Yay!! Makes me feel really happy that we pulled through that Hive Cup recently

 

[MasterBlaster]

Well, I haven't really voiced my opinion about everything, so here it goes:

- Warcraft 3 Reforged is still set to come out in 2019*, the release date announcement will come soon.

Even though it's somewhat expected due to potential legal issues they could have if they didn't meet their release deadline, it's nice to hear an update. That said, looking at how the game is shaping up, personally I wouldn't really be opposed to even a quite significant delay if it meant better quality.

- The game will receive additional content after launch, but "not necessarily campaigns".

As I've said before - if they thought about making extra campaigns, they would have said it. The reality is that looking at people's comments after Reforged was first announced, there were quite a lot of folks who expressed significant interest in more campaign content, even as a paid DLC, so hinting that it's coming would definetely be popular with people who bought the game and might also convince some who didn't to get it. The fact that Blizzard chose not to do that means that they most likely don't have any plans to make bonus campaigns and they didn't say so outright, because they didn't want to disappoint their customers.

My personal take on this is that it isn't really that surprising - campaigns are costly. You have to pay the voice actors and make new models, not just write a story and make a couple of maps. The only way that it could be feasible is if Blizzard decided to sell them for like 5$ each or whatever - personally I wouldn't mind that at all, but there's no telling how the broader community would react to such a thing. Plus there's always a question how do you handle modding - do you lock all assets behind the paywall and create parity issues or do you let people use them for free which runs the risk of someone recreating the campaign? That last part is a problem that other post launch support options like balance changes, new multiplayer maps or editor improvements don't have. So that's likely what they've meant by "additional content".

Personally - while it's a bit disappointed that we most likely won't get any more official story content with original voice acting and whatnot, I think this community is more than perfectly capable of crafting truly amazing campaigns, so we should be good on that front. What I'm really interested in - as someone who likes playing with the editor - is how much effort will they put into it. Hopefully a lot.

3. Multiplayer & Balance:
- Ladder will not be available on release, it will come in the first post-launch update.
- Reforged will feature a global matchmaking system just like Starcraft Remastered.
- The team is very interested in community feedback on matchmaking.
- The game will feature both race and game mode specific MMR.
- Arranged teams are coming back.

I'm not really interested in melee multiplayer, so it doesn't concern me all that much, but I guess no ladder on release kinda sucks and I'm curious how they will handle latency issues with global matchmaking. As for matchmaking itself, I remember their other games like HotS or Starcraft II had a lot of issues with their matchmaking systems, so hopefully the Classic Team has learned from their experience. And obviously, arranged teams and specific MMRs sound cool.

- They're considering community made maps for multiplayer.

This is really awesome - hopefully they're looking at Hive too

- There are no plans to add a 5th playable race to multiplayer.
- The 12 unit selection limit will not be increased in multiplayer.

I guess it's understandable, considering that modernizing the game would make a lot of veterans very uphappy - though personally I absolutely wouldn't mind seeing better pathing, unit selection and controls and I think many of the more casual, i.e. new and returning players, would like that too.

I think it would be awesome if we could one day get a new expansion with tavern heroes, creeps and items... and yes, also a new race and some expansion to existing ones. Plus obviously campaigns. I'd happily pay for that and I think that adding some new things to multiplayer would also help keep it more interesting for a broader audience. But it's just my little wet dream that almost certainly will never come true.

- The team has heard the feedback about readability issues.

That's very nice to hear - as it stands right now, Reforged suffers form poor readability, especially compared to the original and this needs to be adressed before the game launches.

- All named heroes (from the campaigns) will have their own models.
- All unit models will be unique.
- In total there are over 2200 new models.

That's obviously great for modders - more things to choose from. It would also be really nice if after launch Blizzard decided to add a couple of new models into the game every now and then or released some expansion with a lot of new stuff. Because you can never have too much stuff

Yes, I know it won't happen, but a man can dream

- UI and menus aren't final.

Thank god, the current ones are straight up awful. I really hope with get animated menu/campaign backgrounds back. Plus buttons that don't look like candy.

- They're keeping the original unit voice overs.

After giving it some thought - I'm actually fine with that. I was looking forward to some small story changes and new lines in the campaign, but hearing what they've done to Polish voices, I'd much rather they stayed away from the English ones, even if it means that all campaign dialogues will remain exactly as they were.

- There's some new music being added to Reforged.

Meh, I highly doubt they will be able to beat or even match the classic tracks, but whatever. I just hope they aren't porting WoW music, because as good as at least some of it is, it belongs in WoW, not W3.

- Cutscenes from the Blizzcon 2018 demo (The Culling of Stratholme) were scrapped.
- They are returning to old-style cinematic mode cutscenes, some with new camera angles, lightning and terrain.

Now, this is a massive deal-breaker for me. These new cutscenes were my #1 reason to buy Reforged and the fact they're gone is very disappointing. At first my reaction was to just not buy the game until it goes on sale, but now that I've calmed down, I'm not sure what I'll do. Luckily I still have a couple of weeks to make up my mind.

- They want the campaign to "bridge" into WoW.

I'm not sure what they mean by bridging, but... my idea of story changes was basically adding, not changing, i.e. the overall story should stay the same, but I'd welcome some extra touches here and there. For example, Kel'thuzad wasn't some no name necromancer guy - he was a former mage of the Kirin'Tor, so it would make sense for Jaina to reckognize him or at least be familiar with his name when they first meet in the campaign. This change would be fine in my book, the same as adding Anasterian Sunstrider to the undead Silvermoon mission or having a nice Saurfang cameo somewhere in the orc campaign. I'd like things like these.

- There's a special "story mode" difficulty in the campaign for WoW players (players not famillar with RTS)

I know it's a bit funny, but some people who buy Reforged probably never played an RTS or just tried SCII on casual difficulty (or whatever it was called). I don't think that the default difficulty of Warcraft 3 is too high, but if some people could use an easier one then I guess it won't hurt as long as Normal/Hard remain the same

- No plans to allow mapmakers to monetize their maps.

It's a bit disappointing, because I think some people make such high quality stuff that they deserve to get some money for it, but ultimately... allowing modders to monetize their work is a big legal pain in the butt and could potentially be abused, so I'm not surprised they don't want to do it.

 

[stan0033]

Cutscenes from the Blizzcon 2018 demo (The Culling of Stratholme) were scrapped. - They are returning to old-style cinematic mode cutscenes, some with new camera angles, lightning and terrain.

NOOOOO WHY BLIZZARD WHYYYYY?!? I WANTED IT TO BE LIKE A MOVIE, NOTTHE OLD BORING STYLE!!!

 

[Chaosy]

"- The game will receive additional content after launch, but "not necessarily campaigns"."
WHAT ? AND THE CROSSPLAY ??!

"- The 12 unit selection limit will not be increased in multiplayer."
YES ! But without the pathfinding buffer increase, it's almost useless in large scale maps.

"- Reforged will feature a global matchmaking system just like Starcraft Remastered."
WHAT ?! WE HAVE TO PAY JUST TO PLAY COMPETITIVE ?!!! What a joke !

"-There are no plans to add a 5th playable race to multiplayer."
PLEASE-DON'T-BREAK-THE-CROSSPLAY

"-The 12 unit selection limit will not be increased in multiplayer."
Fair enough.

"- There's a special "story mode" difficulty in the campaign for WoW players (players not famillar with RTS) "
"- They want the campaign to "bridge" into WoW."
Those damn WoW Fanboys !

"We will get an option to change the 12-unit selection limit in custom games."
YES AT LEAST but again without the buffer increase it's useless

"No plans to allow mapmakers to monetize their maps.
Monetize is useless, because some makes money from stolen maps, also everything is free right now.

Biggest overreaction I have seen in a while.
You are assuming things that are not even said.

"WHAT ? AND THE CROSSPLAY ??"
Adding new content does not remove crossplay.

• It does not say that this extra content is exclusive to reforged
• And even if it is, it is EXTRA content which you would not otherwise have. It does not remove cross play from the base game. It would just add content which would not be supported by crossplay.

"WHAT ?! WE HAVE TO PAY JUST TO PLAY COMPETITIVE ?!!! What a joke !"
This was not stated either. You are just assuming that the monetization would be the same as well. Because matchmaking != monetization.

 

[Trill]

Eh, still not gonna buy it, but at least some things to look forward too.
New music sounds good (music is really the one thing Blizzard has been consistently awesome at for 25-ish years now),
Talks about 5th player race makes me think they might make it an option for custom maps (which would be freaking amazing, for a variety of reasons).
I really really REALLY hope that "all weapons are attachments" and variable unit models will carry over to classic Warcraft III too keep editor consistent, which would be basically Christmas.

 

[Strydhaizer]

*buys and plays Reforged*
*switches to classic graphics*

I'm curious if they will add an option to switch to old graphics in the world editor (not in-game), just curious, even though I'm not yet interested getting the Reforged.

 

[deepstrasz]

I've updated the first post.

Spoiler/hidden tags please. Much to scroll through, especially those images.

 

[Deathscream]

5. Campaign and story:
- Cutscenes from the Blizzcon 2018 demo (The Culling of Stratholme) were scrapped.
- They are returning to old-style cinematic mode cutscenes, some with new camera angles, lightning and terrain.

that was the biggest selling point of the game... the reforged campaign...
i was hyped to get some new content for an RTS warcraft...
it's like a stab in the heart for me...

 

[YourArthas]

@Archian some clarification was made by Grubby:
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/178569180625240064/640876101924683777/unknown.png

 

[Bajer]

Is there any information when there will be a second wave to beta for those people who bought the usual preorder Wacraft 3?

 

[DimitarMace]

Will Warcraft III Reforged be playable offline without internet connection, like the old WCIII ?

 

[Venombite]

I really hate to be negative or a troll or anything like that, but sadly it has come to that.

Obviously Blizzard has tried to out do themselves this year at BlizzCon, and this year in particular. With big things like Overwatch 2, Diablo 4, a new expansion for WoW, a new expansion for Hearthstone and Warcraft 3 Reforged, all in the same year. And in my book, they have failed miserably. Overwatch 2 and Diablo 4 have obviously sucked in all the budget, which I understand, cause they are the priorities, not Warcraft. And they basically tried to pass on the other games without a budget, which is obvious(that's why Shadowlands suck).

I'm quite disappointed with Warcraft III Reforged, though I can't say I didn't "fear" of this outcome. Basically after a big promotion at BlizzCon 2018, we haven't heard a single thing about it in 11 and a half months. Only a few weeks ago, they've published stuff for dataminers, without any official statement. Only to say, at BlizzCon 2019, that they've cut 50% of the contents(at least, if not 70%). No new cut scenes, no new quests, no new voices, no new boss fights, some chapters are being redone, but only a few, not even close to every one of them, as they promised at BlizzCon 2018, no environmental upgrades as in the Demo.

But wait, they'll add new content after release, "not necessarily campaigns", which in my book means purchasable Daughter of the Sea type skins and purchasable baby lamas for charity. They are going to add super easy difficulty (really???). They are going to add new music (if so little changes, why bother with music???). And redo some chapters, with the old voice lines though. Like seriously??? Having a mute Anastarian as a creep in front of a Sunwell is the lamest thing ever. A scene that is the main plot of (dozens) of books, comics, quest lines and what nots, if it doesn't have a proper cut scene, dialogue and quest and a boss fight is a story and game play ruiner in my book.

What did we see at Blizzcon? A few screenshots, half of which have been datamined already, and when they publish stuff for dataminers, it's always planed on purpose. And a glimpse of obviously unfinished Arthas vs Illidan. Great thing!

Everyone is getting a Beta, which in my books means that they have zero professional testers, and did zero tests, before the Beta. Another great thing!

Worst of all is that it's obvious that the devs themselves have no clue about the release date, a year after it was announced. As if they have no intention to release it anytime soon. If they were delivering a game promised at Blizzcon 2018, I would be happy to wait even 5 years, but with 50% of it scrapped and still no release date, not even a mild one... Another great thing!

Honestly I see all of this as a disrespect, not to me, but to fans and public and people who will buy it in general. A drop that spilled the cup for me was, if legit the statement: "We're keepeing the old voice lines, cause of player feedback!" Seriously?!! If I pre-purchased, I would find that just insulting, but maybe it's just me, cause I personally value honesty.

If Reforged ends up being a HotS graphics pack for Warcraft 3, I'm not really sure if I care about it, even though I like 99% of the new visuals. I thought I would buy the game asap, but now I'll definitely wait for sale, and a few patches, and see how the game has turned out, and decide if I'll buy it at all.

For the first time I'm saying it out loud. I'm glad I didn't pre-purchase!!! If I did, I would honestly feel scammed and played. That's why I never pre-purchase anything. They sold you a product at the Blizzcon 2018, and you're not getting that product, you're just getting the glimpses.

Sadly, for me Blizzcon 2019 was "The Day Warcraft Died"!!!

EDIT: I copy pasted this post from another thread, with some minor changes, because it's just made for this thread, it just belongs here, and I couldn't resist.

 

[MasterBlaster]

@Archian some clarification was made by Grubby:
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/178569180625240064/640876101924683777/unknown.png

Thanks, that's some much needed clarification.

 

[Trill]

By the way, I haven't seen it neither here nor on MMO-Champ, but maybe I missed it.
Was there ANYTHING about regular Warcraft III? Will we get anything new? Unlikely, I know, but "old graphics" option implies there must at least be Warcraft III-compatible models for new stuff (e.g. Anasterian, Jaina and Thrall skins, etc).
Any info on that?

 

[Archian]

First post updated.

 

[stan0033]

*buys and plays Reforged*
*switches to classic graphics*

I'm curious if they will add an option to switch to old graphics in the world editor (not in-game), just curious, even though I'm not yet interested getting the Reforged.

Why would you want old graphics in the editor?