Hi, I'm an RTS veteran and as a fan of WC3 and WarCraft in general, I'm excited about this game.
I have a few suggestions and some feedback for Reforged. Here goes.
- Re-do all the original cinematics. The original ROC cinematics show their age badly (TFT's are acceptable). I would even make the final Arthas vs Illidan cutscene into an actual cinematic, as was originally intended with TFT.
- You can remaster the soundtrack with more a modern WoWish sound, as long as the original tracks stay faithful and very similar to the original ones, and as long as you also give us the option to choose between the original or reforged soundtrack.
- Not to rain on anyone's parade, but I love the new art style, it looks amazing! My only real icks on this side are, maybe the Ghoul (hard to recognize as a Ghoul...Perhaps give us one that looks more like the original, with the current one being an alternate, sort of like the Dark Templar has 2 variants in SC2?), the Footman's shield (rest of the Footman looks great, though) and the Scout Tower (It's too small). Maybe the walls on the Human Town Hall could also be straight and angled, instead of round. But that's really a minor thing that I don't mind going either way.
- The new UI is interesting, but please also let us use the original one as an option/alternative, or at least a SC2-like variant of the original.
- The 16-unit selection limit should either be done away with, or at least we should have the option to remove it in custom maps and mods, as well as disable in custom games (there's enough place on the side bar that allows us to disable the fog of war, etc.). Maybe leave it in for ladder/ranked/tournament play. Or, alternatively, make a second ladder for a more modern game mode, one that will include potential new units, new races, new game mechanics and QOL changes like unlimited selection, multiple building selection, etc.
- Please release a physical CE of the game. I will buy it faster than you can say "Physical Release". Might even buy 4 if you make one for each race.
- Naga, Blood Elves and Burning Legion should all be new races that are added after release. Naga have the best potential, as they are already partially implemented into the TFT expansion already. Burning Legion, based on WoW: Legion could make an interesting and original faction, playing similarly to the Protoss in SC2 (Warp-In, Pylons) or the Eldar in WH40K: DoW3 (teleporting structures). There are a few mods out there that do this, one even actually has a full Naga and Blood Elf race (mod is called "WarCraft III: Nirvana" and you can select the new races in the race selection menu before starting a game, and they all have custom art, custom UIs and music, as well. Links included at the end of this post.
- If you decide to add Blood Elves as well, you could also recycle their buildings and units for the High Elves. The Blood Elves would be playable in the FT expansion, while the High Elves would only be an unplayable enemy race in the campaign (notably in the Undead campaign), that's a variation of the Blood Elves.
- Integrate additional hero selection and race selection into the race selection dropdown menu when making a custom game. I talked to the UI lead for WC3 Reforged at BlizzCon and he said this should be easily possible. A mod called WarCraft III: Nirvana already does it. The Executable file for the mod reads an altered storm.dll (I think that's the dll file involved) file when it starts up. This dll file contains a list of all races in the game that can be selected and played, with the filenames of their UI, Music and Town Hall and Worker units, so that it knows what to start you with once it loads the specific race. As the file is modified to add 2 new races, it gives you the new listed races in selection screen. This could also be used to pre-select heroes on MOBA maps. For example, an altered dll file would be added into the map or mod file, and the game would read that variant upon clicking on the custom map. War3 already pre-loads certain map data when clicking on a custom map in the map selection screen, so it could easily be programmed to read the dll file inside the map file (maps are MPQ files in War3 that contain other files inside as well) and load 2 new races in the dropdown race selection bar/menu. The UI developer and I talked and he figured out how he could make it work. This way, we can have custom races - would be pretty epic, especially since War3's community has had many custom races! Only thing is most of those do not modify the executable or dll file, so they have to program a trigger at the start of the match to let you select a custom race and even then, you won't have custom UI and music for the specific race. This could change that and it's already been done with Nirvana and it's been proven to work.
Links for War3 mods and custom races:
Nirvana:
WarCraft III: Nirvana - Release 1.0 file
Naga Race in Nirvana:
https://media.moddb.com/images/mods/1/23/22711/WC3ScrnShot_043013_051326_05.jpg
Blood Elf race in Nirvana:
https://media.moddb.com/images/mods/1/23/22711/WC3ScrnShot_012014_003346_04.jpg
Beyond the Throne, Naga:
Naga Base image - Beyond the Throne mod for Warcraft III: Frozen Throne
Naga Base image - Beyond the Throne mod for Warcraft III: Frozen Throne
Beyond the Throne:
Beyond the Throne mod
WOW Armageddon mod for WC3 (Naga included):
Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne GAME MOD WOW Armagedon v.3 - download
Nirvana HD mod:
Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne GAME MOD Warcraft III Mod: Nirvana v.0.11 - download
Image 1 - Warcraft III Mod: Nirvana for Warcraft III: Frozen Throne
Warcraft III Mod: Nirvana v0.11 EN file
Curse of the Forsaken Custom Campaign and Forsaken Custom Race:
Curse of the Forsaken v3.0
Rise of the Blood Elves Custom Campaign and Blood Elf Custom Race:
Rise of the Blood Elves v3.0
The Blood Elves Return:
The Blood Elves Return v1.2 beta
Many other custom races (Obviously, under the "Resources" section of each profile):
Sunreaver
Unregret
Wa666r
Footman16
I fully recommend all of wa666r's races: Illidari, Dalaran, Nightborne, Lost Ones, Faceless Ones, High Elves, Fel Horde, Worgen, Forsaken, Felblood Elves, Exodar and Lightforged Draenei. They're all really amazingly well-done.
I have a few suggestions and some feedback for Reforged. Here goes.
- Re-do all the original cinematics. The original ROC cinematics show their age badly (TFT's are acceptable). I would even make the final Arthas vs Illidan cutscene into an actual cinematic, as was originally intended with TFT.
- You can remaster the soundtrack with more a modern WoWish sound, as long as the original tracks stay faithful and very similar to the original ones, and as long as you also give us the option to choose between the original or reforged soundtrack.
- Not to rain on anyone's parade, but I love the new art style, it looks amazing! My only real icks on this side are, maybe the Ghoul (hard to recognize as a Ghoul...Perhaps give us one that looks more like the original, with the current one being an alternate, sort of like the Dark Templar has 2 variants in SC2?), the Footman's shield (rest of the Footman looks great, though) and the Scout Tower (It's too small). Maybe the walls on the Human Town Hall could also be straight and angled, instead of round. But that's really a minor thing that I don't mind going either way.
- The new UI is interesting, but please also let us use the original one as an option/alternative, or at least a SC2-like variant of the original.
- The 16-unit selection limit should either be done away with, or at least we should have the option to remove it in custom maps and mods, as well as disable in custom games (there's enough place on the side bar that allows us to disable the fog of war, etc.). Maybe leave it in for ladder/ranked/tournament play. Or, alternatively, make a second ladder for a more modern game mode, one that will include potential new units, new races, new game mechanics and QOL changes like unlimited selection, multiple building selection, etc.
- Please release a physical CE of the game. I will buy it faster than you can say "Physical Release". Might even buy 4 if you make one for each race.
- Naga, Blood Elves and Burning Legion should all be new races that are added after release. Naga have the best potential, as they are already partially implemented into the TFT expansion already. Burning Legion, based on WoW: Legion could make an interesting and original faction, playing similarly to the Protoss in SC2 (Warp-In, Pylons) or the Eldar in WH40K: DoW3 (teleporting structures). There are a few mods out there that do this, one even actually has a full Naga and Blood Elf race (mod is called "WarCraft III: Nirvana" and you can select the new races in the race selection menu before starting a game, and they all have custom art, custom UIs and music, as well. Links included at the end of this post.
- If you decide to add Blood Elves as well, you could also recycle their buildings and units for the High Elves. The Blood Elves would be playable in the FT expansion, while the High Elves would only be an unplayable enemy race in the campaign (notably in the Undead campaign), that's a variation of the Blood Elves.
- Integrate additional hero selection and race selection into the race selection dropdown menu when making a custom game. I talked to the UI lead for WC3 Reforged at BlizzCon and he said this should be easily possible. A mod called WarCraft III: Nirvana already does it. The Executable file for the mod reads an altered storm.dll (I think that's the dll file involved) file when it starts up. This dll file contains a list of all races in the game that can be selected and played, with the filenames of their UI, Music and Town Hall and Worker units, so that it knows what to start you with once it loads the specific race. As the file is modified to add 2 new races, it gives you the new listed races in selection screen. This could also be used to pre-select heroes on MOBA maps. For example, an altered dll file would be added into the map or mod file, and the game would read that variant upon clicking on the custom map. War3 already pre-loads certain map data when clicking on a custom map in the map selection screen, so it could easily be programmed to read the dll file inside the map file (maps are MPQ files in War3 that contain other files inside as well) and load 2 new races in the dropdown race selection bar/menu. The UI developer and I talked and he figured out how he could make it work. This way, we can have custom races - would be pretty epic, especially since War3's community has had many custom races! Only thing is most of those do not modify the executable or dll file, so they have to program a trigger at the start of the match to let you select a custom race and even then, you won't have custom UI and music for the specific race. This could change that and it's already been done with Nirvana and it's been proven to work.
Links for War3 mods and custom races:
Nirvana:
WarCraft III: Nirvana - Release 1.0 file
Naga Race in Nirvana:
https://media.moddb.com/images/mods/1/23/22711/WC3ScrnShot_043013_051326_05.jpg
Blood Elf race in Nirvana:
https://media.moddb.com/images/mods/1/23/22711/WC3ScrnShot_012014_003346_04.jpg
Beyond the Throne, Naga:
Naga Base image - Beyond the Throne mod for Warcraft III: Frozen Throne
Naga Base image - Beyond the Throne mod for Warcraft III: Frozen Throne
Beyond the Throne:
Beyond the Throne mod
WOW Armageddon mod for WC3 (Naga included):
Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne GAME MOD WOW Armagedon v.3 - download
Nirvana HD mod:
Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne GAME MOD Warcraft III Mod: Nirvana v.0.11 - download
Image 1 - Warcraft III Mod: Nirvana for Warcraft III: Frozen Throne
Warcraft III Mod: Nirvana v0.11 EN file
Curse of the Forsaken Custom Campaign and Forsaken Custom Race:
Curse of the Forsaken v3.0
Rise of the Blood Elves Custom Campaign and Blood Elf Custom Race:
Rise of the Blood Elves v3.0
The Blood Elves Return:
The Blood Elves Return v1.2 beta
Many other custom races (Obviously, under the "Resources" section of each profile):
Sunreaver
Unregret
Wa666r
Footman16
I fully recommend all of wa666r's races: Illidari, Dalaran, Nightborne, Lost Ones, Faceless Ones, High Elves, Fel Horde, Worgen, Forsaken, Felblood Elves, Exodar and Lightforged Draenei. They're all really amazingly well-done.