WARCRAFT III: REFORGED PATCH NOTES

[DracoL1ch]

even fallout76 is still supported, guys

 

[Swatosj]

I could not find any information about Custom Campaigns or new Art tools for the editor in what I've read from Blizzard since Reforged.

Is there some information about what is coming and custom campaigns?

 

[MasterBlaster]

Is there some information about what is coming and custom campaigns?

Custom campaigns aren't in Reforged, art tools haven't been released. There was no word on either of them thus far, so we don't even know IF they are coming, let alone when. As for other stuff, we know that tournaments are not coming back, but they've said that things like profiles or ladders should return, albeit we have no idea when.

 

[Tamplier]

I have weird idea that developers were upset in 2018 when they read some comments like "community doesn't want reforged to include changes and retcons from wow" and decided to break the game and release shitty raw version.
But I must be wrong. They just had poor planning, poor management and cut the expenses on reforged. I can't believe they screwed up the game on purpose

 

[MasterBlaster]

I have weird idea that developers were upset in 2018 when they read some comments like "community doesn't want reforged to include changes and retcons from wow" and decided to break the game and release shitty raw version.

Sounds reasonable - I'm sure the executives were perfectly fine with the devs sabotaging the game and losing the company money just to get back at the community

 

[Tamplier]

Sounds reasonable - I'm sure the executives were perfectly fine with the devs sabotaging the game and losing the company money just to get back at the community

Maybe devs wanted to harm blizzard because it ruined the cozy and inspirational environment for them?)
Looks like crazy conspiracy shit)

 

[MasterBlaster]

Maybe devs wanted to harm blizzard because it ruined the cozy and inspirational environment for them?

Dude, just... stop Most likely scenario is that their funding run out - either their initial plans were far too ambitious and the higher ups refused to give them extra time and money to make them happen or their resources were cut due to underwhelming preorders or a change in corporate vision.

 

[MasterHaosis]

Another new post about 'us' from the Blizzard Employee, Reforged is just being criticized because of outrage culture!

Here then

Oh man. That is not good. What is his position in Blizzard?

@YourArthas if you get him fired,

Oh.... Do you think that he can be in trouble for that?
If that is public chat, he was digging his own grave. If not YourArthas, someone else would do it. I am not at Discord so I am harmless there haha.

that would be grim for the future of Warcraft III. It's already dreadful.

Unfortunately Blizzard sealed ,,future" of Wc3 by their own actions recently.
Seems that we are alone on our own here.

 

[Daffa]

I have no faith that Reforged as a whole can be restored after such collateral damage. Minimize, yes, but it's already too late.

Eh whatever, I'll stick to 1.31 and below till shits sort itself out. Still have Eurobattle, ENT, and Unforged at the very least. If they destroy those too, I'll be more than happy to leave this game.

I could not find any information about Custom Campaigns or new Art tools for the editor in what I've read from Blizzard since Reforged.

Is there some information about what is coming and custom campaigns?

Expect at least a year for the art tools, judging from SC2 Remaster reports. As for Custom Campaigns, we have no confirmation and until said otherwise, it's good to say at the moment it's gone for 1.32.

 

[deepstrasz]

Unfortunately Blizzard sealed ,,future" of Wc3 by their own actions recently.

There's always a way back.

 

[Venombite]

I might be panicking here, but I'm just gonna say it.

I think it's totally possible that 1.32.1.something was the final patch and the final version, and that Blizzard is now going to try to forget that the game ever happened.

Why am I thinking this?

It's been almost two weeks since the last patch, and there hasn't been a single word since (the shock!!!).
And it has been three weeks since this broken and unfinished game released and it should've been patched heavily at this time. By now there should've been like 6 or 7 patches, and then Blizzard gets to forget that the game exists. What I mean to say is that it's that time (3 weeks after release) when games like Reforged get abandoned by the publisher.

Also considering that Reforged is now obviously a failure in pretty much every way, and that so many people claim they have refunded, it's totally possible at this point that Reforged lost money rather than earned it, so it also makes no sense for Blizzard to support it anymore.

Hope I'm wrong here.

 

[Jouven]

I know not everyone and not every map is affected but IMO if they haven't fixed the desync problem that started in 1.29, I don't think they will ever fix it... On release they even broke and got rid of more parts of the game while not adding anything and fixing nothing (for the players that didn't get reforged), I'm not familiar about what got broken and what got fixed from 1.3x+ versions until release, maybe I'm wrong and the desync issue is the only thing left to be fixed but I doubt it
After quick search on the general, technical support and bug report forums, the desync problem is not even acknowledged (and it's been there since 1.29)

 

[Sparky123]

even fallout76 is still supported, guys

Reforged76 is still worse than fallout76, even with the power armor scandal and 10 times the detail.

Most likely scenario is that their funding run out

Doubtful. Bobby boy is loaded.. most obvious scenario is deadlines and shareholders. And the lack of interest to make a good game.

I have no faith that Reforged as a whole can be restored after such collateral damage. Minimize, yes, but it's already too late.

Eh whatever, I'll stick to 1.31 and below till shits sort itself out. Still have Eurobattle, ENT, and Unforged at the very least. If they destroy those too, I'll be more than happy to leave this game.

Damage is done.. yes they are starting to make a miserable comeback now, but by the time they are done...

Do you know the maps people play on reforged? Every TD imaginable and DOTA. DOTA IS STILL MOST PLAYED MAP ON REFORGED.
Atleast that's a huge middle finger to Blizzard. I'm sure they are collecting data about games played, and I'm sure someone
somewhere is very miserable for seeing fucking dota being played for the billionth time. That thought makes me happy-er.

Reforged is still fucked. That EULA will bury this game into more dota than they ever had on their hands.

the desync problem is not even acknowledged

The workaround is a joke. You have to delete your maps and set the fps to a very specific number...
otherwise you risk 90% desync if the RNG gods don't align the moons in your favor.

 

[Jouven]

The workaround is a joke

That's what I thought too when I saw people mentioning that workaround, "you can't get desyncs if you can't host your map because you deleted them" like that meme

 

[MasterBlaster]

Doubtful. Bobby boy is loaded..

Does Bobby Kotick have a lot of money? Yes, but he doesn't invest any of it into anything Activision-Blizzard does, because all company projects are funded through company money, not private contributions by any of its employees. Thus, "Bobby being loaded" doesn't mean anything.

Moving on, does Activision-Blizzard as a company have a lot of money? Yes. Could they have afforded hiring more devs for Reforged or allowing the team to work on it for a significantly longer time? Probably, yeah. But both of these points are utterly irrelevant, because no company is going to throw money on a project just because they can, that's not how business works. Any business will allocate a certain budget to a project, size of which depends mainly on the expected return on investment.

If that budget gets crossed then the company won't just keep increasing it indefinetely, not because they don't have enough money to do so, but because from a business standpoint it doesn't make sense as eventually they'd have to pay more for that project that what they expect to earn.

deadlines

Have you ever asked yourself why deadlines are a thing? I'll tell you - it's because of budget limitations. As meme-y as it might sound, time is money. The longer the devs work on a project, the longer you have to pay them for doing so, ergo the longer a project takes to complete, the more it costs.

 

[Venombite]

At this point, I only hope that they'll re-add Custom Campaign feature, that would work both in HD and SD, and release a few bug fixing/performance optimization patches after implementing this feature.
That's not much, I guess.

Does anyone have any thoughts how realistic my hopes are?
Realistic?
Realistic, but at this pace it'll take a few years?
Completely unrealistic?

As I said earlier, I "fear" that the patch from two weeks ago was the last patch and that they'll never mention this game again. It would kinda make sense from money making point of view.
If that's truly the case (we'll see in the coming months I guess), what's the best former version to install potentially?
1.26 for Blizzard content and old custom maps?
1.30.4 for Custom Campaigns and new custom maps?

 

[DracoL1ch]

it's too early to say the game is forgotten
for big companies it may take awhile until every manager signs that, because nobody want to take responsibility for the failure
so it will suffer for quite some time, no worries

 

[Bitterman]

The eye color that blizzard chose for nelves is utterly stupid
It should be silver, green pearl, white or ice blue

but all of them are black

 

[Sparky123]

But both of these points are utterly irrelevant, because no company is going to throw money on a project just because they can, that's not how business works. Any business will allocate a certain budget to a project, size of which depends mainly on the expected return on investment.

single-player experiences are up this alley.
Especially big titles like lets say, Lara Croft, have millions of budgets.
And they take a long time to make, and their budgets get extended.
Kickstarters are a great example of money being thrown on games just because you can.
In hopes that it makes the game even better. Sadly in most cases, this isn't the case.

Polish pays. Extreme polish pays even more.
Only when you deliver on said promises or don't over-promise.
Because that's what tends to happen when lots of money are involved.

Have you ever asked yourself why deadlines are a thing? I'll tell you - it's because of budget limitations. As meme-y as it might sound, time is money. The longer the devs work on a project, the longer you have to pay them for doing so, ergo the longer a project takes to complete, the more it costs.

Not for a game that had pre-orders, a solid fanbase, an active modding community,
and the backing of a triple AAA hybrid corporation with mostly live service games.
In addition to the mobile market blizzard cares so much about. Especially in china.

Deadlines are marketing and management problem of not being able to keep their
fucking mouth shut, over promising, over analyzing and treating said customers
like we are beavis and butthead. Don't you guys have phones? Really?

Its like every spiderman movie has to have a god damn game attached to it.
Talk about another thing that gets thrown lots of money at and only has deadlines
because of the movie release. Pointless and lots of bad games come out of it.

That's what happened here. They should of googled searched miyamoto's advice:

it's too early to say the game is forgotten
for big companies it may take awhile until every manager signs that, because nobody want to take responsibility for the failure
so it will suffer for quite some time, no worries

Give or take one or two years, it should be relatively good then. StarCraft 2 also had a rocky travel, but it didn't fall in the septic tank like reforged did.

Does anyone have any thoughts how realistic my hopes are?
Realistic?
Realistic, but at this pace it'll take a few years?
Completely unrealistic?

Realistic, but it must take a few years, if they keep the pace up and patch it up.
The community playing it atm is so small, but I'm sure everyone will know when
Blizztard adds new features. I mean, they were supposed to be there, but you know
today's Early Access culture, release a broken mess, patch it and fix it later.

 

[Razorclaw_X]

Deadlines are marketing and management problem of not being able to keep their
fucking mouth shut, over promising, over analyzing and treating said customers
like we are beavis and butthead. Don't you guys have phones? Really?

"Don't you guys have phones" was spoken by a DEVELOPER-- you know, one of those people you're trying to avoid blaming.

 

[MasterBlaster]

And they take a long time to make, and their budgets get extended.

Yes, big projects that are expected to sell well can have big budgets or get delayed (i.e. have their budget increased to pay for more dev time), but this doesn't mean that some other projects, especially small ones that aren't likely to make a lot of money (i.e. Reforged) can't simply run out of budget and the company might not see a point in increasing it - which is my original point that you're trying to argue against.

Kickstarters are a great example of money being thrown on games just because you can.

I'm going to pretend that you didn't just base your argument on equating fans giving their private funds to a project and corporate finances.

Polish pays. Extreme polish pays even more.

That's not really true - yes, releasing a good game will make it sell more copies, but it will also increase the cost of making that game. There's a very fine line here. There are some cases where it's more beneficial to invest in higher quality, because the increased sales will more than compensate the costs, but there are also ones where it's just not worth it financially to do so. Thus your argument that "polish pays" isn't always true.

In fact, your opinion is a bit idealistic - just look at how some mobile gatcha games are a lot more profitable than even the best games that are beloved by core gamers.

Not for a game that had pre-orders, a solid fanbase, an active modding community

There's so much wrong with what you're saying that it's going to take a moment to unpack.

Preorders... Blizzard is not some small indie studio that needs to rely on preorder money to afford funding their projects. They have enough disposable money to fund their projects, but they want to make as much profit as possible and keeping the production budget in check is an important part of that, especially if we're talking about a small project that isn't expected to sell a lot of copies and doesn't have an exploitable monetization.

Also...

It might be a foreign concept to you, but there's something called "market research". It's a thing that companies do when deciding on whether they want to start a project and what budget they need to allocate to it. The idea is they take a number of factors into account and they try to guess how many people will buy the product. That's why I'm constantly referring to expected sales numbers.

Anywho, you're talking about a solid fanbase... Do you have the numbers for that? Obviously you don't. Meanwhile Blizzard does. They didn't just know how many people played the old Warcraft 3, but also how many people even owned it. On top of that, they have all sorts of data on their other games that they can use to extrapolate how many of the people who play their other games might be interested in Reforged. And they probably have some data on games from other companies. Why do I bring this up? Well, because all of that data is definetely something that they considered in their market research.

Another thing that they definetely considered was the active modding community and custom games - yes, it's a big selling point for a game like W3, but it's not like it's some mystery that Blizzard somehow didn't know about. And guess what, unlike you and me, they had the hard data on that front - they knew how many people played custom games now and in the past. That data obviously went into their market research as well.

So yes, what you're saying is technically true - they did consider the "solid fanbase" and "active modding scene", but... Such consideration happened before they started working on Reforged (i.e. allocated the original budget), because that's when market research is done, not when they were deciding on whether or not to cut features or extend the deadline (i.e. increase the budget). If anything, the latter was more influenced with how much their preorder numbers lined up with the original predictions.

the backing of a triple AAA hybrid corporation with mostly live service games. In addition to the mobile market blizzard cares so much about. Especially in china.

I see you've completely missed my previous point - it doesn't matter that they have profitable live service or mobile games. That's completely irrelevant. They're not fans looking to spend their money on an interesting kickstarter just because they can, but a corporation that tries to make good investments, becuse that is what all businesses in the world try to do. That's just how they work.

And seriously... Do you even know what an investment is? I don't want to be rude, but at this point I'm starting to doubt it, so let me tell you - an investment is spending money on something in hopes that in time you're going to make more money than you initially spent. For example, if you buy a house for 1,000,000 euro and you hope to sell it after 10 years for 1,500,000 euro then that's an investment. The difference between these two values, i.e. the amount you put in and the one you're expecting to get, is called "return on investment" (ROI) and the whole idea of investing is trying to invest your money that have the highest ROI that you can get.

So imagine you're INVESTING in that house I've talked about above - would you go to the owner of that house and say: "I know you only want 1,000,000 euro for your house, but I make a lot of money from my other investments, so I can give you 1,250,000"? Unless you're crazy and/or terrible at investing, there's no way you'd do that, because a) it decreases your ROI and b) it decreases the amount of cash that you could potentially invest into something else.

Thus your whole argument that Blizzard has live service and mobile games that make them a lot of money and so they can spend that money on something else is just... well, dumb, to be perfectly honest. Companies don't seek to spend money, they seek to invest it - and smart investing has rules.

P.S. And no, I'm not saying that it's unreasonable to increase the budget for a project - there are cases where it is financially justified, but then there are also cases where it's not or even ones where it's straight up better to just scrap the whole project instead of throwing more money at it to fix it. But I'm not going to explain that - if you finally understood my point, you'll be able to figure it out.

Deadlines are marketing and management problem of not being able to keep their fucking mouth shut, over promising, over analyzing

Nope. There are two options here:

- the company purposefully over-promises, i.e. lies in their marketing, in which case it has nothing to do with deadlines, because these promises inherently aren't planned to be kept, ergo no time/money needs to be set aside for them, so they can't impact any deadlines;

- the company makes promises that it believes it can keep, but in hindsight it turns out that it wasn't and thus the company's actions are interpreted as over-promising and under-delivering - in this case it's obviously related to deadline issues; that said, it's isn't their cause, but effect.

In regards to the latter option - the cause of the deadline existing is the budget being limited. The way it works isn't that, like you say, developers promised more than they are capable of doing and so they had to be given a deadline - they most likely were able to come through on all promises, but it would take them more time than initially expected to do so. And as I've already explained in one of my previous posts (in short - dev time costs money), the budget dictates how long the devs can work on things, so the deadline is set to make sure the devs cannot go over that time limit and by extension the budget. The result is that the devs don't have the time to do everything that was promised, so in hindsight it turns out that the company over-promised and under-delivered.

As for management problems... well, yes - it can be argued that if Reforged was managed better then perhaps they would be able to squeeze in a couple more things or release the game in a better shape. That's true - but... the same can be said about pretty much any team project.

They should of googled searched miyamoto's advice

You know, if you're using someone's quote to further your point, you should at least respect him enough to write his name with a capital letter. Just sayin.

As for the quote itself - I don't see how it's relevant to anything that I've said, so I'm just going to skip it.

 

[DracoL1ch]

Give or take one or two years, it should be relatively good then. StarCraft 2 also had a rocky travel, but it didn't fall in the septic tank like reforged did.

was sc2 a remaster of sc1 with next to nothing new content? did it happen at 2012 when there still were some RTS players or 2020 where fortnite only matters? dont compare things which arent comparable

 

[Venombite]

Guys, as sad as I am to say this, you can't really compare Reforged to any other Blizzard game.

All of their other games have one thing in common. Even those games that are dead now (*cough*HotS*cough*) and even those that recevied some criticism from dedicated fans(*cough*Diablo III*cough*), all of them have one thing in common, that Reforged doesn't.

At release they were all mega successful in pretty much every way, and polished beyond belief. As people would say "crème de la crème" of gaming, games that the other companies envied. (Yes, I know BfA was buggy on release, but still it had lots of new content (that mostly sucked, but that's another story), and it's a two year lasting expansion, not a remaster of an 18 year old game)

Well, Reforged is not. It has the flattering title of being the first .......let's just say "average" (though imo far beyond average) Blizzard game. The one that Blizzard didn't cared about basically at all to begin with, and just wanted some extra cash. Well actually I'm glad that they're plan with the game backfired, and all they got from it was some, however small, negative PR.

 

[tulee]

Almost finished Reforged campaign, only have 3 complaints, otherwise I have really enjoyed playing through the Wc3 story again.

1) Some cutscenes need characters to be spaced apart more, due to model size. This was particularly relevant in some of the human ROC missions, especially 02 (blackrock) where the new models had such big weapons that the uther and arthas almost seemed like their hammers were touching the other person's body.

2) For Orc 03 (ROC), it is now possible on hard difficulty to defeat every human base at the same time as Grom's initial attacks, which takes away from the story a bit, since they are not supposed to be killed in each initial Grom attack.

3) The lever model needs to have something like the original's blue hue on the top part, since in the missions with Arthas and Anub'arack underground in FT, it is almost impossible to see the lever model against the grey terrain. New players could easily be unable to pass those missions, as if you are not a returning player who knows exactly what you are looking for, those levers might as well be invisible.

I think if the main issues with Reforged are fixed swiftly (not referring to he ones I listed), then all these new private servers catering to "classic" Warcraft 3 that are popping up will be stopped in their tracks, but if they gain momentum from core Reforged issues not being fixed, then the community will start to splinter more.

I also really wish that the servers can be removed so that people in custom games (and melee) can join games of other people, since this 3-way divide between US/EU/Asia is having a fragmenting effect.

 

[Drake53]

As for the quote itself - I don't see how it's relevant to anything that I've said, so I'm just going to skip it.

That quote is fake, it should say "A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad."

 

[Sparky123]

"Don't you guys have phones" was spoken by a DEVELOPER-- you know, one of those people you're trying to avoid blaming.

Right. Its often developers that "present" marketing and management ploys
as their own and take the hit.

Are you saying developers are the bad guys here?
The ones that did most of the work. which weren't even from Blizzard.
Its their fault? Or the ones that did integrate this abomination into the battle net.
Are those to blame?

I'm going to pretend that you didn't just base your argument on equating fans giving their private funds to a project and corporate finances.

I was basing my argument on your argument that games aren't just handed money like you say they are not.
In a corporate structure, okay, sure.

What about crowd-funding sites then? Lets see how many companies don't crowd-fund their work.

just look at how some mobile gatcha games are a lot more profitable than even the best games that are beloved by core gamers.

Because its easier to bake a clone of something and stick micro-transactions in it. In today's world, don't you guys have phones?

Its another to actually invest time into designing a game first, not designing a your micro-transactions first.

You know, if you're using someone's quote to further your point, you should at least respect him enough to write his name with a capital letter. Just sayin.

Thanks mom.

but at this point I'm starting to doubt it,

I guess so.

Anywho, you're talking about a solid fanbase... Do you have the numbers for that? Obviously you don't. Meanwhile Blizzard does. They didn't just know how many people played the old Warcraft 3, but also how many people even owned it.

What do numbers of people who bought the game have to do with the game having solid fanbase?
First of all, do you know how many people torrented warcraft3? Obviously you don't.
And neither does Blizztard. They only know who they sold it to. Not who gave it to who after that.

And people who pirate games, guess what - they extend the life cycle of said game.
All great games are pirated. And this game... has been pirated for as long as I can remember.

But by your logic, those aren't fans. Only customers are fans, and blizztard knows everything.

Preorders... Blizzard is not some small indie studio that needs to rely on preorder money to afford funding their projects. They have enough disposable money to fund their projects, but they want to make as much profit as possible and keeping the production budget in check is an important part of that, especially if we're talking about a small project that isn't expected to sell a lot of copies and doesn't have an exploitable monetization.

Right. Because warcraft is a "small" project. Wait for the eventual "lootbox patch", as you might expect from AAA.

That's not really true - yes, releasing a good game will make it sell more copies, but it will also increase the cost of making that game. There's a very fine line here. There are some cases where it's more beneficial to invest in higher quality, because the increased sales will more than compensate the costs, but there are also ones where it's just not worth it financially to do so. Thus your argument that "polish pays" isn't always true.

Nothing is certain. So okay, it doesn't always mean success.

was sc2 a remaster of sc1 with next to nothing new content? did it happen at 2012 when there still were some RTS players or 2020 where fortnite only matters? dont compare things which arent comparable

If sc1 and sc2 aren't comparable, what is?
And I compared the issues that I remember sc2 had at one point
similar to issues with reforged, both in custom games and campaigns.

That quote is fake, it should say "A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad."

+rep.

 

[YourArthas]

Are you saying developers are the bad guys here?
The ones that did most of the work. which weren't even from Blizzard.
Its their fault? Or the ones that did integrate this abomination into the battle net.
Are those to blame?

Sadly the devs of classic's team are incompetent so yes they are the core of the problem.

 

[MasterBlaster]

What about crowd-funding sites then? Lets see how many companies don't crowd-fund their work.

Do you see big companies do crowdfunding for their projects? No, you don't. If Blizzard or EA or any other established developer/publisher launched a kickstarter then they would be ridiculed to hell and back. Crowdfunding is there for small, indie studios that don't have the cash flow to fund their projects.

Because its easier to bake a clone of something and stick micro-transactions in it.

So what does this tell us? That if you want to make money, you don't go for polish - you go for a product that's cheap to make and easily monetizable. That pays.

What do numbers of people who bought the game have to do with the game having solid fanbase?

Uhm... everything?

First of all, do you know how many people torrented warcraft3? Obviously you don't.

And you think they're going to buy the game now, even though they didn't buy it for for 15+ years and with a significantly lower price tag? Don't make me laugh.
And if they don't want to buy the game, why should the company even care about them? If you had a shop, would you care what people who steal your stuff have to say about your products? Come on.

And people who pirate games, guess what - they extend the life cycle of said game.

Care to explain how?

But by your logic, those aren't fans.

Honestly - no, they aren't fans. Before Reforged came out, Warcraft 3 has been out for 15+ years and as an old game it has been heavily discounted. That's enough time and opportunity to purchase a legal copy. If you haven't done it then bar some specific fringe cases - no, you're not a fan.

Because warcraft is a "small" project.

I see we're doing sarcrasm instead of actual arguments now? Awesome. I'm going to take it as you conceding your point.

 

[Chaosy]

How are you still managing to bring up new arguments?
Or has it turned into an endless cycle

 

[MasterBlaster]

How are you still managing to bring up new arguments?

I'm just responding to what he says, he just responds to what I say - isn't it how discussions work?

 

[Drake53]

Do you see big companies do crowdfunding for their projects? No, you don't. If Blizzard or EA or any other established developer/publisher launched a kickstarter then they would be ridiculed to hell and back. Crowdfunding is there for small, indie studios that don't have the cash flow to fund their projects.

So PlatinumGames is a small indie studio now? The Wonderful 101: Remastered

If you had a shop, would you care what people who steal your stuff have to say about your products? Come on.

Care to explain how?

For the same reason free-to-play games need non-paying customers. Also word of mouth.

Honestly - no, they aren't fans.

Fan (person) - Wikipedia

 

[MasterBlaster]

So PlatinumGames is a small indie studio now? The Wonderful 101: Remastered

It's not Blizzard/EA/Activision big, but okay - I stand corrected, sometimes there is an exception.

For the same reason free-to-play games need non-paying customers.

Which is?

Fan (person) - Wikipedia

Perhaps they are "fans", but due to the fact that they are stealing the thing they claim to be "fans" of, I'd say that the term "thieves" is more adequate the term "fans".

---

Ultimately - what you call these people is irrelevant. The idea of business is to make things to sell them, in one way or another. And if you're selling your product, the people who matter to you are the ones that are potentially going to buy it, not the ones that are going to steal it. It's ridiculous to expect that a gaming company will give one of their games a bigger budget, because "that way more people will pirate it".

 

[Venombite]

Sadly the devs of classic's team are incompetent so yes they are the core of the problem.

This!
We may had our differences in some conversations, but here I agree with you 100%.
Sure the management is mostly to blame, but the devs deserve some credits as well. Some things in the Campaign show just how much they cared about the project as well.
I'm surprised though that not many people were scourching them, even during the release "histeria".

 

[DracoL1ch]

This!
We may had our differences in some conversations, but here I agree with you 100%.
Sure the management is mostly to blame, but the devs deserve some credits as well. Some things in the Campaign show just how much they cared about the project as well.
I'm surprised though that not many people were scourching them, even during the release "histeria".

how do you compare game designers and devs right here? Im sure none of devs ever touched maps. Thats what game designers are for. Developers are the ones who make engine support things

 

[Venombite]

how do you compare game designers and devs right here? Im sure none of devs ever touched maps. Thats what game designers are for. Developers are the ones who make engine support things

No, when I say devs, I mean the whole developement team. Both the programers, level designers, artists etc.....
Though I wouldn't be surprised if programming and level design was actually done by the same people, in a project as small and side as Reforged, I don't have any proof of that, so I'll be keeping that assumption to myself. (if that's the case indeeed, than it's another management's fault)
But if you want to be that precise, yes, both programmers and game designers didn't do a good job.
Programers: main menu terribly lagging, people reporting constant desyncs, terrible ping, frequent crashes, a lot of bugs..... and on top of that, they're basically reusing a working engine, they only had to adjust it to the HD graphics. Engine rework was scrapped(this was actually the management's fault)
Level designers: from eight redone maps to only three, those three being half empty they didn't even bother to add doodads, blood elf skins and Maiev Avatar in game but didn't bother to import it into Campaigns, Ogres using Draenei huts etc......

 

[Wrda]

Perhaps they are "fans", but due to the fact that they are stealing the thing they claim to be "fans" of, I'd say that the term "thieves" is more adequate the term "fans".

Damn dude that's next level shit.


Thieves or no thieves, that doesn't stop them from being fans...

 

[Bitterman]

This!
We may had our differences in some conversations, but here I agree with you 100%.
Sure the management is mostly to blame, but the devs deserve some credits as well. Some things in the Campaign show just how much they cared about the project as well.
I'm surprised though that not many people were scourching them, even during the release "histeria".

Meanwhile EA is Remastering C&C with the help of Lemon Sky and Petroglyph(former westwood), and the remaster looks really impressive.

No, when I say devs, I mean the whole developement team. Both the programers, level designers, artists etc.....
Though I wouldn't be surprised if programming and level design was actually done by the same people, in a project as small and side as Reforged, I don't have any proof of that, so I'll be keeping that assumption to myself. (if that's the case indeeed, than it's another management's fault)
But if you want to be that precise, yes, both programmers and game designers didn't do a good job.
Programers: main menu terribly lagging, people reporting constant desyncs, terrible ping, frequent crashes, a lot of bugs..... and on top of that, they're basically reusing a working engine, they only had to adjust it to the HD graphics. Engine rework was scrapped(this was actually the management's fault)
Level designers: from eight redone maps to only three, those three being half empty they didn't even bother to add doodads, blood elf skins and Maiev Avatar in game but didn't bother to import it into Campaigns, Ogres using Draenei huts etc......

One thing that i noticed looking at the Human models, Paladins and mainly some of the female night elf models seems straight out ported from Skyrim.
Ported in terms of having some of the paladin faces made ingame with Racemenu and still with the textures in it because its easy to recognize the default Nord male head.

Females like Maiev and the Warden model has slight boob physics, but those akin to a CBBE body with low physics.

and with the Daedric Language shenanigans, i feel that Lemon Sky did that to spite blizzard even more, and probably because of how bad and unorganized Reforged development was going.

 

[MasterBlaster]

Thieves or no thieves, that doesn't stop them from being fans...

I'm going to stand by my opinion - if they're such "fans" that they didn't bother to get a legal copy of the product they're supposedly "fans" of despite it being out for more than 15 years and having a significantly discounted price then I'm sorry, but bar some fringe exceptions to me they don't have the moral right to call themselves "fans".

But fine, if we're going to argue semantics - some quotes from the wikipedia article that was linked to me as a counter-argument:

person who is enthusiastically

If you're enthusiastic about something, you should enjoy showing appreciation to people who made it. Stealing that thing is literally the opposite of showing appreciation.

devoted to something or somebody

If you're devoted to something, you want to see it grow - by not buying a legal copy, you're not giving the company that made the product the best possible incentive (i.e. financial one) to keep it alive and/or build upon it.

synonymous with "supporter"

If you refuse to purchase the thing you like despite having ample time and opportunity to be able to do so, you aren't really supporting it in the most meaningful way.

Fans usually have a strong enough interest that some changes in their lifestyles are made to accommodate devotion to the focal object.

Warcraft 3 was out for a looooong time. I doubt a lot of people just heard about it recently. Thus, I'd argue that most people who use a pirate versions have been doing that for a long time, ergo they had sufficient time to make small changes in their lifestyle to have enough money to directly show their devotion to the game by getting a legal copy and yet they didn't want to do so. A truly outstanding devotion.

---

If you disagree with me on this, that's fine, but at the end of the day we're just arguing semantics here - fans or not, I still don't see a valid reason why Blizzard should have tried to appease these people when working on Reforged as chances are that if they didn't bother to buy W3 for 15 years and at a discounted price, they wouldn't consider buying Reforged either, even if it was absolutely perfect. And if so, my point still stands - why should any company or even a regular person consider the well-being of people who it/he knows are most likely going to steal its/his stuff?

 

[DracoL1ch]

main menu programmer is a differnt guy
world editor programmer is another one
engine worker is yet another one
level designers arent even real programmers at all

 

[Drake53]

But fine, if we're going to argue semantics - some quotes from the wikipedia article that was linked to me as a counter-argument:

You seem quite adamant about someone being required to support the game financially in order to be considered a true fan. This seems plain silly to me, since there are other ways to support a product. Like I said earlier, word of mouth, but also keeping the game alive by increasing the size of the playerbase. In the case of wc3, some may also contribute to the community by making custom games, models, etc.

I'm probably reading into this way too much, but I get the feeling that you're blaming the community for reforged's failure. You wanted it to succeed, but due to not enough people pre-ordering (supporting it financially), the upper-management decided to cut the budget, causing us to end up with this abomination.

 

[Razorclaw_X]

main menu programmer is a differnt guy
world editor programmer is another one
engine worker is yet another one
level designers arent even real programmers at all

They're all developers.

If someone wanted specifically to point out the programmers they would have done so, but you're treating the two terms as synonyms.

Your argument only works if the last thing was something that had nothing to do with develpment, like MARKETING.

 

[DracoL1ch]

I'd be rather offended when some random guy claimed I did my job badly when that wasnt even me who did THAT job he complains about

 

[MasterBlaster]

You seem quite adamant about someone being required to support the game financially in order to be considered a true fan.

It this particular set of circumstances - yes, kinda, but it's more of a "if you were a fan, you would have bought it by now", not "you need to buy it to be a fan".

That said, I'm not trying to extend that to other games. I understand that there are situations where there's a valid reason why someone opted to use the pirate version instead of buying the game - for example, if the game has a full AAA prince, then someone from a poor country or a younger person with no income, might not be able to buy it. I'm not condemning that. All I'm saying is that if you're claiming to be a fan and the object you're a fan of has been out for many years at a discounted prince, it would make sense to me that you'd eventually buy it, even if just for the sake of showing respect and appreciation to whoever made it.

I'm probably reading into this way too much, but I get the feeling that you're blaming the community for reforged's failure.

Yes, you're reading way too much into this. I'm just defending my original point, which was that the reason Reforged turned out how it did was that it most likely went over budget and Activision-Blizzard didn't want to increase that budget for whatever reason. Perhaps there was some political shift inside the company or they overestimated the amount of people that would be interested or underestimated the amount of work it would take to do everything that they announced or they were unnecessarily greedy or any mix of these factors. Chances are we'll never know.

The way my point about pirates and fans ties into this is that no matter what happened, I think that unlike the people who would buy the game, people who were expected to pirate it weren't considered in the decision to not give Reforged more time/money. And honestly, nor should they, but Sparky made such point and I chose to contest that and I possibly got carried way and digressed about my personal view of "being a fan" vs "being a pirate", which you guys picked up on and... here we are

I'd be rather offended when some random guy claimed I did my job badly when that wasnt even me who did THAT job he complains about

The problem is that the term "developer" =/= "programmer" - "developer" is a broader term that describes all people who develop a game and encompasses both game designers and programmers. Source: Game Developer: Job Description, Duties and Requirements

 

[deepstrasz]

If you're enthusiastic about something, you should enjoy showing appreciation to people who made it. Stealing that thing is literally the opposite of showing appreciation.

Thieves are very enthusiastic.

If you're devoted to something, you want to see it grow - by not buying a legal copy, you're not giving the company that made the product the best possible incentive (i.e. financial one) to keep it alive and/or build upon it.

Thieves are very devoted.

If you refuse to purchase the thing you like despite having ample time and opportunity to be able to do so, you aren't really supporting it in the most meaningful way.

Thieves are very supportive of their work.

Warcraft 3 was out for a looooong time. I doubt a lot of people just heard about it recently. Thus, I'd argue that most people who use a pirate versions have been doing that for a long time, ergo they had sufficient time to make small changes in their lifestyle to have enough money to directly show their devotion to the game by getting a legal copy and yet they didn't want to do so. A truly outstanding devotion.

They made a lot of life changes. Some became developers (some learned programming or were inspired to); many created systems for the game and made loads of models/resources.
Thieves change their lives, they become richer.

That said, I'm not trying to extend that to other games. I understand that there are situations where there's a valid reason why someone opted to use the pirate version instead of buying the game - for example, if the game has a full AAA prince, then someone from a poor country or a younger person with no income, might not be able to buy it. I'm not condemning that

Is it OK!?

 

[MasterBlaster]

Thieves are very enthusiastic.

About stealing, yes.

Thieves are very devoted.

To stealing, yes.

Thieves are very supportive of their work.

Of stealing, yes.

They made a lot of life changes. Some became developers (some learned programming or were inspired to); many created systems for the game and made loads of models/resources.

And yet none of those changes were intended to do the right thing and buy the game they supposedly love.

Is it OK!?

Oh, please - as far as I can tell, just above this quote you were defending piracy and you're shocked that I don't condemn some of it?

 

[deepstrasz]

Oh, please - as far as I can tell, just above this quote you were defending piracy

I take it it's your sarcasm over mine.

 

[MasterBlaster]

I take it it's your sarcasm over mine.

Perhaps

But in all seriousness, if by condemn you mean "criticizing strongly due to moral reasons" (checked the dictionary for this one) then no, I'm not doing that. I mean - piracy isn't "good", regardless of the circumstances, but there are situations where I can have a certain degree of sympathy and understanding for people doing it. In such cases, I'm still going to criticize it, but I'm going to reckognize that it's not as bad as someone stealing stuff just because he can. Hope it makes some sense

P.S. It's absolutely possible, perhaps even likely, that "condemn" was a very unfortunate term for me to use

 

[Power107]

@MasterBlaster This is why Reforged has low budget: With Activision's Influence Growing, Blizzard Is Cutting Costs

 

[Sparky123]

And you think they're going to buy the game now, even though they didn't buy it for for 15+ years and with a significantly lower price tag? Don't make me laugh.
And if they don't want to buy the game, why should the company even care about them? If you had a shop, would you care what people who steal your stuff have to say about your products? Come on.

But the amount of word of mouth and possible work and sharing of good intent for a game is.

Honestly - no, they aren't fans. Before Reforged came out, Warcraft 3 has been out for 15+ years and as an old game it has been heavily discounted. That's enough time and opportunity to purchase a legal copy. If you haven't done it then bar some specific fringe cases - no, you're not a fan.

That's a rather narrow way to look at things. And not all non-paying fans are thieves.

I understand that there are situations where there's a valid reason why someone opted to use the pirate version instead of buying the game - for example, if the game has a full AAA prince, then someone from a poor country or a younger person with no income, might not be able to buy it. I'm not condemning that. All I'm saying is that if you're claiming to be a fan and the object you're a fan of has been out for many years at a discounted prince, it would make sense to me that you'd eventually buy it, even if just for the sake of showing respect and appreciation to whoever made it.

Thieves are very enthusiastic.

Thieves are very devoted.

Thieves are very supportive of their work.

They made a lot of life changes. Some became developers (some learned programming or were inspired to); many created systems for the game and made loads of models/resources.
Thieves change their lives, they become richer.

If the thing wasn't worth stealing, nobody would touch it.
If the thing stolen was bad after that, it would be deleted.
If the thing stolen wasn't fun or well designed, it would be abandonware.
If the thing pirated stopped being pirated, that means its not worth it.

If companies make the thing better than the pirated version,
people would say it. And many pirates and thieves put disclaimers
that if people enjoy it, they should buy it and offer genuine links.

That's free word of mouth and marketing in the underworld as I call it.

@MasterBlaster This is why Reforged has low budget: With Activision's Influence Growing, Blizzard Is Cutting Costs

^ This.

 

[Power107]

@Sparky123 This article asks a question: "Now, Morhaime is gone, and Activision appears to have more influence on Blizzard than it ever has. Will Blizzard’s games-as-a-service, release-it-when-it’s-ready approach to development survive these new changes?"

After experiencing Reforged launch I can say the answer to this question is: "Reforged launch shows that Blizzard's release-it-when-its-ready approach to development is dead due to these changes."

Blessed Mother save Diablo 4