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Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos is a real-time strategy computer game released for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS, and Mac OS X by Blizzard Entertainment in July 2002; the Microsoft Windows version works almost flawlessly also in Linux. It is the second sequel to Warcraft: Orcs and Humans, and the third game set in the Warcraft Universe. Warcraft III proved to be one of the most anticipated and popular video game releases ever, with 4.5 million units pre-ordered and over 1 million additional units sold during its first two weeks. Warcraft III contains four playable races, including the Humans and Orcs, which had previously appeared in Warcraft: Orcs and Humans and Warcraft II. In addition to these are the Night Elves and Undead, which are new to the Warcraft mythos. Warcraft III Blizzard Entertainment released two versions of the game: the regular edition and a limited Collector's Edition. The collector's edition box contained a Warcraft III cinematic DVD, including behind-the-scenes features and the cinematics of all prior Warcraft games; a Collector's Edition Soundtrack; a Collector's Edition instruction manual; The Art of Warcraft book; and Lithographic Prints. An expansion pack, ''The Frozen Throne'', was released in 2003.
Overview One of the main innovations Warcraft III offers over the previous games in the series is the addition of several powerful units called Heroes. Heroes can find or trade items to increase skills, defense, and other abilities, and with each kill of an enemy, the heroes gain experience points, eventually resulting in increasing their level and gaining new spell options (thus introducing RPG elements to the series). Certain heroes also can apply beneficial auras to allied units. The highest level that can be gained in a normal game is level 10. At level 6, the hero can obtain an "ultimate" skill that is potentially more powerful than the others. Another innovation is the addition of creeps, which are computer controlled units the player fights even in multiplayer. They guard key areas or neutral buildings and are designed to act as a resource for the players to kill to provide experience points to a player's hero and to provide hero items. The idea is to force the player to be aggressive instead of "turtling up" (spending all resources on defenses and technology, rather than attacking). In The Frozen Throne Expansion Pack, Heroes can reach a maximum of level 5 from killing creeps; after that they can only get experience from enemy units/towers, while the highest level allowed is 10. Warcraft III includes four playable races: the Humans and the Orcs, who also appeared in Warcraft and Warcraft II, along with two new races, the Night Elves and the Undead. As an April Fool's joke before the game was released, Blizzard announced that the Pandaren would be the fourth race. The company didn't reveal the Night Elves until a month later, and pandas are now a running gag in Warcraft (to the point that a Pandaren Hero — called the Brewmaster — was available in the expansion pack, Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne). A fifth playable race, the Burning Legion, was changed during play-testing to a set of non-player characters and monsters (with a playable "cameo" on the last level of the Undead campaign, as Kel'Thuzad summons Archimonde), and a sixth playable race was removed during testing before announcement of what race it was to be. Warcraft III has a large online gaming community centered around Blizzard Entertainment's Battle.net servers (called Gateways): Azeroth (U.S. East), Lordaeron (U.S. West), Northrend (Europe), and Kalimdor (Asia). Players meet other players to chat and set up multiplayer games through Battle.net. In addition to custom games, in which players have complete control over game settings (including map, teams, handicaps, etc.), Battle.net features a ranking system for certain standard game types: 1v1, or solo; various team games (2v2, 3v3, 4v4); and free-for-all (FFA). Ranked game play is facilitated by Blizzard Entertainment's Automatic MatchMaker, which pits players of comparable skill against each other. Players can also form clans comprised of ten or more players, which are also ranked. Unfortunately, the matchmaker does not always put up the teams fairly, sometimes, there may be a level 20 player and a level 5 player versus two level 5 players. Warcraft III also includes a very thorough scenario editor. It uses a scripting language similar to the trigger system used in StarCraft. As well as providing the ability to edit any aspect of the units, buildings and spells, it has advanced features as custom tilesets, custom cinematic scenes, dialog boxes, variables, and weather effects. Many custom maps, featuring a large variety of gametypes continue to be developed, and together with the expansion pack have contributed to the longevity of the game. Plot The story in Warcraft III is laid out similarly to the plot of StarCraft, told through all four races in a progressive manner. The order is Human, Undead, Orc and Night Elf. Prologue campaign: "Exodus of the Horde" Thrall, Warchief of the Orcish Horde, wakes from a nightmare that foresees the return of the Burning Legion. After a brief encounter with the Prophet, and fearing that his dream was more a vision than a nightmare, he leads his people in an exodus from Lordaeron to the forgotten lands of Kalimdor. In the retail version, this tutorial campaign ends with the orcs sailing to the distant shores of Kalimdor. However, in the official demo, this campaign is extended to detail the journey across the great ocean. Thrall's ships become damaged from a massive storm, and he stops at a small island midway between the two continents. For those who have only played the retail version, the fact that the forest trolls left the Horde after the second game seems like a contradiction. Sen'jin, the leader of the Darkspear Tribe living on the island, befriends Thrall, and passes on leadership of the tribe to Vol'Jin after being mortally wounded by indigenous Murlocs (amphibious fish men). The campaign is included, sans cinematic dialogue voiceovers, with the expansion. Human campaign: "The Scourge of Lordaeron" Prince Arthas Menethil, a member of the Knights of the Silver Hand (a group of Paladins devoted to the defense of Lordaeron and humanity), investigates a strange plague that is spreading across the lands of Lordaeron, aided by his onetime lover, the Archmage Jaina Proudmoore. To their horror, they find that the plague turns unsuspecting people into hideous Undead Scourge, and must move to stop the Undead's plans. Arthas proceeds to hunt down the plague's originator, Mal'Ganis. Traveling northward to the icy lands of Northrend in pursuit of Mal'Ganis, he aids an old friend, Muradin Bronzebeard, who tells him of a sword called Frostmourne. Arthas obtains Frostmourne, at the cost of Muradin's life, and uses it to defeat Mal'Ganis. Frostmourne slowly destroys and eventually consumes Arthas' soul, and he becomes the Lich King's first Death Knight, an evil being of great power and a general of the Undead army. Undead campaign: "Path of the Damned" With the death of King Terenas Menthil and the reinvigorated Cult of the Damned rallying behind their new leader, Prince Arthas, the Undead Scourge move to complete their purpose in Lordaeron, which is to destroy the remnants of the Alliance, and to pave the way for a new invasion by the Burning Legion. In a series of quests involving the destruction of key opponents such as the Knights of the Silver Hand and the overthrow of the High Elves' kingdom of Quel'Thalas, Arthas succeeds in reviving former adversary Kel'Thuzad as a Lich. After laying waste to the Blackrock Clan and communing with the Eredar Demon Lord Archimonde, Kel'Thuzad successfully raids Dalaran to enable him to open a dimensional portal with the use of Medivh's Spellbook, so that the true masters of the Scourge, the Burning Legion, can enter the realm of Azeroth. Leader of the demonic forces, Archimonde, makes his first blow against the remaining human resistance with the destruction of the Wizard Utopia of Dalaran, the Violet Citadel. Orc campaign: "The Invasion of Kalimdor" After escaping Human captivity and fleeing to the shores of Kalimdor, Orcish warchief Thrall must lead his brethren to safety and ensure their survival in Kalimdor. With the help of the Tauren, a bovine group of Kalimdor natives led by Cairne Bloodhoof, Thrall heads north to the Ashenvale Forest to seek out the Oracle of Stonetalon Peak. Meanwhile, Grom Hellscream has been left behind to gather enough lumber to create a permanent orcish settlement on the isle, and, in cutting down the large amount of trees necessary to do so, angers the native night elves and their demigod, Cenarius. In order to defeat Cenarius and his night elves, Grom succumbs to demonic corruption by willingly drinking the pit lord Mannoroth's blood. Back on Stonetalon Peak, Thrall has reached the Oracle to discover that he is actually the Prophet. The Prophet tells Thrall that Grom has succumbed to demonic control and that he will need to join forces with Jaina Proudmore and the other humans to save him, and suggests that Grom has a crucial role to play in the unfolding of events. With the human's help, Thrall is able to capture Grom and purge him of the demon blood. Grom then has a premonition of Mannoroth's presence in a local canyon, and the two go there to face Mannoroth once and for all. The two are able to defeat Mannoroth, but Grom dies in the battle. Night Elf campaign: "Eternitys End" With the coming of the Undead Scourge and Burning Legion as well as the Humans and Orcs, Tyrande Whisperwind and her Night Elf Sentinels fight a desperate battle to save their beloved home of Kalimdor. She first reawakens her lover, Malfurion Stormrage, and then the Druids of the Talon, and finally the Druids of the Claw. She also decides to free the great betrayer, Illidan Stormrage, who is eventually instrumental in weakening the Burning Legion, but at a great cost. Finally, she and Malfurion join forces with Proudmoore and Thrall to delay the Legion's advance until a proper end can be arranged for the demonic leader Archimonde. Overrun by the Legion and the Scourge, Archimonde prepares his final blow - consuming the energy of Nordrassil, the tree of life. But moments before he can strike, Malfurion Stormrage springs his trap. Unable to counter, Archimonde is destroyed in a colossal blast of energy that shatters the tree of life--but unlike Archimonde, the tree would heal and its roots would once again grow deep. Peace once again came to Kalimdor, but only for a short while, as the great betrayer, Illidan Stormrage would seek revenge for his imprisonment. The Frozen Throne expansion
Multiplayer A typical game of Warcraft III normally takes 15–30 minutes, but can also last more than an hour. Strategic depth is achieved through the diverse range of units available to each race and the neutral creeps placed around the map. As a player progresses on their Battle.net account, they earn different icons depending on how many victories they achieve with a certain race. (For example, 25 orc victories earns a grunt icon, 250 orc victories earns a tauren icon, 500 orc victories earns a Far Seer icon, and 1500 orc victories earns a Thrall icon). Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos is no longer used in professional tournaments. Every tournament uses the game's expansion, Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne. It is faster paced (all unit costs have been lowered by 15 to 25 percent) and less caster oriented (caster type units dominated the original Warcraft 3, aka Reign of Chaos), because of the introduction of anti-caster units. The game heavily emphasises on micromanagement and unit choice. Most professional WarCraft 3 players measure their micromanagement by reviewing their APM (Actions Per Minute). Higher APM generally indicates better micromanaging, although unnecessary actions may lead to an artificially inflated APM. Strategic resources for Warcraft III include online discussion, replays and audio commentaries (see WCReplays.com or TorneosNydus). Mojo Stormstout's Warcraft III Strategy Guide by Blizzard Entertainment contains information about the expansion pack The Frozen Throne. Some people create their own custom maps using the built-in map editor, most of which bear little or no relation to the traditional Warcraft III RTS gameplay. Examples include but are not limited to: DotA, HosK, Line Tower Wars, Sheep Tag, Wintermaul, Bugs vs. Humans, Crop Circles TD, City Builder, Hero Builder, Soccer, Hero Wars, Run Kitty Run, Protect Your Sheep, Kodo Tag, Maze of Courage, Julien's Open RPG, Life of a Peasant, Preschool, Risk, DOTA: Danite's Hell, Tak Paintball, and Footman Wars. Many custom maps are particularly focused on controlling hero units. In comparison to similar RTS-games, Warcraft 3 has a large community, which is promoted by Blizzard Entertainment's free Battle.net service and there are a number of prestigious Warcraft III tournaments held every year around the world. The game is also featured at large events such as WCG and WEG. The game popularity, fan base and total tournament prizes, step down only to Counter-Strike. Background Music Most of the music within Warcraft III is orchestral, and composed by Tracy W. Bush, Derek Duke, Jason Hayes, or Glenn Stafford. Although the music is orchestral, it uses several MIDI sounds, and is in mp3 format. The music varies depending on the player's race, monastic music for the humans, ambient music for the Night Elves, tribal, warlike music for the Orcs and fast, haunting music for the Undead. New themes were added in the expansion. Examples of such music can be found on the World of Warcraft subpage. Here you can listen to songs from both Warcraft II and III and even a few from World of Warcraft. All are orchestral compositions with the exception of three, two of which are 'skits' and one other constructed from the many in-game unit responses. Quotations
Related A massively multiplayer online role-playing game set in the WarCraft universe, entitled World of Warcraft, is the fourth WarCraft game in a series produced by Blizzard. It picks up the WarCraft storyline two and a half years after the events of The Frozen Throne, or four years after the defeat of the Burning Legion in the conclusion of The Reign of Chaos The strategy board game Warcraft: The Board Game was released in 2003 by Fantasy Flight Games, and is based on Warcraft III. It uses a modular game board, which allows many different scenarios to be played with the same set of components. Modding With the Warcraft III World Editor that came with Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, players were able to create their own custom maps to play multiplayer or single player. The world editor had features such as unit editing and event triggers (which allowed for almost unending diversity in campaign design). A small community of modders started up, and spawned several tools for spell editing through SLK spreadsheets, customizing skins with .BLP converters, JASS editing, and a file importer that opened up .MPQs. With the expanded World Editor that came with The Frozen Throne, users could edit spells without using SLK spreadsheets, import their own custom .BLP textures files, .MDX models, various sounds, and any other file that the editor was willing to put in without third party software. This made modding infinitely easier and less reliant on third party software. After a long time, Blizzard began to recognize the modding community, and released the ''Warcraft III'' Art Tools plugin for 3D Studio Max, which allowed skilled model makers to create fully animated three dimensional models (which could be imported via the expanded World Editor). In the Warcraft III 1.10 patch, the World Editor was once again updated, to be able to use caches and custom campaigns which allowed modders to create entire campaigns for Warcraft III. In addition to custom maps, total conversions are available for download. Total conversions completely replace one or more of the original races with completely new units and upgrades. Some of the many total conversions made for Warcraft III include Divine Right, FPS Mod, and the Tales of Raviganion. In addition, some mods add a whole new race, such as Ominous Horizons and Creep Rebeliion Custom maps There are many player-created multiplayer maps (made with the included Warcraft III World Editor tool) available. There are many different genres in Warcraft 3 custom games, because everyone can create whatever they like. Some of the more popular ones are: Aeon of Strife Starcraft's Aeon of Strife(AoS) is the original map of that type, so they are named after it. An AoS is a map in which players choose and controls a single hero with many abilities, trying to destroy the enemy team main building and protect their own. The most popular AoS type map currently is Defense of the Ancients or DotA - Blizzard's First Spotlight Map entry in the Battle.net Hall of Fame. (www.getdota.com) Footmen Wars Footmen Wars is most commonly a battle between 4 teams each with 3 players. Each player starts off with a main base that will spawn a very basic infantry type. The players start off with gold which in most cases they must make the decision of buying a hero or "teching" where one upgrades one's main base, causing it to spawn more powerful units. Most use the four generic races, Human, Orc, Undead, and Night Elf. Some footmen wars may include side races of Demons, Naga, Trolls, and Kobolds. The most popular Footmen Wars type map currently is called Footmen Frenzy (http://www.nohunters.com) Another popular footman-wars like map is called Ultimate Footmen(http://www.pollama.com) Arena A subtype of the AoS are Arena Maps in which the winner is determined by the number of heroes killed. In arena maps players will control a single hero, like AoS but the differences are that the teams aren't supported by waves of creeps. The game machanics will determine what kind of Arena map will be, some examples of hero arena maps are Animefight (http://www.animefight.tk) ,Angel Arena, Naruto Hero builder, Custom Hero arena, etc. On the other hand a hero survival (X Hero Siege, Hero Survival, Orc Gladiators,7 Illidans, Legendary Gladiators, etc) are games where players must cooperate and fight together with waves of creeps until a timer goes to zero or certain event, or until they can handle the fight. Tower Defense The game usually consists of a group of players who attempt to stop waves of monsters from reaching a certain point. A tower defense is when a group of players select from a variety of races, each with their own unique towers. They then build towers either in the way or on the sides of the path the monsters take. Many tower defenses have been based off the popular Winter Maul, these maps have adopted the term Maul as their name. Some examples would be Warcraft Maul, Videogame Maul, DBZ Maul, Movie Maul, and Star Wars Maul. Another type of tower defense would be a hero defense, an example Enfo's Team Survival. Each player gets one Hero which has a vareiety of abilities used to stop the monsters. The goals of the hero defense has the same objectives as the tower defense, stop the monsters from reaching a certain point. There are two modes in tower defenses, team and survival. Team mode is where all the players will work together to defeat the monsters, but if the monsters reach a certain point they all lose. While in survival mode, the players each work separately and have their own point to protect. If the monsters reach their own point, only that one player loses. (Counter) Wars Players are divided into 2 teams and are able to build offensive, defensive, income and research type structures. Offensive structures automatically produce units to attack enemies, while defensive have some type of an attack or provide a boost to the army around them. The main goal is to produce a diverse army, which is able to exploit the enemy army weaknesses, while covering its own and destroy their main building. Most popular: Tales of Kaltazar: Boreal Conflict, Civilization Wars, Tech Wars, Sim City Wars. Automatic MatchMaker The basic goal of AMM is to match players of comparable skill level, which is determined by keeping records of games won and lost. Players gain "experience points" by winning ranked games on the Battle.net servers. This should not be confused with the experience point system featured in many computer role-playing games, however, in which experience points are largely awarded for participation. In Warcraft III's AMM, experience points are also subtracted when players suffer defeat. This establishes a skill-based game ladder, which is similar in character to the ELO rating system used to rank skill in Chess and Go. In AMM, accounts are ranked from level 1–50 (though the levels are no longer capped at 50). For example, go to Northrend solo ladder to check out the current top 1000 European players in 1v1 (or solo). To match players, the AMM checks the player's last few recorded games to see if the current level of players he or she is playing against is too easy or too hard. It also checks what level the player is and what the player's overall win percentage is. Using these guidelines, the AMM will pit two players of relatively equivalent skill against each other (given the availability of players currently searching for a game of the same type). The goal of AMM is made more difficult by frequent smurfing, in which highly-skilled players create new accounts (that start at level 1) to prey upon new players (often called noobs or newbies), rather than facing stiff competition at the upper ladder levels. This practice is common but frowned upon in the Warcraft III community. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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