The GoG version of Warcraft II is unbearable because it’s based on the Battle.net version of the game, which cut and down-sampled materials to reduce their quality in order to fit the entire base game plus the Beyond the Dark Portal expansion onto a single CD, because Blizzard was too cheap to give the game + expansion material on two CDs, like they were originally sold as.
As a result, the Bnet edition of Warcraft II’s music is cut: it just starts fading out partway through the tracks, and there’s sometimes an audible pop where it’s been cut short - which means that whoever did it didn’t know anything about audio editing, and didn’t cut it at the wave form’s zero crossing.
And the sound effect quality in the Bnet edition of Warcraft II is terrible, having been reduced in fidelity to lower the filesizes, to help fit the base game and expansion on a single CD.
I’ve also heard that the FMVs in the Bnet edition are lower quality. But I haven’t checked that, myself.
The Battle.net version of Warcraft II is a sorely-downgraded repackaging of the game, and I find it hard to imagine that GoG would’ve put the materials from the Bnet edition into their release if they were aware that the original releases of Warcraft II and Beyond the Dark Portal, on separate CDs, feature higher quality sound and longer music tracks. But I would’ve expected them to at least do some research into a game they’re making a special release of. Yet the GoG edition of Warcraft II is inferior to the original release - just like the Battle.net edition was.
So, please have some honour and fix the GoG release of Warcraft II, by giving it the proper sound and music files, and fixing anything else that was downgraded from the original release. It’s a travesty to have it in such a poor, undeserved condition. I emailed GoG support about it multiple time before, and all they gave was a canned response about being committed to delivering the best packages possible, when they literally didn’t do that here, and gave something I wouldn’t ever have a reason to play over my original copies in DOSBox, because the original is hands-down superior.
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BTW, I read this quote from Blizzard’s Warcraft RTS senior manager, Brad Chan, today:
“Throughout my career, I’ve stuck to a few guiding principles: When something is broken, you fix it. When something is wrong, you make it right. And if things aren’t good enough, you make them better.”
The GoG version of Warcraft II is definitely not good enough, it’s pointlessly use of sorely-downgraded music and sound materials are very wrong, and its presentation is broken. I hope Blizzard will live up to the admirable words of Brad Chan and make it better, make it right, and fix it.