Warcraft 2 remastered is NOT Warcraft 2

Warcraft I & II General Discussion
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I am sorry but I played Warcraft 2 a lot with my dad and this “remastered” you released is NOT Warcraft 2 at all. Very sad to see this happening. This remastered is some AI experiment forced by activision management. Remember these are same people who said Warcraft 1 and Warcraft 2 are fosils and should stay dead and won’t be added to Battlenet app. Then they saw how much money wow classic was making and decided all games must now get remaster. They have no passion and dont care what makes these games great, they only want money.

The Starcraft 1 remaster was perfectly done by blizzard and was done with passion, both Starcraft 1 classic and Starcraft 1 remastered combined into one game to keep the community alive. They made Starcraft 1 free and Starcraft 1 remastered optional at a small price tag. But what did they do with Warcraft 2, they did NOT make Warcraft 2 classic free and then decide to release Warcraft 2 remaster as separate game to maximize profits. You completely killed the community by having warcraft 2 classic and warcraft 2 remastered as separate games which totally kills the chances of this being widely popular and played in the future. The remaster is rebuilt from scratch as separate game introducing nightmarish gamebreaking bugs since game was not even tested before released. I don’t understand why you don’t just combine the 2 versions into one game and make Warcraft 2 classic free to play. I am very disappointed.

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2

is it possible for warcraft gamers to seethe any harder about a 25 year old game?

3

Starcraft Remastered also had its problems at release, and War2R was possibly made separate from War2 Bnet Edition to prevent War3 Reforged nightmare which destroyed War3 Classic Bnet, from happening again. (like for D2R vs D2 Classic/LoD)

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If you think remasters “dont have passion” then you can start taking a look in Mods a couple of guys have been making since like 5-6 years ago already in War2 classic (Combat).

Over 20 mods with actual AI improvements and many quality of life features added up to War2.

Also, widescreen exists on W2 since like 5 years ago already. By fans for fans.

But that content gets very little acknowledgement and advertising, yet its still out there. Just have to check out youtube for that…

Or wargus project, which is about 10 years old and still gets very little attention from people… If talking about passion, of course.

5

Remember when Blizzard games were made by people who played games? Now it’s just interns managing outsourced nostalgia.

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6

You must do the same for Warcraft II as you did with Starcraft 1.

Step 1: Merge “Warcraft II: Battle.net Edition” with “Warcraft II: Remastered” into ONE game. Where you can change between classic graphics and remastered graphics.
Step 2: Make “Warcraft II: Battle.net Edition” free to play same as Starcraft 1. And “Warcraft II: Remastered” 10 or 15 EURO/dollar price.
Step 3: Everyone is happy, community is alive and people will still play Warcraft II many years from now!

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@Dani-2192

I get where you’re coming from, and I totally understand the frustration with the Warcraft 2 remaster. It feels like something’s missing compared to the magic of the original, right?

However, I wanted to share some insight into Blizzard’s development teams and the situation surrounding these remasters. The Classic Games division, which was responsible for restoring and remastering Blizzard’s older titles, was created around 2015. This division, which worked on StarCraft Remastered, Warcraft III: Reforged, and other remasters, was originally staffed with people from Blizzard’s Mac division. Their goal was to preserve the legacy of Blizzard’s classic games, but as we saw with Warcraft III Reforged, things didn’t always go as planned.

When Blizzard reorganized and started pushing more aggressive timelines for their remasters, Classic Games lost a lot of its independence. Warcraft III Reforged is a great example of the team’s struggle to meet unrealistic deadlines, and by 2020, the division was essentially dissolved. This, combined with the increased control from Activision over project directions, led to less passion in the remaster process and a lack of communication with fans.

It’s really disappointing that the community didn’t get the unified experience we were hoping for. It seems like the focus shifted more to profit than preserving the core essence of these games. But hopefully, with time, Blizzard will be able to look back and realize what made the classics special and maybe do better in future remasters.

I hope this helps shed some light on the situation!

Here’s what I’ve been able to piece together regarding Team 1 and Classic Team:

Team 1 developed Starcraft II under Dustin Browder. After starting development as an SC2 arcade game, Heroes of the Storm became its own title while still using the same game engine and also being developed under Team 1 with Dustin Browder moving to that title and Tim Morten taking over Starcraft II and working on finding new ways to monetize it.

Classic Games was created around the time Legacy of the Void released. The original focus was to patch Starcraft: Brood War, Diablo II, and Warcraft III to make them compatible with modern systems and networks. As that moved along they started working on remastering those titles with Starcraft Remastered releasing first. They ended up taking over continued development of Diablo III after Rise of the Necromancer and handling things like new ladder seasons and cosmetics. Team 3, which was involved in development of Diablo Immortal and Diablo IV ended up taking Diablo II and III under their group later. Meanwhile, Team 1 became part of Classic Games leaving them with Starcraft Remastered, Warcraft III, Starcraft II, and Heroes of the Storm.

Warcraft III Reforged was announced a couple years ago just as Blizzard was reorganizing(and its developers were losing a lot of independence). Activision Blizzard was rushing to appease its shareholders by announcing more titles. When Reforged was announced, Classic Games had no idea that preorders would go up immediately with the release promised before the end of 2019. They had to immediately abandon much of the content they’d just announced and speed up development to an unreasonable rate. The release missed 2019 by a month and still had a lot of bugs and missing features.

By this point a lot of big names were already leaving Blizzard due to the lack of control over their projects and the many public controversies. Classic Teams was hit especially hard with the failure of Warcraft III Reforged and the clear fact that Blizzard was not interested in developing another RTS title. This was also over a year after Heroes of the Storm saw its esports shut down with no warning and its development team decreased in number and budget.

Starcraft II esports had been handed to ESL, DreamHack, and AfreecaTV as Tim Morten left the company. The 10th anniversary and Patch 5.0 were big events but Kevin Dong and Ryan Schutter left shortly after that to form Frost Giant with Morten and other former Blizzard developers. The mantles for esports and content creation had been passed onto people outside of Blizzard as some of the last big RTS leaders parted ways with their employer. It was announced that there would not be any further Starcraft II paid content, although new ladder seasons, game fixes, and possibly more balance changes would still be supported.

Recent insider news indicates that the Classic Games team has been slowly dissolved since that announcement. Some members have quit, some interviewed for positions with other teams, and some were terminated. Heroes of the Storm got a new hero a couple months ago and just received a new balance patch so there is definitely some development going on there. Starcraft Remastered development has been quiet aside from ongoing attempts to find alternatives to Mac OS tools that Apple has ceased support for. There has also been silence from Warcraft III Reforged despite reports stating that they are still dedicated to adding previewed features such as profiles, leagues, and clans to the game, although its theorized that the rest of this work might be outsourced(no rumblings about where balance support would come from). Activision studio Vicarious Visions has been confirmed to have become dedicated to supporting existing Blizzard titles. Lots of reports point towards “Diablo II Resurrected” as their main focus and a few people believe they’ll be taking over at least some of the support for the four Classic Games titles(seems like a stretch considering the lack of experience the studio has with RTS or MOBA titles).

Hopefully there will be more hints towards the future of these games coming up either through more insider support or some official statements as BlizzConline nears. Either way, we’ll learn something when we find out if next week’s Starcraft II ladder season starts normally or if it turns out the lights are on but no one’s home. We already had a holiday season with no XP bonus but ongoing ladder seasons is something that was promised in the news blog and promotions are already locked despite no ladder map previews so far.

https://www.reddit.com/r/starcraft/comments/l4764z/team_1_classic_teams_and_what_happened_to_them/

This is a post from reddit 5 yr. ago

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I personally don’t need any of those steps. Remaster is cheap enough.

What this version really needs is the map sharing function and a lobby to meet online before hosting a game. An active player number and game count, so we know if people are online and playing or if we are just alone.

Leaderboards, observer mode etc would be great. Also an option to share and play modded versions could bring in some players.

War2 is a great game and the balance changes didn’t mess up the game and made it a bit easier for newer and returning players. Graphics are fine. Only things missing are for multiplayer and community features. It always feels empty if you don’t rely on discord/warcraft bnet groups or twitch streamers.

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You are quite good at misrepresenting what was said in that article, or you have terrible reading comprehension.

First, ONE high ranking employee, not employeeS, said that he personally didn’t find it fun. One person’s opinion.

Next, he was the chief development officer for the whole company who oversaw the development plans for all the games. So he should get a new job because he doesn’t think ONE of the many games, antiquated games no less, was fun? What?

Next, after he said it, another high ranking employee made sure to clarify that the choice to not remaster was just at that time, not never.

Next, added it to some random webste? GoG? The premier place for upgrading old games? What? Are you delusional? I think you knew that but intentionally misrepresented it as “some random website” to purposely make it sound bad so that it would falsely make you argument sound better. Well it doesn’t. For those that see through your generalizations, it actually makes you sound worse.

Id like to counter your generalizations in your OP as well, but that would make this post a mile long.

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Mods for War2 combat already exist. But people dont give attention to them, because they’re not official content.

Also, there’s a very hidden fan-made project for War2 that is like a chess game but no one gave attention to.

And there is Wargus - War1gus, yet get so very few people into their community. The content is there, but people dont give attention to it and instead just complain about War2 remaster like if its the very only WAR2 stuff that has existed for almost 30 years without being touched by Blizzard

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I know, that’s why official options in the game client would be great, so people can enjoy the content without being worried about malware and scams. Just look at steam workshops and all the games with mod support. It allows so much more extended fun with the games, especially for single player gamers.

Also look at all the great player made maps which were easily shared on war2 and BNE and ru… now we have to use workarounds to distribute them…

13

The still never fixed the broken colors on the original graphic portraits and it sill looks terrible. sc1 remaster was prefect.

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Starcraft 1 is easier to maintain because both classic and remastered are combined into one game. So now when you update “WC2 remastered” then “WC2 classic” doesn’t get those updates? I still think “WC2 remastered” and “WC2 classic” should be merged into one game as it would keep the community alive.

“Warcraft 3 reforged” was not in “good hands” when they started working on it, however it is now currently in “good hands” even though bug fixes and balance changes are done slowly. I read that one of the previous CEO had great passion regarding starcraft 1 and that’s why “starcraft 1 classic” and “starcraft 1 remastered” were merged into one beautiful game with excellent updates. But sadly no one had passion for “WC2 remastered”. Blizzard should have reached out to the community for help with the development and ideas how to handle “WC2 remastered”. Let’s take a look at the recent changes:

Balance Changes:

  • Paladin:

    • Heal mana cost per HP healed: 6 → 5

    • Heal research time: 200 → 100 steps

    • Exorcism research time: 200 → 150 steps

Paladin = It is time consuming to manually heal units which isn’t fun as it feels like a chore. By reducing research time and mana cost of heal you are not solving any problems, revert those changes. Heal should simply be made possible to AUTOCAST, so paladins automatically cast heal on units that are missing hp (autocast heal which you can enable and disable, this feature exists in WC3). This would reduce the amount of APM needed to use paladins. Then revert exorcism research time and reduce range from 10 to 9 since “one shot spells” are overpowered when the unit casting it is outside your camera view, the range of the spell is too long making it hard to counter/avoid. When the computer (AI) plays as human please change so AI doesn’t cast holy vision spell to explore the map as he wastes mana for nothing, the AI already knows where you are.

Death Knight:

  • Death and Decay:

    • Mana cost per set of ‘rots’ created: 25 → 30

  • Raise the Dead:

    • Skeleton HP: 40 → 60

  • Mage:

    • Blizzard:

      • Range: 12 → 10

Death knight and Mage = Blizzard and Death and Decay spells are very similar and are the only spells you need. Increasing mana for one and reducing range for the other therefore makes no sense, please revert mana cost of Death and Decay. Both spells should instead have increased research time and reduced range from 12 to 10. Revert hp of skeleton to 40. Raise dead upgrade should instead already be researched so Death knight starts with 2 spells. Fireball is a bad spell, therefore Flame Shield should already be researched so Mage starts with 2 spells. Then reduce Whirlwind range from 12 to 10. Then reduce Polymorph range from 10 to 9 since “one shot spells” are overpowered when the unit casting is outside your camera view, the range of the spell is too long making it hard to counter/avoid. Finally make Slow spell for Mage an AUTOCAST spell because it is a chore to manually cast slow and it would be a nice counter against for instance bloodlust, it’s easier to just use Blizzard spell to kill everything.

Ogre Mage

  • Bloodlust:

    • Duration: 1000 → 750

    • Mana cost per unit enchanted: 50 → 60

    • Double damage is now applied after armor reduction instead of before.

Ogre-mage = Revert bloodlust duration to 1000 and revert double damage to before armor reduction, do not make bloodlust into a useless spell! This is one of the coolest spells for any game! The only way you are supposed to nerf bloodlust is to increase the mana cost and by keeping it as a manually cast spell (Do not make it an autocast spell). Increase mana cost from 60 to 70 to nerf how many units are able to get the buff when ogre-mage has full mana (which also increases time until you are able to reapply the buff when you are low on mana). Then increase mana cost of eye of kilrogg from 70 to 80 since it lasts too long and can be used to trigger destroyer ship to attack which does friendly fire. Finally reduce range of Runes spell from 10 to 9, again this is one of those “one shot spells” and the unit casting is often outside your camera view, the range of the spell is too long making it hard to counter/avoid.

Dragon / Gryphon

  • Gold cost: 2500 → 2250

  • Archer / Axethrower:

    • Base piercing damage: 6 → 7

    • Upgrade Axes/ Arrows 1:

      • Damage increased: 1 → 2

      • Gold cost: 300 → 200

      • Lumber cost: 300 → 200

      • Research time: 200 → 150 steps

    • Upgrade Axes/ Arrows 2:

      • Damage Increased: 1 → 2

      • Gold cost: 900 → 600

      • Lumber cost: 500 → 300

      • Research time: 250 → 200 steps

    • Longbow / Lightaxe Upgrades:

      • Base piercing damage: 6 → 7

      • Gold cost: 2000 → 1000

      • Lumber cost: 0 → 300

      • Research time: 250 → 200 steps

    • Scouting Upgrades:

      • Gold cost: 1500 → 500

      • Lumber cost: 0 → 200

      • Research time: 250 → 150 steps

    • Ranger Marksmanship Upgrades:

      • Gold cost: 2500 → 1000

      • Research time: 250 → 200 steps

    • Berserker Regeneration Upgrades:

      • Gold cost: 3000 → 1000

Dragon and Gryphon = Revert gold cost. There is a reason they cost 2500 and that’s because they can fly and are therefore very destructive because many units are useless against flying units. A rich player will mass these and kill everything on the map, it’s like using a nuke.

Elven Archer and Troll Axethrower = Revert all changes. Increasing base damage and damage of upgrades is a bad idea because dragons, gryphons, ships and other units have no chance. Instead make Archers and Axethrowers start with scouting upgrade already researched at the start (delete the upgrade and give the units greater sight). This gives them a unique purpose to be trained at the start of the game compared to grunt and footman, it allows you to easier scout the map (and later becomes easier to find for instance enemy Mages/Death Knights and dragons/gryphons before they arrive to your base). It would also make the game more balanced when playing with computer (AI) since the AI doesn’t need to waste gold researching scouting upgrade, the AI already knows where you are.

New Ranged Unit Behavior

  • Trolls and Archers will now automatically acquire targets significantly faster than before. This behavior will be noticeable when an enemy unit enters their range and also when acquiring a new target after their original has been destroyed.

New Flying Unit Behavior

  • Dragons and Gryphons will now no longer be command locked shortly after attacking. Players will be able to issue orders and move them right after their attack animation.

These new unit behaviours should never have been done. Instead make it so Troll Berserker starts with Regeneration upgrade already researched and Elven Ranger start with Marksmanship upgrade already researched at the start (When you upgrade Axethrower/Archer to Berserker/Ranger the unit should get Regeneration/Marksmanship upgrade for free) to compensate for that the units are sluggish and not used in certain maps. As for dragons and gryphons you should not change anything with them, it doesn’t matter that they are sluggish and don’t respond well to commands, they are already annoying to deal with and nobody wants to see a dragon/gryphon attack your army once and then instantly fly away to safety.

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We really don’t want our original war2 ruined. Please keep them separate.

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interesting long detailed reply about rebalance

  1. Keeping bloodlust reverted back as it has been for 30 years its not getting Warcraft 2 anymore interesting. It has been a Bloodlust Fest or Orc-craft 2 since then. Its whole literal battle net balance being related to just Spam Bloodlust or Death&Decay/Blizzard.

  2. Not buffing archers just keep the same situation forever. If dragons/gryphons get weaker because this buff, then just buff those air units as well.

  3. Auto-cast on spells just make this game even easier to abuse for non-skilled people, like spamming Slow by default.

  4. Healing is Not a good spell, compared to how many Thousands of life points can be stolen by one single bloodlusted Ogre. Healing cost is too much, 6 mana/1hp. You can only heal 40hp from a paladin in full mana. Even if cost is 4mana/1hp, its still weaker than so much damage Bloodlust can do. But at least, this spell takes actual Skill. You need speed to use it. Any noob / beginner can one-click bloodlust and kill everyone. Terrible for the balance. Maybe fun for beginners in 1995 but for competitiveness is very non-skilled spell as D&D - Blizzard. It’s the same as Psi Storm on Starcraft. Any unskilled player can make big damage with those spells and it’s unfair.

  5. Removing Nerf for bloodlust by being weaker against Armored units only keeps the game hard-stucked in the same Bloodlust fest. Your kind of mindset is what keeps this game hard stucked with only 10 people playing it daily, because nothing else can be done. Nothing can beat bloodlust. This conservative mindset is what sets the grave for this game. From you and many other dudes around.

  6. Death&Decay / Blizzard are range 12. This is Insane alongside 25 mana cost. Any beginner can feel the best of the world by one single click that kills every unit around. Those 2 spells are unbelivably overrated and overpowered. This is why Mages & Death knighst have other 5 spells nobody cares about.

  7. Skeletons need more HP, and damage and attack speed. Even Peons can kill them, so not worthy 50 mana. Even if they’re auto-casted.

  8. Those usual complainings around this forum just make it unworthy to Blizzard to care about, if 80% its just complaining then 20% only positive stuff. Most likely when the Remaster was launched.

  9. If you want re-balances, there already exists a War2 modding area where you can support those mods and those people.

The ones who play base game on multiplayer dont care about multiplayer and are spamming bloodlust or death&decay / blizzard every day-only.

18

Thanks for your feedback, if you read what I wrote then you will find the solutions to your problems. I strongly recommend the suggestions I’ve posted to be done, else WC2 remaster will not be played by anyone multiplayer.

Let me clarify what I mean with “Both spells should instead have increased research time” (blizzard and death and decay):

In order to research “death and decay” spell you should first need to research “whirlwind” spell which then unlocks the research “death and decay”. In order to research “blizzard” spell you should first need to research “polymorph”. This way you are delaying the most overpowered spells while introducing variety as players will find ways to use the other unpopular spells. This is something Blizzard fixed in Warcraft 3 where they force you to research “adept training” for casters such as priest before being able to research “mastery training”.

Similar should be done for bloodlust spell, in order to research “bloodlust” you must first research “runes” spell. This would make the game more balanced for humans, because it would take longer and cost more gold in total for orcs to get bloodlust.

And please change so death knight and mage automatically attack enemies within range.

Then finally remove lumber mill requirement for axethrower and archer, so they can be trained when only having a barracks.