Maybe Brian Sousa left because he was disappointed to be welcomed by the community for his work.
More seriously, Blizzard, by keeping the same engine and wanting to keep its historical community, can’t make a big evolution. He wants compatibility between the old War3 and Reforged, so the gameplay can’t evolve.
They could change the balance but it’s very difficult with 4 races, the slightest change can break everything.
They could have brought more graphic change, but it would have paused a problem with the custums games already made by the community.
What They could have done was to modify the campaign a little more with better cutscenes and better dialogues. But part of the community doesn’t want that.
As a result, we end up with a somewhat wobbly game. The characters are realistic but in a somewhat cheap setting and with a somewhat heavy control that denotes what is currently being done in RTS or MOBA.
I finally think that the game can only appeal to those who have already enjoyed the basic game and that it will have a very difficult time attracting new players.
The art assets are finished at this point anyhow. Would make sense to leave after finishing a project. Would be very smart to run from the dumpster fire that is activision-activision.
I’m playing the Definitive Edition Age of Empires 2 Campaign and yes, it’s all changed.
There is changes to everything: the new voice overs, the art of the campaign history, a new “Scouts” hints, updated objetives and bugs fixed, Factions with Civilizations changed (Italians getting the Italians Civ for example) and corrected trained units.
New models for a lot of campaign unique units, changed map design for the poor Campaigns like the Forgotten one. They even replaced an entire campaign.
So yeah, they changed A LOT of things for the campaigns in the DE.
And one question: Who the hell thinks this “you can play reforged with the classic warcraft 3” ideia is good…? This is a VERY stupid ideia, creating so many problems for virtually no pros.
Imagine the amount of desyncs they need to fix because of this stupid decision.
Well name even ONE of the original campaign missions (from Age of Kings or the Conquerors) that they would have changed significantly or at all…so far from what Ive seen the campaign missions played from those 2 games that Ensemble originally made, they are EXACTLY the same as they always were…Forgotten Campaigns were originnally made by the fan community that were then officially adopted as part of AOE2: HD Edition, so it doesnt suprise me they would have replaced some of the worst stuff there, but Im talking about the original campaings of Age of Kings and Conquerors…
Also its funny you mentioned the remade voice acting, cause from what Ive read from nearly all comments in YT, people seem to be in agreement that the new voice acting sucks compared to the original narration and voice acting…go figure…
Other than that though ofc its good that they fixed some things, but here we again come to the one thing that there was very little that Warcraft 3 needed “fixing” or changing in the first place.
Well I looked into this particular map and the ONLY change I can see that they might have made was to change some of the civilizations to be more historically accurate…as far as the campaign map design/objectives they have stayed ENTIRELY unchanged:
So lets try this again…give me ONE example of the original Age of Kings or Conquerors maps where they actually would have changed the MAP LAYOUT OR the Objectives…
Cause again as far as I can tell there ARE no such changes aside from the Forgotten campaigns you mentioned. The original campaign map layouts and objectives have remained EXACTLY the same as they were in original Age of Kings and Conquerors…
In that aspect Warcraft 3: Reforged will actually be more different again because Stratholme, Silvermoon and Dalaran will actually have their map layout changed in the Reforged campaign.
You are just searching for excuses now. Changing the civs on the map, completely changes the map, as you must play around the strengths of these new opponents (you cannot send cavalry armies to fight the Italians, as Teutons only have the Scout for light horsemen, and the Genoese Crossbowmen murder Knights).
They also replaced an entire campaign altogether, and added new units to all the maps.
No matter how you try to spin it, reskinning Warcraft 3 for the modern RTS gamer is a terrible idea, as the gameplay is just awkward, and the campaign is full of plot holes.
They should have Reforged it (sweeping gameplay and balance changes, to make the game play like a more modern title), but they chose to go cheap, and almost everyone will quit this game after playing melee for 30 minutes.
Excuses? I asked you if there are ANY changes to the campaign map layouts or the objectives…and the clear answer is, no there isnt…Also idk how much harder they updated the AI in Age2: Definitive Edition, but atleast back in the day it hardly mattered what civ you played against in the campaign as you could just mass an army big enough to crush your way through the AI…
Atleast Warcraft III: Reforged DOES have some of its campaign maps altered. And as for your gameplay tweaks suggestion, I think I already answered why they didnt change anything in WC3 in that regard…BECAUSE they wanted the old custom game maps to be 100% compatible with Reforged (otherwise all of those would have been had to be remade from scatch) and I’ve not heard almost anyone here complaining/wanting gameplay tweaks to Warcraft III, aside from possibly being able to create bigger groups than 12 units. And I think the competitive players also wanted the gameplay to stay EXACTLY as it was. Again it never was up for Warcraft III: Reforged to offer modern experience, but rather more visually pleasing experience of the original.
Anyhow if you want a “modern” RTS, then keep on asking Blizzard to make Warcraft IV…Warcraft III: Reforged was NEVER meant to be full on remake in the first place…and also as for “campaign is full of plot holes.” care to elaborate, cause thats complete and outright lie…
The only major “plot hole” in the campaign that existed in WC3 compared to WoW was Arthas killing Kael’s father, but thats it…and even that is somewhat getting filled now because Anastarian IS confirmed to be in the campaign, so you get to kill him in the revamped Silvermoon map.
So honestly you are just stretching it yourself, especially with your completely unrealistic expectations on what Warcraft III: Reforged set out to be in the first place…or how different AoE 2: Definitive Edition really is compared to the original…
But there are, even on the last mission of the Saladin Campaign, where originally you could build the Wonder on an island, but now the island has rocks in it so that you cannot cheese the mission.
I have hundreds of other examples, but none will ever be enough, because you actually hate Warcraft, and want it dead, so you will twist any words, and use any excuses, to make it so.
Anyhow I how you came to conclusion that I “hate” Warcraft? Thats rich, cause Ive been fan of the franchise since 1996, but imho it was VERY clear from the beginning what Warcraft III: Reforged was going to be and what it was not going to be…I honestly cant understand you people who want “modern” experience out of 17 year old game thats just essentially getting remastered, rather than completely remade…
Also Ive been saying for more than a decade now that Warcraft should return back to its RTS roots, so I honestly dont understand how Im “hating” it
I just didnt have any delusions or unrealistic expactions what Warcraft III: Reforged was supposed to be, unlike some people here…
If I really hated Warcraft, then I would not have my pre-order of Reforged still in place (Spoils of War edition)…But I think it was VERY clear that Reforged should NOT change too much what made original game so loved nor that it was ever designed to do so. And that if you really want new Warcraft RTS experiences, then you should be asking them to make Warcraft IV or atleast add entirely new campaings to Reforged later on.
There is 2 problems here. First: what is ‘change significantly’ ? You appear to consider only ‘change significantly’ only if you change the map layout or all the objetives…?
Age of empires 2 did not had any map problem or objetive problem, so you are basically asking a change that this particular game had no problem with…?
Second: The game had massive changes on the things it needed massive changes.
For example, in the Henry the Lion Barbarossa mission, the Poland enemy faction changed from Goth to Slavs and they reworked all the enemy trained units to match the correct faction.
The same for the Hungarians in the Genghis Kahn mission turning into Magyars, also giving the Hero units unique models.
The Forgotten campaign had map and structure problems. They got this changes because it was needed. I don’t know why they removed the El Dorado campaign, maybe it was too fictional and poor designed, but they replaced it with a more historical accurate one.
The voice acting is all nostalgia. The old voice-acting were amateurish with exaggerated stereotipical accent, like the Scotish one.
Someone that liked the old one will definitely not like the new one.
Warcraft 3 have map design problems on some missions, specially Silvermoon and Dalaran (the 2 worst missions design-wise), but Stratholme was not one of them.
Stratholme change looks like a downgrade, to be honest. The big-city and massive map of the original turned into… a very little city…? Just to make it look like wow…?
And then comes the problem: if they are changing Stratholme to look like wow… then why not the rest…? If they created an entire reforged campaign changing everything to look like wow, I would understand, but changing just one mission is very strange.
For me Warcraft 3 Reforged will stay in a kind of Limbo, where it does not know what it want to do or archive.
At least one the biggest problems with the Warcraft 3 campaign (the units and factions designs) are being fixed.
I asked you if there are ANY changes to the campaign map layouts or the objectives…and the clear answer is, no there isnt…Also idk how much harder they updated the AI in Age2: Definitive Edition, but atleast back in the day it hardly mattered what civ you played against in the campaign as you could just mass an army big enough to crush your way through the AI…
Thats rich, cause Ive been fan of the franchise since 1996, but imho it was VERY clear from the beginning what Warcraft III: Reforged was going to be and what it was not going to be…I honestly cant understand you people who want “modern” experience out of 17 year old game thats just essentially getting remastered, rather than completely remade…