New campaign with SD graphics - old campaign with Reforged graphics?

General Discussion
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There are four terms.

  1. Standard definition graphics - the way WC3 looks like now. Switchable at will.
  2. Reforged graphics - the way WC3: Reforged looks like. Needs rupees to unlock. Then switchable at will.
  3. Old campaign - the one we have now.
  4. New campaign - the one that will have different mission layouts, new units, new (alongside with old?) voice lines.

So, here are my questions, starting easy then getting hard. Weirdly enough, I haven’t seen them discussed that much.

  1. Will the new Reforged campaign be available in SD graphics? (Most likely yes. But then, will it differ? SD models do not support such gestures and moves, and overall would look hideous with the new camera angles in Reforged cutscenes).
  2. Is the new Reforged campaign only available after buying Reforged? (Most likely yes. Still, it hasn’t been touched upon definitely).
  3. Will the old campaign still be available? (I guess? Otherwise, what will the staying on 1.30 folks have access to? Or will the Reforged campaign (in SD) actually be available to them? And only it?)
  4. If the old campaign is available, will it support the Reforged graphics? (It’s a simple switch, duh. And it should work like any custom map/campaign, right? But maybe Blizzard would meddle with the Reforged look of the old campaign? But it would ruin it, that’s the point of the original campaign to stay the same, albeit with the new Reforged graphics).

The most intriguing question is 3. What will the campaign tab look like for a well-mannered uncouth traditionalist that does not give Blizzard any rupees? I highly doubt the new Reforged campaigns will be available for free, BUT not giving them out will fracture the community! Blizzard’s philosophy is “delete everything old” - that’s why we will never get vanilla WoW servers… nice consistency there. In the unimaginable case of charity and free campaigns, the old campaigns might be available as custom campaigns anyway. Hopefully in an official way. But otherwise, an unofficial way will be used quite easily by the folks on HiveWorkshop, literally day 1.

Where has my Arthas on a hill gone?

Wherever the old campaigns go.

Crossbow shot.

(^ This is a funny and high-IQ reference to Game of Thrones Season 4. Of course, I hope that Arthas will stand on a hill in Reforged - unlike the demo, but like both the original campaign and WoW:WotLK.)

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I would bet my money: no. Or, at most, it could be playable with SD graphics, but I think it would still be Reforged-exclusive.

Yes. I’m pretty sure the new campaign Reforged-exclusive.

Yes, it will be.

Most likely. If nothing else, you can just save the campaign maps as custom maps and then reload them up with the Reforged Editor and they should then have the updated graphics. So I don’t see any reason why they wouldn’t just allow us to play the old campaign with the new graphics.

On the last part, I seriously am not sure if you are joking or not…

No, it won’t be given away for free, and it won’t fracture the community… That’s ridiculous. Everyone understands that new content has to cost. Nobody was complaining that TFT was a paid expansion pack.

Again, I’m not sure if this is supposed to be some kind of joke, but if it is, it’s not really very good, because you haven’t been paying much attention lately. Blizzard’s philosophy is not to delete everything. They have explicitly said that they are treading very carefully, because they don’t want to break the game.

And what are you talking about WoW Vanilla servers? We are getting WoW Classic pretty soon - most likely sooner than we are getting Reforged. And they weren’t planning on to make Vanilla WoW unplayable back then. They just never realized how far the game would evolve and that somebody would actually like to play the old game. You know, even current retail WoW is really still just the same as the classic game, they just added on top of it, so the remnants of Classic are there, under the hood, but the engine and everything has been modified and updated so many times, it is very hard to dig up the Classic underneath.

Also,
What’s a “high-IQ reference”? :rofl: How does it differ from normal-IQ reference?

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Question

Answer

But probably they just forgot or didn’t make it in time

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No, not at all. I meant it more in line that graciously leaving the old campaigns in would fracture Blizzard’s appearance and prestige, it would weave a guise that the old campaigns are still supported and currently represent Blizzard’s vision of Warcraft… alongside the contradicting new campaigns.

I think, you aren’t getting my 3 because you have a different impression of Blizzard’s spirit. I posit, however, that RoC was deleted for a reason, and that vanilla WoW is a fluke. The old has to be buried… but if the non-buyers see a supported version of the old campaign, we have a problem.

At the same time, non-buyers themselves are quite buried. There never was a Reforged non-buyer after 2018-11-02. Maybe, that will be enough of a solace for Blizzard.

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They are not deleting Classic WC3. Reforged is introduced on top of that. Of course Classic WC3 still has to have its classic campaign.

And RoC is not deleted. It still exists and you still play most of it, if you want. It was only the melee ladder that was merged with TFT ladder most likely because of the changes they made to update the game. It could still be reverted at some point and allow RoC players have their own RoC ladder.

People asked for Classic WoW for a very long time. They are doing it because people want it.

And I don’t really get what you are saying… By “non-buyers” you mean people who won’t buy Reforged? Why should they get new content? They have bought the original game and that’s it. The Classic WC3 will be just the same we have now: only Reforged will bring in new graphics and new campaigns.

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Do not conflate the non-existing “classic WC3” with the very much existing (so far) classic WC3 campaign.

My prediction: a Reforged account only has the official access to the Reforged campaign. It can run the original campaign, but only as a custom one (officially not supported, but working flawlessly).

Oh, but they will. The pre-Reforged account will remain with the official access to the original campaign only… with the caveat that the connection works both ways! Nothing will bar the creation of a custom campaign that mirrors the Reforged one!

How could I fail to understand my own argument? That’s the reason why they are not advertising the access to the new campaign as a major part of Reforged! Because it can be back-ported!

Still, a peculiar question remains - how the SD version of the new Reforged campaign (which will be officially supported) is going to deal with cutscenes? I have no idea.

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I’m also very interested how the new doodads (and cliffs?) would work on SD. Are they going to make a SD version of those?

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That would make sense because playing Reforged in SD does go into the price tag.

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What do you mean? The current campaign we have is the classic campaign. They are not changing that.

Again, they have explicitly said that your prediction is wrong: I mean, you already get the Classic WC3 with Reforged. Why would that be taken away? Also, you can’t even buy the Classic WC3 alone anymore and you have to buy Reforged. Why wouldn’t they then give access to classic WC3 after the release of Reforged? Especially when they have said that you will get both games with Reforged from the day 1.

And the Reforged campaign won’t most likely work with the Classic. Sure, you could possibly import it into the World Editor, but I’m guessing it will have a lot of Reforged-exclusive assets, so many places would be broken with the SD assets.

You are making a whole lot of assumptions… And the point about cutscenes is one example why the new campaign won’t work with the SD version of the game.

I don’t think so.

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They are. I posit that there are two campaigns. One will be ditched.

Again, you are conflating the game with the campaigns. I fully agree that the game will be one. But even you agree that just like the pre-Reforged account will not have the ability to play with Reforged graphics, it won’t have the ability to run the new campaign… a least, officially.

Leave it to the Hive. They have even made a co-op campaign with the original.

It should. It was advertised as such.

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Was it? It’s been so long since I’ve combed through any Reforged coverage.

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Okay, you are not making any sense…

Where have they said one will be ditched?

Well that’s my whole point! Classic WC3: Classic WC3 Campaign, Reforged: New Campaign + possibly old campaign with new graphics.

We are talking about official support here. Like I already said, you could possibly import the New Campaign into World Editor and change it to SD graphics, but I get the feeling that it will still have a lot of stuff that’s is Reforged-exclusive, so it wouldn’t still work with Classic WC3.

No, it’s not. They have only said that Reforged will introduce a new campaign with new graphics. Nowhere it is said that you should be able to play the new campaign with Classic WC3.

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Nowhere. But I can’t imagine a Reforged account with an option to choose either of the 4 campaigns (RoC OG, RoC Re, TFT OG, TFT Re). Goes against Blizzard’s ideology.

I believe that the old campaign will be ditched.

I’m sure it will be close enough.

See, you are confusing the terms. What is “Classic WC3” even supposed to mean? There is no classic WC3. Look at the 4 terms I put in the OP.

SD is not tied to the old campaign. And SD is not a pre-Reforged account. The Reforged account is indeed advertised to have the option to revert to the SD - but that is not the old campaign!

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How is that “against Blizzard’s ideology”? So you are just determined to expect the worst, just because Blizzard?

No, you are confused: there is Classic WC3, that is the current WC3 we have right now. That is not going anywhere. And the campaigns are a pretty big part of the different versions of the game. Sure they brought also a lot of new assets, units and balance changes, but essence of the games lie in their campaigns.

Well, what else could this possible mean then, if not the campaign…?

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That we will see. And the pre-Reforged account will be locked with the old campaign until upgrading.

But the SD is not a version. The game is the same. It is you who’s dividing the game. No matter what definition you choose, you will be able to play anything, especially something as official with zero custom assets as the campaign.

The standard definition is a graphics setting, not a campaign. I rely upon their promise that a Reforged user can switch at will, both in the campaign and on the ladder. This does not sound like “playing SD means you are missing on all the changes to the campaign”.

And then I posit that its not in Blizzard’s nature to actively encourage two different versions of the story at the same time.

My prediction:

I. Reforged account.

  1. New campaign.
    A. HD.
    B. SD.

II. Pre-Reforged account.

  1. Old campaign.
    A. SD.

Pure, unadulterated logic.

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Seeing how Warcraft III was released after 2000 and has always been playable in a HD resolution, this term makes no sense.

A more correct term for it would be Classic graphics.

The new reforged campaign will almost certainly not be available with classic graphics. It is designed for Reforged graphics and there is no reason to design it to support classic graphics. The only people able to play it are those who have brought Reforged and so have access to Reforged graphics.

Yes it is a Reforged feature.

The classic campaign will likely be used when running classic graphics. This way people without Reforged can play the classic campaign as they currently can and people with Reforged can play the Reforged campaign.

Another possible implementation would be to add 3 campaign selections, one for RoC, TFT and then Reforged. This would keep the implementation most true to the original without any of the nonsense of having to change game versions.

If it can be played with Reforged graphics enabled then it will partially support them. However only maps which were modified to be part of the Reforged campaign and are being played as part of the Reforged campaign will fully support the graphics. Partial support means that some assets which were not given Reforged graphic versions may still use their classic graphic versions and so appear out of place.

That said for the most authentic experience it would be best if they only allow the classic campaign with classic graphics and the Reforged campaign with Reforged graphics. This avoids any potential visual bugs due to missing or changed assets.

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Thanks for the ideas. By the way, I vaguely remember that they said there would be no RoC and no TFT anymore, just Reforged. Am I making it up? Because this again would make sense.

Some folks have also suggested bringing the RoC campaign unit values/costs in line with TFT. Unifying the two parts into just one menu with 8 campaigns would do it.

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I guess they meant that the clients will be merged, like they did already. You can’t buy RoC or TFT alone anymore, you have to buy Reforged which will include RoC and TFT. I wouldn’t make any conclusions that that would mean ditching the campaigns, because that’s just pure speculation and nowhere have they said anything like that. And it wouldn’t make any sense. There are people who love the original games and want nothing to do with Reforged: Blizzard is not forcing anyone to play Reforged (that’s the whole point of backwards-compatibility).

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But those people had already bought WC3 pre-Reforged. And even then, they would be able to play the old campaigns as customs.

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Oh my gosh, we have been over this… You can play the old campaign even after release of Reforged.

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