A little doubt:
If you have a cd key, you can always install the game and play it until a certain patch. The only thing that is missing is the whole battlenet support.
If you bought a roc key from blizzard site, can you use it with a cd?
I remember the good old times when you could buy pre-owned games…
Now there are games (and other softwares) that don’t start if you don’t log on internet to play offline.
That’s one of the rare cases in which I’d say that piracy is well deserved.
This is contradictory to what other people have posted.
Can you give links to people saying RoC key still works? Because all I heard is that it doesn’t. Also, when I downloaded Reforged, I only needed TfT key. Lastly, go to your Transaction history, there isn’t game name next to RoC.
Technically it does.
Computer Software does NOT get “used up”. A brand new game copy is no different from a used one (unless modded). Not to mention, that the company is selling “copies”, that alone defeats this argument.
This is different from goods like paper towel (your analogy), that gets used up. That’s why I said that it wasn’t a good analogy.
Otherwise fraudsters would buy the game, play it to completion and then demand a refund to effectively get the game for free.
And in that case it would be understandable. But this is not what we are discussing. We are discussing the (il)legality of company up and taking a product away, without warning, and without providing an option to refund.
However under the ToU the company might reserve the right to remove or revoke your licence to play the product at any time and for any reason.
What the company CAN do, is prevent you from using their servers, i.e. banning you from online games. Why? Cuz Providing you with their servers is a SERVICE, an ongoing one. Yes, they CAN cut that at any point.
What the company CANNOT do, is prevent you from playing a game. Because the game copy that you have, is a GOODS, and belongs to you. Once you buy it, you are the owner of that copy
(Plus, the only way they could do it, is come to your home, and remove the game from your computer. 
)
P.S. I forgot to address one of your previous arguments:
They updated the product. It was not replaced.
It’s technically a “remaster”, so a whole new product. It looks different, the performance is different, you have to download over 20gb of different content.
On top of that, both versions of Reforged require a stronger system than original did. Especially talking about Reforged mode, that needs a pretty high end system (compared to original) to run properly.
And there already there complaint in the forums, that some people who owned original, cannot play Reforged cuz too high system reqs. And they’ve no official way to get the game they paid for, that would be playable for them.
@WinterDryad
And that’s partly what I was talking about. Companies now are trying to keep you hooked to their servers, so their services would be necessary for you to play the game.
But the game copy itself is a goods. Just like a table, car, etc. And it belongs to the buyer.
Company can stop providing you a service of their servers, but they cannot take away the game copy that you have.
I have noticed it with Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3.
I thought that WC3 was still safe to play if you bought it online.
Warcraft III should just work from the BattleNet application. It verifies the RoC key when logging in and if present allows access to Classic graphics, which is practically the same TFT as we all knew plus and minus some bugs and features.
So you did not actually try it yourself?
This is kind of the issue with me. I attached both RoC and TFT to my account (both shop brought CDs with licence) so I cannot verify if only RoC is needed. I can assure you that if you own both RoC and TFT you still can play Warcraft III as normal with full online play. However I have to rely on word of mouth that RoC alone is all that is needed.
At some stage this was certainly the truth as when installing WC3 it would install both RoC + TFT and only ask for the RoC CD key. There was also no place in the game files that a TFT key was stored.
Tell that to Adobe Systems and other commercial software companies. They only rent out licences now which do very much get used up after a limited time.
Yet is still runs the same stuff, still runs on a toaster and still looks the same when using the same old licences. Sure it is 20 GB bigger but that does not stop anyone.
Except classic does not really. It only needs a more modern system because it uses more modern APIs. It still runs on a toaster, just it needs to support modern stuff. Seeing how Blizzard has done this with all their other games without legal repercussions they clearly have shown they have the right to do this.
StarCraft II now needs Windows 7 64bit OS and D3D11 to even boot. Originally it supported Windows XP 32 bit and D3D9.
Nothing entitles them to a refund in this case. Otherwise everyone who has their computer die could claim a refund for all their games they own since " they’ve no official way to get the game they paid for". They still own the game, it will sit there until they have a capable enough system and no one can take that away from them. If they ever get such a system is up to them.
verifies “from the cd” or online?
Means locally or you need to log in online?
Log into online, but this is pretty standard now with practically every big release requiring online verification to play.
This totally changes the nature of the software. You are switching from a product to a service.
Every game that requires online connection or just a verification in order to play clearly states it on the box or on the downloading page.
One day WC3 has an enforced update. I cannot play the game anymore.
This is illegal. That’s the subtle difference.
I don’t care what is in your mind when you mess with your company development.
When I bought the game you specified the requirements for it and then that I’d require a LAN connection or a battlenet account to PLAY ONLINE.
Not that I required a battlenet account and a connection to play the game offline. This is not what I have payed for.
So, beside the fact that you have removed battlenet support for the game I bought (which is lame, but, well, I can still play on LAN), you also misled players to update their software and find themselves unable to play the game anymore.
I was, like many other people, far away from my cd, since having the cd in the computer was not required anymore for years.
You also totally erased the possibility to buy it second hand, like for ANY of the games of that time.
I bought TFT second hand and lent my second RoC cd key a couple of times while they were trying to find their own.
This kind of climate where your neighbor or team mate is your first enemy trying to **** you up was never part of WC3.
It has been introduced by Blizzard in Diablo 3. Now it seems they want it to be part of WC3 too.
Difference is:
You have Diablo 1, Diablo 2 AND Diablo 3. Play the one you like. You are fully aware of what you are buying.
You have WC3, the only supported version is this mess, that is not what the original product was meant to be.
No it is not as you accepted the new EULA? Had you rejected it then the update would not have happened. Sure you could not play online but that was because the old services were shut down.
You can still use your CD copy to play as well. Just without online support since those services were shut down.
Well, so, now the question is:
where, in the whole reforged advertising or update or upgrade or however you want to call it, is it CLEARLY stated that switching to the new version the support of the old battlenet and all the related features cease to exist?
Did people have a choice to update?
Is it really an “update” or a total change of the nature of what has been sold years ago?
You know what is the reason of all this mess? The total lack of transparency and respect of this whole operation. Starting from what has been enforced onto clients, to how it has been presented.
Other people call it scam…
If they were clear from the beginning, if they even cared to put a simple “feature currently in development” on a profile button, if they cared to keep an older version of the client online, or move the old stats from one database to another, none of this would have happened. Probably some people would have complained, but surely not like this. Surely they would not have had so many refunds (ok, maybe for the massive bugs…), but the tangible disrespect for the community is what caused all this.
The new EULA applies to the new product. Nothing prevents people to play with the cd version whenever and however they like, luckily…
so I guess, a private battlenet is the solution…
This is standard policy for Blizzard. Once a game update roles out, multiplayer for the previous version goes down, with the servers booting the client. Warcraft III has used this since it was released all the way back in the early 2000s.
Occasionally there are EULA updates which prompt acceptance during an update, this happens fairly infrequently.
That might have legal issues as it could potentially allow people who did not buy a licence for Warcraft III to play online. Software piracy is a crime in most countries.
Not at all. I have never seen any critical feature being removed in any blizzard game since the 90s.
Changing the stats of a unit is something, removing the whole multiplayer online support is another.
Indeed, the EULA applies to the version it is shipped with. Otherwise it would have no sense.
Sorry, I expressed myself wrong. As private battlenet I don’t mean to reverse engineer the whole battlenet. (let’s remind that messing with anything within the software that is not directly allowed in the editor is as illegal as piracy, but… seems like Blizzard allows it as long as you don’t profit from it. …especially now that people are doing their job for free…)
I mean, hosting bots are already enough to make a complete gaming environment.
As for people using pirated copies of the game, it is a cultural issue, not a technical one. Imagine buying a car and that you have to contact the company who bought it from in order to use it every time you enter it. Why? Because there are people stealing cars. Makes no sense right?
Now, imagine you rent a car when you want to use it and you have to call the company that grants you the access to the car. Why? Because someone else could just steal your access. Makes sense right?
Now, imagine you have your car and suddenly you can’t use it anymore because after 20 years the company you bought your car from decides that now it is their car again and you just have to rent it.
That’s WC3 reforged. Simple and clear.
Fact is, you cannot transform a product into a service.
You may say: Battlenet has always been a service, not a product.
Perfect, remove the service, the game itself, WC3 as a PRODUCT has the capability to establish LAN connections to connect to other computers.
The old version covered by its EULA says I can do it.
There is no law that prevents me to put on a website that registers users. (respecting privacy stuff and bla bla bla)
There is no law that prevents me to decide where my computer should connect to (we are not talking about a dos to the nasa server obviously).
So if a have a website with a list of players, a chat and potentially available hosting bots, what does it make?
People are already playing private on ladders, as before they used to play on hosting bots.
There was garena once.
Now there is the quenching mod.
There is people messing around with memory overflows.
There were people (including me) that worked hard for building communities for blizzard games, where everyone had his license and play the official game.
What they did with WC3 has been a very very low offense to the community.
What I saw with Reforged, that there are no more custom campaigns too. Right now I ask myself if it allowing them in SCII is the work around until they work in Reforged or they really want to outsource it to SC II. But to be more on topic, I bought originally RoC and TFT because I regulary lost my discs and so thought by it online to play it whenever I want but with it now still letting it download Reforged it became useless and I need to buy some discs those are now getting expansive because of their renewed worth of how Reforged delate the old version.
Yet is exactly what happened. Once an update rolled out, multiplayer for the previous version of Warcraft III was removed. You had to update to continue playing multiplayer. This is no different to what happened here.
Sure you could continue to use LAN. But that is technically limited to the local area. Third party VPN software does exist to extend LAN across the internet, but this is using the feature in an unsupported way. Due to such third party software, most modern games do not support LAN or when they do they still require online authentication.
Where were the choices, the explanations, the possible alternatives and the consents?
Hopefully there are workarounds for that.
The problem is, if I buy Diablo 3 I am fully aware that I’ll have to log in into Battlenet to be able to play the game. There is also no support for LAN games or offline play. It has game that has been just made like this. Perfectly fine. Diablo 2 can be played on LAN. Diablo 1 has shared screen on Playstation.
3 different games with 3 different natures.
It never occurred to me in 20 years that the aim of WC3 was to enforce some kind of binding between a customer and a SERVICE, also considering that such service is one of the worst ever created.
Was a rollback option being provided?
No sadly not. The only option whas to still download it through a still functioning installer or a backup of a standalone patch like it whas provided in this thread:
Sadly the patches go only until 1.27 so for those that liked the 1.28-1.31 version get the short end of the stick.
I really hope and wish Blizz would still rerelease standalone patch installers for at least the major patches before Refunded.
Another very misleading issue with the game is indeed its requirements. Drastically changing the requirements, saying “if you buy reforged these are the requirements, if you don’t you can still play as before”, but in reality not only for who bought Reforged, but also for EVERYONE else without even adding any improvement to the game itself and not even offering a way to go back basically equals to:
ooooops! I sc*ed you computer! kthx sc u!
This sentence summarize the professional level of who planned this “update”.
Let’s remember that not everyone here is a computer scientist. Many people have been left here with no clue on how to make this game work.
PS
there are still people trying to figure out how some wonderfully features of the interface work.
1.28 onwards are all “Reforged” patches. They were patches made as part of work for Reforged. This is why they added many features.
Hence the last true “classic” patch was 1.27.
There is nothing misleading with them? It even clearly states " Warcraft III System Requirements (Reforged and Classic)".
Minimum Requirements refer to play with Classic graphics. Recommended Specifications refer to play with Reforged graphics.
The massive rise in minimum requirements was due to general API changes. Technically GPUs older than the “NVIDIA® GeForce® GTS 450” have the computational power to run classic with ease, but they do not support enough of the Direct3D 11 API to do so. Like wise it now requires a 64bit OS running Windows 7 or higher and may use some instruction set which was only introduced across the product stack with the first “Core i” series of processors.
Within the last few years most of Blizzard’s games have undergone a similar rise in minimum system requirements. StarCraft II, Diablo III and Heroes of the Storm have all dropped support for 32bit OSes and raised to requiring D3D11 compliant GPUs.
Ah no?
The last Patch before Reforged whas 1.31.1. If you go with renewed work for Reforged then I could say Patch 1.27 would be a patch for it too because it happened after a five year long break.
Technically Patch 1.28 added many fixing and service support like 1.27 which added Support for Windoof 7-10.
Though in the PAtch Notes they Speak from a Standalone Patch 1.31.1 installer but I whas not able to find one.
"Updated: 2 months ago "
don’t you remember the original one? Timestamps…
You are talking about games that have just half of the age of WC3. Those already natively supported 64bit.
There is no functionality at all that has been added to WC3 switching to D3D11 beside removing shadows.
Btw, WC3 could already run smoothly on an old matrox.
Most OS and Shader engines have backward compatibility.
So, beside monitor resolution (and let’s remember that 5/4 on the the original WC3 was already a stretched 4/3) there was no need at all for a graphical update.
Or, if you really want to do a graphical update, you really do a graphical update and make something completely new. In this case it should have been “Reforged”. Fine, no, ops, not fine, it doesn’t work…
The generic “doesn’t work” includes 3 main problems.
1 Bugs.
2 Missing features.
3 Enforced mistakes.
Now, bugs, well, one day or another they’ll get fixed.
Missing features, the community is struggling to rebuild a proper gaming environment.
But, how are you going to solve the mistakes that they don’t even (willingly or not) recognize?
And what about the bugs and features that depend on these mistakes?
That’s the real problem…