Warcraft 3 Remastered/Definitive Edition: What this project could have been

General Discussion
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Does anyone here think:

A Warcraft 3 Remastered/Definitive edition is worth 30-40$ with the exception that the campaigns get reworked just as they are now, and all the World Editor enhancements still being done ?

The only difference would be, graphically it wouldn’t be as over the top as Reforged.

Idk about all of you, and i’m looking forward in hearing your opinion, but i would have personally preferred if the visuals of Warcraft 3 was done in a Remastered or Definitive Editoin fashion instead.

Because i think Blizzard was mistaking when they thought the audience for Warcraft 3 even cares for graphics.

i’m a guy that would say Warcraft 3 Classic currently as it is in patch 1.31.1, is worth 30$ just for the overwhelming custom content alone.

Now remember, i fully understand why some people would be skeptical of that, but as a map maker and atleast as a person who sees how many great maps exist for people to play outside of your usual (TD/MOBA/UtherParty/<insert top 10 popular maps here) maps, i truly believed it was about time OTHER then that maps were given a spotlight.

I hope you guys will atleast understand where i’m coming from. i mean i don’t know what is the definition of being a shill.

A - Supporting Blizzard with Reforged knowing that the custom community will shrink down to the typical top 10 maps.

B - Saying current game is already worth 30$ because there would be an endless stream of custom content coming.

Reforged just made 100% of all model resources in Hive WorkShop outdated and left no replacements for it. its practically forcing the map making group to only play within the bubble of Warcraft.

while when you consider the existing model resources. there is:

  • World War 2 models
  • Steam Punk models
  • Ancient civilization models (aka Greeks, Rome, etc)
  • Stylized Cartoony models more in line with Lord of The Rings
  • And an extremely large category of Warcraft models, from what’s actually useful, to what looks far better then the standard models yet not as over the top as Reforged.
  • And Special Effect models.

:point_up_2:This results in us having the option to play almost infinite amount of custom games. alongside several Campaign maps apart from the standard Blizzard ones that are done better then what Blizzard made in 2002.

• Like, Rise of The Blood Elves
• Curse of the Forsaken
• Legends of Arkian
• The Chosen One

Alternate Campaigns like Turnro’s work:
• Malfurions Quest
• Adventures of Rowan The Wise
• Resurrection of the Scourge
• Jeopardy of the Horde

Now what do you get out of Reforged exactly ?
honestly, to me it sounds like with Reforged we’re starting from ground 0 again.

What did we have in 2002-3 ? Melee + Campaign.
well that’s exactly what i feel we have now with Reforged. and why ?
well, here is my argument, i believe that people want to only play on Reforged HD now that it exists and forget Classic/SD exists, now if people think like this then the entire map legacy of Warcraft 3 just got wipe washed besides the top 10.

is that what you want Warcraft 3 to be ? and i’m legit asking from you.

So, melee+Campaign+10popular maps.

Vs melee+Campaign+Infinite maps.

There is potential with Reforged to grow, but you guys gotta admit that starting from ground 0 sounds horrible. making over the top quality models that Reforged has, for people in hive that are just doing this as a hobby is actually outlandish to ask. they mightaswell get hired and do modeling if they can pull off over the top models like Reforged, why do it free ?

What’s magical about SD is that because SD models are easier to make we get a lot more of them. and its a lot easier to make them look better then what already exists in Classic Warcraft 3.

All this time usually hive model resources had better looking models, with near infinitely more options, and creativity. and now Blizzard published something that the community is going to have a hard time trying to outdo. the only exception being, Blizzard isn’t just going to provided resources for the game just because they love it. unlike the community which did all of this just cuz they enjoy their time, doing this as a hobby. and they love the game.

I feel like just as Microsoft did the Age of Empires 2 Definitive Edition Remaster, the same approach should have been made with Warcraft 3.

I mean think about it, Had Blizzard taken a less soo over the top bite out of the birthday cake, they might have been able to pull of something that feels like its actually finished. and everyone feels as if they are relieved at the very least.

With Reforged we’ve clearly seen what blizzard has been doing. pretty much rope jumping between visual improvements, and campaign. which people aren’t even fully agreeing with anyway.

Some people are here demanding 2018 demo promise, some are here saying they don’t want those, and some are here like me saying whole of Reforged just feels like it has lack of quality and polish at its core, no matter how hard Blizzard is currently trying to polish what i would call non Blizzard quality work. (aka polished :poop: is still… you guessed it.)

Does anyone actually feel relieved here ? :frowning:

Too much Development time was lost in deciding something, then deciding to change that something, then spending the entire time changing it. without realizing all this time they wasted, they could have done much more.

And most importantly, i feel like instead of Blizzard trying to do a balanced uplifting so that at the very least 50%+ of the community can just smoothly transition, they just did some sort of out of touch uplifting that excluded most of what existed before.

Hey i mean, maybe people wouldn’t look down on SD graphics and give them a chance for the huge potential they can have.

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is this a joke? those are just buzzwords used for advertising, they dont actually mean anything.

“definitive” editions usually are for games that have a bunch of DLC, and are maybe ported to a new console with slightly improved resolution and frame rates. If AoE is called “Definitive & Remastered” then they are just trying to over-hype there game!

Reforged is the same thing as Remastered, they just called it something slightly different to enhance the hype. Its really not that much different from Starcraft1 Remastered, except with SC1 they only slightly improved the resolution and kept the artstyle the same. With WC3 they are completely changing the artstyle, and trying to fix a majority(or not, depending on your PoV) of problems. With SCr they improved online functionality, but they didnt fix bugs. They are doing more for WC3 than they did with SCr which is what justifies the $30 price tag.

If you dont like it, then learn some patience. Games always drop in price or go on sale at some point, just wait a year or 2 and Im sure you can buy it for $20 or even $15

And no Reforged is not $40… its $30 + an extra $10 if you choose to buy the stupid pointless skins. Thats your choice to show support for a game you enjoy. If you buy skins (for any game) you have no right to complain because the whole point of skins is for a developer to make some extra cash for as little effort as possible. Personally, I wont buy skins cause I hate them, but I wont complain about $30 for Reforged, I will just keep praying the fix things more

The whole reason Activision agreed to let Blizzard fixup WC3 was in the hopes of making money from skins, so anything else we get is just an extra bonus on top of that.

Now me personally, Im not a big fan of the new artstyle. I prefer Classic, but I still chose to buy the Beta because I have already owned 3 copies of RoC+TFT and Im just a big, longtime fan of this game. So for me, its not about Remaster or Definitive editions, cause those are just stupid words… whats really important is how well the gameplays, what features are improved and/or still needing improving, how well does MMR perform, and will the new UI be better than the original? thats what justifies the price for me.

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Thanks for the response.

I only used the words of Remastered and Definitive Edition because often times the games that were reworked with those titles had a more faithful visuals and models to their original games compared to this new term blizzard invented.
taking a look at ScR as you mentioned.

cheers.

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If reforged is successful, based on the # of skins they can sell, then the only thing we can hope for is that Blizzard is able to successfully patch the game to run smoothly, and then maybe maybe we can get some kind of a DLC/expansion. Thats my hope, I know its unlikely, but theres a better chance of a DLC/Expansion actually happening before a true WC4

as for custom games, i think new maps will come out that are amazing, and some classic maps will remain, and so whats wrong with that? I’d prefer new maps over old ones, since most CGs are pretty boring. I’d prefer campaign + custom games using new Reforged artstyle, but I will only play those like a few times, and Ill probably play melee/ladder in Classic/SD

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you work for Actiblizzard?
"yea we can sell an unfinished project without listening to most of the complaints about terrain graphics, UI and not adding new content because the game is underrated, custom games should fix it "

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It sounds like you’re worried about the continuity of the modding scene. Don’t. Reforged hasn’t done much in the World Editor department~~I personally view that as laziness, but in this case actually a good thing.

The old JASS / PERL scripting tricks still work.

Even this ancient tool made for TFT v1.24 still works on the maps of the Reforged beta:

https://www.hiveworkshop.com/threads/advanced-melee-ai.62879/

I’ve only played “Rise of The Blood Elves” and “Curse of the Forsaken” among these.

Why? Have you seen the Skyrim and Fallout modding scenes? You’d be shocked how people who do things as hobbies create results that often match, if not exceed the quality of official artworks.

I am relieved that the backend / programming side of things have been left largely untouched and that old scripting tricks just work. Everything else, I am not relieved nor reassured.

Maybe. They are advertising this as a progressive remake while doing a conservative remaster, which just pisses off both sides. Microsoft is definitely a lot wiser in saying it’s doing a remaster then doing a remaster.

What are you trying to communicate with this statement?

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This might be a controversial opinion, but… I kinda wished they just made a new expansion for Warcraft 3 instead of Reforged.

Now, this expansion could include things like:

a) Up-resing the classic models and terrain to the quality level of some of the best community made stuff - yes, it wouldn’t look as flashy and modern as what they have now, but it would still make the game look considerably better, while most likely being:

  • faster and cheaper to produce and implement
  • more compatible with the engine, resulting in lower requirements and better performance
  • more compatible with the existing library of custom content and the capabilities of the modding community

If you don’t have an idea what quality level I’m talking about - something like this:
https://www.hiveworkshop.com/threads/moarg-overlord.295043/

b) The time spent on adjusting the engine to work with modern graphics could have been spent on adding more improvements to the World Editor, allowing for even greater modding capabilities.

c) Keep the old campaigns mostly intact - perhaps add some minor tweaks and polish here and there to make it feel and play a bit better, but nothing major. Instead of that…

d) Add a bunch of brand new campaigns - if they don’t want to go into WoW territory, there’s a bunch of other stories in the Warcraft universe that they could have explored. These new campaigns would obviously come with new missions, new voice acting, new races and units, new assets and so on.

Like… Just take a quick look at some of the community made campaigns - they’re very high quality and with a little bit of “Blizzard polish” and professional voice-acting, they’d not only match up with the original W3 stuff, but easily beat it in terms of quality.

So - if regular fans and modders were able to make something so awesome, one could only imagine what Blizzard could come up with.

e) Finally - also add a bunch of stuff to the multiplayer, perhaps even a new race or a number of new things for the existing races, new maps, new neutral buildings, new tavern heroes, new creeps, new items, etc.

A major concern here is obviously balance, but I think this could be countered by having a really long multiplayer beta where with the help of the community they would surely manage to reach a fairly decent balance state.

Moreover, I think they should have allowed people to choose which version they want to play with: RoC, TfT, new expansion. Yes, it segregates the community, but chances are most people would gravitate towards using the latest version anyway and thus have an enjoyable experience, while the folks who really preferred TfT or RoC would also have an option to play that - probably at the cost of significantly longer queue times, but that’s still better than nothing like what the RoC fans got.

And obviously combine all of the above with modern Battlenet integration, improved matchmaking and ladder, better social features and other online stuff.

Now, how to sell this new expansion? Have two options - if you have TfT, buy the expansion pack for like 30$, if not - buy a full package (RoC, TfT, expansion) for like 40$. Or more, because - I’ll be perfectly honest - I think if Blizzard did what I’ve just described, they could easily bump up the price and most people would still happily buy it.

I imagine it wouldn’t be that hard to sell people on this expansion - like: you want better graphics? We have it! You loved W3 campaigns? Well, we have 4 brand new campaigns waiting for you! You want to play multiplayer? There’s plenty of new content for you! A fan of custom games? We’ve upgraded the World Editor, so our modders can create even more awesome games for you!

Ticks pretty much all the boxes, outside of maybe people who wanted to get modern graphics or gameplaby, but… Well, it’s a matter of choice, really. You can’t realistically please both these people and folks who preferred the game how it was back in the day, so you have to choose one.

And If you’re going to make massive changes to the graphics and base gameplay then… why not just make Warcraft 4? I mean, the models they’ve made for Reforged are really high quality - now imagine if they put them in a brand new game with an engine built from the ground up to support them? I think the result would have been much better than Reforged.

Before someone says it - I’m not saying this because I’m a purist or whatever. Quite the opposite, actually. As much as I love Warcraft 3, if Blizzard came to me and asked me to pick between what I’ve just described and Warcraft 4, I’d pick the latter in a heartbeat every time. And then I would expect much better and modern graphics than W3, pathing and unit control improvements, etc.

What I’m just trying to say is - I think these big changes would just work better in a brand new game, not as an addition to an old product. But if W4 is out of the question for the time being and they wanted to do something for W3, I’d have preferred an expansion like the one I’ve descibed above instead of what we’re getting in a few days.

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Just quoting a small bit to mention you, but i read your entire post, and i couldn’t agree more. i would have really loved for Blizzard to do exactly what you said. and yes i know some of the best work of the community in terms of models. they look amazing and i feel like Blizzard is killing them.

saying that perfectly allows me to bridge to Vel.

Thanks for your overall response, i read your whole post too. so my response to that is… i feel like the majority of the people, would judge A map based on if its on Reforged or not, compared to if its actually a good map or not.

Blizzard has given the map makers the option to force Reforged on SD mode, or HD mode, so if i as a map maker feel like the quantity of resources i have which i can use from hiveworkshop model section far exceeds what Reforged provides. i may force my map to Reforged SD only. and then… my map will get ignored cuz everyone wants to only see Reforged. sooooooo RIP me/everyone like me. unless people are reasonable and don’t judge like that.

I already think the existing Warcraft 3 custom community has made models and maps that far exceed what Blizzard provided in 2003. the difference with Skyrim is that Bathesda isn’t making a Skyrim Reforged and adding on models and graphics soo over the top and professionally made that the modding community can’t really reach it.
That’s what Blizzard is doing with Reforged. and i’m serious, i highly doubt, and due to talking with several model makers in the community. i highly doubt that making hyper detailed models with 15-20k polygons is within the capabilities of people that do this mostly as a hobby.

if someone could make models you see in Reforged, they are most likely hired somewhere working instead of making free models for a niche community with a small audience. atleast Skyrim has a MASSIVE audience.

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Alright, I hear you. I don’t know which model makers you have conversed with. I only have a source which may or may not provide some comfort for you.

In this thread, one of the paragraphs states exactly this:

The model editors Blizzard uses to make the new models, will be available with the new World Editor[4][8]

  • There will be tutorials to these new tools[4] and guides to make the custom models look the same as the Blizzard ones[8]

So, I wouldn’t worry. It seems to me that it’s only a matter of time before a new wave of model creators rise up with quality work befitting your innovative needs. I do think it will be a new wave, and that some existing creators will see their works fall into disuse, but long as they’re willing to adapt to Reforged’s new development environment, they’ll be fine.

I would use the many new models and skins introduced by Reforged in place of the Hive Workshop SD models for the time being, were I you.

Also, check these out. Just some custom models already made by the community in Reforged’s new environment.
https://imgur.com/G7Gti5P

https://imgur.com/uVVpL3W

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You at ‘hive workshop’ just never liked to leave your safe bubble. Some did that, though and wanted to advance and learnt to SC2 model when the game came. I left this place a long time ago when SC2 came since people just were afraid of changes and learning new things. They wouldn’t give bat sht showing care for a newer game with much bigger opportunities and editor that SC2 brought.

As a player though, I wouldn’t want to get back to war3 if it wasnt for the new graphics. Even then, it depends on being popular, if I see pro streamers still playing on Classic I might lose my motivation too, which is what happened with the hype t- no hype shortly after with Sc1 remastered.

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Though, to be fair, those statements are from 2018 BlizzCon, and with all the content cut as of late, I wouldn’t be so sure they have the time or resources to make all these things they promised a year ago.

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I just wanted to see Sunken City, Lordaeron the Aftermath, Northrend the Assault, Lordaeron the Foremath, Villains of Warcraft, and Kalimdor the Aftermath in Reforged

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Was about to reply to him but wasn’t feeling like it.

I highly doubt Blizzard is going to release tools for modeling. let alone tutorials on how to use them. its not in their interest now, regardless of what they said in the past. i would not believe it for one moment until they actually do it.

The only person that we can thank for having modeling tools is people who made them and updated them looooooong time ago. all Blizzard has been doing is trying to keep it compatible instead of providing anything new.

The only thing they’re most likely to do is provide a very basic converter of 2 different types of model formats.

It all sounded like wishful thinking, i watched the 2019 Reforged panel before the video was taken down, and one of the devs up there said we hope to keep the game running for another 16 years, it really sounded extremely cheesy.

The only hope modelers have isn’t because Blizzard is lending a hand, its because a community member is actually active despite all this time since 2002 and started to update his Modeling Studio, so if he didn’t exist… very RIP.

Its a bubble dream to think Blizzard is interested to keep the custom community alive, because they don’t make money from it. map makers make free content for the game, with the backing of model makers, and icon artists and terrain designers advice. but that doesn’t mean its profiting blizzard in any way shape or form because your average person is completely oblivious and doesn’t know what maps exist or what is the current situation of upcoming custom map projects.

i can’t go long without repeating myself in OP.

But i can add one new thing, as a map maker, who am i ? well first off i joined the broader community at hive from 2015 without even expecting Reforged. and having the enthusiasm to make projects and maps to help keep Wc3 alive. many of my surrounding friends just like me feel very emotional about the game, because just like pro melee people we dedicated a part of our livelyhood to it.

Unfortunately it doesn’t feel like Reforged is lending many hands, it just feels like its here to provide a big splash then fade out of memory. a more traditional remaster may not have had a big splash but for the existing community it would have easily granted a massive longevity boost.

And if people like me just leave because of lost interested and a burning feeling that its too over the top and feels like they are out of touch with their community.

Then well what’s remaining of wc3 then ? Blizzard mightaswell cash in on the game by making a co op mode and adding sc2 like warchests.
the point being, i didn’t feel like we were treated correctly after blizzard abandoned the game for 16 years then came back and announced something without viewing the current atmosphere of the community and their new fans keep calling us some purists that want 0 changes while in reality, all we wanted was for a better platform in which to keep making free content for the game we loved.

Its like someone abandons their kid for 16 years, the kid gets really into school and graduating. and then the parent comes back and sees that the child can really use extra money to pay for his school but instead buys an extremely expensive car for him that he didn’t even get drivers licence yet and his friends say dude you got a new car you’re overcomplaining. move on.

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Heh, I like this. And it is a bit what this does feel like. Especially now after all the content was cut. Like the parent came back, yelling and announcing he’s going to buy everything and do anything for the kid, but then, suddenly after a year, he says, “yeaah, turns out I can’t do all that after all. But hey, here’s the new car” and I’m afraid they will then just leave again.

But can’t really blame the Classics Team. As far as I know, they seem rather invested on the project. I think it’s just Blizzard (Activision) that’s not giving them enough manpower and money. And it’s a shame, since, like you said, there would be a lot of money to make from this: skins, custom paid campaigns and other DLCs, Co-op missions, why not even paid custom maps or something. I’m sure people would just throw money at Blizzard. I know I would.

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The problem is not that they split their attention into multiple decisions, the problem is that they promised way too much for what even a mega development AAA Main team would find hard to do, a remake of a 17 years old game by using its old engine and carefully work on it so to not damage things like point damage, turns rates, collision sizes, various delays, animations, clipping and various attack ranges, just to name a few of them…

They promised too much and because it was Big Brain time the Devs (or the marketing team) decided that they only need a year to do it, instead of at least another two.

What we have is an eyesore situation with mostly good models (i hate most of the old assets, you can barely tell what the hell are they suppose to represent most of the times).

I am happy with the new models but still 8utthurt about no new lighting and no new terrain tilesets, i expected a ton of new and remade ones, but nothing :confused:

About the difficulty on doing new models i am not so sure, starcraft 2 (especially post launch ones) have way better models if compared to warcraft 3 and people have no problems to take parts of them and make beautiful mixes to create new ones, damn, they even do it with heroes of the storm assets that have a similar poly count to failforged models.

It would a bit harder, but i don’t see the impossibility of mixing HD assets instead of potato ones

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