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Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, released by Blizzard Entertainment in 2002, is a real-time strategy computer game and the second sequel to Warcraft. It is the third game set in the Warcraft Universe.
Overview
Warcraft III features an innovation over the previous games in the series: more powerful units called heroes. For instance, heroes within the game can find or trade items to increase skills, defense, etc. With each kill of an enemy of a certain level the heroes gain experience points, eventually resulting in increased levels of their own, and new spell options (thus introducing role-playing game elements to the series). Heroes also can apply beneficial auras to allied units.
Another new innovation are creeps, which are computer controlled characters you fight even in multiplayer, who guard key areas or neutral buildings. They are designed to act as a resource for the players to kill so as to level up your hero and gain hero items. The idea is to force the player to be aggressive instead of turtling up.
Within the game there are four races at war: the humans and the orcs, who also appeared in Warcraft and Warcraft II, along with two new character teams, the night elves and the undead. A fifth playable race, the Burning Legion, was changed during playtesting to a set of non-player characters and monsters (with a playable "cameo" on the last level of the Undead campaign, as Kel-Thuzad summons Archimonde).
Players meet other players over the Internet to set up multiplayer games via Blizzard's free Battle.net service, or may play against the computer.
Warcraft III also includes a very thorough scenario editor. It uses a scripting language similar to the trigger system used in StarCraft. It has such features as custom tilesets, custom cinematic scenes, dialog boxes, variables, and weather effects.
The game was developed by Blizzard Entertainment, a subsidiary of Vivendi Universal, and released in July 2002. Warcraft III proved to be one of the most anticipated and popular video game releases ever, with 4.5 million units pre-ordered and over 1 million additional units sold during its first two weeks.
Play details
The four warring races have different advantages, most of them similar to the racial attributes of the Terrans, Zerg, and Protoss from StarCraft, another popular RTS from Blizzard. The Warcraft III Night Elves, for instance, resemble the Terrans in that their buildings can move and their base fighting unit has a missile attack. The Undead also have the Protoss's ability to summon buildings rather than constructing them, so a worker unit is not tied up in construction; also like the Protoss, they have a dedicated invisible spy unit.
However, unlike other RTS games, Warcraft III has introduced a new kind of unit called Heroes. Heroes are super units that have special abilities that expand as the game progresses (as they gain experience). For example, a Human Archmage hero can acquire the ability to (temporarily) summon water-elementals, increase the mana regeneration rate of surrounding magic casting units, create a blizzard over enemy units, and teleport friendly units to other parts of the map. In the course of a game a maximum of up to three heroes can be built, but if they die, they can be revived at an altar.
There are strong distinctions in the game between melee and missile units; between air and ground units; and (particularly in The Frozen Throne) between mundane, magical, and antimagic units. Antimagic units, such as the Humans' Elven Spell-Breaker and the Night Elves' Dryad, have the ability to cancel the effects of magic spells cast on other units.
Expansion set
On May 29, 2003, Blizzard announced that the expansion set, Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne had "gone gold" (release version sent to presses). It was released in stores worldwide in multiple languages beginning on July 1, 2003. It includes an additional hero and three to four new units per race, four campaigns, five neutral heroes [now eight, as of patch 1.17] and various other improvements such as queueable upgrades. It requires the ownership of Reign of Chaos. Blizzard regularly patches both the original game and the more popular 'expanded' version to fix bugs, add new features, and balance multiplayer play. The latter is the reason Blizzard games remain popular long after their initial release.
Spin-offs
A massively multiplayer online role-playing game set in the Warcraft universe, entitled World of Warcraft, is currently in production by Blizzard. It picks up the Warcraft storyline four years after the events of The Frozen Throne.
The strategy board game Warcraft: The Board Game was released in 2003 by Fantasy Flight Games, and is based on Warcraft III. It uses a modular game board, which allows many different scenarios to be played with the same set of components.
Race advantages & disadvantages
| Race
| Advantages
| Disadvantages
|
| Human | Versatility | Early
|
| Orc | Brute Force, Powerful Units, Early and Mid Game | Air, Late Game
|
| Night Elf | Ranged Attack, Air, Early and Late Game | Melee, Ranged, Mid Game
|
| Undead | Magic, Versatility, Mid and Late Game | Early Game
|
See also
External links
fr:WarCraft 3
de:WarCraft III
pl:Warcraft III
pt:Warcraft III
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