WarCraft III Beta First Impressions February 14, 2002 Bob Colayco

Introduction

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Sleep? Who needs it?

We’ve experienced another Blizzard beta release, and yet again, I have suffered a ridiculous decline in the time I allocate to other unimportant tasks, like sleeping. We’ve put the beta through its paces here at FS, going the extra mile and putting in plenty of out-of-office hours on the game. You must all be weeping with sympathy for us hard-working folks.

For those of you who have been hiding under a rock for the last week, Blizzard recently opened the beta test for WarCraft III: Reign of Chaos, its upcoming real time strategy game. 5,000 randomly selected testers, as well as perhaps another several hundred members of the press, and friends of Blizzard are playing the beta, which has all the game’s units and races, but is only playable over Battle.net, Blizzard’s proprietary matchmaking system. Single player games and LAN play is not enabled at this time.

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Battle.net makeover

The first thing we noticed upon loading the game is that the interface for logging into and navigating around Battle.net has gotten a facelift. Windows appear to be suspended on metal chains, and you can see smoke and fire churning behind the semi-transparent chat window. There are several new functions (currently grayed out). One of those is “arranged team” which allows you to create a prearranged team and be matched up against another team. No more setting up games and kicking out people who join up before your friends can connect to your match. There’s also a tournament button for entering one-day tourneys organized by Blizzard. A friends and clan list/finder allows you to keep track of which friends of yours are online, and where they are in Battle.net, whether it’s in-game or in a private channel. The GUI functionality for this is unavailable now, but you can still manage and see your friends via the command line.

Perhaps most important is the automatic game matchmaker. You can still go through a list of available games that players have created, but if you would prefer a faster method, the random matchmaker automatically seeks out players looking for the same settings you specify. For example, you can say you want to play a 2 on 2 match on the Golems in the Mist map. Battle.net will search out 3 other players of approximately equal skill who also want to play a 2 on 2 on that map, and throw all of you into the game immediately. You won’t know the race of your opponents until you meet them in battle. When the Ladder is implemented (stats are not available in the beta yet either), random match making will be the only way you can play for rank. This will prevent some forms of cheating, like creating dummy characters to automatically lose to your primary handle or avoiding players who play a certain race, etc.

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Teamplay

If you choose to join a game using the old StarCraft method, WarCraft III now allows you to set teams before the game launches. That way, your allies and shared vision (ability to see what your teammates see) are set automatically and you’re not frantically clicking through the interface to set teams when the game starts. As all hardcore RTS players know, efficiency in the first couple minutes is absolutely critical. Other teamplay enhancements include the ability to share units if you choose, (teammates can control the soldiers you build) and transfer gold and wood over to your teammates.

Blizzard even went so far as to allow players to automatically control teammate units and buildings in the event one of your allies drops out of the game before it’s over (voluntarily or due to network difficulties). Your dropped teammate didn’t even have to have shared units and resources set. It’s actually possible to win a 2 on 3 or 1 on 2 match now that you can take advantage of your departed teammate’s unit producing facilities and army. The odd thing is that his remaining gold and wood isn’t transferred over to you. The dropped teammate’s army still maintains a separate “bank” that you can use to build units out of his structures, but you cannot see how much money “he” has left in his bank.



SIDEBAR: Much thanks to Kenn, and Mike “Shufly” Shumake for taking many of these screenshots for me.

Graphics

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Yes it’s pretty

WarCraft III is Blizzard’s first attempt at a fully 3D engine. StarCraft and Brood War were among the last of the great 2D RTS games, restricted to a 640x480 resolution with a 256 color palette. Though SC and BW are still played extensively today, Blizzard has fallen behind other RTS game developers in terms of graphics. Blizzard felt the pressure to move ahead with the times, and thus the change to 3D. WarCraft III’s engine is undeniably gorgeous, featuring detailed units and heroes on screen with many frames of animation. Hero units can be fairly large onscreen, with their weapons giving off a subtle colored glow to help distinguish them on the battlefield. Aerial units cast shadows on the ground underneath, and hug the contours of the terrain. You can zoom the screen in for a better look at unit detail, but this is impractical from a control standpoint – the default viewpoint is as zoomed out as the game will allow. No rotation of the screen is allowed, unfortunately.

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But at what price?

Right now the beta hasn’t been optimized for performance, and Blizzard claims that as the beta moves forward, lower end systems will eventually be able to play. As it stands right now, the game is somewhat of a resource hog. You’re allowed to tweak the resolutions from 640x480x16 on up to 1600x1200x32. Initially I tried playing at 1024x768x32 with unit detail, animation, lighting, and particles all turned up to max. This proved to be rather laggy in terms of performance on our test systems, even an Athlon 1.1GHz, 256MB RAM, GeForce 2 GTS. Knocking the color depth down to 16 bit improved performance greatly, with an unnoticeable decrease in image quality.

Even at 16 bit, with most of the settings turned up, things slow down, especially in team matches when multiple armies clash in battle, 30+ units pile up on screen, and particle laden spell effects fly left and right. The performance issues have an effect on gameplay, at least among the more skilled players who need to carefully aim their spells and micromanage their units in battle. WarCraft III may represent the first time I ever upgraded my computer to play an RTS.



SIDEBAR: Work:

Athlon 1.1GHz

256MB RAM

GeForce 2 GTS

Home:

P3 933MHz

256MB RAM

GeForce 2 GTS

I play the game at 10x7x16 now, with all detail settings turned to high. It’s very playable most of the time, but I still experience slowdown in big battles.

Heroes

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Hero Management

One of the biggest additions to WarCraft III is the introduction of hero characters to multiplayer combat. Each race has a selection of three unique heroes, each of whom have their own special spells or auras, one ultimate ability, and different attributes. Some heroes have excellent speed, coupled with a powerful ranged attack, like the Night Elf Priestess of the Moon. Others lumber about more slowly, with punishing melee attacks like the Orc Tauren Chieftain. Still others, like the Human Arch-Mage, have their strengths in mana and spell casting ability. Blizzard allows you to make up to three heroes in a multiplayer match, the first one being free (just like the guy in the school yard selling the funny looking pills), and later ones costing progressively more money. You’re also not allowed to build your 2nd and 3rd heroes until you’ve upgraded your town center. Heroes accompanying an army comprise a big portion of any strike force. A smaller army escorted by a hero will just about always win out over a larger army sans hero, assuming you make good use of the hero’s special abilities.

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Ultimates

Each hero has an ultimate ability that they can learn once they reach level five. These ultimate spells are often powerful enough that they can swing the tide of battle in favor of the player who can get them off the fastest and place theirs most efficiently on the swirling field of battle. Balancing it out is that these ultimates cost a lot of mana and usually have a long cool-down time, meaning that even if you had the mana to re-cast it, you still have to wait until the spell re-charges itself. All spells in the game have a certain cool down time, preventing rapid fire, repeated casting from the same unit. Ultimate spells include the Tranquility spell, cast by the Night Elf Keeper of the Grove. It’s basically a massive area effect healing that affects all allies in a large vicinity. The Human Paladin’s ultimate is Resurrection, which as you can guess, is an area effect spell that brings any surrounding dead units of his right back to life with full hp. This very powerful ability takes an entire day within the in-game day/night cycle to cool down before recasting.

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Items

Heroes can also carry magical items in a six space inventory. The magical items can be attained by killing the NPC creeps littering the map, or by purchasing them from a Goblin Merchant. There are a wide variety of different wearable items that confer certain bonuses to the hero and/or his accompanying army. Rings of Strength buff up your hero’s hp and attack power, for example. Rings of Protection give your hero an armor bonus. There are also different scrolls and wands that have one-time or other limited use, such as the scroll of healing, which gives a one-time 100 hp boost to you and your army. You can also buy and pickup an array of health or mana potions that will heal your hero or give a quick boost to his mana. It’s also worth noting that each hero starts with a scroll of town portal. This scroll allows you to instantly teleport your hero and surrounding units back to any friendly town hall, including those of your teammates. You get caught outside of your base? Teleport in, instead of wasting time running from the other side of the map. Need to help a friend who’s getting double teamed? Teleport into his base. Scrolls are one-time use though, and are expensive to re-buy at the Goblin Merchant. Use them wisely!

As it stands now, most players are using just one hero throughout the game and letting it level up to very high levels. Some of the better players I’ve seen can manage two heroes effectively, and get them both up to level five over the course of a game. I’ve not yet tried doing all three heroes myself, partly because many games don’t get up to that very late-game stage. I play a relatively aggressive style, and the design of WarCraft III seems to suit that even more so. Players who turtle into their base will find that their heroes are underpowered from lack of combat, they have little money due to not expanding, and that the 90 unit cap prevents them from having too large of a standing army hiding behind all those towers they build.



SIDEBAR: Of all the games I’ve played I’ve done Night Elves about 80% of the time, dabbling a little with Orcs and Undead, and not playing the Humans much at all so far. I wanted to know one race inside out before moving on to another. Look for a Night Elf guide from me soon, while Jakub is preparing an Undead guide.

Economy

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Economy and RTS Philosophy

As it stands, WarCraft III gives players a 90 unit cap on the army they build. This doesn’t mean they can make 90 units. Most of the regular units count 2 or 3 units against that 90. Higher level units can cost 4 units against the cap, while heroes take up 5 slots. Compared to StarCraft, which had a 200 unit cap per player, and most units only took up one or two slots, you can see that the size of armies has scaled down a lot. While in StarCraft, it was common to send 75 Marines, Medics, and Firebats and 10 Siege Tanks streaming into an enemy Zerg base littered with 60 Hydralisks and 15 Mutalisks, you don’t see that scale of battle in WarCraft III. Most players have a pair of strike groups of about 12 units each running around by the mid-game stage. Better players might manage three groups by the late game. It’s also notable that all units have much higher relative hit point counts in WarCraft III than in SC.

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Upkeep

Yet another big addition that Blizzard has made to the game is the concept of upkeep. The idea is that the larger your army gets, the more logistical cost it takes to keep them in the field. If you have your army size at 30 units or under, you are at the No Upkeep level, and you mine gold normally, at 10 units per hit, while the mine drains at 10 units per also. Between 31 to 60 units you are at Low Upkeep. This means you bring in gold seven units at a time while your mine is still being drained at 10 units per hit. Get over 60 units and you reach High Upkeep which is a whopping 60% penalty. Your bank balance grows by only four units per, while the mine is still draining 10 per.

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More Gameplay Observations

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NPCs

WarCraft III also introduces Non-Player-Characters in the maps. These “creeps” include Gnolls, Ogres, Golems, and Trolls. They don’t wander around the map – instead they stand guard at entrances/exits to bases (these are the weakest creeps usually), and also guard available gold mines on the map and the various neutral structures scattered around. There are a few reason for their existence. One, it prevents players from taking their first combat unit and scouting around very early, and launching a quick “rush” on an opponent. It also prevents the player from taking his first batch of money and using it to expand to a new gold mine immediately. Usually you have to wait until you’ve built a couple of units and maybe your hero before you can break out of your base and go scouting. Or you can wait for night to fall and sneak past the creeps, who fall asleep during the night hours. Either way, their presence more or less eliminates the very early rush. Players in WarCraft III who still complain about rushers really need to stop whining and learn to build faster. You’ve got a good five minutes now before any serious attack is going to reach you on most maps.

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Neutral buildings

The various neutral buildings you find scattered about the map create yet another strategic layer to the game. The four types we’ve seen in the beta include the Goblin Merchant, the Goblin Alchemist, the Mercenary Camp, and the Fountain of Life. To use the first three structures, you have to bring a hero up to it. The Merchant sells magical items that your heroes can carry. These include health potions, mana potions, and various scrolls and wands. The Goblin Alchemist is like the one in WarCraft II. You can buy sapper demolition teams (currently too costly and ineffective to bother with) or a Zeppelin, which now acts as an aerial transport that can move up to 8 units around the map.

The Mercenary Camp allows you to hire out some of the same creep types you see standing around the map, including the Ogre warrior and the Troll Berserker. Purchasing mercenaries early on is a good tactic, as it allows you to get some rather good units for early attacks without going up the tech tree. They’re expensive, but used in small doses, effective. The Fountain of Life is a key structure to control on the maps that have it. Drawing your units near will allow them to recharge their health at a somewhat slow rate, but faster than their normal recharge. Running your army back to one of these after a hard battle can freshen them up quickly for a second attack as reinforcements come in.

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Spellcasters

Each race has a small assortment of non-hero spellcasters as well, that support the regular army. Many of their spells and abilities enhance the effectiveness of your troops, or act in a deleterious fashion against enemy troops. The beauty of these spells is that a lot them are toggleable to cast automatically. The Human Sorceress, among other spells, has a Slow spell that’s similar to the one in WarCraft II, slowing down a targeted unit’s attack rate and movement speed. And yes, it’s auto cast. The Night Elf Dryad has a Dispel ability that can be autocast to remove any hexes or other harmful magics on your own units, or beneficial spells that are on enemy units. The beloved Bloodlust spell from War2 also makes a return, an autocast buff spell from the Orc Shaman.



SIDEBAR: It might just be my faulty memory, but I remember the StarCraft beta community being larger and more active than the War3 beta community so far. Sometimes, late at night, it seems difficult to start up a game because of lack of players. I don’t remember this ever being a problem with the SC beta.

Summing it Up

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The new patch

Yesterday Blizzard released the first balance patch to the beta since its release. This new patch nerfed some of the Night Elves’ strengths, reducing damage from the Archer, and adding hit points to all melee units, which the Elves don’t have in abundance. The first revision of the beta seemed to give a large advantage to ranged units, with many Orc players opting to build all Troll HeadHunters instead of many Grunts. The new patch should probably change all of that. Undead got a much needed boost, with Abominations and Crypt Fiends being reduced in cost. And now players will no longer be able to build duplicate hero types – this probably became an issue because of stacking auras and being able to cast the same ultimate twice in a row if you had two of the same level 5 hero.

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