Earlier this month, we asked you to vote for your favourite strategy games of all time to celebrate the launch (and glorious return) of several strategy classics this month, including Relic's WW2 RTS Company Of Heroes 3, Blue Byte's The Settlers: New Allies and Cyanide's fantasy Warhamball Blood Bowl 3. And cor, I've never seen such love for individual expansions and total conversion mods among mainline RTS games and 4Xs. As with all strategy games, however, there can only be one victor - and you can find out what that single strategy game to rule them all is right here. Here are your 50 favourite strategy games of all time, as voted for by you, the RPS readership.
]]>The launch of Warcraft III: Reforged last Tuesday was not a return to glory for Blizzard's vintage fantasy RTS. The prettied-up remaster's changes are less dramatic than Blizzard have advertised (particularly the cutscenes), it's got quite a few bugs, and players can't even go back to the original unadulterated Warcraft 3 because Blizzard 'updated' it to the same troubled client as Reforged. Blizzard last night responded in a statement, saying they're working on fixes and are "fully committed to supporting the game for a long time to come". Disappointingly, they also tried to weasel out of building players' expectations for cutscenes.
]]>It's come to everyone's attention that Blizzard have revamped their User Generated Content policy just in time to launch Warcraft 3: Reforged, and claim ownership of all maps made in its editor. The new legalese, while definitely overbearing and disappointing, shouldn't be a surprise: they started tightening legal claims years ago with StarCraft II.
]]>After being delayed last year, Blizzard's remastering of the 2002 RTS Warcraft III: Reforged will finally see its release today at 11pm GMT (which is also 6pm EST and 3pm PST, as well as a bunch of other timezones if none of these are relevant for you).
Announced back in 2018, Warcraft III: Reforged is a completely rebuilt version of the original game, bringing new visuals to all the heroes, environments and buildings, as well as remastered maps and an improved UI.
]]>Though I feel like part of the vast PR zerg in sharing that release date map, I do like that Blizzard took the time to craft it. I now know that should I find myself in LA on Jan 28, 2020, I’ll be able to play remade RTS Warcraft III: Reforged at 3PM. I'll more likely be in the UK, so it will be 11PM that very same day. I'll be in my jammies.
]]>As BlizzCon approaches, like a dark storm cloud full of cosplay, earnest fan questions, and rumour stomping announcements, there’s at least one thing we know that's guaran-damn-teed. Warcraft III: Reforged’s beta will finally be starting this week in the lead-up to the convention, bringing the newly remade RTS to the two thousand and nineteens. Waves of keys will soon be going out very soon to those who pre-ordered the game.
]]>One detail I'd missed in Friday's announcement of Warcraft III: Reforged is that Blizzard's upcoming remaster should be able to play all the original's player-created maps and modes. Which is great news. WC3 has one of the great forgotten modding scenes, growing so many genres beyond the obvious MOBAs like DotA. Every night for months, my pals and I would play random 'custom games' and always discover something new, surprising, delightful, or just plain weird (the 'sexy' tower defence games were...). So good, great, lovely, hopefully this rebirth of WC3 will introduce more people to its treasures.
]]>Having remastered StarCraft last year, Blizzard are now updating another of their classic real-time strategy games: Warcraft III. During BlizzCon today they announced Warcraft III: Reforged, a revamped release of WC3 with redone artwork, UI improvements, and other such modern fancying-up. Wait. Hang on. Warcraft III first came out on 2002? That can't be right. That would mean... oh god, this is a lot to take in. While I wrestle with my own mortality, here, you watch the announcement trailer showing off the new look.
]]>We might still be recovering from Starcraft's 20th birthday bash, but Blizzard are still ready to party like it's 2002. After a long and mostly uneventful trial period on their public test servers, Warcraft III has received probably it's biggest update in the past decade, Patch 1.29, bringing the game far closer to modern spec, although it's still not quite the HD upgrade or overhaul that some are still hoping for.
]]>There's been rumors circulating for some time that after the success of their Starcraft remaster, Blizzard were looking at giving a similar treatment to Warcraft 3, their massively popular and immensely modded RTS, birth-place of the MOBA genre as we know it.
Whether or not it's part of remastering plans, we've certainly reason to celebrate: Blizzard rolled out a new public test build of Warcraft 3 yesterday, featuring native widescreen support, 24-player servers and a lifting of restrictions from the scenario editor on top of a slew of balance changes - the first of many, say Blizzard.
]]>I often feel sorry for the World of Warcraft team. You're never far off a million complaints about everything from balance to nostalgic musings about how much better things used to be to the lingering "Wait, how is that clunky old thing still getting so much attention?" whenever anyone says anything nice about it. Today though, I want to put my positive hat on and rave about the Legion expansion. Minor quibbles aside, it's the best work they've ever done - an epic story, the sense of a whole world coming together to fight something bigger than any individual faction, and above all, constant mechanical exploration and new ideas as far as you can Blink a mage at.
]]>Warcraft III [official site] may have launched 15 years ago but that doesn't mean Blizzard is done perfecting it. The developers have launched a new patch for the RTS's multiplayer onto test servers so players can try out tweaked maps and new map pools before they make it into the full game.
]]>World of Warcraft [official site] 7.3 represents a dramatic shift in the war against the Burning Legion. Taking place after the Tomb of Sargeras raid, the heroes of Azeroth are going to be taking a trip to the Legion’s unpleasant homeworld of Argus, where they’ll become the invaders. The patch is now available in the Public Test Realm.
]]>Like many, my relationship to World of Warcraft [official site] has shifted over the years, from second home (though never second job, unlike many) to an occasional jaunt to go catch up with my Undead Mage and see the latest fun stuff and twists and turns in Blizzard's ongoing demonic soap opera. Sure, it's a theme park, but so's Disneyworld. I like making return trips to The Haunted Mansion too. And, with Legion, Blizzard's done a much better job than its previous expansions of providing reasons to either stick around or come back. With Patch 7.2, Tomb of Sargeras, I decided to check back in on the battle against both The Burning Legion and the six-month content drought. From my perspective as a casual soloer, sure, but there's quite a few of us.
]]>While every day is satanday chez Alice, Blizzard are a little more reserved. They've waited until the 20th anniversary of Diablo's launch to unleash a torrent of satans and skellingtons, and even remake the first game inside Diablo III. We mentioned that before, and now it's live. But! Beyond that, Blizzard have also put D3 on sale, sent the Dark Wanderer into Hearthstone, and unleashed hell's herd upon World of Warcraft. Yes, WoW now has a secret Cow Level with special loooot. That's an elongated 'oo' like in 'moooo' (which is the noise a cow makes) but with 'loot'.
]]>Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.
It was a killer twist, wasn't it?
]]>Return to Karazhan kind of implies I've been to Karazhan even once. It's like when you meet someone new at a party and they say "So good to see you again!" and you have to decide whether to tell them you've never met or just go with it, trying to work out who they think you are and generally besmirching that other person's reputation. Oh hang on - is it about someone ELSE returning? ANYWAY let's ignore that awkwardness and talk about World of Warcraft [official site] Patch 7.1 and the fact it's going to launch on 25 October.
]]>Blizzard lorelord Chris Metzen ('senior vice president of story and franchise development', if you want to be technical) has handed in his badge and his loregiver (his keyboard, obvs) and taken The Long Walk into The Cursed Earth (idk, Reddit?). After nearly 23 years of laying down the lore and voicing characters from Thrall to the good ol' Terran Battlecruiser, Metzen last night announced his retirement. He's off to spend time with his family, see.
]]>Some grudge matches are worth waiting for. Ever since World of Warcraft [official site] launched, one of the biggest threats hanging over its head has been the return of the interdimensional demon army The Burning Legion. A force of pure chaos. An army capable of conquering a multiverse. Undefeated, except on Azeroth, but with even those victories planting the seeds of great threats like the rise of the Lich King, Arthas, and the tormented Illidan Stormrage. Now, they're back. Bigger. Stronger. Angrier.
And campaign-wise, this is the best expansion Blizzard has ever made.
]]>It's interesting to follow the fate of World of Warcraft [official site]. It's the MMORPG which made MMORPGs mainstream, the MMO which accidentally stunted 'em by inspiring so many homogenising imitators, and one of the few which has managed to hold onto a subscription model (heck, even EVE Online is getting a free option). So how's WoW doing? Pretty well! In their traditional post-expansion boast, Blizzard say Legion has sold over 3.3 million copies (or so they think) and seen player numbers (by one measure) at their highest since the launch of 2010's expansion Catalysm.
]]>World of Warcraft: Legion [official site] launched last week and oh! here comes the expansion's little pal, chasing behind wagging its cybertail. Blizzard last night launched Legion's companion app for pocket telephones, which mostly lets you fiddle with the 'Order Hall' class clubhouse stuff. Like AbyssRium but with burly soldiers instead of coral and jellyfish, I imagine? Blizzard have also shown off a little of what'll be coming to Legion in patch 7.1, with a little video showing off content like a return to Karazhan. Have a gander:
]]>The beta of Battlefield 1 [official site] was shut down on its first day by a group pummeling EA’s servers with a denial of service attack. And if you hopped off to play some Overwatch or WoW instead, you might have encountered an identical problem, because the same group has been attacking Blizzard’s servers as well. It is as if a dozen gaming forums losing millions of passwords recently in a separate hack was not bad enough.
]]>Demons? Again? Already? I swear, it's not even a decade since neon green last swept The World of World of Warcraft. Fashion moves at such a pace there! No wonder everyone's always grinding for new pauldrons: they're trying to keep up in a world of violent fashionistas. Anyway, point is: World of Warcraft: Legion [official site], the sixth expansion to Blizzard's fantasy MMORPG, is now live. Try pairing a dark top with chaosfire-green leggings and, in honour of the expansion's new Demon Hunter class, finish the look off with a ratty blindfold. There! Ooh you'll be the talk of the Broken Isles.
]]>As many hours as I've spent playing them over the years, MMORPGs always fill me with a touch of sadness for what they could have been. I'm thinking of the original optimistic dreams of people like Richard Garriott, talking of his world where players accidentally killing too many sheep would draw the wrath of a nearby, now hungry dragon, back in that innocent time before it was accepted that players would not only kill the sheep, but the dragon, and any other living creature within murder range. There's many reasons why the modern theme park style ended up being dominant, but as stories from games like Eve regularly demonstrate, we definitely lost a lot in that philosophical and pragmatic shift towards PvE content and fixed interactions.
At least we've still got world events. I love world events.
]]>World Of Warcraft's Legion expansion [official site] is nearly upon us and as part of the build-up Blizzard have released Harbingers: The Story Of Gul'dan. It's an animated short offering up a bit of info on the early life of the fel-loving orc warlock:
]]>World of Warcraft: Legion [official site] won't launch until August 30th but the demonic hordes are already making their move upon Azeroth. The traditional WoW pre-expansion patch is now live, implementing a fair chunk of the expansion's big changes. Lots of classes are reworked, draw distances are increased, the transmogrification system is massively improved so you don't need to stash loads of old items, equalised stats in PvP means you don't need flash gear, and plenty more is changed.
]]>The World Of Warcraft [official site] blog is talking about the upcoming Legion pre-patch. As a non-player the update info tends not to grab me particularly (unless it's about Illidan and looks like a pro wrestling intro) but I do like the talk of the pre-expension patch where the new content starts to seep into the world and set the scene for the expansion.
It's a transition period that I don't really get with the games I play. Those are more about dumping in a bunch of changes via a patch and players needing to unpick them. They're not story-based or world-altering.
]]>Dateline: Year 634 by the King's Calendar. Azeroth's political woes go from bad to worse as the continent of Kalimdor continues its push for official separation from the Eastern Kingdoms. "Our citizens grow weary of being mixed in with some grand political empire that increasingly does nothing for them," complains Troll leader Hyjal Farage. "With this vote, we will prove our independence once and for all. Mon."
]]>As I settled back into the week, a post about Legion increasing draw distance in World of Warcraft caught my eye AND was pleasing to look at!
]]>Alice is still on holiday, not back till Monday, which means it falls to me to do the terrible duty this week of asking and telling: what are we all playing this weekend? Read on for the optimistic lies we tell ourselves.
]]>If you're still holding your breath for Blizzard to make a firm ruling on official servers running older (legacy) versions of World of Warcraft [official site], jeez, you must be tired. A month of holding until you pass out, over and over? Rough. Well, a Blizzard livestream today deftly stepped around that, but one dev get nicely into one of the problems fuelling interest in legacy servers: modern WoW's bad pacing at lower levels.
Oh, and Blizzard also mentioned that closed beta testing for Legion, WoW's next expansion, should start on Thursday to begin the run-up to its August launch.
]]>If you're one of the lapsed World of Warcraft players who pops back to check out each new expansion, here, draw a wavering circle around August 30th on your calendar as that's when World of Warcraft: Legion [official site] will launch, Blizzard have announced. If you're a steady player, still hanging in there, hey, draw a confident circle. If you're neither of these and don't really care, man, I don't know, go read a book or take a walk or something. It's a beautiful day. What are you doing with your life?
]]>After blowing off the dust from Diablo 2 to make it work more smoothly on modern systems, Blizzard have moved on and polished another one of their classics, 2002's Warcraft 3 [official site]. The patch was released last Tuesday, and the notes promise future updates to the gameplay alongside additional fixes.
]]>The holidays are now over, and it's time to get back to what matters - saving a million accident-prone fantasy realms from their own past mistakes, evil gods on the rampage, and all that pesky loot that they clearly don't have anything better to do with than stick it in barrels at the bottom of dungeons. This is why so many of them have no choice but to have bandit-driven economies. Shameful. Someone should Do Something There.
Here's some of the most exciting RPGs due in 2016. I suspect a couple may not actually make it to final release this year, but never mind - 'tis the season to be generous. In no particular order, then, some of the ones I'm looking forward to...
]]>Demon Hunters do not mess around. Demon Hunters do not play fair. They're one of the biggest new features in World of Warcraft: Legion [official site], and even in alpha, they're a force to be reckoned with. They're not finished, but they are Prepared. I've been taking one for a spin, and here's how they're going to kick all of the arse.
]]>After being announced in August, Legion - the upcoming World Of Warcraft [official site] expansion - has received a launch trailer ahead of its summer release next year. It's pretty and shiny and so CGI-infused that it could give the series' real-life movie cinematic that dropped on Friday a run for its money.
Check it out in all its four and a bit minutes-long glory below.
]]>[Update: Oh! Blizzard told GameSpot it's simply to maintain them. Dreams are always so short-lived. Hey, maybe do consider revamping them though! That would be lovely. Official support for modern resolutions in Diablo II would be a grand start.]
Once a games studio has been around for long enough, different generations of players will each have their own idea of the devs' finest days. Perhaps like many in their early thirties, the Blizzard games I think of most fondly are Diablo II, the first StarCraft, and Warcraft III (which isn't to say I dislike their modern games, of course). If you're in a similar position, good news! Going by a job listing, it looks like Blizzard are planning to tart up those three classics.
]]>This week, Blizzard announced the latest World of Warcraft expansion - World Of Warcraft: Legion [official site]. It looks pretty good. Almost as good as my prediction. Almost. I'm not going to rehash the full details here, but I'm up for it. It's a big step forward for Warcraft's arc story, featuring the return of its Big Bad, the Burning Legion, and some long awaited story stuff like Blizzard's promise to redeem themselves for turning Illidan into just a snarling villain. New character class. Ten new levels. New continent. New PvP system. It's nothing too unexpected or world-shattering at this point in the game, but it is a solid looking expansion.
The part of the pitch I liked the most though was Blizzard's plan for Artifact Weapons - not so much for the specifics of what Blizzard has planned, but because it addresses something that's long annoyed me. Weapons, particularly in fantasy games, deserve more respect.
]]>Still no news on an official new Warcraft game - and I'd be fairly surprised if that changed before the end of this decade, to be honest - but news of Warcraft III remade in Starcraft II feels like a long time coming. It's partly down to Blizzard's recent release of the Warcraft III assets to the community, but mostly down to pure gumption on the mod team's part.
]]>Warcraft III's mod scene is grossly underrated, I've muttered into many a pint glass. Yes, yes, we know it was where MOBAs and tower defense games really took off, but so many more inventive and interesting and weird games bounced around, types of game I haven't seen since. I always thought this was helped a lot by WC3 having a huge range of units and wildlife and odd art assets folks could repurpose, making mods about more than soldiers. Delightfully, loads of those WC3 bits are now coming to StarCraft II's editor, Blizzard have announced. The main Hero units are getting modern makeovers too.
]]>The Red Solstice is currently heading to the mid-point of a fairly solid Kickstarter campaign but I predict great things for the future. It's an eight player coop squad shooter based on a Warcraft mod called Night Of The Dead and one may be the only game in existence to jettison zombies rather than cramming in as many as possible like the deranged operator of a bilious battery farm. It's the Warcraft origins that caught my attention though - by 2021, will people be travelling around the world to play The Red Solstice in enormous tournaments, larger and more cash-corrupted than the FIFA Pepsi Gazprom World Cup? Stranger things draw a crowd.
]]>This is a bit of an ambiguous one at this point, but it's the way of these things that if they realise there's enough desire out there, it'll spur them to get on with it. The suggestion is, learned via a question from a fan at Blizzcon, that Blizzrd may well be working to get the classic Warcraft and Warcraft II to run on modern machines. In fact, production direct J. Allen Brack went so far as to say that there are a number of people in his team working on a "side project" to see that happen.
]]>That's StarCraft II, mind you. Otherwise, I think that'd be a dequel, and I'm not sure anyone actually wants one of those. But yes, WarCraft: A New Dawn is picking up the severed orc hand of maximum strategy Blizzard dropped after WoW exploded. As of now, it's very much a work-in-progress, but the end goal is to craftily craft StarCraft into "a breathtaking, lore-abiding storyline spanning several emotionally-gripping campaigns containing new units, new heroes, and new features as well as a fully fledged melee mode." Lofty goals, huh? Maybe even too lofty. The team's released their first video, though, so you can judge for yourself.
]]>Remember World Of Warcraft? Coo, those were the days. Well, you may be surprised to learn the game is still running after all these years, and it's still being updated! The latest patch for the Cataclysm update, as Eurogamer reports, is called Hour Of Twilight, and adds stuff.
]]>Blizzard have released a very exciting trailer for the upcoming 4.2 patch for World of Warcraft, largely showing off the hot new raid the patch adds to the game. "Hot" being the operative word. In the Firelands you will fight Beth'tilac (big fiery spider), Lord Rhyolith (magma giant), Alysrazor (big fiery bird), Shannox (fiery naga guy with two fiery dogs) and, yes, well, you get the idea. It's not just this raid, of course. As always, the WoW Insider has a comprehensive feature listing. Look, there are a couple of new quest hubs and a new legendary quest, too.
Me, I've never really like lava-themed levels in games. They just make me feel like I'm playing through a heartburn advert.
]]>Do you have a mobile telephone? Nobody here at RPS has one, seeing as our preferred method of communication is bellowing at one another down long drainpipe-like devices of Jim's own creation (the nagpipes, he calls them), but on the off chance you do have a mobile phone, and you play World of Warcraft, Blues reports that Blizzard has now started offering a week-long free trial of it's World of Warcraft Remote service for "Android and iPhone". Remarkable! You can get phones in your eyes now? I must consider getting one.
]]>Poor old Trolls - Azeroth hasn't treated them too kindly over the years. They've either been comedy Jamaicans or murderous sword-fodder, so often denied the prestige and glory of Warcraft's major races. And don't even get me started on the raw deal the gnomes get... Anyway, the Trolls are getting their day in the sun for the latest WoW patch, 4.1, which sees the angrier arms of the family uniting and deciding to raise merry hell for everyone else. Essentially, it means a fun/bloody time for level 85 players, and it looks a little something like this. Warning: includes boulders. I say that in case anyone reading has a phobia of boulders. We're a kinder, more considerate RPS these days.
]]>It feels lovely, getting to say stuff like "Recettear has sold 100,000 copies" and "Amnesia has sold 200,000 copies." Those figures mean that small groups of people's lives have changed, improved, had nice sofas and bigger TVs added to them. Truly, it warms the cockles of EARTH_MAMMAL_HUMAN_ORGAN_HEART.
Then Blizzard announce that they've sold 4.7 million copies of World of Warcraft: Cataclysm and you just think "God, that's a lot of goblins."
]]>A last missive (for now, anyway) from WoW's front lines from our embedded correspondent. Catch up with Bickers' previous thoughts here.
Hello again! Before I wiffle on about Cataclysm’s level 80+ dungeons, I just want to touch on a bit more of the experience I had on the way to 85.
If you’re playing Cataclysm, you’ve probably worked your way through Uldum in southern Kalimdor by now, and if you haven’t, I implore you to do so.
]]>DO YOU own World of Warcraft, plus Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King but not Cataclysm? Would that describe your situation? As of today Blizzard are offering you guys a free 10 day trial to sample Cataclysm's doomsday delights. You'll need a level 78 character to try out most of the new zones (which our man-on-the-inside Al Bickham writes about here), but failing that you'll still be able visit the bizarre new Goblin starting area or the Worgen's gothic home (which Bickham writes about here). So, yes. Go, go, go! Go and be delighted.
]]>More Azerothian adventures from our WoW correspondent Bickers - earlier installments are here.
I honestly don’t know whether to blame my initial frustration at Cataclysm’s level 80+ starting zones on the design decisions involved, or the fact that I willingly joined a PVP server.
]]>Our guest Azerothian Al 'Bickers' Bickham returns with more dispatches from WoW's front-lines. Here's the first chunk, in case you missed it.
I’ll be honest, I couldn’t give a fig for most of the races in World of WarCraft. Apart from the big, Navajo-tromping, cow-faced Taurens. I kind of dig them. And the Trolls. They’ve a little Ska in their blood.
But give me an Orc, a Dwarf, a Night Elf, a Blood Elf, a Human… yawn. Terribly hard to get excited about. Which is why the hairier half of Cataclysm’s two new races, the werewolfey Worgen, has come as such a pleasant surprise.
]]>Are you one of the frightening mountain of people considering relapsing returning to World of Warcraft in the wake of Cataclysm's rather noticeable release? Did you log on to dredge up your old character, in whatever ludicrous mish-mash of loot he was garbed in, only to discover that the entire world had set up camp on your server during your away time, and now you have to queue for forty million and 12 hours to get in?
Blizzard may be willing to help.
]]>We've heard there's a few people playing this World Of Warcraft: Cataclysm. Some people like to play it together. And so it is that Rock, Paper, Shotgun readers have created a guild. It's a Horde gang, on EU Aggrammar, called Rock, Paper, Saurfang.
]]>Greetings, gunners. As an old comrade-in-alms of the RPS Hive-Mind and a long-term dabbler in World of Warcraft, I’ve been drafted in to give a brief account of all the pre-expansion shenanigans that have been going on in the run up to the launch of Cataclysm.
It’s the biggest expansion to hit the game since its 2004 launch, and in the run-up patches a quite enormous amount of content has been incrementally downloading through game clients worldwide. The purpose of this patching has been two-fold: to offer players some kind of context for the expansion before it hits, and to put them through some memorably mad shit that they’ll remember for a long time to come.
]]>Yes, the World of Warcraft: Cataclysm intro cinematic has been released. It weighs in at 2 minutes, focuses on Deathwing and can be found after the jump. The world heaves with his torment! Its wretched kingdoms quake beneath his rage! All will burn beneath the shadow of his wings! It looks like Deathwing is a very grumpy dragon. Who knew?
Tell you what you shouldn't do directly after watching this incredibly expensive bit of drama. You shouldn't watch a YouTube video of an actual WoW boss fight. I think that might be a bad idea.
]]>World of Warcraft: Cataclysm comes out on the 7th of December. Thank you for your time.
]]>Bless. As we know, World of Warcraft: Cataclysm is bringing all kinds of apocalyptic change to Azeroth, and what could be more apocalyptic than a quest recreating PopCap's Plants vs. Zombies? The new Peacebloom vs Ghouls quest can be found in the Hillsbrad Foothills, and is such an absurdly detailed recreation of PvZ (albeit with only 6 plants) that the whole thing must have been done with PopCap's consent. Aww. A video of the level by RPS's own eager commenter TotalBiscuit can be found beneath the jump.
]]>Cataclysm is a huge event. Will Homeworld ever be the same agai.. what? Oh God. I'm showing my age. World of Warcraft: Cataclysm is in its Closed Beta and so the Escapist have done an entire issue about it. Relevantly, Boy Wonder Quinns wrote a piece about his experiences playing the opening of the game again, in all-messed-up-by-cats-o-vision. And since he's deep in the pit of Gamecom, I'll post it for him. He starts by saying things like...
]]>WoW be changin'! The titular cataclysm is going to shake up Azeroth permanently, and Blizzard have been steadily releasing information about what it all means before the launch, later this year. There are a couple of new races, and their starting areas, a level cap boost (only five this time) and a bunch of low end changes, but there are also some big changes to more familiar areas, especially cities, as you can see below. Also, regions like Desolace were always like spare bedrooms that the game never really used properly - Blizzard probably just left some boxes in there and stuff - but it, along with a few other places, are now being refurbished and requestenated for the benefit of future generations of shiny, happy WoW players. Bless. Watching these trailers there's a part of my brain that says "ooh, you should go back and have a look at that." And I'll probably create a goblin... What's that noise? The dark, inexorable roar of the timesink? Well, I always had a thing for staring into the abyss.
]]>Enormo-trailer ahoy for World Of Warcraft. We've got the full thing posted below, along with two fly-through trailers for the zones of Gilneas and The Lost Isles. We get a look at some of the changes to existing zones that have taken place during the cataclysm, as well as some of the new features and classes. Gobbos, and wolf-dudes, obviously, but also some of the new monsters, dungeons, and progression stuff. Oh, and Deathwing the ebil dragon. He's not happy.
]]>The new World Of Warcraft expansion has been announced at BlizzCon. It's called "Cataclysm", and will raise the level cap to 85. There's also going to be two new playable races, goblins and worgen, and the obligatory new dungeons and raids. VG247 got the whole thing in detail over here.
]]>At the risk of bombarding you good people with tower defence games in these happy times of Plants vs Zombies and ridiculously cheap Defence Grids, let's throw another one into the mix. Don't roll your eyes at me like that, young man - this one is free and ingeniously different.
]]>Blizzard have announced some lovely digital downloads via their online shop. Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos and Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne cost $20 each (about £10) and Starcraft is up there for $15 (about £7.50). Not bad, but I recall buying the CD version of Starcraft (minus Broodwar, come to think of it) for about £3 off Amazon a while back...
]]>Seven [actually five and a half - Basic Arithmetic Ed] years on from release, Warcraft III is still seeing new patches. Blizzard forever chase the elusive spectre of perfect balance - the RTS equivalent of absolute zero.
I wouldn't usually bother mentioning a patch unless it did something incredible, but of note in this most recent is that it adds official no-cd support - in other words, you no longer need the game disc a-spinnin' inside your PC whenever you want to play the game.
I've always found it fascinating when games do this after release. It's an admission that copy protection is just an irritation to legitimate players, and that disc checks are a particularly buffoonish and archaic anti-piracy measure at that.
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