Warcraft III Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
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.
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2 Story 3 Play details 4 Expansion set 5 Spin-offs 6 Race advantages & disadvantages 7 See also 8 External links |
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 orcss, 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.
Similar to how Starcraft was told, the story in Warcraft III is told through all four races in a progressive manner. The order is Humans, Undead, Orc, and Night Elf.
Humans: Prince Arthas, a paladin of the Silver Hand, is investigating a strange plague that is spreading across the lands of Lordaeron. To his horror, he finds that the plague turns unsuspecting people into hideous Undead warriors, and must move to stop the Undead's plans.
Undead: With a new leader, the Undead must move to complete their purpose in Lordareon, which is to destroy the remnants of the Alliance, and to pave the way for the demonic Burning Legion.
Orcs: After escaping Human captivity and fleeing to the shores of Kalimdor, Orcish warlord Thrall must lead his bretheren to safety and ensure their survival in this strange and hostile land.
Night Elf: With the coming of the Undead and Burning Legion as well as the Humans and Orcs, Tyrande Whisperwind and her elvish forces fight a desperate battle to save their beloved home of Kalimdor.
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 ) 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.
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.Overview
Story
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.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.
| Race | Advantages | Disadvantages |
|---|---|---|
| Human | Cooperative building, Peasant Militia, Strongest buildings, Best towers, Hero area of effect attacks, Most effective magic manipulation, Stunning and slowing enemy, Early expansion with militia | Largest tech tree, Least effective supply building, Least effective scouting capabilities, Weak mobility until late game |
| Orc | Burrows may be garrisoned to protect workers and defend base, Spiked barricades on buildings, Most powerful ground units, Early game harassment, fast ground army | Many abilities counterable with micromanagement, Weak against late-game air. |
| Night Elf | Moon wells heal units, Most buildings may attack and move, Females may become invisible at night, Earliest siege capability, Workers protected inside gold mine, Units may see farther and regenerate during night | Fragile units, No regeneration during daytime, Early base defense is weak |
| Undead | Powerful anti-hero magic, "Summon" buildings without needing builder to stay, Sheer numbers, Blight regeneration, Healing, Scouting abilities, Supply buildings may double as towers, Frost magics | Acolytes exposed while mining, Fragile early game units, Blight-restricted building construction and weaker while off Blight, Expansions weak (due to lack of main building to teleport to, however, it is a good idea to start the expansion off with a necropolis for added defense.) |
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