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Heroes:
The heroes will play a big part of the game, they are the general of the
battlefield, even do some are weak physically usually then they are strong
verbally and mentally giving them a higher number of possible men to control.
Heroes are the only ones that can carry other units into war. If they die they
get resurrected into the users Townhall and the units that were following him
get stranded where the hero died. Every race has it's own heroes and some are
very strong and powerful and others are cunning and clever. The number of men
that a hero can guide all depends on the amount of leadership points, the more
you have the more men you can control, example: if you have 3 leadership points,
you can control 3men. The maximum number of heroes that you can control at the
moment is 4 but this might change has we get closer to the release of the game.
Heroes are procured in a variety of ways. First a player starts with a hero in
his keep when the game starts. Additional heroes can be built as well at the
keep later on in the game. Some heroes offer their services to the player on
quests or after the player rescues them. And finally, mercenary heroes are
acquirable for a price. If a hero dies he will restart in the player's Keep.
Heroes propel the story of the game as well. At times they may offer clues to
the player to guide them in the right direction. Named heroes are also in the
game. Named heroes are like the traditional heroes of RTS games such as Jim
Raynor or Kerrigan, that the storyline focuses on.
NPC's:
NPC's offer a player help and information. NPC's might offer clues to help the
player, or may trigger different events that progress the game. They will be
found threw out the game world in key places.
Neutral
Buildings:Neutral buildings will be pre-placed structures with which all players can
interact. Some examples include Monster Encampments, Mana Fountains and Temples.
These neutral sites will have varied benefits or dangers for players, but most
importantly, they are not owned by any player and are discoverable as play
progresses and the world is explored.
Structures:
Buildings in warcraft3 will not be has common has the previous craft games, you
will basically always have the same buildings but you will have opportunities to
upgrade them to a more advanced form of the structure, just like warcraft2, you
could upgrade you're Townhall right up to a fortress, but at a cost. Even do
structures will be smaller numbers they still will be used in great importance
towards the player.
Towns in Warcraft III work differently than in previous Warcraft games. Each
player has a hometown called a Keep. These Keeps are small pods of buildings
that players use to recruit units and Heroes. If a player's Keep is destroyed,
then that player loses the game. Towns, on the other hand, are very similar to
what you would expect in a role-playing game. They exist in the world prior to
the start of the game, and are inhabited by neutral townspeople that may sell
you items, upgrades and special units. Players will find that access to towns
will influence the result of the game, and will try to occupy and control them.
If buildings in a Town are destroyed, the denizens of that Town will rebuild
them over time.
Players will be able to construct select structures at specific locations. Some
examples would include Docks, Mines, Farms, Lumber Mills, Bridges and Guard
Towers.
Resources:
Resources will be basically gold but wood should be in the game also, so that
you can create range units and buildings.
The only true resource will be gold, representing the overall wealth of the
community. Players can acquire gold by exploiting natural resource nodes,
conquering monsters in the game or setting up new sources of income.
Multiplayer:
The multiplayer part of the game will be quite enhanced and easier to use then
the past craft games, there will be more options and customization
We are still in the very first stages of designing the multiplayer component to
the game, but our goals are for Warcraft III to support more players than
Warcraft II, be fully customizable and encourage team play.
Campaign
editor: This will be very easy to use but very
detailed program, it will be probably the most advanced editor to date, anyone
that knows Java can program it to do anything, you can make a game in a game.
Our goal is to provide players with not just a campaign editor, but a full set
of world design tools. Going far beyond the campaign editor we offered with
Starcraft, we will offer scripting tools that will allow players to create their
own game, complete with new artwork, unit behavior and spells.
Another key element to the game is keeping all of the game-creation tools
user-friendly, thereby encouraging users to create their own maps and such.
While WarCraft II and StarCraft each came with editors, neither approaches the
level of configurability Blizzard has planned for WarCraft III. We're talking
Quake-like levels of control.
"We're basically shipping a world builder," says Pardo. You'll be able
to create your own maps, with 3D terrain, in their new editor. You'll paint
tiles on the ground and raise and lower terrain with various brushes. "Most
users should be able to be make an interesting 3D map really easily."
But you can do a few more things with the map. "After you lay down the
tiles," Pardo explains, "you can export the whole skin of the world.
Then you can paint right on it to blend areas and add detail." In keeping
with their ease-of-use theme, it will export graphics in standard formats.
Additionally, the plan is for you to have full control of all of the underlying
triggers from the game that will allow you to create entire campaigns. And not
unlike the original QuakeC, those triggers are being written in a Java-like
language that will allow users to edit them, as well as create their own. This
will also allow users to create units from scratch. You bring in the 3D model,
give it a script, give it spells (or whatever), etc. Expect the first announced
total-conversion any day now.
It's always been difficult to convince some people that spending the extra
development time on tools used by a tiny percentage of users is worth all of the
effort. People who make bottom-line decisions may decide that it doesn't drive
enough sales. Roper disagrees.
"It boosts a game's longevity," he says. "If a year later people
are still playing and talking about your game, a guy may drop by your house and
see the game, and the cool things you've created for it. And suddenly they'll
want to play it. So I think it does lead to more sales."
Pardo uses another example. "Look at the massively multiplayer role-playing
games. One of their big appeals over time is what players themselves do with the
environment." Then there's the Quake market. "Look at games like Team
Fortress."
"We don't pretend to be the be-all end-all game makers of the world,"
Pardo modestly asserts, but he does note that "with StarCraft, there are
people creating interesting things out there."
RPS:
RPS is the new game type, it means "Role Playing Strategy", so
warcraft 3 will not be a normal strategy game more in-between a role-playing
game and strategy game. You will have the coin collecting, quest playing part of
a RPG and you will have the conquest , tactical part of a strategy game in
warcraft.
At its core, Warcraft III is a strategy game, but in that we do not want to be
constrained by the traditional definition of real-time strategy, we are
branching out and creating what we envision to be a new genre. A Role-Playing
Strategy game, or RPS, is a strategy game set heavily within a role-playing
environment. Warcraft III will combine the focused combat and dynamics of an RPG
and apply them in a competitive, strategic environment.
"Blizzard
introduces a new concept in gaming: the RPS (Role-Playing Strategy) game. A
strategy game set heavily within a role-playing environment, RPS takes the
individual combat and interactive environments found in role-playing games and
combines them within a competitive strategic environment. Warcraft III puts
players in command of smaller, potent parties of heroes and troops. They
adventure and do battle in a dynamic world of living towns, wandering monsters,
characters and quests, while simultaneously devising strategies to defeat their
enemies."
Graphics:
The graphics of warcraft 3 will be quite different of what blizzard usually
does, it will be completely 3d, they are making a completely new 3D engine for
the game, the graphics will be has smooth has a baby's bottom, the graphic
engine will be able to create eye candy weather effects and terrain actions.
We are creating our own, proprietary 3D technology for Warcraft III.
Requirements:
You will need to have windows 95/98/2000/NT to play the game and a 3D
accelerator, the game probably will be going on the Mac, for a couple of
reasons. First of all, all the games that they have made have gone to the Mac in
the past. Second of all, the Mac has been getting better at getting people to
buy there computers since the IMAC has come out, the IMAC is well not too great
in my mind but people buy them and so blizzard wants to make money, they will
probably put it with the mac.
We have not made any announcement in regard to a Macintosh version, but
traditionally we have always supported the Mac platform.
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