Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos Preview

Cool as it is, this is still their first 3D engine, and it's not perfect. The resolutions range from 640x480x16 to 1600x1200x32. But make no mistake - you need serious hardware to run it at any decent resolutions past 1024x768. I run comfortably with my P3 600 and my GeForce2 card at 800x600x32, but my CPU chokes once more than about 25 objects are on the screen. Faster systems can go higher, but certainly more tweaking is needed. Blizzard has said, however, that the engine is not optimized yet for performance, so as the beta progresses the performance should improve. Here's hoping.

The gameplay has changed a bit as well. With WarCraft III, the concept of upkeep is introduced. The basic premise is that the bigger your army gets, the more expensive it becomes to expand it. Each player is allotted 90 points (units) with which to build their army. That doesn't mean you can run around with a 90-man army. Each foot soldier is worth 2-3 points, while the larger siege equipment (like a catapult) is worth 4 or 5 towards that 90-point cap. At 0 - 30 points, you start at No Upkeep. This means that when your peasants go to the mines, you take out 10 units, and the mine decreases 10 units as well. Once you get past 30 points, you enter the Low Upkeep phase, where the rate of mining decreases by 30%. Your peasants bring back 7 gold, but the mine still decreases by 10. If you get past 60 points, you enter High Upkeep - the rate is decreased by 60%! Your peasants are only bringing in 4 gold, while the mine loses 10. The purpose for this is to prevent large armies from simply sitting idle during the game. Why have a huge army if it's not going anywhere? Conversely, it allows for a quick turnaround for a player on the ropes. If you get beaten down on one side of the map, you can gain money much quicker if you have other towns bringing in cash elsewhere.

Temple of Boom.

My hometown at night...

The other significant addition to the game is the heroes. Each race has 3 heroes with which to choose from, each with their own unique auras or abilities that grow as they gain levels. Once a hero reaches level 5, he/she gains their Ultimate ability which usually takes a massive amount of mana and/or a long time to recharge. As the heroes level, they receive points which can be distributed to their specific attributes as you see fit. It's kinda like adding the RPG element from Diablo, if you think about it. The more you level, the more you can add points to the ability that will most help you with the current opponent. Heroes can be resurrected if they fall in battle on an Altar, for a price. So it pays to keep your heroes alive as much as possible.

Your opponent is not just the human player on the other side of the keyboard. There are also NPC roving characters that stand guard at various points of the map and guard new gold mines and buildings, such as the Goblin Merchant or Mercenary Hut. These NPC's make excellent fodder for your heroes to level up more quickly, and gain the precious items that can quickly turn the tide of battle.

The heroes can carry up to 6 one-use items each, such as a Ring of Protection, which grants a temporary defense bonus, and each hero has the Scroll of Town Portal (another Diablo reference), which transports the hero and any surrounding units back to a friendly town square - including an ally's. Need to escape an ambush? Scroll. Your friend being overrun and you need to lend a helping hand? Zap. Be careful, though. The scroll can be replaced, but it's quite expensive.

The last major change to gameplay is the day/night system. Time passes over the length of your campaign, and surely a war cannot be won in a day. So, as the sun rises and sets, so too changes the game. Once night falls, visibility is lessened for most units and buildings. Night Elves can avoid this penalty after researching a specific technology, as well as the ability to Shadowmeld. Also, all of the NPC creatures fall asleep and can either be ambushed, or avoided entirely. Strategies change when the sun sets, so that must be taken into account.

There have been some serious tweaks to the game since StarCraft. Rushing, for example, is less prevalent here than previously seen. In StarCraft, the 200 unit cap allowed for some massive rushes that simply overwhelm everything and were extremely difficult to defend against. With the smaller unit cap, and the penalties of upkeep, war parties are usually topped off at about 15 units, including heroes. The trade-off to this is that the units have significantly more hit points than in WarCraft II or StarCraft. Once you build a unit, it stays around for longer than a Zergling or Marine. Plus the hero's auras and abilities add benefits to your group - a small army with a hero can usually defend against a large non-hero army, when properly used. Also, the economy is de-stressed. Sure, you have to deal with upkeep, but you really only need 5 peons to mine and 5 for lumber gathering to be effective, while at least 20 peons were necessary to mine crystals in StarCraft. This puts the emphasis on exploration and combat, rather than sitting idle in town waiting for the hammer to drop on you.

So since rushing is deemphasized in this game, it puts the pressure on controlling the units you create, rather than cranking out as many as you can in a short span of time. You'll be spending less time micromanaging your town units, and more time causing havoc with your war parties. Battles are quick, and intense. With automatic spell casting turned on, the fur can really fly in a heavy battle (someone must've really liked Cats & Dogs - ed).

But the most important thing about this or any other RTS game - is it fun? I can honestly say, yes. Very, very much so. Sure, I have yet to win a game (I'm more of the FPS type - RTS is not my forte), but with each loss I learn a little more, and I'm not discouraged from playing again. Each of the races plays differently, and I have yet to learn all the subtle nuances of each, but the more I play, the more I learn. This game is Blizzard's most ambitious RTS yet, and from the looks of things, they have nothing to fear. This will be the game to buy come release day, so start clearing hard drive space and saving money for that 3D accelerator you've been pining for - you'll need both. Tthe beta weighs in at 400MB; with single-player and cinematics rolled in, it should total out to about 800MB.

Blizzard is, once again, King of the RTS hill. Hail to the king, baby.