The Making of Warcraft (2012) | Hacker News Reader

The Making of Warcraft (2012)

codeofhonor.com

For those interested:

Part 2: http://www.codeofhonor.com/blog/the-making-of-warcraft-part-...

Part 3: http://www.codeofhonor.com/blog/the-making-of-warcraft-part-...

If anyone is interested in the history of some of the great games, there was an old show called Game Makers (got renamed to Icons) on G4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_Makers. It covers tons of great classic video games. It was very well done. I wish they sold the dvds. But if you are interested in check em out on Youtube. You won't be disappointed. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL56FD995C50B57200

Man do I miss this show!

I'll add a shameless plug for https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMakingOfGames/

Another plug: http://www.filfre.net/sitemap/ although this is more from a games historian enthusiast point of view.

Apparently he wrote parts 2 and 3 before getting bored but didn't link them from the original that I could spot - but you can either change the number on the end of the URL or visit http://www.codeofhonor.com/blog/tag/warcraft for proper links to the other two.

He was at HandmadeCon 2015 [1] where they talked about the network code/design in games he had worked on, and various subjects relating to the gaming industry.

This article was referenced at Gamasutra a few days ago, to which his response was that he should blog more. [2]

[1] HandmadeCon 2015 - Pat Wyatt

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1faaOrtHJ-A

[2] Patrick Wyatt

https://twitter.com/netcoyote/status/766725317750763520

Previous discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4292598

Dune II was a fantastic game - I still remember the little three-pixel sprites for the light infantry wiggling around on the screen.

I am so happy you dug up this article! I read it around the time it was published, it is such a great story. Thank you!

Loved Dune 2, loved Warcraft (1, 2 and 3), and was a little too addicted to Starcraft.

On a semi-related note: Does anyone know of any other pure RTS game that rivals Starcraft 2? Nothing seems to compare ...

It's aging, but Age of Empires 2 has had a comeback recently.

Speaking of AoE II, a couple of months back I bought the "HD remake" of it on Steam.

I was a bit disappointed in the remake with regards to how they handled the sizing of the UI.

Every part of the UI is very small on my high resolution (2560 x 1440) display.

Not what I expected when they market it as a HD remake.

I searched the internet to see if anyone else was disappointed and found that indeed I was not alone.

Here is one example of what others are saying: https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/1bslgq/why_is_the_us...

Still, AoE II was a good game and I have fond memories of it from my childhood.

I keep a Winows XP box running just to play it and several other games from then and before. I also play the Star Wars spin off, Galactic Battlegrounds, on it. It's AoE II but with SW factions and maps...

I agree in that I'd call it more of an HD "refactor" than a remake.

The HD version supports all sorts of resolutions, whereas the original game was restricted to just 800x600, 1024x768, and 1280x1024!

I watched a lot of AoE2 on YouTube and Twitch about 6 months ago. It's really fun to watch on the background while doing idle work, and learn the meta and various races. I admit I haven't played the actual game since it was released (great memories for a 10yo to make).

https://www.youtube.com/user/ZeroEmpires

https://www.youtube.com/user/Resonance22Channel

The Settlers series is very awesome too (aside from that mess of a facebook "game"), and each game in the series has a very different feel to it.

One thing to note, though, is that they're generally much more focused around city planning and resource management than warfare. They're also have a far slower pace than, say, Starcraft does.

Warhammer 40k is pretty ok. Age of Empires was pretty great in its day. Classic-style RTSs have kind of died, as a genre.

The energy has long since moved from RTSes to MOBAs. It's doubtful Blizzard will ever make a Starcraft 3. Pure RTSes are going the way of the point & click adventure game.

I'm sure you probably have, but give League of Legends a try if you haven't. There's still a lot of similarities with RTSes.

Maybe AirMech / AirMech:Command (for VR) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iq417yp1IBM

Apparently, it is intended to be a spiritual successor to Herzog Zwei.

As another commenter pointed out below, the heyday of RTS games seems to have long passed and the studios that honed the genre to perfection are around no more. Everyone seems to be focused on making the latest Dota clone, so if you want a proper RTS, you'll have to dig into the past.

Games such as Ground Control have a promising concept, but suffer from an extreme lack of polish, which in this case means that you can't save the game during the mission, forcing you to restart and restart and restart over and over and over again until you get bored and uninstall the game.

However, I greatly enjoyed playing Myth and Myth II: Soulblighter. They are both pure tactical games from the 90s, meaning that you don't actually build any structures or produce units in them. Instead, you're given a small detachment (sometimes counting only 1-2 heroes) at the start of the mission and expected to plow through a horde of enemies. The AI is superb and will brutally punish your mistakes.

In some cases, you'll be given grenadier Dwarves and a huge cache of landmines they can carry and set on the ground, ready to be lit and blow everything nearby to smithereens. [0] [1]

The appeal is in the absolute carnage: blood splatters all over the map and the pieces of units fly everywhere, possibly even killing other units in the process. There is an active mod community to this day[2], with unofficial compatibility patches, larger resolution options and UI fixes.

I do not recommend Myth multiplayer, since only the most hardcore players are remaining, meaning that you'll fare poorly if you try competing against teams of people that've been playing for 10+ years consistently.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgXRO1HPBAg

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aP8f4d3midI

[2] http://tain.totalcodex.net/mythii

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