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Starym

Warcraft 3: Reforged Developer Response to Criticism

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Warcraft 3: Reforged didn't quite have the best of launches, as players were very disappointed in how the game turned out, and even more so that the original was simply removed from the launcher and peoples computers, especially since it had some features Reforged does not. The actual issues with the game ranged from features announced at BlizzCon being cut, the game looking significantly worse than when it was announced, to the new EULA now claiming the rights to all player created maps and a whole lot more. This lead to the extremely low user Metacritic rating for the game, currently sitting on 0.5% user score, and having gone as low as 0.3%, with the professional reviewer score being 61%. 

Blizzard have now posted a blog addressing many of these issues, explaining the improvements coming to the game soon, including some to Classic mode, leaderboards and clans, and more:

Blizzard LogoReforged Launch Issues (source)

Hail War3 Players,

We’ve been following the discussions the past couple days and want to thank you for your feedback as well as your support. First off, we want to say we’re sorry to those of you who didn’t have the experience you wanted, and we’d like to share our plans for what’s coming next.

There were a few hours during launch day where we experienced server-load issues that impacted players’ ability to jump right in, but we were able to resolve those later in the day. Separate from that, we’ve seen community feedback about different aspects of Reforged that we wanted to take some time to address.

Before we go on: the team is excited that Warcraft III: Reforged is finally upon us and we’re fully committed to supporting the game for a long time to come. The next few patches and updates we’ll discuss below are just part of our ongoing plans. This game is an integral part of the Blizzard DNA, with a team that loves Warcraft III, and we’re looking forward to pouring our hearts into Reforged and the Warcraft III community for the long term.

One of the concerns with Reforged that we’ve seen are the visuals when selecting Classic Mode. We’ve identified the bug causing the colors and shading to look different from the original Warcraft III, and we’re testing a fix that will be incorporated in a larger patch addressing this issue and others. We expect to release that late this week. The patch will also address many other known issues, such as fixing some portrait animations and audio bugs, implementing some UI fixes, and more. Please keep an eye out for the patch notes for a detailed list of all the bug fixes.

Another area of concern we’re seeing is regarding online features such as leaderboards and clans, which applies to all Warcraft III players, including those who haven’t purchased Reforged. At BlizzCon we talked a lot about how the team is actively working on standing up the back-end to ensure a smooth transition to this new MMR system, much like we did with StarCraft: Remastered. As with Remastered, these and other features will be included in a major patch for Reforged, which will also address the issue for players of the original game. We’ll share release plans as work progresses in the coming weeks—please be assured that the team is hard at work on standing these features up.

There are some individual concerns we’ve seen that we’re not currently planning to address and we wanted to give the community a heads-up. As of Version 1.30 of the original game, we saw very low usage of tournaments and of the Reign of Chaos ruleset, so we removed both in mid-2019 (in Version 1.31). Eliminating the maintenance for underused elements has helped us streamline our overall support of the game and focus on areas impacting the most players. That said, we do anticipate that players who prefer Reign of Chaos will find custom games with similar rulesets, which we hope will help satisfy that concern.

Related to that, as we talked about last year at BlizzCon, we did not want the in-game cutscenes to steer too far from the original game. We went a little deeper into the thought process behind that at the show, but the main takeaway is that the campaigns tell one of the classic stories in Warcraft history, and we want to preserve the true spirit of Warcraft III and allow players to relive these unforgettable moments as they were (albeit rebuilt with new animations and the higher fidelity art).

We know this update doesn’t address all questions, but we’re committed to the development and support of this game. We hope you’ll keep an eye out for this week’s patch and future updates and let us know what you think as we continue fine-tuning things. Until then, thank you as always for your support and passion for Warcraft III. We appreciate all your feedback and will continue to keep the Warcraft III community updated on everything we’re working on.

Sincerely,

The Warcraft III: Reforged Team

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5 minutes ago, Wolftech said:

Not a word of the draconian EULA for the custom games...

Afaik it's the same one that's been in SC2 for years, so maybe that's why?

 

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So anything that is also saving money by not doing new work is

Quote

" we want to preserve the true spirit of Warcraft III and allow players to relive these unforgettable moments as they were"

 

But he also says :

Quote

"(albeit rebuilt with new animations and the higher fidelity art)"

Now what gets me is the Advertised "Glad you could make it, Uther" scene with the cinematographic camera work and close ups and all that is STILL on their trailer on the Warcraft III page.    Promising that this sort of amazing rework of the storytelling aspect was in there.    Yet, in the actual game...it doesn't exist.     They literally could have cut out the trailer, pasted it at that part in the story, and it would have worked with just a fade to black...but they didn't, instead we get a silly aerial slow zoom in.

THAT is effing Lazy.

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23 minutes ago, Dejo93 said:

See guys? Review bombing works

It should work, but this response says very little about what players are angry about, aside from ladder. they wont change anything except UI, and other small details.The bigger problems will probably stay as they are now.

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2 hours ago, Starym said:

Afaik it's the same one that's been in SC2 for years, so maybe that's why?

 

Indeed, I don't know why people are acting as if this is something new. Blizzard always owned copyright, just some mapmakers used specific loopholes regarding W3 maps (like accepting donations, which now may result in those projects being taken down).

Anyway, it's good to hear something from them. Hopefully they will keep delivering fixes for stability and optimization, had a couple of crashes in campaign during some cutscenes, though they were very rare so nothing major.

 

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" as we talked about last year at BlizzCon, we did not want the in-game cutscenes to steer too far from the original game. "

Why not? this is not warcraft 3, this wasn't even called warcraft 3 remastered, if that's what you wanted it to be just call it that, reforged makes it seem like it was not only going to be updated but redone to fit the new warcraft lore that has been retconned over the years. if you didn't want to tweak the story you at least could have redone the cinematic, we all know the real reason is that would have taken too much time and money from their cinematic team. 

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Well, I'm just surprised they made a response this quickly.

Frankly, I'm starting to get tired of the outrage culture that seems to permeate the gaming industry now. Was WC3 Reforged a sloppily-made product that deserves a low rating? Yes. Does it deserve to be rated lower than the likes of No Man's Sky, and miscellaneous trashy games that don't even work? No.

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7 hours ago, Arcling said:

Indeed, I don't know why people are acting as if this is something new. Blizzard always owned copyright, just some mapmakers used specific loopholes regarding W3 maps (like accepting donations, which now may result in those projects being taken down).

Anyway, it's good to hear something from them. Hopefully they will keep delivering fixes for stability and optimization, had a couple of crashes in campaign during some cutscenes, though they were very rare so nothing major.

 

I think the main problem is not that Blizzard owns the PLAYERS WORK, but they just don't thank them for making stuff in their editor, i mean if i was them, i would appreciate any content created by the players of said game, i wouldn't just take the stuff as my own, its wrong on a morality level, i think they should at the very least give credit, where credit is due.

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5 hours ago, Grumar said:

" as we talked about last year at BlizzCon, we did not want the in-game cutscenes to steer too far from the original game. "

Why not? this is not warcraft 3, this wasn't even called warcraft 3 remastered, if that's what you wanted it to be just call it that, reforged makes it seem like it was not only going to be updated but redone to fit the new warcraft lore that has been retconned over the years. if you didn't want to tweak the story you at least could have redone the cinematic, we all know the real reason is that would have taken too much time and money from their cinematic team. 

No part of that story has been retconned(or you don't know what retcon means). They said during the first announcement that there will be no new cinematics except the trailer. So stop spreading fake info for ppl to qq about.

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3 hours ago, Lith said:

No part of that story has been retconned(or you don't know what retcon means). They said during the first announcement that there will be no new cinematics except the trailer. So stop spreading fake info for ppl to qq about.

You mean how Archmage Antonidas somehow didn't recognize Medivh, the Guardian wielding Atiesh?

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34 minutes ago, SidonisAntares said:

You mean how Archmage Antonidas somehow didn't recognize Medivh, the Guardian wielding Atiesh?

What does that has to do with the topic? Also not recognizing medivh makes sense as he "died" at the end of the 1st war which happened ~20 years before the 3rd war(w3). also i'm not sure if they even met before w3.

Edited by Lith

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18 minutes ago, Lith said:

What does that has to do with the topic? Also not recognizing medivh makes sense as he "died" at the end of the 1st war which happened ~20 years before the 3rd war(w3). also i'm not sure if they even met before w3.

Was referring to retconning. We didn't know much of that information at the original release of WC3, but later on its filled in that Antonidas was the one who recommended Khadgar apprentice under Medivh. And as not only an Archmage, but a member of the Council of Six of the Kirin Tor, he's not aware of a magic staff handed down between Guardians that facilitates transformation into a raven?

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I actually find this drama amusing. Firstly, I am surprised people care so much about a WC3 remaster which was never a priority for Blizzard and has been delayed a couple of times, probably due to outsourcing. It was super evident that nobody cared and the result would show. Secondly, I'd never spend this much money on a remaster anyway (and I didn't). And thirdly, some people just love to get upset with everything these days.

The worldedit EULA is not a new thing as well. They changed it right after they *filtered* up with DotA, which led to HotS instead of a real DotA follow-up from Blizzard (which is also on life support now).

Blizzard behave like little children, on the one hand they envy the enormous profits of Valve, which they earn effortless, just by selling hats and comics about Axe for 15 mil, and on the other hand, they do not want to invest into the development of their own projects. It really feels like an executive committee is sitting and constantly thinking "how can we make money with zero investments?".

Obviously not a single sane human being is going to spend time on a project that Blizzard can just take over. As for DotA itself, as far as I know, DracoL1ch has no intention to work on this map in the new engine and is happy with his Chinese audience.

People just need to get over things and stop building up their expectations and hype.

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1 hour ago, SidonisAntares said:

Was referring to retconning. We didn't know much of that information at the original release of WC3, but later on its filled in that Antonidas was the one who recommended Khadgar apprentice under Medivh. And as not only an Archmage, but a member of the Council of Six of the Kirin Tor, he's not aware of a magic staff handed down between Guardians that facilitates transformation into a raven?

As a said Medivh was officially dead at that point for years also he was not chosen to be a guardian by the council but his mother, the last real guardian. He never been in good relationship with the council. As i said its not confirmed that Antonidas ever met Medivh or saw Athies ever before. Agwynn was guardian for a really long time and not suppoerted by the council either as she refused to give up the power after her time was over. But again this has nothing to do with what i said before, the guy i answered to was talking about retconning w3 story.

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11 hours ago, Lith said:

They said during the first announcement that there will be no new cinematics except the trailer. 

We don't want new cinematics. We want the reforged scenes that were promised in the webpage and the trailer:

with 4+ hours of reforged in-game cutscenes

That's called false advertising in my country.

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19 hours ago, Grumar said:

" as we talked about last year at BlizzCon, we did not want the in-game cutscenes to steer too far from the original game. "

Why not? this is not warcraft 3, this wasn't even called warcraft 3 remastered, if that's what you wanted it to be just call it that, reforged makes it seem like it was not only going to be updated but redone to fit the new warcraft lore that has been retconned over the years. if you didn't want to tweak the story you at least could have redone the cinematic, we all know the real reason is that would have taken too much time and money from their cinematic team. 

For the same reason modern artists don't repaint Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa and call it Mona Lisa HD? Videogame art is still art - it is appropriate in the form it was originally created in, reimagining it using contemporary tools would be sacrilege. People may rightfully cry about the gameplay, bugs, multiplayer or the in-game cutscenes, but changing the game art is a big no-no for any kind of remaster (or reforged if you wish to differentiate).

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3 hours ago, Badadada said:

For the same reason modern artists don't repaint Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa and call it Mona Lisa HD? Videogame art is still art - it is appropriate in the form it was originally created in, reimagining it using contemporary tools would be sacrilege. People may rightfully cry about the gameplay, bugs, multiplayer or the in-game cutscenes, but changing the game art is a big no-no for any kind of remaster (or reforged if you wish to differentiate).

that's a moot point considering they're still "repainting" the game, the original WC3 does/did exist now it simply doesn't that's the greatest sin out of all of this. it's okay to play an older game if you want to play the original WC3 you should have just been able to start it up, if you wanted to play an updated more up to date story/ui/controls/cinematic/etc that's what reforged should have been.

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you have really high expectations. I just wanted to play the old campaign with new models, and they delivered, sure the game has bugs. I don't know about you but Warcraft 3 was my dream game when I was a kid and I would have pay twice for it if they asked. I want thank Blizzard Reforged Team for the great job, and only ask please make new campaign.

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      The Grandmaster division will now be the highest rank and will only comprise the top 300 players with the highest MMR globally. When players jump into Ranked matches, they will be able to see their rank badge next to each player’s name on the loading screen. Those in Master and Grandmaster will additionally have their MMR displayed to all players as well. In another change from the legacy Ranked system, we will now be displaying a player’s own MMR directly to them in the main menu and in their in-game profiles as well. 
      Work in Progress: Promotion Notification 
      Additionally, we wanted to address the aggressive experience decay that was in place in the legacy Ranked Ladder for Warcraft III. The original intent behind such an aggressive decay was to retain active players so that they could maintain their ranks. We believe that this was too punishing and have now decided to remove experience decay from Reforged for all ranks. We may decide to implement experience decay for Grandmaster in the future, but we’ll continue to monitor the data and see what would make the most sense for our top competitive players.
      Work in Progress: Placement Matches Interface
      To determine their Rank in the new system, players will now need to complete a series of five placement matches. These placement matches will only be required for any game mode or race combination where a player has not yet received a rank. For those who do have a rank, only one placement match will be needed after each season roll for any mode or race combination where a player has been placed.
      Seasons Overview
      Alongside the improvements coming to the Ranked Ladder, we are also going to be bringing Ranked Seasons to Warcraft III for the first time. Seasons will offer an opportunity to roll in balance updates, fresh map rotations, and other adjustments, as well as give players rewards for participating (and seeing how high up the ladder they can climb) in each new Season.
      Work in Progress: Season 1 Unranked Status
      Work in Progress: Season 1 Ranked Play Placement in Progress 
      We will adjust player MMR and divisions between Seasons to maintain rank division sizes and prevent MMR drift to keep matchmaking times down. We think Seasons will provide structure for Ranked updates and give players the time to mentally reset and get excited for the new Season and new seasonal rewards.
      Work in Progress: Season 1 Ranked Play in Versus - Placed Status 
      Speaking of seasonal rewards—we plan to award a portrait for each division and players will earn new portraits as they rank up. Portraits will unlock for all divisions earned at and below a player’s rank. With each new Season, players can expect fresh new portraits to showcase their achievements for that season.


      Work in Progress Ranked Silver and Gold badges.
      While Seasons are brand new to the Warcraft III community, we’re excited about the benefits this framework will bring to the game.
      Sharpening Skills in Unranked Mode
      In addition to improving the Ranked experience for Reforged, we also want to expand upon it by adding an Unranked mode to the game. Unranked will be coming soon after Ranked mode is added to the game, for those players that would like to practice new races, tactics, and more in a competitive setting without the same stakes as formal Ranked matches.
      Here’s a look at how this new game mode will work:
      Unranked will have its own MMR attributed per race and per game mode, and is separate from the Ranked MMR system. Unranked MMR will never be displayed or reset, and the only way it will change is through the player’s progression as they play. We expect that there will likely be some MMR drift between Ranked and Unranked, but we feel this is acceptable as the Ranked and Unranked players are approaching each game mode with different mindsets.
      Work in Progress: Profile Match History 
      As is the case in StarCraft II, Unranked players will be matched against Ranked players in 1v1 games. Wins and Losses will count as normal for Ranked players to ensure that players still try their best and continue to play to win. Ranked players will also be able to rank up by defeating an Unranked player as well.
      When playing in Team games, we will only matchmake teams of all Ranked or all Unranked players onto the same team to ensure the fairest matches. That means Unranked players will only be paired with other Unranked players, and vice versa. For those players playing Unranked in Arranged Teams, the matchmaker will average player MMR and treat you like any other Arranged Team. However, at the conclusion of each match, team history is not tracked like ordinary Arranged teams.
      Seasons will also have no bearing on Unranked mode. This means that there will be no Ladder resets for Unranked mode; however, wins in Unranked will count toward unlocking existing win-based portraits.
      In Closing
      We know that this is just part of the complete Ranked play experience you’re expecting—we will be detailing our approach to Profiles and more in our next developer update. While we’re aiming to release Ranked Play in the coming months, it’s important that we take the time needed to deliver a combination of features that best serves our players and the Warcraft III community. We’re looking forward to seeing the community discussion around our current plans for Ranked, Seasons, and Unranked modes, and we’ll provide updates on our progress as development continues.   
      -The Warcraft III Team
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