Warcraft 3, is it fun/good?

[doppel]

Warcraft 3 is actually what got me into Diablo 2... It has been over a year now of Warcraft 3, and 6 months of Diablo 2. I love them both... :D

[Moldran]

I've never thought much about single player RTS. ( OTOH, I haven't played too many RTS too be honest) The computer is either stupid or cheats. That happens in games of all genres.  It's perfectly fine in a game like Diablo, but you're supposed to be playing on equal terms.  It's really hard to program a good AI for an RTS. It's just a matter of time before someone finds a way to exploit its flaws in a way that one normaly shouldn't be able to. The real challenge of these games are your human counterparts- the computer is a stepping stone.

BTW, is there an RTS with a AI that is worth playing? :P

Actually, the SC/BW AI is pretty good, IMO. It uses almost no cheats and will usualy beat a newbie player 1v1. That is much better than the AI in most other RTS I have seen. I would say it´s worth playing... games like 3 humans vs 5 comps can be fun even for experienced players. Blizzard did a good job on that one.

But I agree with you, RTS games are made for MP. No AI in the world can replace a human opponent.

Moldran

[nobbie]

I started with Diablo II (Classic) back in summer 2000 and haven't played anything else (from Blizzard) seriously since then. I had Warcraft III on my PC and played it a bit, but noticed quickly that I'm not really into the RTS/PvP/tournament type of stuff (the main German Warcraft III fansite looks like the German Soccer Bundesliga ;)). That doesn't mean that I s*ck in RTS, it just isn't my thing. I will however buy the game and the expansion for my Blizzard collection some time next year when it went to the bargain bin ("Bestseller Games" series for ~20 Euro) because WOW is released.

I will however buy WOW, even if it costs 15 bucks per month, because I think that this will be the next big funny online thing after Diablo II/LOD 1.10 :)

[Archon_Wing]

Actually, the SC/BW AI is pretty good, IMO. It uses almost no cheats and will usualy beat a newbie player 1v1. That is much better than the AI in most other RTS I have seen. I would say it´s worth playing... games like 3 humans vs 5 comps can be fun even for experienced players. Blizzard did a good job on that one.

:o

The startcraft AI is listed as one of the better ones. How depressing!:P Yes, it did beat me constantly when I first played. Of course, those no reason why it can't beat a newbie player who barely knows the controls. (Well.... AOE2 where the computer resigns for no good reason on easier settings) *Turned out to be a bug* ;)

I suppose the actual computer player isn't too bad, it's just the awful pathfinding in the game itself. And it does cheat; it has an omniscent view of the map. (Oh, and cheap trick for all you newer players- send a worker to attack one of their buildings iat the start of the game. It will cause all the workers to chase you. It's just for kicks. People don't fall for that. Well, actualy there was one.) It is possible to get a challenge from playing a computer with the "Insane" script though, but usually not for too long. In general, SP kind of gets boring after several months when the computer proves no longer a threat. Of course, I will lose to seven computers a good portion of the time. :P

Sometimes, playing too much against the computer is detremental to playing with people. Playing with the computer encourages tactics that would not normally work. Such as building 4590346 cannons as defense or spending the time to make 20 battlecruisers, which usually kills most computers. You pretty much have to if you're playing a lot of computer players. Humans (assuming they are not brain dead) will just avoid those defenses or starve you to death by mass expanding. Usually SP players will lose to MP players, given equal experience and same type of map. It does not mean that MP players are better. It means they have access to more variety and perhaps more challenges. Then of course there are MP players that do 7v1 comps, which of course will never get better. ;)

Now, compare this to D2, where I'd argue that SP D2 players are better than your average realm fool. :P Heck, I admit to never beating the game on players 8 with an untwinked character in SP.

[Bob]

I have to say that I disagree.

The SC AI is not particularly good. It is fast, yes, but this is not to be confused with good.

Yes, it will beat a newbie player, but only beacuse it relies on an early rush, I've regularly seen it attack before I have a single unit to fend off (or, at least, I did when I was a newbie).

Its flaws start to show against experienced players, however, as long as a player is fast enough to get defences up before the first wave (protoss photons will do), the computer is pretty much guaranteed beaten. As soon as it's rush is taken away, it's strategical ability just crumbles away.

This shows again in War3, although it doesn't rely quite so much on a rush, it does just go for 'build a huge army very fast and then crush someone 4 units to 1' It's almost impossible to build at the same speed of a computer simply because the computer can issue multiple orders at once, and can do things such as placing buildings without having to move a cursor, etc. Along with the fact that a computer is going to be able to click far faster than any human, although whether it actively puts caster at the back mid-battle I don't know.

The problem with the computer being able to do so much at once, however, has happened through most RTS games I've seen.

As for good AI's;
Total annihilation - leave it alone for 2 minutes on medium difficulty or above, and you'll find plasma landing in your base... ouch!. Also quite easy to take down with a rush, or nukes / navy (if a water map), that seems to be because the AI doesn't look to defend quite as much

actually, that's the one thing that aggrivates me above all else on War3, is the disadvanatge given to defending players - the majority of other games, allow you to use the resources that you start with in your 'base' to be quite enough to hold off the enemy for a while, in War3, you have to expand, and fight for expansion to have any hope of having enough units to hold of theirs, as you HAVE to use units to defend. This is compounded by the fact that the starting gold mine is always the most empty - mleh, I stick to custom games as well...wait... why am I talking about this when I'm meant to be listing good AI's :P

Age of empires 2: hardest DM, I'll wager that you don't last more than 10 minutes, first time around anyway. (hint, get siege, and get it fast)

-Bob

[TaiDaishar]

It's a good game, I liked the storyline and the combination of the RTS+RPG aspects were very nice.

But the real kicker in War3 is the fan-made maps and campaigns (especially now in TFT with the added editor enhancement for RPGs).

I managed to squeeze around a month or two (4 hours a day, it was summer :D) just downloading and playing the campaigns, then comes the custom maps for multiplayer like Tower Defence, Aeon of Strife, RPGs, defend the X (whether it be with only a hero or something else) in short the possibilities for it are incredible and what I like most is that you can make almost every game with the War3 editor (someone made a real, live, kicking FPS version of war3, granted it had a lot of bugs but the last time I downloaded it it was more than a year ago and was only beta version number 1.

[Moldran]

Maybe I am misinformed, but are you sure that the AI has omniscient view ? AFAIK, the only thing it knows by cheat is where the player´s starting position is. This is sometimes not even an advantage at all.

@Bob: I did not play TA extensively, so I cannot tell about the AI there.
The AoE2 AI cheats like no tomorrow, though, so it does not count IMO.

I have not seen a better AI than SC´s in any RTS so far.
The AIs in C&C (all titles), AoE 1+2, EE, Dark Reign 1+2 and Empires: DotMW (MP demo) are all worse than SC´s AI in my opinion. Some of them are harder to play against on certain settings, but that is because they use cheats excessively. The AIs in AoE, EE and Empires are particularily bad. They cheat so much that there is little motivation to play vs them at all.

Moldran

[Archon_Wing]

  Maybe I am misinformed, but are you sure that the AI has omniscient view ? AFAIK, the only thing it knows by cheat is where the player´s starting position is. This is sometimes not even an advantage at all.

Yep, haven't you noticed the computer never scouts yet it knows where all your forces/expansions are? It still needs detection for cloaked units and a spotting unit to see uphill though. All and all, I suppose it isn't too awful though.

Btw, later in the campaign missions the computer gets unlimited resources. The insane AI cheats too :P

[Bob]

Btw, later in the campaign missions the computer gets unlimited resources. The insane AI cheats too

heh, I think it does that in War3 as well, Alliance campaign Mission 5 (I think, first one in outland?) ever tried taking down the purple base, even at full pop, throwing every single unit, and attacking at the same time as the draenae(sp?) you hardly make a dent (and they get free Red Dragons). I got through 3 gold mines doing this before I figured out that the fourth portal wasn't in the purple base...

D'oh

That just shows it if the AI has to cheat... "an AI is only as smart as the guy who programmed it" - infer what you will.

-Bob

[Jarulf]

>The demo is a 100 mb file and not everyone has a broadband connection

I have broadband :D

[Archon_Wing]

>The demo is a 100 mb file and not everyone has a broadband connection

I have broadband  :D

:lol:

*Flaming dragon punch!*

But hey, a demo is still not the definite answer to whether you should throw your money away. ;)

[Bob]

But hey, a demo is still not the definite answer to whether you should throw your money away.

true, true, the demo isn't even a true likeness of the game, you play the learning campaign, which is actually quite interesting and develops a story line over 5 or 6 missions. You get the real thing, start that campaign and... 2 missions, booo-ring. I wanted to know how that storyline develops and I don't find out, Thrall suddenly... no... wait... I won't give a spoiler. Blizz did it with Starcraft too, they're the only company I've seen that puts totally different missions in the demo than the real thing... wait... Westwood did it with Red Alert, but then that demo (it appears) came out after the game (on reflection, the War3 demo came out after as well), either that or they released 2 demos (actually I know they did since I've played both), hmm.

Right, I'll stop waffling on about totally unimportant things...

*chloroforms self* :ph34r:

-Bob

[Tommi]

But the real kicker in War3 is the fan-made maps and campaigns (especially now in TFT with the added editor enhancement for RPGs).

Yeah, the best reason for you, Jarulf, to buy WarCraft III is that you can play our dwarf campaign. ;)

Defenders of Dwarvenkind - Chapter One
Available at: http://www.hut.fi/~tgustafs/dwarves1.html



City of the Seven Mithril Golems - Chapter Two
Available at: http://www.hut.fi/~tgustafs/dwarves2.html



You might need to learn to play the game first, though.

Cheers,

Tommi

[BlackLightning]

Don't worry man.
Buying WC3 is an excellent idea, since the storyline is captivating, and the gameplay is excellent. There are a few issues concerning graphics and all, but I'm not going to be a pain and go on and on (Like some people <_< ) (Just joking)

Frankly, Warcraft III is good, or excellent, or... you get the point. Custom made maps are godly, and provide an unfathomable number of extra hours of gameplay.

Yeah, that wraps it up. :D