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WarCraft III: Reforged (2020)

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Warcraft 3 Reforged WC3 Legion TD Gameplay No Commentary
More Gameplay: https://youtu.be/4MSk2qvwulQ

WarCraft 3 Reforged is a remastered edition of the 2002 real-time strategy video game Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos and its expansion The Frozen Throne. Released on January 28, 2020, it adds revamped graphics, new campaign gameplay settings as well as modern online Battle.net features. The game received mixed reviews from critics and an overwhelmingly negative reception from players for its changes from the original, the lack of many announced features, and technical issues.


Gameplay
Reforged retains the gameplay of the original, but its development has spurred on further balance changes to the game's multiplayer. Players from the original client are able to access and play with Reforged players by being given access to the new client (after they have purchased the product). There is a Classic Graphics setting available without purchase for those owning a classic license. Similar to StarCraft: Remastered, it uses the textures of the original release. Users can unlock profile icons based on per-race ratings.

The campaign's missions were visually updated to reflect World of Warcraft, however, the map of Azeroth and heroes' appearances were still kept closer to the original WarCraft 3 concepts than to those appearing in WoW. Moreover, there are certain features missing from Reforged, such as the competitive ladder, classic animated backgrounds and replay saving option. Some of them are expected to be added with the upcoming patches. Some, however, have not been included, including the "Clans" social system, and has not been mentioned by Blizzard.
The campaign now has three difficulty settings, one of them is the "story mode" aimed at newcomers. The "hard mode" setting prevents the player from using cheat codes.

WarCraft 3 Reforged has the same plot as the original game, but possesses minor visual and stylistic changes.

Development
Blizzard intended, along with a desire from the playerbase, to develop StarCraft: Remastered as a generally pure remake. In contrast, Warcraft 3 Reforged was intended to be less pure. Producer Pete Stillwell said that "When we went to Korea [for StarCraft: Remastered] and talked with pros and people still playing in game rooms, the overwhelming feedback was 'Please don’t change the game,'" Stillwell said. "'Make it pretty, give us a modern matchmaker and then quietly step away, Blizzard.' Getting those marching orders made the endeavor not just easier but more focused. But with Warcraft 3: Reforged, we've talked with the communities in Europe and in China [who say], 'Hey, we don't think this game is done' -- The goal is not just to give Warcraft 3 a new coat of paint, but "do more with it. Lemon Sky Studios partnered with Blizzard to provide most of the remastered 3D art assets.

According to Jason Schreier of Bloomberg News, the remaster had problems from the start in 2017. While the team behind the remaster had a grand scope for what they wanted to bring, the Activision management did not see much value of the remaster over new games, and pressure was placed on Blizzard to focus on these newer games. The Classic Games team at Blizzard, behind the development of the remaster, were never given the necessary budget to complete their scope. Further, with the February 2019 layoffs across Activision Blizzard, many of the staff on the Classic Games team were affected, and the change of management within the team greatly impacted the production rates. There also were issues with the management style of Rob Bridenbecker, the manager of the Classic Games group, that further impacted how the team functioned.

Other games at development within Blizzard were cancelled in favor of titles like Overwatch, but because they had already started taking pre-orders for the remaster, the project could not be easily cancelled. Instead, a decision was made by management to release the game in an early state as to avoid having to refund the pre-orders, even though the Classic Games team realized the game was not ready in that state. By the end of 2019, the Classic Games team had called on other Blizzard teams to help prepare the game to a reasonable state for launch in January 2020. About eight months following release, the Classic Games team was disbanded, leaving the promised updates to resolve the game the responsibilities of other teams within Blizzard.

Custom content
The internal scripting language of Warcraft 3, JASS, is joined by Lua, commonly used in scripting and custom content for other games, and for Blizzard's World of Warcraft. Lua is intended to make custom content creation easier and to expand it. Blizzard intends to make the editor more powerful. Other changes such as increased custom camera views and individual unit traits are introduced.

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