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Perhaps the most predictable unannounced project in the world right now are remasters of Warcraft III and Diablo 2. There’s demand for it and a team that can do it in Blizzard’s Classic Games team. But they haven’t, and that’s because, unlike StarCraft, those games just aren’t ready for the Remaster process yet.
“The whole 'listen more than you talk' approach with StarCraft was working so well, we were like 'what do we need to do for the others,'” explains Peter Stilwell, senior producer on the Classic Games team. “Right now when you read the [Warcraft III] forums or talk to the community, the map pool is so stale. Not only that, there's a bunch of maps in there that aren't that great, that just get vetoed every time for whatever reason. That was the overriding thing, please give us another pool.
“Then the other thing is Undead only really has one build order, it would be awesome if we could change the balance a little bit to help [people] figure out different ways to play the game. There isn't that overriding sense that you get with StarCraft where they're like 'don't touch it, the balance is perfect.' [For Orc] you have to have a Blademaster, you have to have the Death Knight for Undead - make some tweaks to some heroes so that maybe the other guy has to scout me and figure out what I'm playing with in order for him to develop his own strategy.”
In essence, it’s taking lessons learned from 20 years of analysing StarCraft and learning how it got to a point of perfect balance. “That's the cool thing about StarCraft, the unit selections you make need to be scouted for them to be properly prepared for it, we want to try to achieve that level of balance for Warcraft III. That seems like most of what that competitive community cares about right now, so that's what we're dealing with directly. Matt Morris and our design guys are working on another pool, they've got it on a PTR, so that we can get some candid feedback before we say this is the official one. Hopefully very soon they'll be happy with that and then we can actually get those balance changes out on the PTR as well.”
Read more here. (PCGamesN)
“The whole 'listen more than you talk' approach with StarCraft was working so well, we were like 'what do we need to do for the others,'” explains Peter Stilwell, senior producer on the Classic Games team. “Right now when you read the [Warcraft III] forums or talk to the community, the map pool is so stale. Not only that, there's a bunch of maps in there that aren't that great, that just get vetoed every time for whatever reason. That was the overriding thing, please give us another pool.
“Then the other thing is Undead only really has one build order, it would be awesome if we could change the balance a little bit to help [people] figure out different ways to play the game. There isn't that overriding sense that you get with StarCraft where they're like 'don't touch it, the balance is perfect.' [For Orc] you have to have a Blademaster, you have to have the Death Knight for Undead - make some tweaks to some heroes so that maybe the other guy has to scout me and figure out what I'm playing with in order for him to develop his own strategy.”
In essence, it’s taking lessons learned from 20 years of analysing StarCraft and learning how it got to a point of perfect balance. “That's the cool thing about StarCraft, the unit selections you make need to be scouted for them to be properly prepared for it, we want to try to achieve that level of balance for Warcraft III. That seems like most of what that competitive community cares about right now, so that's what we're dealing with directly. Matt Morris and our design guys are working on another pool, they've got it on a PTR, so that we can get some candid feedback before we say this is the official one. Hopefully very soon they'll be happy with that and then we can actually get those balance changes out on the PTR as well.”
Read more here. (PCGamesN)
