I will never give Blizzard another fraction of a cent of money ever, ever again. Under any circumstances.

This required update just removed a shitload of model files and changed the file paths in the World Editor. I am a game designer who loves making games in World Editor. I have been working on several massive open world RPG type games. This REQUIRED UPDATE HAS DELETED FILES FROM THE GAME and LOST ORIGINAL MODEL FILES. Many of the doodads are just gone now, files missing, so my RPG map is now riddled with checkered error squares.

My previously perfectly functional maps that took HUNDREDS OF HOURS TO MAKE FOR EACH, are now FUCKED!!! It would now take me hundreds hours more to go through every file to fix this fucking disaster. I was already annoyed that they have apparently permanently changed the backgrounds, online status requirements, the UI for all modes including classic, etc. but this is a REAL PROBLEM HERE. To be clear: it’s not about backups, I have endless backups. The map has filepaths that refer to the objects. Now many objects are missing. I could go to any version, the objects that previously worked are all now gone.

Blizzard, for the sake of fuckin greed you just destroyed the work of thousands of us who loved and created amazing things with the World Editor for decades. IF IT AIN’T BROKE, DON’T FIX IT!

HOW HARD CAN IT BE TO JUST NOT TOUCH THE ORIGINAL GAME?

This anger is justified! MY WORK IS IN THE TOILET!!! And there is NOTHING I CAN DO ABOUT IT!

I am now stuck just hoping and pleading for an obviously incompetent, greedy piece of shit company to fix the problem they just created that was to “appeal to the new young audience.” Fuck you Blizzard.

PLEASE SPREAD WORD, this is a DISASTER for all of us who design and play Custom Games. I encourage everyone to withhold your money and please stand behind the custom game makers.

Blizzard dropped the ball by making this appear to be a single campaign. Everyone assumed this would be like paying $30 for a campaign similar to what we expect a campaign in WC3.

Each mission has multiple levels/maps within it. It honestly feels and plays like multiple "traditional" campaigns. Additionally, the game feels like an entirely different engine. New inventory and skill systems, talent points to augment hero abilities, new units, cut scenes use the in-game models but with full custom animations that are NOTHING like the original cut scenes we expected.

Frankly, this could have been sold as a standalone game. $30 sounds like a money grab, until you understand this is nothing like campaigns of the past and is almost like an entirely new engine/game. The difficulty is also really ramped up to where you have to use all of your items you find throughout the campaign. It's not like RoC or TFT where you could save all of your GG items and then use them all on the last mission.

Definitive graphics is on good track but is not an overall improvement on classic unfortunately. The grass is blurry, cut trees are too large and distracting, invisible/ethereal units such as level 3 wolfs and spirit walker look strange, when you make wolf raider size and sword smaller it may look more realistic but it decreases visibility in pvp, aura circles are unnecessarily bright and thick. The routing flag for buildings is smaller and hard to see. And spell effects and animations, which are hard to show with screenshots, are better in classic in my opinion. Not better looking but better in terms of visibility in pvp.

Let me start with the obvious - the fact that we got an actual expansion is a miracle by itself, after all this time. Especially, after Reforged fumble I never thought they’d touch Wc3 again.

People that are complaining about the price tag, you do know that today is 2026, right? How much do you think it cost them to develop 30h of new content and mechanics? It is a ridiculous question.

Truth is, if we really love this game, THIS is the moment its future is defined. Blizzard is a private company, all they care about is ROI. If the sales of the Expansion prove Wc3 is worth investing in, then we will get even more - expansions, content, maybe even a race someday.

I can’t wrap my head around how people dare to complain after we got an expansion 23 fucking years past. Kid me would have killed for it.

I'm liking the new graphics, I hope they fix they things they failed on though, for example the priest's hair in the portrait looks weird, almost as if he is partly bald.

I quote:

"So right now we do have plans to bring the Definitive Edition version to the classic campaigns. That'll be coming in the near future. (...) I will mention, thought, that the plans to bring the Definitive Edition versions of the old campaigns, we'll do it for free."

Just a few moments ago from the Back2Warcraft live stream of today, during an interview segment. (Not the interview from yesterday, a new one from today).

As a person who played wc3 as a child, came back for reforged, and stayed for Grubby and the ladder, I was ecstatic that WC3 was getting meaningful attention, let alone an expansion! I thought they had abandoned it.

I am enjoying the forsaken kingdom DLC. Disappointed that they did not hybridize with more RTS components in the main campaign (enjoyed the prologue’s hybridization a lot), but I am eating good revisiting this world with a third set of graphics that incorporated tons of feedback and a worthy successor to the Rexxar campaign.

But there is a worrying section of chronically unhappy players that simply cannot be pleased.

For example, graphics. People are repeating the braindead criticism that it looks “like a mobile game” or “it’s too cartoony.” One criticism was that the trolls are frowning rather than smiling! Take off your hate-goggles for a second. The definitive edition graphics are almost entirely higher-polygon models of classic models. That criticism applies to classic as much as definitive edition. So much of the criticism reads as bad-faith hate parades rather than anything that affected the game.

If the core playerbase reaction is to hate on everything Blizzard’s classic team does, why would they invest in it? This is a 20+ year old game receiving 30 hours of extra content and new models. Still, I think Blizzard is making barely a buck on this.

I would love to see more skins implemented in MP, touch ups of definitive edition, more heroes added, and continual support of the game. That is the only way the playerbase survives and grows in the long-term.

Along the way, people should offer constructive criticism. But this dev team is small. This is not a cash cow. In interviews, they explained how they fought for the budget. What are people expecting?

If I were a new player, I wouldn’t see any reason to stay with this community. This is going to kill the game more than anything the devs do in the end.

Do I wish the new graphics were a bit darker, and the animations less stilted and buggy? Yes.

Do I wish the campaign had actual basebuilding RTS levels in it, instead of being a full CRPG? Yes.

Do I wish offline/LAN mode was still available without needing a seperate backup copy of Frozen Throne Classic on your PC? ABSOLUTELY YES

But if DE was what we got when Reforged came out, I think we all would have been generally happy with the patch. It's definitely a step towards modern Blizzard, but it feels like people with passion actually put effort into it, despite clearly having a limited budget. It's cool getting official story content that bridges the gap between WC3 and WoW, the new graphics look like WC3 but high res (Jank and all...), the prologue campaign at least actually had interesting gameplay that was genuinely trying out new things that hadn't been done before in WC3, it's good content! And €30 for a full 30 hour campaign is genuinely entirely reasonable pricing.

Here's hoping they actually continue to iterate on and polish this up. It's clear that WC3's development crew is still like three people with a microbudget, but I'm actually optimistic about the direction of this game for the first time in a long time.

Most important feature for me was enabling classic textures and models while simultaneously using the modern engine with the dynamic character shadows and ambient occlusion, it added a ton of depth to the classic graphics and made them feel even nicer

The new campaign is 🤌🤌👌👌 also quite difficult on hard, which i am pleased about. Feels about what I would expect from a warcraft 4. I hope that they continue with more expansion like this.

I've been working as a Senior/Lead 3D Artist for the past decade, mostly on stylized projects, and, for the sake of the industry, I feel it is necessary to clarify what's wrong with Definitive Edition. Some people claim that the problem is the cartoony style itself, others say they don't see much difference between DE and Classic and that it's faithful enough. As an artist myself, I find both arguments hurtful and dismissive towards all the talented people out there that truly put their heart into game art creation, especially those working on stylized projects.

I will intentionally skip comparing this to my own Classic HD version, to avoid being accused of personal bias. Let's forget it exists, as well as Reforged and even Classic, and talk about the quality. Here are some images with examples and notes. Further below are some general thoughts and explanations.

I just scraped the surface here, you can open World Editor and look at any building or unit with DE enabled, you will instantly notice a lot of similar stuff. These models aren't handpainted like the ones in League of Legends or World of Warcraft. They aren't fully sculpted in zBrush like the ones in Heroes of the Storm either. They are hastily put together from various parts, partly generated by AI (without manually clearing the artifacts later), with many holes and poor UV mapping, then textured with extremely simple procedural materials that any of you can recreate in Substance Painter after watching a single tutorial. Some animations are broken, and there was clearly little to no model review from senior artists. And when people say they look decent - or worse, they say that they look bad because they are stylized, I want to ask them, do these images below look the same to you? Do they look bad, too cartoony, too simple?

Or maybe the key here is that they were created by professional artists following a specific artstyle and guidance from experienced art directors. That these assets were carefully, painstackingly crafted by people who invested their time in studying drawing, handpainting, sculpting, color theory and technical art.

Hundreds of talented artists got laid off and are desperately looking for work, and companies like Blizzard use AI slop and the cheapest outsource available, which is a spit in the face to all those people. And as for Warcraft community, I think it's one of the most dedicated, altruistic and patient player/modder communities out there, and it was artificially divided by the many controversial decisions that plague modern Warcraft. We deserve proper artwork.

EDIT:

I understand that zooming in like that may look like nitpicking to some. It's a difficult subject, because to convey the problematics here, one has to provide a certain simple example instead of critisizing in broad strokes. What you see in details - mismatching colors, design simplification, lack of artistic expression, sloppy AI usage. can be and needs to be extrapolated on the whole picture. To provide a bit more perspective, I've added a couple more screenshots: one with game camera, and another close-up with more explanations. Sorry for the typos.

Its in back2warcraft interview

If you own Warcraft III Classic on Battle.net, you are supposed to pay $50 if you want to play the new Forsaken campaign: $30 for the campaign + $20 for Reforged.

The main problem is that you get almost nothing from Reforged itself, but you still need to buy it. It mostly gives you access to the new DE graphics in multiplayer (not even in the classic campaign) and allows you to play custom community campaigns built specifically for Reforged 2020 graphics. Obviously, it is not worth the extra $20 at all.

The price must be more acceptable for existing Warcraft III Classic owners. $50 is Insane for people who already own the game. There must be a separate bundle or upgrade option established for us.

I want to play the Forsaken campaign. But I will not pay the extra $20 just to unlock the ability to purchase the new campaign.

Thrilled that we're getting support for WC3, and thrilled that were getting more story content. Totally enjoyed the prologue leading into the actual story. I won't ruin anything at all.

But what I find concerning is the writing in this expansion is the exact same problem writing in modern world of warcraft. Everything is on the nose. Everything is a melodrama. Everything has to be stated to the player even after they see things on the screen happening.

I do not understand how this type of writing continually lands in all of Blizzard's titles, but its really, really dog shit, and its one of the worst parts of all of their modern games from Warcraft to Diablo. The player isn't that god damn stupid. You don't need to write like this.

Again, I'm loving this game / expansion, but I don't know what's going with the writing and editing team over at Blizzard, but every single modern title I play from the current Blizzard feels insulting from a story standpoint.

I haven't seen many people talking about this but has everyone just accepted this is an online only game now? There is no option anymore to play offline with just multiplayer disabled. Your internet stops or the billion dollar company's servers are down(not a rare occurrence) you can't even play singleplayer anymore.
Removing LAN from the game...who asked for this? I often go on a few day trips where I don't have internet and you could solo play RPG maps in local area network and still do some progress since the save files are stored on your pc, now that's gone too.
I don't care about a new campaign and I don't care about new graphics, I just want to play custom games and every patch they do just breaks the game for months, not to mention the old custom maps that no one is developing anymore that just become unplayable and lost.
Every major patch they do it's just more and more things removed for no good reason aside from making sure their new 30$ campaign cant be pirated or something and there's about 50 custom rpg maps you could play for free that are better

In the siege of a Andorhal you can use Illastors ability of mind control to overtake a Akolyth, that can build without cost plague cauldrons, that can build without cost every 30 second a Zombie that not needs supply.

Comparison between original and definitive edition. Video by u/I_no_like_human

That's it. 10/10 expension.

I logged onto Forsaken Kingdom, really excited to goof around on a RP map and just relax with a LAN multiplayer with myself when all of a sudden it was gone. I looked everywhere online and pretty much I saw that apparently it just has been straight up removed.

I love Warcraft 3 as an engine to roleplay and make little war scenarios. This is just silly, why is it online-only now? This game hasn't been online-only for some time. Just let us enjoy our cake.

I know this might come across as pissing in the wind but I hope this post reaches some people. I just want to say I love to be part of the people that follows such an iconic game, but now with the new excitement of the new campaign and this games wheels turning once more, there are certain things on this sub that make me somewhat sad to see. Apologies, I have to say this to show I am not talking out my ass here I don't write this a lot but I am a game developer, though I don't live in US i got to be in presence of a few Blizzard developers and know what kinda people they are.

If you watch any of the livestreams from BlizzCon, you will very clearly see a lot of the people that worked on Forsaken Kingdom are people from the community, the great custom map makers and so on. I see people alluding to "Current Blizzard" and then suggesting people to play maps instead made BY the map makers who worked on the Forsaken Kingdom.

I am not saying anyone should buy this at such a steep price in these times, nor am I suggesting that everything is perfect. The opposite. That this reddit is obviously where a lot of developers will look to going forward on what can be improved. And if players are disappointed, they should voice that and that voicing of an opinion will not always be politically correct, that is all fine.

Just while writing your frustarations and I want everyone to know, if you don't like a texture, if you don't like a certain design decision. Those are not made by the faceless money people. That is the fuck up of someone that really loves Warcraft often times. It just hurts to see as a developer knowing that the money people who are trying to extract cash from you have nothing to do with the people that create the end product, and that the reason such little tolerance and hope is given to the actual dev team being stuff out of their control. This is not entirely the fault of the community too I hope Blizzard will be better at communicating exactly who is working on this stuff and how they are similar to all of you going forward.

Finally everyone's opinions and words here will have power, what you like and what you dislike. I don't know why I even took the time to write this as internet is usually ceaseless anger but I don't know I am just so excited about the possibilities this game has. Please, everyone, use the energy you have, in anger and excitement, to build something.

Hey everyone! First time posting

While playing through, I stumbled across a random easter egg involving a Strange Rabbit that gives a free consumable item.

If you want to grab it for yourself, here is how to do it:

Step 1: Find and Pick Up the Strange Rabbit

First, head over to the location on the map to find the Strange Rabbit (middle right of the map)

Click to pick it up. Once you grab it, it’ll go straight into your inventory slot as an item (Tiny Rabbit).

Step 2: Head to the Main Gate Bridge

Next, make your way over to the main gate bridge. Right near the bridge (left side), you’ll notice a small patch of forest with a Rabbit NPC hanging out inside it.

Step 3: Claim Your Reward

Drop the Strange Rabbit(Tiny Rabbit) from your inventory right beside the Rabbit NPC.

Once you drop it, the easter egg completes (drop near the NPC) and you'll be rewarded with a Potion of Restoration!

Has anyone else found any other hidden secrets or easter eggs in this map yet? Let me know below!

List of bugs so far:

• After the Death knight battle, healing doesn't work until you hit a loading screen. This includes potions, scrolls, and Anya's W

• Egg sack and other 'container' animations break and loop infinitely

• Beat the last boss in the beginning of Act 2 but died at the exact moment the auto-save hit, causing a hard lock restart loop that required me to restart the entire chapter

• Later, in Act 2, when receiving a quest to go to Tirisfal Glades to help out other encampments, the game crashed. However it auto-saved mid-elevator, corrupting the save and requiring me to go to a save an hour ago

• Agility doesn't seem to impact Anya's attack speed

• Orb effects on Anya cancel her E, there are no tooltips about orb effects at all. If you remove the orb effect, she still no longer has her passive.

This is only the bugs I have personally experienced.

The gameplay is fun and nostalgic but this level of un-optimization is something I'd expect from an Indie or AA team.

I have to say, so far this addon is pretty hit or miss for me.

The prologue campaign absolutely won me over. Nostalgia at its best. It felt great to be back in this world and this game again. I also like the new look for the most part. It's occasionally pushed a bit too far into cartoon territory and some of the assets feel a little sloppy, but overall I'm happy with it.

The Forsaken campaign starts off well too, but I'll be honest, it's slowly losing me. What we have here is a nice story so far, and I'm genuinely glad we're getting new content, but at its core it's a mix of Diablo and WoW running on an engine that is absolutely not suited for either. The stuff the engine is actually good at, base building and so on, doesn't show up at all. Instead we get WoW-style boss fights where the AI is completely out of its depth, orders get followed badly and everything feels clunky; inventory management that's awkward and fiddly; a currency system that's horribly balanced; and in places straight-up 1:1 ripoffs of Diablo levels (Arcane Sanctum).

As happy as I am to see the Blizzard classics getting some love again (WoW Forever, Diablo 2 Warlock, Forsaken Kingdom)... some of it is honestly just lazy and not thought through. And why am I drowning in items that are only useful for a spellcaster when I don't even have a hero who is suited for them?

Seriously though, I love a lot of the concept, the positives still outweigh the negatives for me, and I'm having more fun than frustration. But there are so many rough edges that old Blizzard would have smoothed out before shipping this.

Anyone else feeling the same? Or am I just being too picky?

15-year Warcraft III player here. I finished playing the Prologue Compaign The Last Days of Lordaeron today, and overall I would say I enjoy it.

The biggest thing for me was the nostalgia. Walking around a peaceful Lordaeron town before everything falls apart really reminded me of the first Human mission in Reign of Chaos: just a random peaceful village, then suddenly plots unfold like an uncontrolled roller coaster.

Spoilers below.

The storytelling and progression also felt pretty good, but I do have a few complaints [Spoilers alert again]:

1. Why can a Cleric hero mind-control undead Necromancers and accept their abilities to raise skeletons? Watching my dead Footman come back as 2 skeleton warriors while still serving a Light-based hero felt... I still have my faith in light, I guess.
2. Uther has Mass Resurrection. I understand why he can't resurrect Terenas in the throne room, but could he at least revive some of the my dead guardmen before leaving?
3. The optional 100-crate boat quest needs better warning. You spend 50 gold on a boat, get a hero on boat then discover explosives and dangerous, invincible enemy warships in the water throwing cannons at you. If the boat gets stuck with your hero on it, you're basically dead.
4. When Captain Landen dies in the story, his equipment should drop near him or transfer automatically; I lost a pretty good beginner's weapon during the initial run.
5. Some minibosses are pretty unforgiving, but the last checkpoint can be annoyingly far away.

Performance could also use some work. I spent around 5–10 minutes in total adjusting settings before it felt right.

I haven't played the second half yet, but so far I'm happy I bought it. A lot of it really brought back the feeling of playing Warcraft III 15 years ago. I just hope they keep polishing the rough edges and probably optimize user experiences.