Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos

Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos logo

Studio

Blizzard Entertainment

Publisher

Activision Blizzard

Erstveröffent-
lichung

July 3, 2002 July 5, 2002 2003

platform

Windows , Mac OS , Mac OS X

genre

Real time strategy game

Game mode

Single player , multiplayer

control

Mouse keyboard

system advantages
preconditions

See here

medium

CD-ROM , download

language

English German

Current version

1.32.3

Age rating

USK

PEGI

Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos is a real-time strategy game from the US game developer Blizzard Entertainment and the sequel to Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness . The computer game was released in 2002, and the expansion The Frozen Throne was released a year later . In 2004 the MMORPG World of Warcraft was published, which is based on the plot of The Frozen Throne . Thus, Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne , the currently last on the Warcraft based franchise real-time strategy, as currently, the real-time strategy team at Blizzard Entertainment on the StarCraft II focuses -Computerspieltrilogie.

At Blizzcon 2018 , Warcraft III: Reforged was announced, a re-release of Warcraft 3 in 4K / UHD that was released on January 29, 2020. The beta phase of Warcraft III: Reforged began in October of 2019.

action

The story of Warcraft III is divided into five successive game campaigns, internally referred to as chapters. The first chapter (The Exodus of the Horde) represents the introduction and is comparatively short. This is followed by four chapters of increasing difficulty, each assigned to one of the playable factions:

The Scourge of Lordaeron: This chapter is about Prince Arthas of Lordaeron and his fight against the marauding orcs and the undead Scourge. In later missions Arthas leads a crusade against the homeland of the Scourge, where, despite his victories against the undead, he is corrupted by the demonic sword Frostmourne / Frostmourne and ultimately even murdered his father, the king.

Path of the Damned: After being corrupted by Frostmourne, Arthas is now one of the leaders and heroes of the undead. Together with the Lich Kel'Thuzad, he destroys an empire of humans and that of the high elves to pave the way for the invasion of a demonic army.

The Invasion of Kalimdor: This chapter is about the people of the orcs, who, led by Warchief Thrall, build a new home on the wild continent of Kalimdor and are confronted with both the indigenous population and a civil war. Thrall goes with the tauren to an oracle where the humans, their enemies, are. The oracle, a prophet, tells them to stop fighting immediately. The humans ally with the orcs to fight together against the invasion of the Burning Legion.

End of Eternity: The final Warcraft III campaign is about the battle of the ancient night elves against the demonic invasion. In the final missions, the elven leaders and protagonists Tyrande and Malfurion form an alliance with the humans and orcs to destroy the godlike master of the demons once and for all. They do this by setting a deadly trap for Lord Archimonde, leader of all undead and demons and leader of the invasion.

Multiplayer

One player plays Warcraft III at ESWC 2005

As in the predecessor, Warcraft III can be played in multiplayer mode over the Internet. For this purpose, Blizzard equipped the free Battle.net with new functions especially for Warcraft III .

In addition to the games hosted by players, there is an automatism that helps the player to find suitable players according to his level. For this purpose, Battle.net automatically creates pairings between players on request, which are rated roughly equally based on previous games. In 2005, an average of two million such game rounds were counted every week.

There is also a large number of self-made maps. The best known is Defense of the Ancients (DotA), which even has its own league. There are also numerous other game modes that are available through these self-made maps, including: a .:

Arenas: Here players get a character and fight against other characters: DotA belongs to this principle
"Footmen": Here everyone gets a lot of units that are let loose on each other, for every enemy unit killed you get gold and can expand your units.
"Hero Defenses": As a hero (only unit) you have to fend off large waves of computer-controlled units. Over time you get experience and money, with which the hero becomes stronger and stronger.
RPG cards: These are cards in which you develop characters , but which can be saved at the end of each card and called up for a new game. These cards are much larger.
"Spawnings": You only build buildings that train units in a certain time interval that run independently to the opposing side and attack there. You cannot control these, but only gain an advantage through research, special buildings and the position of the unit-forming buildings.
Tower Defense Cards, known in the game as Tower Defense (TD)

"Wars": Here you send the enemy units that have to be defeated, while you in turn defend whatever the enemy sends. Whoever is no longer able to kill enough enemy units has lost.

There are a number of other cards that cannot be put into any category. In addition to many games of skill, there are even cards that demand various skills such as mental arithmetic, poker games or a quick reaction time.

For each created user account , based on the so-called ladder games completed , separate statistics are created that show the skill level of a player. From all this player data, Blizzard creates a ranking that is published on the Internet and updated daily. Detailed statistics for each player can also be found there. Those who can be found at the top of this list have a good chance of finding a sponsor or well-known clan who will enable them to become pro gamer .

Warcraft III has been a very popular esports title since it was released . 18 years after the game was released, the Electronic Sports League and DreamHack announced that they would jointly host world championships. The prize pool was set at $ 200,000. The first tournament will be the Dreamhack Anaheim 2020.

editor

A free world editor is included with the game. In this you can build your own worlds and edit existing ones. In addition to graphic worlds, you can also use so-called triggers, which are based on the conditional instruction and branching , to modify the game. For more extensive work, you can work with the Jass programming language or create and insert your own models with various programs. Blizzard does not provide support for the Warcraft III editor. The MOBA genre, known today, emerged from this editor .

reception

Warcraft III was awarded 93% "Spielspaß" by the PC games magazine GameStar (issue 8/02), the add-on The Frozen Throne resulted in an increase of one percentage point (94%) in issue 8/03 . This is the highest rating that GameStar has ever given , alongside Crysis and Battlefield 3 , but has been reduced to 93% as part of the changes in the rating system. In addition, several points have been withdrawn from the game since the test because of the poor graphics compared to today. In the 09/07 edition the rating is only 90%, a year later it is 89% and in the 08/09 edition it is only 88%. Thus it shares first place with SpellForce 2: Shadow Wars in the real-time strategy rating. Since the official test, Warcraft III has been in second place on the Gamestar strategy charts after Starcraft 2 Legacy of the Void.

The PC Games Rated Warcraft III in issue 8/02 with 92%, PC PowerPlay reviewed it in conjunction with the extensions with 93%.

The Frozen Throne (add-on)

Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne

Studio

Blizzard Entertainment

Publisher

Blizzard Entertainment

Erstveröffent-
lichung

July 1, 2003 July 4, 2003 February 27, 2004

platform

Windows , Mac OS X

genre

Computer strategy game

Game mode

Single player , multiplayer

control

Mouse keyboard

system advantages
preconditions

OS : Windows 98, 7, 8.1, 10
CPU : 400 MHz
RAM : 128 MB
Graphics card : 8 MB (DirectX 8.1 compatible)
350 MB free hard disk space

Mac :

Mac OS 9 / Mac OS X 10.1.3
400 MHz G3 (no Intel)
128 MB phys. RAM
16 MB VRAM (3D)
4 × CD-ROM drive

medium

CD-ROM , download

language

English German

Current version

1.30.4.11274

Age rating

USK

PEGI

In early July 2003, the add-on The Frozen Throne was released.

Innovations

Another hero has been added to each race, giving the player more tactical options in single and multiplayer modes. In addition, "neutral heroes" have been added, who can be hired on some maps in a new building called the "tavern". The neutral heroes have no training period, but they can only be hired 135 seconds after the game has started; this corresponds roughly to the time it takes to train a “normal hero”. A fifth faction is also new: the Naga . These snake-like sea creatures are only playable in some special missions of the campaign. Ships and amphibious units have also been added. This allowed the development of many other modifications.

action

The plot of the expansion set is divided into three chapters. In addition, there is an extra chapter in which you control a maximum of a smaller group of units and heroes. The retail version only contains the first act; the other two can be obtained free of charge through official patches.

As the human and orc armies and their allies recovered from fighting the Burning Legion, the death knight Arthas Menethil slaughtered the inhabitants of the eastern kingdoms of Azeroth in the name of the Scourge. But new troops formed to defeat Arthas and his henchmen: the Banshee Sylvanas Windrunner rebelled to form a splinter faction of the undead known as "the Forsaken", and the demonically depraved night elf Illidan Stormrage sent his troops to the icy continent of Northrend to attack the Lich King. Arthas rushed to his master's aid and defeated Illidan, who fled to Outland after a shameful defeat. Now that he was finally in the immediate vicinity of the center of power of the Scourge, Arthas did the incomprehensible and merged his spirit with that of the Lich King.

Storm of the Tides: The first chapter of the expansion revolves around the night elf Maiev and her hunt for the traitor Illidan. He has now made a pact with the demons and the serpentine sea people of the Naga . Maiev is supported on her hunt by Tyrande and Malfurion, the protagonists of the previous night elf campaign.

Curse of the Blood Elves: In the second chapter, the player takes control of the Elven Prince Kael and his followers. After the undead destroyed the realm of the high elves in the previous part, the survivors now call themselves blood elves and are plagued by a terrible hunger for magic . Kael leads his people out of the Alliance and into a distant world, where he allies himself with Illidan, the Naga and their demon masters.

Legacy of the Damned: The final chapter revolves around a civil war in the realm of the undead. The undead elf Sylvanas instigates a revolution against Arthas and then has to deal with the demonic lords of the Burning Legion. Meanwhile, Arthas travels north to protect his master, the Lich King, from Illidan and his followers. In this chapter, the player alternates between missions with Sylvanas and Arthas.

Bonus chapter: The founding of Durotar: The Ork campaign of the expansion set places particular emphasis on RPG elements: The player takes control of a small group of heroes and units instead of an entire city. The plot of the three bonus missions revolves around the expansion of the orcs in Kalimdor and another war against the humans