CGO is one of the few *g* sites to bring you a preview of Warcraft 3 - Reign of Chaos. Here's something:
To inspire you not to just sit in your corner garnering the inevitable multitudes, they made several changes. First, they have ditched the Mana Stone concept. Previously you needed Mana stones to recruit a Hero; now Hero creation relies on your gold supply, but you will receive a free champion at the beginning of each game. The developers believe that with Creeps (neutral NPCs) dropping gold instead of Mana Stones, you'll have more incentive to spread out earlier in the game. And speaking of Heroes, each one has a unique and powerful Ultimate Spell, which, when they reach level 5, they can cast only once every game-day.
Also an interesting concept to that end is "Upkeep," which Blizzard feels offers a boost in the game's tactical management as well as motivating you to play more aggressively. Upkeep comes in three flavors, None, Low, and High. In each mode, the AI takes a look at how much food you have, and bases the speed at which your little workers can mine gold on that amount. In other words, the more units you have, the more food you'll need, and the more food you produce, the less gold will be available. You begin at No Upkeep (where the gold flows freely), and as you expand your forces the Upkeep quotient rises. This makes it a difficult decision whether or not to try and amass that huge indestructible last-minute army—a good idea that will provide an organic unit cap.
Another preview can be found at MGON, and Lone Gamers serves you 4 new screenshots... |
CGO and others preview Warcraft 3
