The Past and Times of Yore: Warcraft, Orcs and Humans, where RTS all began

I've decided to do a return to the original format of my blog I'll somehow try to get it done around my playing but as I said in my previous post may not be as detailed as before. Also because of my Covid and my lousy internet upload speed I will not be posting any videos, I could post other videos from youtube but I'd rather just update the posts when I can with my own work.

Release date: 23rd November 1995
Genre: Real Time Strategy (RTS)
Publisher: Blizzard Entertainment
Developer: Blizzard Entertainment
Platforms: MD-DOS, Classic Mac OS
Modes: Single-player, Multi-player

It was only a week or two ago when I saw that the Warcraft I&II bundle was on special on GOG (which is a great resource for games I might add) and I just couldn't say no. Yes it's arguable that these games should now be free but for $12 what the hey, whoever does the conversion of these games into a playable format does a great job and I have no trouble playing them. Warcraft: Orcs and Humans though is a special case, released in 1994 it's one of the oldest Real-Time-Strategy (RTS) games out there. In fact I was interested to know what could be considered the first, and after doing some research I found that the Sega Genesis game Herzog Zwei released in 1989 was regarded as the first, I had never heard of it, but then again I had never considered RTS games on console. The term Real Time Strategy was coined as a sub-genre of strategy video games in which the game does not progress incrementally in turns as many games such as Powermonger did. Back in the day I was a huge fan of RTS, and so was everyone else, what with the 1992-1998 golden age of seminal titles with greats such as Command & Conquer, Command and Conquer: Red Alert, Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness, Age of Empires and Total Annihilation which introduced 3D units and terrain. All these were a huge hit of course then came Starcraft, so RTS as well as online multiplay well and truly took off worldwide and when Warcraft III came around well I had the RTS time of my life and I can honestly say I have not played a better one to this date. 

The Humans, clean, noble and righteous, what you'd expect really.

Nowadays unfortunately I just don't enjoy RTS as much as a I used to, I'm not exactly sure, it may be the stress, the structured building of bases and starting from scratch every game and all the damn micromanagement, or maybe it's just the fact that seeing my army routed and defeated just makes me much more sad then if I was playing as a single entity. The last two RTS I played were the Starcraft II Trilogy and Planetary Annihilation: TITANS which was a fan-made reboot for Total Annihilation. But that was just for nostalgic value really and to see the series through, I faced it a long time ago my tenure with RTS was over.

The Orcs: A very different look, rough, ugly and crude

But that is now, back then I was really into these games. Warcraft: Orcs and Humans (WC1) was Blizzard Entertainment's breakthrough into the RTS genre and a big success for the company. It introduced the Warcraft universe which tells the story of the Orcs invasion of Azeroth from their homeworld of Draenor, which to my delight was the subject of the first Warcraft Film (to a degree). WC1 had great graphics and voice acting and I loved the intro sequences for the missions where the text would scroll and the actor would vocally read out the mission details which was unique for it's time then then part of the map would pop out in 3D as you started. It was all very good but there was a problem as the first Warcraft game that actually I played was Warcraft II (WC2), it wasn't until I got the famous Warcraft: Battle Chest that included WC1 that I had a go of it, and to be honest although it was still a nice and polished game with a great story and presentation, after playing WC2 it just didn't cut the mustard which I'll admit can happen going from playing a sequel to playing an earlier game. 

3D Map! it was a cinematic but I still loved this bit.

WC1 suffered from a few drawbacks including: Only being able to select 4 units at one time and no ability to right click to attack, you had to either click on the ability or use the hotkey, units didn't path well and often didn't react when an enemy was near them. Even on the fastest speed it took a long time to build your base and get things organised to attack the enemy and often you couldn't play on the fastest speed as you needed to slow it down to organise units in a battle. Plus every unit on each side had the same voices and said the same lines when clicked on or when an ability was used. So after a few hours of "My Lord?" "Yes my Lord" "Yes!" "My Liege?" "Yes my Lord" "Yes!" "Your will Sire?" "Yes!" "Yes my Lord" I was about to throw my keyboard out the window, the Orcs although a bit funnier in their speech were the same. The other issue was apart from the spells used by the Clerics, Conjurors, Necrolytes and Warlocks, each unit on each side was pretty much identical to the other in starting stats and abilities. I must admit I did love playing with these spells being able to summon a whole bunch of monsters including, spiders, scorpions, Water Elementals and Demons was great fun and lets not forget raising the dead too.

Orc Necrolytes summon skeletons from both my dead comrades and theirs, it was difficult in a sense that the computer controled army can move any units they like whilw you are stuck to moving four at a time.

As I've watched various people play it on youtube I think everyone can agree it's a lot of hard work and chore to play you have to do a momentous amount of mousework unless you know the hotkeys off by heart. In my most recent playthrough I found the incredibly helpful (heh) Warcraft Mouse Helper which made things a bit easier by adding modern RTS game functions but regardless I just couldn't find the game fun, then and now. I found myself looking forward to the unit-only missions where you didn't have to build and defend a base as in my later years these are the RTS levels I prefer. 

One of the Human, Unit-Only missions, these were usually always in caves

Unfortunately I just couldn't drag myself through the whole two campaigns again, I even resorted to using the cheat codes again as I was losing badly and just couldn't be assed, the ability see all map one is great as it allows you to see how the developers laid the map out and any easter eggs included which is fun. But really as before this is more a nostalgia trip then anything. I also never found any to play multiplayer with, and I don't think I ever will, not for a game this old, the multiplayer is only 1v1 anyway.

Youtuber Yshsod playing the multiplayer with a friend.

Warcraft:Orcs and Humans was a great game for it's time but just doesn't hold up very well. It would need a complete overhaul to the magnitude of Brutal Doom to be playable by today's standards. Nevertheless the sound, the music the colourful units and artwork and fantasy setting made this game what it was and a great base for things to come and I would regard it as a must try for lovers of RTS or Warcraft in general.

JD

Things I liked:

Over artwork and design, colourful units

Sound, Music and Voice work

Fantasy setting and story

Things I didn't like:

Clunky Controls

Bad unit pathing

Can only select 4 units

Repetitive unit speech

Not much replayability

Game requires a lot of effort to play

 

Youtuber WTii with a full playthrough of the game, wow that was a lot of demons and water elementals.

We've come a long way