Many of the features mentioned in our earlier preview still stand. And the focus of the game remains the same. There is an emphasis on tactical combat over base management, and a clear move away from the canned mission-based gameplay of other real-time strategy games. Missions will still come via non-player characters, the environment will change to reflect your actions, and there will be a populated and growing world for you to explore. However, Blizzard never wanted to completely leave the strategy genre behind, although it wasn't yet prepared to expound on the strategy elements of the game. In our exclusive interview with Blizzard, Pardo was finally able to discuss more of those strategy elements. The reasons they decided to come forward with this new information were twofold: The Blizzard team had decided to revamp the strategic part of the game, and they had finally agreed on enough design decisions to be able to tell us with some degree of certainty what that new strategy-inclined direction might entail.

If you want the full details, read our interview with Rob Pardo, and read, in his own words, the direction of Warcraft III. Here, we've provided a brief summary of the features mentioned in Rob's interview.

Next: Changes to units, resource management, and interface