While dated and limited in functionality, The original Warcraft is an undeniable classic.
The year was 1994 and I was in 7th grade. My mom had just bought a computer from her friend, and I was anxious to play it. I called my best friend and he came over and brought a game called Warcraft. I thought it sounded boring and didn't want to play it, but he eventually convinced me and soon thereafter I was hooked. Not only was this my first RTS, it was the first PC game I had gotten into since the original Quest for Glory was still called "Heroes Quest." So it had been 6 or 7 years since I spent a lot of time with a PC game.
After I installed and started the game, the first thing that caught my attention was the cg intro. It blew me away. I still remember the final phrase of the intro: "Welcome to the World of Warcraft!" I couldn't wait to play. When I got back to the menu, the music was dark and exciting, and really set the tone for things to come.
Eventually I got around to starting a human campeign. There was an intro to the mission and I was just like, "Woah!" So finally the game starts and I have to mine gold and cut down trees so that I can build more farms and peasants and eventually a barracks. It took a little getting used to. I had no idea what stuff to build or what order to build them in, but I started to get the hang of it. I was completely immersed. My imagination ensured that I felt like I was really there. The atmosphere was incredible.
Everything was going smoothly until I heard that voice say, "The Orcs are approaching!" I actually felt nervous and a tad bit freightened. The next thing I knew, I was getting my A$$ handed to me on a platter at the hands of the computer controlled orcs. I stayed up all night, but little did I know, the real fun was yet to come.
The next day my friend called me and was like, "hey let's play Warcraft!"
To which I replied, "Ok let me ask my mom if you can come over."
But he just laughed and then explained to me how the multiplayer mode worked. I think I said something like, "You mean I don't even need AOL or nuthin? (This was before I knew about the internet, or before it even really started happening.)"
"Nope just a phone line and a modem."
So after he explained to me what a modem was and how to set the game to receive a connection, and after about 4 times of me forgetting and answering the phone only to hear his modem trying to shake hands with my ear, we finally had a multiplayer game going (2 players was as "Massively Multiplayer" as Warcraft got back then lol), and once again I got my A$$ kicked, but it wasn't as bad losing to a human.
Over the next couple years we spent countless after-school hours playing each other and countless hours getting yelled at by our moms because they couldn't get through when they tried to call us. That was ok, because every once in a while I would win, and then it was all worth it. We would even play when we were on restriction from playing, and in turn get into even more trouble. So we came up with a system that we could use to compare "punishment points" to "fun points" and that way we could calculate weather or not it was worth taking the risk. Fun almost always won out.
I will not deny that the original Warcraft is limited in functionality compared to modern RTS's. You could only build on roads, and only near other buildings. There was no "Smart Click," and you could only have 4 units in a group, and even then you had to hold down control while you selected them. Peasents could not attack, and had no way of defending themselves.
Despite these shortcomings though, I still consider it one of the most balanced RTS games of all time. There was a significant amount of strategy involved in building and road placement, not to mention walls. Once you had your city all walled in, you could place Archers and Catapults behind those walls and block the entrance with Knights and Footmen. You could cast invisability on your spell casters and send them in to your enemies base to cast Rain of Fire, or utilize countless other strategies.
While the sequel improved over the original in many ways, the original Warcraft is not only a classic, It's the game that started it all.