New look: Warcraft III

Blizzard Entertainment held a private demo of some of its upcoming games during this fall's Tokyo Game Show. We were treated by Blizzard's Bill Roper to a lengthy demonstration of Warcraft III. The presentation focused on detailed demonstrations of some of the game's units and their impressive powers. Units from all sides were shown, and hero units were especially focused upon.

The demo started with Roper scrolling through an orc encampment. There, he clicked on a kodo beast, a huge unit that's made up of a large, drum-laden beast, and its orc rider. The beast has the effect of boosting the combat properties of all nearby units and can swallow enemy units whole. Enemies thus consumed can survive if the kodo beast is killed soon enough after they're swallowed--doing so will cause the beast to regurgitate them. Accompanying the kodo beast were some wolf riders, whose ensnare ability was shown off when the group engaged a party of NPC monsters guarding a pile of loot. When used, the ensnare ability causes the wolf riders to hurl nets at their enemies, effectively stopping them in their tracks. Use of the ability depletes no mana; instead, it will recharge every few seconds. Leading the orcish party was a tauren chieftain, the first hero character we were shown in the demo. His model was immense, and his interface portrait was suitably menacing. However, his special powers were even more impressive. We were shown shockwave, which causes a ripple in the ground to form, damaging all enemies in its path. Soon after, we were shown another hero, this one an orc blademaster. His abilities included berserk (which increases his combat capabilities), mirror image (which summons forth an offense-enabled double of the character), and whirlwind (which is very similar to the barbarian ability in Diablo II, save for the fact that it lasts much longer). To note, Roper mentioned that the mirror image ability was still being worked out--whether the double will be able to attack in the final game remains to be seen.

Before long, the undead became the focus of the demonstration. We were allowed to witness the ways in which they gather resources, build structures, and fight battles. The undead army is centered on the acolyte unit, which serves, essentially, as the side's peon. The way it gathers gold is very interesting: rather than physically collecting the precious mineral, an acolyte will stand outside of a mine and draw it via black magic. Several acolytes can join this magic circle, which will speed up the rate at which it is siphoned. And if a full circle of five is assembled, the mine will effectively be corrupted, which prevents other races from using the mine. Acolytes are also responsible for spreading the blight, which is key to the production of structures. Much like the creep was to the zerg in Starcraft, the blight represents the pestilence with which the undead charge the land as they claim it. It's graphically represented much like the creep in the past game--dark, tarry, and cracked. Acolytes spread the blight by sacrificing themselves, literally, to Nerzhul. We were also treated to the sight of some ghouls, as well as necromancers in action. Ghouls are basically low-level grunt units and are equipped with a "cannibalize" ability that lets them feast on enemy remains and heal themselves. The necromancers, when we saw them, were able to create skeletons from the bodies of the fallen and cast a corpse explosion spell similar to the one that their Diablo II counterparts used.

The night elves were next in line. In keeping with the formula thus far presented, the ways in which they gather resources and use their structures is fairly nonstandard. The side's basic structure--the tree of life--is a living entity and can walk and fight alongside its army's warriors. However, when it "uproots," it loses its functions as a building. In any event, when the night elves need gold, the tree of life will "possess" a gold mine by entwining its roots through and around it, thus channeling gold directly. You'll also use the tree of life to create wisps, which are the night elves' basic units. They're spirits of the night elves' fallen, and they're able to metamorphose into any of the side's structures. You can also "attach" them to existing structures, which will cause them to visibly orbit them. Doing so will speed up the structure's functions (unit production, upgrading, and so on) significantly. We were also shown a number of the side's units and heroes. Druids will make up a good portion of the night elves' ranks, and each one will have different abilities. The druid of the claw, for instance, will be able to transform into a bear, which will grant it a strong melee attack. He'll also be able to impose hibernation upon friendly units, speeding up the rate at which they'll heal. The druid of the talon, on the other hand, can transform into a raven and fly through the map at high speeds, as well as cast a tornado spell and afflict his foes with a stupor-inducing drowsy spell. Our definite favorite was the night elf demon hunter. The one we saw was a hero unit that had a couple of impressive abilities: flame blade, which causes him to shoot forth an immolated version of his wicked war blade, and metamorphose, which transforms him into a flying, menacing demon with awesome offensive capabilities. Roper describes this as the character's ability to "fight fire with fire."

We were finally shown a human encampment, complete with dwarven gunners, mounted nights, heal-casting priests, and buff-casting sorceresses. One game element that will make these heal- and enchantment-casting units more viable in combat is the fact that such spells will now automatically be cast when their effects are needed. How this precisely worked wasn't detailed, but, sure enough, when Roper's orcs engaged humans, his witch doctors ladled on the blood lusts. As for the human hero, he was a mountain king, basically an ax-wielding, high-level dwarf warrior. One of his special abilities was avatar, which caused him to grow significantly and deal greater amounts of damage, as well as increase his hit point count. His ultimate ability (ultrapowerful skills that the heroes possess and that are usable only once per day) allowed him to create a gold mine. Basically, he'll be able to dive underground, dig through the bowels of the earth in search of a suitable gold vein, and emerge with a usable gold mine. This will cause the unit to be out of commission for a good deal of time.

Bill Roper said that the game would be ready for beta testing this winter. It was also announced that a Macintosh version would be released alongside the PC version and that there was a dedicated team of Mac developers working in-house alongside the PC team at the studio. We'll have more on Warcraft III as soon as it becomes available.