15 June 2008
Ferry

Warcraft 4 release far in the future

Blizzard’s VP of game design, Rob Pardo, was asked about the possibility of the developer creating the next Warcraft 4 real-time strategy (RTS) game in the popular series. While the MMORPG World of Warcraft has over 10 million subscribers, the franchise started out in the RTS genre, so will it be returning to its RTS roots? In an interview from last year he answered:

“Yeah, of course there’s a chance,” he confirmed. “The way that we develop things, each time a development team becomes available, because they’re done with creating the games that they’ve been doing, they have a lot of say over what their next game is. So what it would take is for one of our teams to decide that they want to make Warcraft RTS and of course, there’ll be some talk about doing that and I’m sure after StarCraft 2 ships, it will be one the ideas on the table for that team to do, but that’s pretty far off in the future and it would really be determined by a combination of the dev team and the company leadership.”

Mr. Pardo continued: “I think that one of the things that makes us ultimately successful as a company is that we’re more lead by our game-making decisions and not so much by business decisions, which is one of the reasons why this question used to be the StarCraft question. Back when we did StarCraft, we did Brood War, and everyone thought they were amazing games; they were successful and I used to get all these questions like, “Why are you doing another Warcraft RTS, shouldn’t you be doing StarCraft?” Well Warcraft was what the team wanted to make, they were burned out on the StarCraft universe, that was the game they wanted to make and as far as Warcraft goes, we love the universe – it’s an amazingly successful universe. If we want to go back and do it, maybe we will, maybe we won’t.”

Quotes from Gamedaily, boxart via Vgboxart

29 July 2008 20:04
Andrew

any expansion to warcraft would be awesome, even if it is just an expansion like frozen throne, with maybe improved graphics, or if they do come out with a warcraft 4, they definitetly should, because the gameplay rocks, the story is awesome, and i want to play more campaign to what else happens, cause in games like WoW, even though you might have an awesome character and all that, it really doesnt change anything at all to the story, which is what i like about in warcraft, you do missions that progress the story. But yeah, a new warcraft addition would be great

4 August 2008 21:09
cain

Pls. blizzard make the warcraft 4 possible make it a reality to us who gave value to creations I’ve been waiting for years to know what happens next in the story crap the WOW I mean no offense but online MMORPG is just full of fighting to story line no ending you just keep on playing till your tired of it there’s no thrill to that unlike RTS is like your reading a book one’s you’ve started you can’t stop and if you know that there’s a continuation to the story you can’t wait when it will be release SO PLEASE BLIZZARD MAKE IT POSSIBLE THANKS

6 August 2008 19:18
Replay

I would buy Warcraft 4 *the day it came out* – the “collector’s version” at a hundred dollars or more – easily.

Even though I’m a “core gamer”, I’m not usually one to salivate over release dates and all that; I’m happy to play a game a week after it comes out, or two, or etc., and then play it for a year afterwards.

But Warcraft 4 would be different for me. I played Warcraft 3 until 2AM last night, after reinstalling it after a *five-year* absence, and I’ll probably be online again. Playing a new version would give me the chance to hop on early and not get violated by the pro players. And just seeing a Warcraft RTS with modern graphics would be worth double the price of admission to me, alone.

And I could see a lot of reasons why Blizzard *would* want to do it. They could release a *linked* expansion or two to WoW that continues the Warcraft storyline.

I know StarCraft tends to get the Blizzard RTS love, but I think there’s a lot more demand out there than Blizzard might think for a Warcraft 4 title. That franchise is special to me and a whole lot of other people as well.

(Of course, I should probably be telling this to my friend who works as a localization producer for Blizzard…)

7 August 2008 17:05
Shade

Well what replay says makes plenty of sense… there are many more reasons a wc4 should come out, i hear often online on Wc3 about how much alot of them hate WoW, so blizzard loses a few people their (but hey, i think they have enough with 10mil accounts) but a Wc4 would of course bring out alot of those WOW haters to a new part of the storyline, but that could be a problem as some (only some) of the storyline is put into WoW a little.

But truly i think Wc4 will come out eventually a few years from now, you can’t just leave alot of customers waiting and settling down with WoW and Wc3, people will possibly get bored eventually and want something new… kinda like i am, i cant afford WoW any more and im just tired of Wc3 playing the same old fields and custom make games and really want something new.

Starcraft in deed is very successful, but its old and hurts my eyes… the new one HAS KRAZY HIGH GRAPHICS, but i have had to wait years for it.

9 August 2008 17:07
plz make warcraft 4 :)

to blizzard

hear are a few tips on the development of warcraft 4
1. there should be all the races in world of warcfaft made into a campain even naga, merlocks etc
2. there should be hundreds of custom game activities and map
3. the campain should include choices so u can determine what races u side with and how u move forward through the campain.
4. plus there should be many new items and spells used by heros and baasic units

please make warcraft 4 !!!!!!!!!!!

12 August 2008 13:01
dodge

oh yeah starcraft is nothing compared to warcraft im a developer for blizzard and im glad to see there are still hardcore fans out there

13 August 2008 07:21
Enzo

i can’t wait for WC4! WC > SC.
i seriously can’t wait. and it’ll be awesome i always picture the game and imagine it.
and it’ll be great if blizz adds more races that can be used. imagine, Human, Orcs, Nightelves, Undead, Dwarves/Gnomes, Blood Elves, Naga, Goblins, Dranei. OMG THAT IS THE S*X!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

13 August 2008 23:49
I love WC!!!

plz!!! make another WC couse I hate WOW

14 August 2008 18:28
Jared

God I miss warcraft 3. Im not exactly a big gamer, but I love the warcraft games.

And for all you people who want to have 16 races, that’s almost impossible. It would take way too long to balance all that out. 5 is probably pushing it. Blizzard is going to have to pull something out of their butt to please everyone. Itll probably be Alliance, Horde, Illidans possy (dunno if theres a name), and burning legion with demons.

But of course, Illidan is dead. Arthas will be dead. And the most likely 3rd expansion will be Kil’jaeden with the title either referencing to storms or darkness (just guessing). Those are the 3 main bad guys in the game. So the only true conflict after that will be the original conflict, the war of the races. But that gets old fast, there needs to be new bad guys that makes all the fan girls faint, and make guys think “This is better than Chuck Norris!” or else the game is repetitive. There is a movie planned (has a 100 mil budget) which could introduce some cool bad guys. Mix in cool new bad guy with the old gods, and I think we could have an interesting plot. That or if they don’t make an expansion that has to do with Kil Jaedan and they continue that conflict.

Or do I mean Sargeras? I always get the demons mixed up.

Personally, I think the coolest thing would be too do a RTS/RPG where you can take control of a hero and play as that hero for a while (like WoW) before going back to a standard RTS type game. And also have it on the wii and control your weapons and spells with the wiimote. And have it set during the War Of The Ancients. But of course, that’s only a dream. :/

14 August 2008 18:49
Ap-L

The reason why blizz is making SC and not WC is cuz of the $$…whole asia is addicted to SC and will buy atleast a couple of million copies..where as WC will sell a little less. Than again why wud blizz make a game for 1 million people if they can make a game for 10 million ppl who pay 10 bucks every month…. just do the math

i still hope that blizz will coem up with wc4 cuz im addicted to wc3 and i want something new xD