Game
Warcraft III Reign of Chaos & The Frozen Throne
Platform
PC & Mac OS X
Reign of Chaos: 21 hours
The Frozen Throne: 18 Hours
When I was in middle school I attended “Kids are Scientists Too” or “KAST” Camp. This was my third and final year, having already taken Astronomy and Chemistry, I was now reduced to the grossest science: ecology. When I wasn’t attempting to impress the girl I had a crush on whom lead me to participate in this particular session, or falling into a gross pond (for these stories and more skin-crawling adventures at Ecology camp, see my other blog: Ickology), I was debating an essential video game question with one of my fellow campers:
Starcraft or Warcraft.
Think of the Blizzard Entertainment roster as the DC Universe. StarCraft or Warcraft is the Superman/Batman debate. Sure Wonder Woman, The Flash, and Green Lantern are all pretty cool…
But they aren’t Batman or Superman.
I’d argue that this debate is actually even more difficult than the Batman vs. Superman debate, because there isn’t an objective answer to this question. Seriously, Batman destroying superman in a fight was the only thing that movie got right!
Warcraft III: The Narrative Thread Behind the Warcraft Franchise
Both these games and their respective franchises hold a similar place in my heart. When most people think of the legacy of the Warcraft franchise, their minds often go to World of Warcraft. But from a lore and story perspective, almost everything successful was born out of Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, or its expansion The Frozen Throne. Some of the most popular story elements from WoW were direct follow up to the events of Warcraft III; the return of the Burning Legion, the fight against the Scourge, the creation and intense bad-assary that is Sylvanas Windrunner taking over Lorderon, and much more. In fact, some of the driving story elements behind the upcoming Battle for Azeroth WoW expansion are a product of the Orc campaign in The Frozen Throne. One might even argue that the structure of the campaign was the intellectual precursor to WoW, as rather than having a mission-by-mission approach typical of most RTS games, you actually controlled a singular character and leveled him and collected items through a series of open world style areas. More elements of the story were released via downloadable content months after the initial release of The Frozen Throne.
The game follows a more structured and easier to follow timeline between 4 races: first the humans, then the undead, followed by orcs and then night elves. The mixing of Humans and Orcs through the story was great tactic for Blizzard to introduce totally new elements, as the first half of each new race’s campaign focuses very heavily on their interaction with the older races. Anyways, these races through some way or another all interact and come to unite to drive back the Burning Legion. In Warcraft III, the Burning Legion’s motivations are pretty much what I want them to be. They are a band of demons that seek to destroy planets across the galaxy, but their leader has a particular soft spot for destroying Azeroth due to a thwarted attempt about 10,000 years ago. In World of Warcraft, this story is updated into an almost anti-hero level, where the actual task of the Burning Legion is to destroy the Old Gods… eh, it’s a long story.
Reign of Chaos ultimately ends with Orcs, Humans, and Elves uniting against the Burning Legion in one of the most intense and fun “survive for x minutes” style missions. The Frozen Throne picks up tying up one particular loose end, and ends with another great mission and two amazing cinematics. Each final level is appropriately challenging and rewarding, featuring something that the previous games lacked, which was some sort of character development. This is something I feel like even Starcraft lacks. Particular characters that come to mind at Garrosh Hellscream, Kael’thas, and Jaina. That being said, even those that don’t develop exude a mythic nature that leads you to love their immutable nature.
Starcraft: How Blizzard Perfected In-Game Storytelling
But the success of Warcraft III’s story telling ultimately built on, and was later perfected by the Starcraft series. While there was a story in Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness, the narrative was delivered to you in sort of “mission report” that you would receive at the very beginning of the mission. And ultimately, no matter what the mission report said, the ultimate goal was really just to kill everything else on the map. When Starcraft was released 3 years after Warcraft II, it came with a massive improvement to the RTS genre, it told a story. The story was told not just through mission-briefings, which were delivered through NPC dialogue including you as a character in the universe. It also existed within your gameplay. Characters would reach specific checkpoints and make comments, sometimes even just jokes. The entire mission could be undermined at the last minute, and you could be double-crossed or the person you are hunting saved in the nick of time.
The missions became less “kill everything” and more elaborate too. One particular mission that comes to mind was actually the secret level in Starcraft: Brood War (the expansion to Starcraft). The level featured the character Zeratul learning more about the Xel’Naga’s behind-the-scenes efforts to basically destroy the galaxy. For a secret level, it’s amazing how many events of Starcraft 2 relied so heavily on a mission most people missed. What made this level so great is that while there was fighting, the level itself was mostly there for narrative purposes. Another of my favorite levels in Starcraft, that I was so happy to see basically reproduced in Starcraft II was the “survive for 20 minutes” level. This is the second level of the Terran campaign in both games, and it pits you against an unreasonably large group of zerg foes. This level quite literally flips the script on almost the entirety of Warcraft II.
Starcraft II ultimately perfected story telling within the gameplay, introducing elements of choice into the campaign that affected the rest of the game. These choices included upgrades and research approaches to units that would change the campaign playstyle, as well as narrative choices that affected which level came next, and therefore which units you had access to (or which units your opponent didn’t have access to). These choices ultimately even influenced the narrative for later points in the game. My biggest complaint was that these choices did not flow through the campaign. For example, there is a decision you can make in Wings of Liberty regarding partnering with a Dominion Ghost. In the follow-up expansion, heart of the Swarm, it is presumed you made the choice that would not help you for this particular mission. While the level was enjoyable, it ultimately feels sloppy when Nova tells me I should have messed with her and I remember consciously choosing not to.
Conclusion
So, which game is better? It really does come down to your style. I’m always going to choose Warcraft because I grew up with it. I watched my brother play Warcraft against our neighbor during the earliest days of the internet. It would literally take an hour to set up the connection. Although I believe that the story of Starcraft was done more expertly, I think the characters of Warcraft have far more appeal. Sure, Starcraft has a ruthless dictator, a space cowboy, and a badass woman who wants to kill everyone, but Warcraft has a complicated elf who walks the line between good and evil, a man who’s quest for salvation for his homeland ultimately leads to his destruction, and… a badass woman who wants to kill everyone.
The original Starcraft became a constant repetition of tedious alliance and inevitable betrayal. Warcraft III’s strength was that it [minor spoiler] actually ended with everyone fighting together for a common cause. The weakness of World of Warcraft was the return to conflict between the Alliance and Horde is ultimately a game mechanic and therefore something so grand as peace can literally never happen until the very end of the game’s run. The Frozen Throne was a great look at what the Warcraft world would look like beyond the constant power struggle between the two factions, as the playable game actually circles around Illidan, Arthas, Sylvannis, and Kael’thas, four characters who are ultimately some of the most villainous in the series.
Mechanically, I find Warcraft to be more relaxing. On the ultra-competitive level of pro-sports, you’ll probably still find a similar APM score for both games, but if you’re a casual player who likes to mix it up with folks on line, I think you’ll find Warcraft to be more your style. In ladder play, you are less likely to come across someone who is just cranking out 10 grunts at a time than in a game like Starcraft where you’ll be swamped at any level in 2 minutes by like 70 zerglings. Starcraft Is ultimately a game of resource management. Warcraft is still a game of unit (specifically Hero unit) management.
So yeah, this is my love letter to Warcraft III, which had a lot to do with Starcraft surprisingly. Again, if you are anxiously awaiting Battle for Azeroth I highly suggest you take a look at the Orc Campaign in The Frozen Throne. This campaign is playable from the onset and the story exists separate from all the others, meaning there are no spoilers if you chose to play the rest of the game. Warcraft III just received a big update from Blizzard recently too, so you might even see a remastered version soon if you want to wait until then.
Please comment below with your thoughts on the Warcraft vs. Starcraft debate, other Blizzard games you'd like to see me talk about, or other thought about how to make this blog better! Thanks!
