WarCraft IV a Posibility?

[Tayh]

Where's the incentive to create an entirely new game when they can just rake in the dosh from their mmo cashcow?

 

[Seishisha]

I can easily see warcraft making a return as another type of game, returning as a RTS is certainly not impossible but considering blizzard's focus on starcraft 2 i think it would be a long way off.

Right now warcraft is tied up as an MMO so unless wow fails hard and they pull the plug i don't see anything changing anytime soon, to be honest a wow2 would be more likly at this point than a warcraft 4.

Speaking of warcraft though i do recall reading some time back that blizzard was looking into way's of making warcraft 1 and 2+expansion compatible with more modern operating systems possibly as a HD remake or a starcraft 2 engine port, this is blizzard were talking about though so don't expect any official annoucments for atleast a decade.

(sorry i don't have a source for that information but if i recall it was talking about during blizzcon 2013 so shouldnt be too hard to find)

 

[ecoho]

With WoW losing its fan-base and SC2 most likely dying after this expansion. Could you see a WarCraft IV in development especially with the new WarCraft movie coming out I believe next year if not in a couple years. Although I am aware of their newer games such as HearthStone: Heroes of WarCraft and their new shooter, sorry forgot what it was called. But even then could you see a new WarCraft game in the near future?

....you do know that brood war was play professionally for the 10 years it took for starcraft 2 to come out right?

StarCraft aint going to die anytime this decade and by that point they'll just release a new one.

I also don't see wow dying anytime this century as the sheer bulk of that games player base is enough they can survive, and hell worse comes to worse they go F2P and im pretty sure blizzard knows how to do that right.

 

[Eliwood10]

I really want to see Warcraft IV if only to see the story actually move forward. The problem with WoW is that one side can't gain an advantage without the rabid fans of the other faction losing their shit so the story is locked in a stagnant state so we don't disrupt the status quo. A new RTS Warcraft could potentially progress the story, kill off old characters, introduce new ones, shake up the status quo, and flesh out the more neglected aspects of the lore (looking at you Gilneas).

And if it did lead into a WoW2 maybe then I could see my dream of a 3-4 faction WoW come true.

 

[LordLundar]

This is going to sound mean-spirited but I don't want Warcraft 4.

Basically in the effort to keep the MMO going they've butchered the story and characters so badly (the fact that the devs are so intent to make it their story as opposed to the players rendering the player largely a useless tagalong didn't help) to the point that I don't think even dropping the MMO and going to an RTS will save it.

 

[The Madman]

Keep in mind these 3 Gods were only barely defeated by the creators of the universe.

Shapers of the universe, not creators. The Titans traveled from planet to planet experimenting and shaping the life and land there, they didn't build it in the first place. Think a greek version of Starcrafts Xel'Naga, because Blizzard loves to recycle their lore ideas.

There were also 5 Old Gods. C'Thun (Thought killed by the Titans but survived, albeit barely), Yogg'Saron (Imprisoned within Ulduar, guarded and weakened by the Watchers), Y'Shaarj (Killed by the Titans, insofar as any Old God can actually be killed), N'Zoth (Titans never actually beat this one, he's still out there and perfectly fine.), and another as yet unidentified one whose condition remains unknown.

It's stated in one of the books that there are 3 Old Gods that are active, whether that counted C'thun or not is tricky since he's been half-dead for ages now, but mostly likely that means the fifth Old God is 'dead'.

We also know that there are other Old Gods out there and that they aren't unique to Azeroth. As for who would win in a fight, an Old God and their faceless or Sargeras and his burning legion? That's up for debate.

... I like Warcraft lore, so sue me. >.>

 

[Lightspeaker]

Not unless they outright declare WoW as non-canon, honestly.

The absolutely mangled state they've left the story as a result of going MMO makes it near impossible to go forward. Plus how do you even bring it into line for people who play RTS but don't play MMOs? "Oh yeah a bunch of stuff happened over this ten year period in this totally different game from another genre; it all happened and all the interesting stuff that happened in W3 doesn't matter now because we're way past that"???

Hell, do they even think they can get an appreciable fraction of the people that played WoW to pick up an RTS? Its a fairly niche genre these days after all and you can bet that they'd want to draw a significant number of people in.

So basically they'd have to rewind the entire story back to the end of W3 and go from there. But frankly its going to be years before they stop milking the WoW cash cow.

And frankly I'm not even sure Blizzard WANTS to make proper commercial games to be outright sold anymore. Not after their success with Hearthstone and Heroes of the Storm.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

WoW hasn't lost its fan base. WoD's launch proved the fan base is still extremely large and easily engaged. What WoW has lost is the ability to effect retention of those fans over a long period of time. Mechanics are too familiar, and there's too much competition.

Game will see smaller peaks and deeper valleys over time, but it's going to take many more years yet before it's not the biggest MMO in the world, and one of the biggest games on PC period.

 

[RJ 17]

Snip.

And

Snap.

Seems I've failed in trying to express my point of how much WoW has screwed up the story...so here, I'll let this person do it for me as I think they do a better job at it.

Not unless they outright declare WoW as non-canon, honestly.

The absolutely mangled state they've left the story as a result of going MMO makes it near impossible to go forward. Plus how do you even bring it into line for people who play RTS but don't play MMOs? "Oh yeah a bunch of stuff happened over this ten year period in this totally different game from another genre; it all happened and all the interesting stuff that happened in W3 doesn't matter now because we're way past that"???

Hell, do they even think they can get an appreciable fraction of the people that played WoW to pick up an RTS? Its a fairly niche genre these days after all and you can bet that they'd want to draw a significant number of people in.

So basically they'd have to rewind the entire story back to the end of W3 and go from there. But frankly its going to be years before they stop milking the WoW cash cow.

And frankly I'm not even sure Blizzard WANTS to make proper commercial games to be outright sold anymore. Not after their success with Hearthstone and Heroes of the Storm.

This is what I was trying to get at...at this point the story itself is completely screwed up.

Beyond that, if you proceed with the notion that WoW is canon, that means that Azeroth is filled with millions all-powerful heroes...how to you reconcile the player-base of the MMO when going back to an RTS? Just say "Those millions of people don't and never existed." Well those millions of people were the ones that progressed the story sooooooo yeah.

Edit: This becomes an issue particularly in the scenario that shrekfan suggested of making an RTS that depicts the events that have taken place in the MMO.

 

[shrekfan246]

Snippity too

Well, my point was that there's nothing that's really stopping Blizzard from rewinding the narrative and redoing it in single-player games. Whether they would do that or not is beyond me, but there's no particular reason they couldn't.

And, frankly, I don't think there's as large a discrepancy in the way the story progressed in WoW and how it progressed in Warcraft as people think. Raid parties aren't really that different from an RTS army, technically, and most of the critical battles in WoW had important NPCs around as well (Tirion vs. the Lich King, the Dragon Aspects vs. Deathwing, etc.).

Or, while obviously many people would prefer the next Warcraft to be an RTS, I don't see any reason it couldn't be a more traditional RPG instead. Warcraft III was already full of RPG elements, it was pretty clearly the direction they were moving.

I think you're also overestimating how much people would care about their personal characters being "canon" in future single-player games. I only ever played Warcraft III after having played WoW, but I really don't give a single toss about where my characters fit into the lore of the world. They never actually did much by themselves or without the urging/help of plot-critical NPCs. While the power levels might have become a bit absurd, most of the player characters can still be relatively tied back into RTS units, which would also account for their extreme overabundance.

EDIT: I mixed up a word.

 

[Jandau]

No, it is not.

First of all, Blizz has pretty much relegated the Warcraft franchise to WoW and Hearthstone (ok, and HotS, but that's a crossover). While it would be a cool thing to put out a WoW expansion alongside Warcraft 4 and have them cover the same events from different angles, I doubt they could synchronize that.

Secondly, Blizz doesn't want to do Warcraft 4. They want to cash in on Hearthstone and break into the MOBA and FPS markets. They already pretty much own the competitive RTS scene with the only real competitive RTS game out there (SC2), so why compete with themselves?

 

[Link55]

The kids these days don't know about Warcraft. They know about World of Warcraft, but not Warcraft. So no, i don't think we'll see a warcraft 4. I think we'll more likely see World of Starcraft. And then blizzard is going to buy their own first world country.

Well it would be the their entrance to the series. They would see it, be interested and then they would be introduced by going to the earlier installments.

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

Think about how shit it would be, to keep it from messing up WOW nothing would be able to change, which is already the state of WOW anyways. No big events like the fall of lordaeron or the death of Cenarius. No worldwide invasion of demons. No redemption and great migration of the orcs.. Forget about the forsaken ever following through on their long foreshadowed evil plans to betray the living(oh unless it's a small breakaway faction *eyeroll*)


It'd be like a Saturday morning cartoon, begins and ends in the same place. Armies marching across Draenor but not really changing anything.

 

[Guffe]

Nope, not going to happen, sadly.

When I heard WoW was being released back in the day I raged so hard they didn't continue on the Warcraft series the way it was.
I understood it (money, and they are big with big aspirations at Blizzard) but I disliked it. I tried WoW a few months before Burning Crusade was released and a few month into it but I just didn't like it. I wanted the awesome story of Warcraft to continue on a more linear path and more easy to follow than having to raid and sink hours and hours into gaming to get to know the lore behind everything.

And now the movie is on the horizon, which is an even greater dent to the already big hole of hope of a Warcraft IV.

 

[VanQ]

Think about how shit it would be, to keep it from messing up WOW nothing would be able to change, which is already the state of WOW anyways. No big events like the fall of lordaeron or the death of Cenarius. No worldwide invasion of demons. No redemption and great migration of the orcs.. Forget about the forsaken ever following through on their long foreshadowed evil plans to betray the living(oh unless it's a small breakaway faction *eyeroll*)


It'd be like a Saturday morning cartoon, begins and ends in the same place. Armies marching across Draenor but not really changing anything.

I take it you never experienced the Invasion of the Scourge in Vanilla. Or the entire Cataclysm expansion where all of Azeroth as we knew it was changed forever. Or Mists of Pandaria where an entire zone was corrupted by the Sha bacause of the reckless actions of Garrosh and his Horde. Or any of the many other changes that have happened to Azeroth over the past ten years.

 

[chozo_hybrid]

I gave up on hoping to get a sequel to WC3. I moved on, life is better this way for me, if it happens, cool, but I am no longer waiting for it.

 

[Unknower]

I'd really like a new Warcraft-RTS. I wouldn't care if it was Warcraft IV or Warcraft III Remastered (preferably with extra content) or something else but I want one badly.

By the way, I just learned that Age of Empires II got an expansion pack in 2013 and that more DLC is coming. To Age of Empires 2. 16-years-old game. Well, I'm not complaining and it gives me hope that other old games might get new content too.

 

[mad825]

After the applauding story in SC2, I would never play it tbh. Who knows? They might just copy the copy of the plot for WC3 all over again.