Its been a while since we first got the reveal for Warcraft III: Reforged, and it feels like time came by pretty fast and the launch is upon us and Blizzard is feeling the heat as its new offering is facing intensely negative feedback from the gaming community. With the game issues ranging from “too many changes” to prevalent technical issues, the remaster has failed to provide what the original did to the genre and to appease its customer base, Blizzard is offering automatic refunds for buyers not satisfied with the game.
Blizzard has setup a support page where an instant refund can be made and can be accessed here.
So what happened?
Blizzard announced Warcraft III Reforged in 2018 during Blizzcon and as many Blizzcon announcement goes, promises quite a lot of things. As this is a remaster, the template is already set. Blizzard actually made updates to the original Warcraft III and Frozen Throne, a nearly 20 years after the launch of the original game. These updates included a lot of modernization features like widescreen supports and map/hero updates.
Blizzcon 2018 arrived and we’re promised a “complete re-imagining” of the original Reign of Chaos story. Fast-forward to 2020 and here we are: shoddy camerawork during cutscenes, awkward voice over work. Visually, the game was good. Execution was disappointing, to say the least.
In most cases where fans get angry is similar to cases where popular Japanese games transition with the direction of their mother companies. In Japan, where gacha games are life, that doesn’t seem to bode well with non-gacha players in the west. Gacha is pretty much games of chance, coined from the coin-op capsule games popular in Japan. You can treat it similarly to slots. Slots itself is popular amongst western audience with recent innovations proving to be quite attractive to new audiences like JohnSlots new online slots showcasing some of the top innovations in the scene right now. As it is though, this isn’t Japan’s cup of tea. But when a classic like Warcraft III that transcends time and the genre itself, an angry fanbase is the worst you can deal with.
Technical issues like connection problems making matchmaking impossible is also prevalent. This goes even worse as the original Warcraft III client also suffers from the same issue as Blizzard is using the same datacenters as the new game. No competitive and leaderboard make the game aimless for competitive players looking to improve their skills.
One curious change as well is the revision of Blizzard’s Terms and Conditions for custom game modes for Warcraft III. As reported by USGamer, Blizzard is protecting itself by deeming all custom maps created for Warcraft III the property of Blizzard. This is to save itself from the same situation it faced when DOTA was created, spawning the MOBA genre but losing out in revenue in the process as DOTA moved on to spawn League of Legends, Heroes of Newerth and DOTA2. None of which led to Blizzard profiting from the creation.
With all of that said, is a refund enough to reforge the broken trust between gamers and Blizzard? With Blizzard facing continuous backlash over recent decisions, its effectively the new EA of the gaming industry. Only time will tell.
