Warcraft III

Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, released by Blizzard Entertainment in 2002, is a real-time strategy computer game

Overview

Warcraft III was developed by Blizzard Entertainment, a subsidiary of Vivendi Universal, and released in July 2002. Warcraft III proved to be one of the most anticipated and popular video game releases ever, with 4.5 million units pre-ordered and over 1 million additional units sold during its first two weeks.

One of the main innovations Warcraft III offers over the previous games in the series is the addition of several powerful units called Heroes. Heroes can find or trade items to increase skills, defense, and other abilities, and with each kill of an enemy, the heroes gain experience points, eventually resulting in increasing their level and gaining new spell options (thus introducing role-playing game elements to the series). Certain heroes also can apply beneficial auras to allied units. The highest level that can be gained in a normal game is level 10. At level 6, the hero can obtain an "ultimate" skill that is potentially more powerful than the others.

Another new innovation is the addition of creeps, which are computer controlled units the player fights even in multiplayer. They guard key areas or neutral buildings and are designed to act as a resource for the players to kill to provide experience points to a player's hero and to provide hero items. The idea is to force the player to be aggressive instead of "turtling up" (spending all resources on defenses and technology, rather than attacking). In The Frozen Throne Expansion Pack, Heroes can reach a maximum of level 5 from killing creeps; after that they can only get experience from enemy units/towers, while the highest level allowed is 10.

Warcraft III includes four playable races: the Humans and the Orcs, who also appeared in Warcraft and Warcraft II, along with two new races, the Night Elves and the Undead. As an April Fool's joke before the game was released, Blizzard announced that the Pandaren would be the fifth race. The company didn't reveal the Night Elves until a month later, and pandas are now a running gag in Warcraft (to the point that a Pandaren Hero — called the Brewmaster — was available in the expansion pack, The Frozen Throne). A fifth playable race, the Burning Legion, was changed during play-testing to a set of non-player characters and monsters (with a playable "cameo" on the last level of the Undead campaign, as Kel'Thuzad summons Archimonde), and a sixth playable race (the Draenei) was removed during testing without announcement.

Warcraft III has a large online gaming community centered around Blizzard Entertainment's Battle.net servers (called Gateways): Azeroth (U.S. East), Lordaeron (U.S. West), Northrend (Europe), and Kalimdor (Asia). Players meet other players to chat and set up multiplayer games through Battle.net. In addition to custom games, in which players have complete control over game settings (including map, teams, handicaps, etc.), Battle.net features a ranking system for certain standard game types: 1v1, or solo; various team games (2v2, 3v3, 4v4); and free-for-all (FFA). Ranked game play is facilitated by Blizzard Entertainment's Automatic MatchMaker, which pits players of comparable skill against each other. Players can also form clans comprised of ten or more players, which are also ranked.

Warcraft III also includes a very thorough scenario editor. It uses a scripting language similar to the trigger system used in StarCraft. As well as providing the ability to edit any aspect of the units, buildings and spells, it has advanced features as custom tilesets, custom cinematic scenes, dialog boxes, variables, and weather effects. Many custom maps, featuring a large variety of gametypes continue to be developed, and together with the expansion pack have contributed to the longevity of the game.

Collector's Edition

Blizzard released two versions of the game upon its launch; the regular edition and a limited Collector's Edition. The collector's edition box contained the following items:

The game on CD.
The official Warcraft III Cinematic DVD containing behind-the-scenes features and the cinematics of all prior Warcraft games.
Collector's Edition Soundtrack.
Collector's Edition manual.
The Art of Warcraft book.
Lithographic Prints

Gameplay

The four warring races have different advantages, most of them similar to the racial attributes of the Terran, Zerg, and Protoss from StarCraft, another popular RTS from Blizzard. The different strategically significant traits of the races in StarCraft have been combined in new ways to form the Warcraft III races. The Warcraft III Night Elves, for instance, resemble the Terrans in that their buildings can move and their base fighting unit has a missile attack, but like the Zerg, their worker units are consumed when they create most buildings. The Undead have the Protoss' ability to summon buildings rather than construct them, so a worker unit is not tied up in construction; also like the Protoss, they have a dedicated invisible spy unit, but their buildings have to be constructed upon dedicated infested terrain called Blight (like the Zerg Creep), and their army line-up is strategically similar to that of the Zerg.

However, unlike other RTS games, Warcraft III has introduced a new element of game play, special units called Heroes. This element was used in the Warlords: Battlecry games to good effect prior to Warcraft III. Heroes are super units that have special abilities that expand as the game progresses (as they gain experience). For example, a Human Archmage hero can acquire the ability to (temporarily) summon water-elementals, increase the mana regeneration rate of surrounding magic casting units, create a blizzard over enemy units, and teleport friendly units to other parts of the map. In the course of a game, a maximum of up to three heroes can be built. They can be killed, but if they die, they can be revived at an altar (though high-level heroes revive more slowly than low-level heroes). Heroes can also collect special items at creep camps, which assist the hero and his or her army in combat. For example, the item ' The Lion Horn of Stormwind' grants the Hero and friendly nearby units 1 bonus armor.

Between Heroes and a low food cap it is difficult to win through sheer numbers, and micromanagement becomes more important. The upkeep concept also keeps armies small as it penalizes anyone who gets too big too fast. In the late game, 1 or 2 high level heroes with good items can dominate an entire army of fully upgraded tier 3 units. For example, a level 10 Blademaster with items Claws of Attack +15, Crown of Kings, and Mask of Death, can easily kill 12 fully upgraded Chimerae.

There are strong distinctions in the game between melee and ranged units; between air and ground units; and (particularly in The Frozen Throne) between mundane, magical, and antimagic units. Antimagic units, such as the Humans' Elven Spell-Breaker (only in the expansion pack) and the Night Elves' Dryad, have the ability to cancel the effects of magic spells cast on other units.

Multiplayer

A typical game of Warcraft III normally takes 15–30 minutes; unlike StarCraft it takes maybe less than 7 or 8 minutes to make 12-22 units and maybe 7 or more buildings, but in WarCraft it can sometimes last up to 60+ minutes. Strategic depth is achieved through the diverse range of units available to each race and the ability to move freely around the map. As a player progresses on their Battle.net account, they earn different icons depending on how many victories they achieve with a certain race. (For example, 25 orc victories earns a grunt icon, 250 orc victories earns a tauren icon, 500 orc victories earns a Far Seer icon, and 1500 orc victories earns a Thrall icon).

The game involves both of the standard real-time strategy game elements: macromanagement and micromanagement. Macromanagement encompasses strategic decisions, such as constructing buildings and training units, scouting the enemy, expansion and map control, etc. Micromanagement is effectively controlling units in combat. Effective micromanagement can often be the difference between victory and defeat. Most professional WarCraft 3 players measure their micromanagement by reviewing their APM (Actions Per Minute). Higher APM generally indicates better micromanaging, although unnecessary actions may lead to an artificially inflated APM.

Strategic resources for Warcraft III include online discussion, replays and audio commentaries (see WCReplays.com or TorneosNydus). Mojo Stormstout's Warcraft III Strategy Guide by Blizzard Entertainment contains information about the expansion pack The Frozen Throne.

Some people create their own custom maps using the built-in map editor, most of which bear little or no relation to the traditional Warcraft III RTS gameplay. Examples include Dota and Line Tower Wars. Many custom maps are particularly focussed on controlling hero units.

In comparison to similar RTS-games, Warcraft III has a large community, which is promoted by Blizzard Entertainment's free Battle.net service. Although not quite as popular online as StarCraft, there are a number of prestigious Warcraft III tournaments held every year around the world. The game is also featured at large events such as WCG and WEG. The game is particularly popular in South Korea, which has a highly competitive scene and some of the best WarCraft 3 players in the world.

Some players have even become professionals (pro-gamers) and make a living playing this game competitively, not unlike chess and other popular board games. Players are sponsored by major video gaming and software/hardware companies and therefore earn a salary that might vary between 20,000$ and 150,000$ a year. They practice by playing others almost everyday and then participate in major events and international tournaments that are even broadcasted on national television (mostly in Korea and China). All of their games are recorded and can be downloaded and watched by anyone. Because of this, some view the game as a kind of sport.

Tactics

In battle, armies will focus fire on units to kill them individually rather than allow entire armies to gradually damage each other. Players may also want to kill their own units because of upkeep or because better units are available. Heroes are the most important units to keep alive, although winning is possible even if a player's heroes die. Also if a player engages an enemy in battle while the enemy is fighting creeps, the player has a big advantage.

For Orcs, one strategy is to rush with a Blade Master hero and try to kill an enemy's workers. This works better in small maps. Then build a total of 9 peons and a War Mill to upgrade grunts. Then build 2 barracks and mass produce grunts at tier 1 until at 50 food, then attack. With Night Elf, one strategy is to use a wisp to scout enemy's base, build 1 ancient of war, build 3 archers, then build 2 Ancient of Lore and mass produce Dryads and Druid of the Talons. One strategy with Human is to use militia to rush an enemy or to kill creeps for a fast expansion. One strategy with Undead is to do a fast expansion then mass produce crypt fiends.

During the game, knowing what units the enemy has is important because certain units are more effective against other units. For example, siege weapons (demolisher, meat wagon, mortar team, steam tank) are good against spellcasters, unarmored units, and buildings, but bad against heavy melee units, heroes, and air units.

Music

Most of the music within Warcraft III is orchestral, and composed by either Glenn Stafford or Jason Hayes. Although the music is orchestral, it uses several MIDI sounds, and is in mp3 format. The music varies depending on the player's race, monastic music for the humans, ambient music for the Night Elves, warlike music for the Orcs and fast, haunting music for the Undead. New themes are added in the expansion.

Examples of such music can be found on the World of Warcraft subpage. Here you can listen to songs from both Warcraft II and III and even a few from World of Warcraft. All are orchestral compositions with the exception of three, two of which are 'skits' and one other constructed from the many in-game unit responses.

Unit Speeches

Each unit in Warcraft III has a variety of different sounds and speeches associated with different actions. When a unit dies, it makes a specific sound. Also, by repeatedly clicking on a unit, the unit will make special sounds, known in the map-editor as "pissed" that the unit is being repeatedly clicked. All unit sounds and speeches can be heard and modified in the map editor.

Plot

Similar to how StarCraft was told, the story in Warcraft III is told through all four races in a progressive manner. The order is Human, Undead, Orc, and Night Elf.

Prologue campaign: "Exodus of the Horde"

Thrall, Warchief to the last of the Orcish Horde, wakes from a nightmare that foresees the return of the Burning Legion. After a brief encounter with the prophet, fearing that his vision was more than a nightmare, he leads his people in an exodus from Lordaeron to the forgotten lands of Kalimdor. In the retail version, this tutorial campaign ends with the orcs sailing to the distant shores of Kalimdor. However, in the official demo, this campaign is extended to detail the journey across the great ocean. Thrall's ships become damaged from a massive storm, and he stops at a small island midway between the two continents. For those who have only played the retail version, the fact that the forest trolls left the Horde after the second game seems like a contradiction. Sen'jin,the leader of the Darkspear trolls living on the island, befriends Thrall, and passes on leadership of the tribe to Vol'Jin after being mortally wounded by indigenous Murlocs (amphibious fish men). The campaign is included, sans cinematic dialogue voiceovers, with the expansion.

Heroes - Thrall(Far Seer)

Enemy Heroes (demo) - Murloc Hero(???), Ghost Sea Witch(???), Archmage

NPC Heroes - Grom Hellscream(Cinematic Only)

Human campaign: "The Scourge of Lordaeron"

Prince Arthas, a member of the Knights of the Silver Hand (a group of Paladins devoted to the defense of Lorderaeon and humanity), investigates a strange plague that is spreading across the lands of Lordaeron, aided by his onetime lover, the Archmage Jaina Proudmoore. To their horror, they find that the plague turns unsuspecting people into hideous Undead Scourge, and must move to stop the Undead's plans. Arthas proceeds to hunt down the plague's originator, Mal'Ganis. Travelling northward to the icy lands of Northrend in pursuit of Mal'Ganis, he aids an old friend, Muradin Bronzebeard, who tells him of a sword called Frostmourne. Arthas obtains Frostmourne, at the cost of Muradin's life, and uses it to defeat Mal'Ganis. Frostmourne slowly destroys and eventually consumes Arthas' soul, and he becomes the Lich King's first Death Knight, an evil being of great power and a general of the Undead army.

Note: Frostmourne was created to consume the souls of hapless fools would try to wield it and bend those that possess it to the will of Ner'Zhul, the Lich King. Arthas was consumed and enslaved by the blade, and now follows the Lich King's every command without question.

The Defense of Strahnbrad

Blackrock n' Roll

Ravages of the Plague

The Cult of the Damned

March of the Scourge

The Culling

The Shores of Northrend

Dissension

Frostmourne

Heroes - Arthas (Paladin), Jaina (Archmage), Muradin Bronzebeard (Mountain King)

Enemy Heroes - Mal'Ganis (Dreadlord), Blademaster(Blademaster)

NPC Heroes - Uther(Paladin)

Undead campaign: "Path of the Damned"

With the death of King Terenas Menthil and the reinvigorated Cult of the Damned rallying behind their new leader, Prince Arthas, the Undead Scourge move to complete their purpose in Lordaeron, which is to destroy the remnants of the Alliance, and to pave the way for a new invasion by the Burning Legion. In a series of quests involving the destruction of key opponents such as the Knights of the Silver Hand and the overthrow of the High Elves' kingdom of Quel'Thalas, Arthas succeeds in reviving former adversary Kel'Thuzard as a Lich. After laying waste to the Blackrock Orcs and communing with the Eredar Demon Lord Archimonde, Kel'Thuzard successfully raids Dalaran to enable him to open an dimensional portal with the use of Medivh's Spellbook, so that the true masters of the Scourge, the Burning Legion, can enter the realm of Azeroth. Leader of the demonic forces, Archimonde, makes his first blow against the remaining human resistance with the destruction of the Wizard Utopia of Dalaran, the Violet Citadel.

Trudging through the Ashes

Digging up the Dead

Into the Realm Eternal

Key of the Three Moons

Fall of Silvermoon

Blackrock n' Roll Too!

The Siege of Dalaran

Under the Burning Sky

Heroes-Arthas (death knight), Kel'Thuzad (lich, from Chapter 5)

Enemy Heroes - Orc Hereos(Blackrock n' Roll Too!), Archmages(The Siege of Dalaran), Antonidas(archmage), Sylvanas Windrunner(ranger), Paladins (early campaign), Uther (paladin)

NPC Heroes - Archimonde (Warlock), Tichondrius (Dreadlord)

Note:"Path of the Damned" is the only episode from the campaign without all possible heroes as there´s no playable Dreadlord in it. However one is present in the story of "The Frozen Throne".

Orc campaign: "The Invasion of Kalimdor"

After escaping Human captivity and fleeing to the shores of Kalimdor, Orcish warchief Thrall must lead his brethren to safety and ensure their survival in this strange and hostile land. With the help of the Tauren, a nomadic group of Kalimdor natives led by Cairne Bloodhoof, Thrall and Grom Hellscream head north to the Ashenvale Forest, but during their journey, Grom Hellscream accepts demonic corruption to gain enough power to defeat the Night Elf demigod, Cenarius. Thrall is forced to go to great lengths to save him and face the very demon that has cursed his brother. He also discovers that his fate is to help repel the Burning Legion, and allies his forces with the Human leader Jaina Proudmoore to accomplish this goal, going against generations of prejudice.

Landfall

The Long March

Cry of the Warsong

The Spirits of Ashenvale

Heroes - Thrall (Far Seer), Cairne Bloodhoof (Tauren Chieftain, from chapter 6), Grom Hellscream (Blademaster, chapters 4 and 5)

Enemy Heroes - Cenarius(DemiGod, technically a Keeper of the Grove), night elf

Arch-Enemy Hero - Mannoroth (Pit Lord), Demon Grom Hellscream (Fel Orc Blademaster)

Note: Though Mannoroth is given a playable model, it only serves as a movie model. It is playable, but only in custom maps(it does have stats). Thrall refers to Grom as his brother, while not literally true in blood, as a sign of mutual respect based on events from Thrall's rise to Warcheif of the Horde in which Grom's support was instrumental. Similar is Rexxar in Thrall brother because of his gratitude in saving the nation from Admiral Proudmoore's Grand Fleet.

Night Elf campaign: "Eternity's End"

With the coming of the Undead Scourge and Burning Legion as well as the Humans and Orcs, Tyrande Whisperwind and her Night Elf Sentinels fight a desperate battle to save their beloved home of Kalimdor. She first reawakens her lover, Furion Stormrage, and then the Druids of the Talon, and finally the Druids of the Claw. She also decides to free the great betrayer, Illidan Stormrage, who is eventually instrumental in weakening the Burning Legion, but at a great cost. Finally, she and Furion join forces with Proudmoore and Thrall to delay the Legion's advance until a proper end can be arranged for the demonic leader Archimonde. Overrun by the Legion and the Scourge, Archimonde prepares his final blow - consuming the energy of Nordrassil, the tree of life. But moments before he can strike, Furion Stormrage springs his trap. Unable to counter, Archimonde is destroyed in a colossal blast of energy that shatters the tree of life--but unlike Archimonde, the tree would heal and its roots would once again grow deep. Peace once again came to Kalimdor, but only for a short while, as the great betrayer, Illidan Stormrage would seek revenge for his imprisonment.

Enemies at the Gate

Daughters of the Moon

The Awakening of Stormrage

The Druid's Arise

Brothers in Blood

A Destiny of Flame and Sorrow

Twilight of the Gods

Heroes-Tyrande Whisperwind (Priestess of the Moon), Furion Stormrage (Keeper of the Grove), Illidan Stormrage (Demon Hunter)

NPC Heroes - Jaina(archmage), Thrall(Far Seer)

Arch-Enemy Heroes - Prince Arthas (Death Knight), Archimonde (Warlock), Tichondrius (Dreadlord)

Enemy Heroes - The Paladin(Chapter 1)

Note: If the game is completed in the hardest level, the player will see an easter egg involving 3D models of StarCraft units fighting; they are then destroyed by an exploding sheep. Contrary to popular belief, this is not a preview of StarCraft II, a claim which Blizzard has vehemently denied. Also, Furion Stormrage's first name is changed to Malfurion Stormrage in the Frozen Throne. Finally, a playable Hydralisk can be found as a secret unit in the Daughters of the Moon. When you get the ballistas, cut down the trees until you reach a small (really small) clearing. The Hydralisk has a lot of life and a piercing attack that does 120 damage. You can also see how the Hydralisk attack by scrolling down to the model's point of view.

The Frozen Throne expansion

On May 29, 2003, Blizzard announced that the expansion set, Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne had "gone gold" (release version sent to presses). It was released in stores worldwide in multiple languages beginning on July 1, 2003. It includes an additional hero for each race and three to four new units per race, four campaigns, five neutral heroes (an additional neutral hero was added April 2004 and 2 more were added in August 2004), the ability to build a shop and various other improvements such as the ability to queue upgrades. It requires the ownership of Reign of Chaos. Blizzard regularly patches both the original game and the more popular expanded version to fix bugs, add new features, and balance multiplayer play. The latter is the main reason Blizzard games remain popular long after their initial release.

Spin-offs

A massively multiplayer online role-playing game set in the WarCraft universe, entitled World of Warcraft, is the fourth WarCraft game in a series produced by Blizzard. It picks up the WarCraft storyline two and a half years after the events of The Frozen Throne, or four years after the defeat of the Burning Legion in the conclusion of The Reign of Chaos

The strategy board game The Board Game was released in 2003 by Fantasy Flight Games, and is based on Warcraft III. It uses a modular game board, which allows many different scenarios to be played with the same set of components.

Modding

With the Warcraft III World Editor that came with Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, players were able to create their own custom maps to play multiplayer or single player. The world editor had features such as unit editing and event triggers (which allowed for almost unending diversity in campaign design). A small community of modders started up, and spawned several tools for spell editing through SLK spreadsheets, customizing skins with .BLP converters, JASS editing, and a file importer that opened up .MPQs.

With the expanded World Editor that came with The Frozen Throne, users could edit spells without using SLK spreadsheets, import their own custom .BLP textures files, .MDX models, various sounds, and any other file that the editor was willing to put in without third party software. This made modding infinitely easier and less reliant on third party software.

After a long time, Blizzard began to recognize the modding community, and released the Warcraft III Art Tools plugin for 3D Studio Max, which allowed skilled model makers to create fully animated three dimensional models (which could be imported via the expanded World Editor). In the Warcraft III 1.10 patch, the World Editor was once again updated, to be able to use caches and custom campaigns which allowed modders to create entire campaigns for Warcraft III.

In addition to custom maps, total conversions are available for download. Total conversions completely replace one or more of the original races with completely new units and upgrades. Some of the many total conversions made for Warcraft III include Divine Right, FPS Mod, and the Tales of Raviganion. In addition, some mods add a whole new race, such as Ominous Horizons'' and Creep Rebeliion

Custom maps

There are many player-created multiplayer maps (made with the included Warcraft III World Editor tool) available. There are many different genres in Warcraft 3, some of the more popular ones are:

Arena

These maps often pit 2 teams of players against each other. At the beginning of the game the players will select a hero and be given a short amount of time to buy items. The 2 teams are then released into the "Arena" where all the fighting begins. Killing enemy heroes results in receiving money and experience. Many arena maps incorporate duels into their maps selecting a random hero from each team to fight each other. Many Arena maps are open-ended as far as victory but some require you to reach a certain number of kills or defeat a powerful foe that would require coordination from allies while fending off enemy heroes that may try and stop them.

Campaign

Campaign maps are custom maps but are not played online. They are often include multiple-maps and should include a storyline of some sorts.

Capture the Flag

In Warcraft 3 Capture the Flag incorporate Warcraft 3's heroes, graphics and play style with the classic capture the flag game type. 2 Bases each with a flag. A team must try and capture their enemy's flag and bring it back to its own base.

Cinematics

Similar to Campaign maps in that they include a storyline of some sorts and are often viewd off-line. Although rare, some cinematic maps are made viewable online.

Footmen Wars

A popular map on Battle.Net, Footmen Wars is most commonly a battle between 4 teams each with 3 players. Each player starts off with a main base that will spawn a very basic infantry type. The players start off with gold which in most cases they must make the decision of buying a hero or "teching" where one upgrades one's main base, causing it to spawn more powerful units. Most use the four generic races, Human, Orc, Undead, and Night Elf. Some footmen wars may include side races of Demons, Naga, Trolls, and Kobolds.

Melee

Custom melee maps are rarely played on Warcraft 3 but losses and wins will not count against your Battle.Net Record so it is a good place to practice.

Mini-Game

Mini-game maps consist of short quick games. This gametype is often combined with other types of maps.

RPG (Role-Playing Game)

RPG Maps come in a wide variety. There are open-RPG maps where it is up to the players to decide what happens. There are RP Maps where players can do just about anything and take up a role as a certain character. There are also set RPG with defined storylines that a player must follow. How these RPGs work vary depending on the map but most commonly the player will have 1 hero and must complete the quests that pertain to the storyline.

Survival

Survival maps either pit 2 teams of players against each other or a team of players versus the computer. Unlike Defense maps, survival maps often only leave the player with one hero or a limited number of units. While restricted with units, the players can still often buy items. In some survival maps the players have a periodic income. In some versions where 2 teams are against each other, players can summon units that will spawn on the other team's side.

Tower Defense

Main Article: Tower Defense

These maps, while similar to Defense maps, are slightly different. The game usually consists of a group of players who attempt to stop a number of enemy units from reaching a certain point, with each player having a worker building towers. Depending on the map, some will require the players to select the right towers to cover each other's weaknesses. In other maps, the players must carefully build towers in a certain "maze"-like fashion to get the most use out of their towers.

Note: The Map by Duke-Wintermaul, Wintermaul TD was one of the most popular maps of the Tower Defense genre for Reign of Chaos. Thousands of people tried to make their own Wintermauls, which eventually came to be known as "Mauls", and led to becoming its own genre. Popular mauls included Simpsonmaul, family guy maul and Warcraft maul. By the time of the Frozen Throne expansion to Warcraft III, many extremely popular maps (Cube Defense, CTF, Movie Making, Warchasers, etc.) were edited to use more of the functions, units, models, icons, gameplay aspects, and terrain sets of the expansion to make the games better. Wintermaul TD TFT was another popular maul, created by a group of wintermaul fans who also developed the popular Wintermaul X Series. There were also Hero Maul maps in which the players would choose a hero from the race buildings, instead of using builders to get towers. Alternate versions of that map were Wintermaul Hero Defense and Wintermaul Hero Defense 2, which had nearly three times as many heroes as the Hero Maul. Instead of race buildings, the hereoes were chosen directly at the start by a wisp and then by walking into the desired hero's circle. This led to games like "Wintermaul Wars" which were similar to Wintermaul, but had players team up instead of battling the computer, and used upkeep to send creeps to the opposing team. Many other "Wintermaul Wars" followed, such as Simpsonmaul Wars.

Other maps

Among the maps popular on Battle.net are:

Advent of the Zenith
Age of Myths
Battleships pro, and other battleships maps
Curse Of Time
Dans Football -derived maps
Dark Deeds
Darwin's Island
Defense of the Ancients or DotA - Blizzard's First Spotlight Map entry in the Battle.net Hall of Fame
Demise of Brotherhood Roleplaying (a.k.a. DoBRP)
Dracula's Curse
Dragon Ball/Z/GT -derived maps
Enfo's Team Survival
Escape From Ivory Castle
Europa
Eve of the Apocalypse
Final Fantasy -derived maps
Footman Wars -derived maps
Hero Arena -derived maps (eg. Angel Arena)
Hero Line Wars
Hero Siege -derived maps
Illidan's Seven
Island Defence
Life of a Peasant and various derivates
Naruto and derived maps (eg. Naruto Wars)
Night of the Dead, and Resident Evil -derived maps
NOTD: Aftermath
Parasite and similar maps
Poke the angry ogre
Ring Wars
Run Kitty Run
Kodo Tag
Sheep Tag and derivatives
Skibi's Castle Tower Defense (now an official Frozen Throne Bonus Map)
Snipers
Swat: Aftermath -professionally developed survival map
Tank Wars and derivatives
Those based upon the works of J. R. R. Tolkien
Three Corridors
Tides of Blood
Vampirism Revolution
X-Men Legends
Vampire Hunters
Wintermaul and other maul variants
Worm War
YuYu Arena - Arena game based on Yu Yu Hakusho

Quotations

One of the signatures of Blizzard games are the unit quotes. If a single unit is clicked several times in a row, the unit's voice samples become more and more comical. The unit may start getting angry at the player, or say silly things in reference to movies, games, "inside jokes" or just plain witty comments. For example, after several clicks the Human peasant exclaims in a British accent, "Help! Help! I'm being repressed!" — a quote from the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail. They also say "You're the king? Well, I didn't vote for you," and "We found a witch. May we burn her?", and footmen exclaim, "It's only a flesh wound!" — all of which are from the same movie. Knights remark, "My favourite colour is blue... No, YELLOW!" and "I never say Ni." Furthermore, the human "spellbreaker" unit makes reference to The Lord of the Rings by saying "I stole your Precious!" One orc unit even says "Me so horned, me hurt you long time", a reference to Full Metal Jacket. The human Dragonhawk Rider references Top Gun by saying both "Permission to Buzz the Tower" and "I'll hit the brakes, he'll fly right by!" The Gryphon Rider will exlaim that his warhammer costs 40K(40,000), a reference to the tabletop strategy game Warhammer 40,000, sometimes referred to as Warhammer 40K for short.

Several of the units also make comments relating to other Blizzard games. For example, the Demon Hunter Illidan Stormrage, after repeated clicking, will say "Wings, horns, hooves... what are we saying, is this Diablo?". Likewise, the Acolyte will say "My life for Aiur!... eh... Ner'zhul..." in a reference to StarCraft and the Protoss Zealot's war cry.

Other units will say things referencing old movies or comic books. For example, the undead crypt fiends will say "Spider sense... tingling" (in reference to Spider-Man) and "What a tangled web we weave" (referencing Sir Walter Scott, originally referencing Shakespeare). The dwarven rifleman will say "This is my BOOMSTICK!" (in reference to Army of Darkness) when clicked repeatedly. A Dryad will try to convince you that she's "not the Dryad you're looking for", a play on the famous line from A New Hope. On death, the Flying Machine says "They came from behind," another quote from Star Wars Episode IV.

In reference to the Iron Chef TV show, the troll witch doctor, after repeated clicking, starts a short skit as follows: "Fukui-san!" "Yes, go ahead." "What the Iron Troll is doing right now is putting heads in a pot. They have to boil for 20 minutes so the eyes can be used in a second dish, an eye and raspberry sorbet." "Mmmm, Sounds good!"

Some units will behave as if they are actually being physically touched every time they are clicked on. The orcish Grunts famously say "Stop poking me!". The human sorceress will say "Click me baby one more time" (a spoof of the pop song by Britney Spears) while the human priest will say "I have been chosen by the big metal hand in the sky" (referring to the cursor design for the Human race, which happens to be a gauntlet, as well as being a reference to Toy Story). Finally, the human dragonhawk riders will say "Get that filthy cursor away from me".

Similar, though less extensive, quotes also appear in other Blizzard titles.

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