Warcraft III was released over fifteen years ago, but yesterday it got an enormous patch, with a lengthy list of small changes.
Warcraft III is the third Warcraft game, a fantasy-flavored real-time strategy game that predates the incredibly popular MMO set in the same world. You’d think that Blizzard was long done tweaking the game, but yesterday, the publisher made a huge number of changes to it.
Some of the changes were pretty big, like adding widescreen support. Many others were very specific minor tweaks. The Crypt Lord, for example, had their base movement speed increased from 270 to 290, and the Demon Hunter’s Mana Hunter ability had its mana cost increased from 50 to 60 for all levels. Priestess of the Moon had her attack speed cooldown reduced from 2.46 to 2.33 seconds, and the Goblin Alchemist’s Healing Spray ability no longer heals enemies.
Even if this game were new, these changes would seem incredibly minute. For a 15-year-old game, it boggles the mind that someone, somewhere, is still obsessing over this fine-tuning. Here are a few more changes:
Tauren Chieftain
Reincarnation
Reduced spellcast from 7 seconds to 5 seconds
Dread Lord
Sleep
Cooldown reduced from 6 seconds to 4 seconds for all levels
Vampiric Aura
Level 1: Increased life steal from 15% to 20%
Level 2: Increased life steal from 30% to 35%
Level 3: Increased life steal from 45% to 50%
Warden
Blink
Level 2: Reduced cooldown from 10 seconds to 7 seconds
Level 3: Increased cooldown from 1 second to 4 seconds
It’s incredibly cool to see Blizzard support a game that came out in 2002, especially given that you can now play the game on a widescreen monitor.
