Comment by boringg
19 hours ago
The apex of RTS games -- what a great gaming era RIP. Since then graphics are way better but business models have just deteriorated and mass appeal has driven games.
19 hours ago
The apex of RTS games -- what a great gaming era RIP. Since then graphics are way better but business models have just deteriorated and mass appeal has driven games.
I think Brood War is the true apex - more than two races with significant differences and aggressive balancing. Warcraft II was what I LAN played the most so it has a special place in my heart though.
Brood War IS the absolute apex. This is the game that started e-sports. It is what defined the modern RTS games. It is also the most difficult game. Flash, the best Brood War player, is arguably the best e-sports player of all time.
Oh goodness, Brood War most certainly is not the game that started e-sports, tho I of course appreciate your enthusiasm for the game.
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I loved the campaigns so much that I spent many dollars to play with the campaign editor in a net bar back then. I never figured out how to recreate the Corsair scene at the beginning of Protoss level 2. It was only after many years that I found out that it requires a script not in the official editor — some modders created a new editor that includes all those “unofficial” scripts.
And it's still popular and actually playable today. Warcraft 2 is not really fun to play. Very clunky control, very outdated graphics, bad story telling. With Starcraft, my only real complain is terrible cinematics which just doesn't cut it today. Otherwise this game is as fun to play today, as it was 15 years ago.
The cinematics were the best part of Starcraft!
I still get a kick out of the fact that the units look completely different in the cinematics as they do in the game and even the instruction manual
I quite like the StarCraft remaster. It plays just like the old one (to me, at least; I am not a competitive player), and it looks much better.
> Warcraft 2 is not really fun to play.
Compared with a lot of ptesent games is luxury: no updates, no bullshit introduction, just play.
Personally I think Dawn of War is the apex. That game really fired on all cylinders. And then for whatever reason Relic completely abandoned the formula and made the next game something different entirely. Dawn of War 2 remains one of my greatest gaming disappointments to this day because of poorly it stood up to its predecessor.
Dawn of War 3 made DoW 2 look like Game of the Decade by comparison. I hear they're making a DoW 4, and they're not even mentioning 3 when talking about the history.
Interesting, I think most RTS players would point to StarCraft 2 as the apex, and they'd probably be correct given how its still played so much today.
What makes Warcraft 2 the apex for you over StarCraft 2?
Funny how many people think Starcraft 2 isn't even better than Starcraft 1, especially when you add in Brood War.
The game's campaign being what it was made it so people never warmed up to it, the big hero-focused storylines and then mishandling of said characters (Kerrigan's abortive humanization and then rushed redemption, the Protoss being framed in entirely the wrong tone, the half baked epilogue) just made it so that the campaign didn't stick as Brod War's did, even if the gameplay was superior.
Buildings as walls and using spawn points to jump through terrain are fun mechanics in WC2.
I remember creating a moat of farms around my town hall.
I consider WCIII TFT the apex but that is because i really like the hero mechanic and it spawned so many amazing custom games, including the moba genre. I know AoS was first but dota really made it.
Can't comment on this other than that I came in at WCIII RoC and played TFT. Before that, I played a lot of Command & Conquer. I loved those games, so for me WCIII is the apex. I didn't like StarCraft. But it's admittedly the apex for me without having ever played WCII. I've rarely seen it as well.
I feel like wc3 is undersung. To me it achieved the perfect balance of allowing potentially mechanically worse players to win with brilliant tactics or strategy. It put the emphasis on strategy in rts more then anything else.
As a kid I was shit at it and played customs maps and goofed with the editor. Now I've gone back to find grubby streaming and revealing the depths of the meta evolution, and counters.
I like that even when a strong meta develops people can potentially counter with strategies that aren't as well rounded for long term use but upset the current meta.
The smaller armies, heroes, economy management, and increased micro-control that came from these things really push w3 to the top of the pile for me as well.
Footies was my favorite and I wish we got a new game out of that too.
> and mass appeal has driven games
Oh no, large numbers of people were satisfied. The horror! Will no one think of the elitist minority???
Large number of people were "satisfied" playing Clash of Titans too ...
Yet two of the most played games out there in 2025 are RTSes, Dota and League. The genre just progressed forward.
WC3 was peak design with the mod support (maps) where Dota originates from and and it was also the bane of the company. They couldn't monetize it and IceFrog choose Valve instead of them. No wonder that later Blizz games has 0 community support.
Dota and League are not RTS games. They are Moba. These are completely different genres. Dota happened to utilise Warcraft engine and assets back in the days, but that doesn't make it RTS.
>WC3 was peak design with the mod support (maps) where DotA originates from
Which first came from Starcraft custom game support and the popularity of Aeon of Strife (AoS) leading to Defense of the Ancients (DotA) in WC3.
> IceFrog choose Valve instead of them
Icefrog went to blizzard first if i remember correctly. Blizzard kinda told him to make a restricted game, maybe within the sc2 engine, almost for free. Valve saw the value and invested more.