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Tuesday 15 January, 2008
Summary:
This expansion pack for Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, a real time strategy game, furthers the storyline of the world of Azeroth after Archimonde's death at Mount Hyjal, and the Burning Legion's defeat. The player returns to Azeroth, a world where the player can control one of four factions, the Human Alliance, the Orcish Horde, the Night Elf Sentinels, and the Undead Scourge. The player can either play through The Frozen Throne's campaign mode to experience more of Warcraft's storyline, or can compete online in battles controlling one of the factions in teams of 1 versus 1, 2 versus 2, 3 versus 3, 4 versus 4 or free for all for domination of the map and winning the battle. The goal for each map played on is to defeat the enemy computer or player by killing their army with your army, but there is the freedom during online play to attack anyone on the map if you so choose, friend or foe. There also exist modded custom maps, with user based rules. A popular custom game is Defense of the Ancients.
Gameplay 1:
I opted to play the Undead Scourge in 4 versus 4 ladder play, and testing out a simple, yet rather ineffective straegy against skilled players, based on massing a swarm of a single unit, such as a footman or a ghoul. Playing on a new account in a low bracket I did not find success with my initial strategy of massing ghouls, the most basic light ground melee/lumber harvesting unit of the Undead Scourge. My ghouls did not survive very long in a battle field of higher tier units, even with my death knight hero healing them. I was very attached to my swarm of units, and found the overrun strategy to be very rewarding even when ineffective. Even if the other army was victorious, the swarm or "zerging" scenario of deploying many bunch of ravaging creatures attacking an army of more powerful units still wreaking destruction was very fun.
Involving other players online, this style of gameplay within Warcraft III allowed me to be the evil beings bringing forth chaos and causing other players to become frustrated by having to slay many units, all the while sustaining heavy losses themselves to a mindless horde. Furthermore it was fun to watch their strategies for beating the swarm strategy. From their strategies I have learned to deal with other players swarming me, by making use of many area of effect spells to defeat weaker units lacking many hit points.
Gameplay 2:
Making use of the same swarm strategy again using the Undead Scourge in online four versus four play, I decided to instead mass the strongest undead units, the Frost Wyrm. The frost wyrms, skeletal dragons, were even more fun to play with because they both are a more majestic and powerful unit to look at on screen, and because they have a very powerful freezing breath ability that made me feel like i was ramming a battering ram through my enemies lines, from the air nonetheless.
The powerful units, having area of effect breath, destroyed another players swarm of riflemen. In this game I become more connected to my hero, again a death knight, who because of my killing power leveled up higher than in my previous game. The elements of a roleplaying game appearing in this real time strategy really connected me with my army, and made me more involved controlling my units and further increased the fun of the game.
Design:
The frozen throne is a good game because although it is kind of old, being created in 2003. It has a good storyline, simple and accessible interface for game play, with eye pleasing art and the ability to zoom in on settings. The game also has advanced mechanics and the potential for a player to become more skilled and dominate new players online, while still having to devise strong strategies and control of their army on the battlefield to outplay tougher competition.
The game is still very appealing and has a strong player base due to the ever present challanges online with advancing and improving players who provide more and better competition. The reward of defeating one's opponent in a magical world's battlefield with good faction balance and appealing environments is enough to keep me playing the Frozen Throne from time to time.
One nice feature that came up in my gameplay implemented by Blizzard, the software company who created the Warcraft Series, allowed control of another players army if they disconnect from the game, allowing the players on the weaker team the capability to match the team with more players in army strength.
However, one downside to the online play I noticed was the skill matching system for the Frozen Throne's ladder. It places players of all skill levels together, so a very seasoned player will often be playing with or against a much worse player causing games to be imbalanced for good teams to be fighting bad teams.
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