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Four campaigns as well as a prologue campaign tie up to form a single epic storyline, told at different stages from four very different perspectives, including the humans, the undead, the orcs and the night elves, in that order. The prologue is a short two-mission campaign which has players guiding the orc warchief Thrall and his horde of green-skinned brutes. Here, players are taught the basic mechanics for the game. While players have the option of proceeding straight to the first campaign, it's still worthwhile to play through the prologue as it explains how and why Thrall and his hordes sailed for Kalimdor. Although players have to play and unlock the four campaigns in sequence, it seems a small price to pay considering the genuinely intriguing and twisting plot players get to unravel.
Every campaign is comprised of roughly seven to nine missions with interludes in between. Each mission has distinctly different objectives, ranging from the usual destruction of enemy bases to the retrieval of a specific artifact. These objectives are divided into main quests and optional quests. The completion of main quests is necessary for finishing a mission while completing optional quests typically yields bonuses of some sort. To this end, the number of optional quests for each scenario is clearly shown in the objectives screen. Players also get to adjust the difficulty level for every mission to suit their own abilities, making the game more accessible to new strategy gamers.
While the core gameplay of Warcraft III has a lot in common with previous RTS titles such as StarCraft, several new changes has been made, introducing a slightly-RPG like style of play. Perhaps the most obvious change are the heroes. No longer are they simply special units with spiked statistics. Instead, they can now level up and even carry a limited number of artifacts. Needless to say, with enough time, they can quickly become the equivalent of one-man armies. There are three classes of heroes for each race, such as the Archmage, Death Knight and Demon Hunter. Each one has four unique abilities, which can be leveled up for greater effect. Abilities such as Chain Lightning can prove deadly to enemy troops while abilities such as Divine Aura provides increased protection for your own troops. But don't worry. Dead heroes can be raised to fight another day for a price - Equipped artifacts and skills included. Several other changes include a day and night cycle, with the howling of a lone wolf to signify the change from day to night. Units can see further during the day compared to night, and certain neutral units will go to sleep, allowing your troops to sneak up and attack. Merchants and mercenary camps also allow you to either buy artifacts or recruit certain neutral units for your own armies. Another crucial change is the newly introduced upkeep. Upkeep is decided by the amount of food your troops consume, and can be basically described as a tax on your growing army's gold supply. The larger an army, the less gold you receive from your mining activities. This financial snag helps keep stronger forces from renewing their attacks too quickly, smoothing out the pace of the game. Upkeep exists in three stages :
| Upkeep Level |
|
Food Consumed |
|
Gold Income |
| No |
Upkeep |
- |
0 - 40 |
- |
100
% |
| Low |
Upkeep |
- |
41 - 70 |
- |
70
% |
| High |
Upkeep |
- |
71 - 90 |
- |
40
% |
This time round, the scale of battles have also been reduced significantly. Instead, skirmishes are focused on clashes between small, powerful and mixed groups of units, each with special abilities of their own. Needless to say, all four races has its own advantages and disadvantages, be it buildings, upgrades or even resource gathering. While humans and orcs mine gold from a mine in the usual way, both the undead and the night elves must first "claim" a mine by either building a haunted mine or entangling it. Once done, five workers can be positioned around the mine to instantly mine gold without having to return to the main structure. On the other hand, all four races collect lumber from trees in the usual fashion, the only difference being the undead uses its basic melee unit to chop wood while the night elves has its wisps circle a tree to collect wood without chopping it down.
As expected, Warcraft III will be playable online via Blizzard's Battle.net service, which includes automatic player-matching based on a player's skill and experience. It also comes with a skirmish mode which allows up to twelve players or computer-controlled opponents to slug it out in an all-encompassing free-for-all or compete in team-based matches. And while strategic geniuses the AI-controlled opponents ain't, they are certainly competent enough to provide most players with a challenge. The game ships with more than 40 different maps, with a nice mix of smaller as well larger skirmish maps. Custom options can also be adjusted to determine if the entire map is visible throughout the game and if teams are locked, among others. Several interesting scenarios are also included in the package, such as the RPG-styled map entitled "WarChasers", or the downright ridicules "The Death Sheep" - A game which has a paladin dodging left and right to avoid hordes of mad stampeding sheep and pigs, arcade-style. If anything, this demonstrates the flexibility of Warcraft III's engine.
Included in the package is the versatile Warcraft III World Editor utility, which proves to be a powerful yet intuitive tool. Enterprising level designers create new maps from the ground up in a fully 3D view, with the ability to easily place creatures, add small scenic details, set triggers, adjust map topography and more. All heroes and units are also readily available here. A sound editor is also included, allowing players to listen to the superb voice work boasted by each and every unit.
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