Game News

"The section where you can read up on the most recent and old game news."

October 1999

Monday, October 4, 1999

Warcraft II: Battle.net Edition Arriving in Stores Soon!

Word has it that Blizzard's Warcraft II: Battle.net Edition has been finalized and is ready to be shipped out. This newer version of Warcraft II has many new and additional enhancements which the old one failed to provide. With the Battle.net Edition, you can now have:

• Multi-player support for as many as 8 players via Battle.Net or IPX network .
• Blizzard's spawning technology that allows up to eight players to compete over Battle.net by installing multiple copies from the original CD-ROM.
• Automatic map passing over Battle.net.
• Implementation of Top vs. Bottom multi-player template.
• Shared Vision in multi-player games.
• Ability to /Whisper in and out of games.
• Improved game set-up, game options, dropping of players and inclusion of Battle.net chat.
• Setting of game speed before the game starts that cannot be switched back and forth during game play.
• Incorporation of the 3 Pauses per player / per game rule.
• Assigning and selection of Groups through # keys.
• Ability to choose Random starting race, resources and tileset.
• Ability to set Latency Tolerance within games.
• Attack Move command will now function correctly.
• Patrol command now sends units to the selected location rather than stopping after any contact.
• Set maps and game parameters for Ladder Games.
• Scroll Speed fixed on faster computers.
• Town Hall / Great Hall is required as the first building in your technology tree.
• Ctrl+click or double-click will select closest 9 units of that type currently on the screen.
• Space bar centers the map on last 8 transmissions (sequential).
• Current food displayed along with gold/oil/lumber.
• Maintained compatibility with the DOS version of Warcraft II via local area network or modem.
• Unit limit raised from 600 to 1200 for Enhanced games.
• Added upper limit of 200 food for each player, like Starcraft.
• Mining out an oil rig completely no longer returns a small amount of lumber and gold to the player.
• Flying Machines, Goblin Zeppelins, Goblin Sappers, Dwarven Demolition Teams now have a Patrol option.
• Canceling Foundries no longer uses all of the oil you spent to build it.
• Allies can see friendly invisible units now.
• Allies' towers and flying units will now reveal enemy subs.
• Partially-built towers can no longer see submarines.
• Death Coil will no longer damage allies.
• New sounds have been added for Skeletons, Runes, Eye of Killrogg, and for completed upgrades.
• Death & Decay and Death Coil now have the proper icons.
• First Town Hall / Great Hall now build at the speed of a Farm. All other Town Halls / Great Halls build at the normal rate.
• You can now take 1000 screenshots instead of just 100, and
• 2 new game speeds (slowest and fastest).

For more information, go view Blizzard's new Warcraft II: Battle.net Edition site and their latest press release. The price for the game is fairly reasonable: $20US. Unfortunately, for those poor souls who've already bought the old edition, Blizzard won't be giving away any discounts or exchanges for purchasing this new edition. But if you weigh what you'll gain from buying Warcraft II: Battle.net Edition to that of the old edition, shelling out $20US is not that bad. In any case, you can decide whether you want to purchase it or not when you see it in stores later this month.

News Archive

September 1999, August 1999