I think we’ve seen this with films as well; everything’s a remake, a sequel, or at best based on an already successful property from another medium. I’ve always assumed it’s a risk thing; as the budgets and visual expectations for games and films have skyrocketed, risk aversion has increased (if you’re spending a few hundred million, it MUST sell) and the victim is design for games, and storytelling for both.

> Still confused whether I should be thrilled or disheartened or just 'meh'.

Most remakes and remasters I'm usually just "meh". But every once in a while a truly special one comes along that thrills me.

I'm not sure if WC3 is one of the special ones; but I am fairly certain that the new Zelda: Link's Awakening for Switch is! Another special one that thrilled me was AM2R (Metroid 2 remake).

My theory is many great people left from blizzard.. they're trying to milk what they can with as low as budget and a team as possible.

I think it all started with WoW, when they realized how much more money they could make by going for things with the most mainstream appeal (which is why they now have Overwatch and Heroes of the Storm and such). It's way more bang for their buck compared to making a true improvement on a classic like Warcraft. Many other entertainment companies have realized the same, once they've gotten big enough.

Starcraft 2 is still quite good, though, IMO, and they still pay a lot of attention to keeping it as balanced as possible. I still find the high-level tournaments very entertaining to watch.

Things did change during wow. Three of the top guys left to do Guildwars. Blizzard North slowly collapsed after D2 and wow. Now blizzard is more the Anaheim guys than anything else.

Eh my friends and I generally don’t have the time/patience to get good at a new RTS, so its hard to get everyone excited for one, but we have been thoroughly enjoying revisiting Starcraft 1 with the remaster, and it’s something we all know how to play. So this is one of the cases where I think it’s warranted (especially since it brings higher res and aspect ratio support in that case, unsure if WC3 needs it).

I'm in the exact same boat. I feel like the game industry has made this really distasteful shift, of the big AAA companies just adding shoe-shine on existing projects -- whether that's servicing a SaaS like League of Legends or World of WarCraft, or doing remake after remake of Age of Empires, Homeworld, StarCraft, Final Fantasy, etc, while leaving all the innovation and creativity to be explored at the expense of indies, mod creators or mapmakers. DOTA2, LoL, and the entire MOBA craze was spawned because of the success of a custom WC3 map, and since then AAA have 100% adopted this as an R&D strategy. DayZ/H1Z1 from the mod community spawning battle royale, DOTA Auto Chess custom map spawning DOTA Underlords, TFT, and Epic Games' Auto Chess (the newer big trend).

Once in a half decade we get a AAA game with a novel concept or a new IP (Overwatch, Fortnite maybe?), but even sequels are starting to just feel like polishing phases or DLCs on a tested IP and gameplay formula.

The indies used to look to the AAA for inspiration and something to aspire to, but the tables have turned in a way exemplifying the capitalism and diluting the art of the medium.

Overwatch is a riff on the class-based FPS genre, which was pioneered by Team Fortress, a game that started its life as a Counter Strike mod.

Team Fortress started as Quake1 mod, which then Valve made to a Half-Life mod TFC, and later as the TF2 [1]. Also Counter-Strike was a mod as well which again Valve made official versions of.

I started with the Quake TF and now still pay TF2 sometimes. Basically been playing the same game for ~20 years.

1:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team_Fortress_2#Origins_and_ea...

Some games are just good so you can play them for a long time. As long as there is a community. I occasionally fire up HL deathwatch and have people playing. Plus CS:S is almost 15 years old and that is quite active (surf communities anyway)

* Quake mod

Fortnight was a rip off of PUBG which was arguably developed from Arma as a mod originally (spun off of the DayZ mod there was a sort of Battle Royale mode).

No argument/doubt, Brenden Greene was the guy behind all those in some manner, shape or form.

The bigger the budget the smaller the risk taken. This is pretty natural. AAA studios don't take risk because budgets have ballooned so much. The team that made Warcraft 3 would be considered a "medium sized AA team" roughly akin to Dauntless today.

Blizzard is a shadow of its former self.

"I feel torn". This is the power of exploitation. Why create anything new when you can just remaster your old products? Blizzards latest business venture has been reselling memories.

I guess they're jumping on the nostalgia train that's been chugging along for the last few years (so many remakes!).

Perhaps they're testing the waters for a Warcraft 4? It's been since 2004 when Warcraft stopped being an RTS, yet Classic WoW made a lot of people return.

I'm slightly hopeful.