2917_Michael

Table of Contents

Introduction 4
The Company 6
Gameplay 9
Story 12
Graphics 13
Sound 15
Impression 16
Conclusion 19
 Introduction
Warcraft: Orcs and Humans is the high fantasy
Real-time Strategy(RTS) game for MS-DOS(1994)
and Macintosh(1996) developed by Blizzard
Entertainment with high selling and won many
awards.

This game brought the reputation to its developer

Blizzard Entertainment. In term of introduction
an innovation of new playstyle, mission and user
interface for RTS game which became standard type
for later RTS game until now.

In the world of Azeroth controlled by human. There is a

glorious city Stormwind which rules by King Llane and his
army. The well-train knight of Stormwind who served the
their king with honor and glory for many generations. One
day, the orcs invaded Azeroth.

No one know who are these green skin mortal and where are
they came from. They wielded axes and spears with armor
trying to annihilate all humanity. Also process the dark
magic(magik) from underworld.

There come the King of Stormwind leaded his royal

knight to protect his kingdom. With an aid from Clerics of
Northshire powered by the light. Humans and Orcs fight
against each other for their own purpose and the First War
has begun.

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 The Company

In February 1991, Michael Morhaime, Allen Adham and Frank

Pearce who just graduated their Bachelor Degree from UCLA
found their own company named “Silicon & Synapse”

In the early day, Silicon & Synapse just only focused on game
conversion from platform to platform for other game studio.
The game porting title include “Battle Chess” for Windows and
Commodore 64, “Battle Chess II” for Amiga, “Lord of the Ring”
for Amiga. This provided an opportunity for their programmer This first two games “The Lost Viking” and “Rock n’ Roll
to become familiar with game coding and learn coding Racing” claimed the prize “Developer of the Year” for Silicon &
techniques and for their artist to get ease with game artworks. Synapse and make them able to state themselves proudly as a
game developer.

In early of 1994, an educational software company acquired

Silicon & Synapse for $6.5 Million and in this year the Silicon
& Synapse briefly changed its name into Chaos Studios.
Unfortunately, there is a company name Chaos already exist so
they finally set the name into “Blizzard Entertainment” as we
all known today.
In 1992, Silicon & Synapse has released the first original video
game called “The Lost Viking” for DOS, Amiga, Sega Megadrive
and Nintendo SNES which is a side-scrolling puzzle platform
game. In 1993, another title was release for Sega Megadrive/
Genesis and Nintendo SNES known as “Rock n’ Roll Racing”.
This game was awarded Best Driving game of 1993 by
Electronic Gaming Monthly.

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Blizzard Entertainment has 3 main game titles.
Warcraft series are the serie of RTS game while the latest game
“World of Warcraft” become MMORPG(Massively Multiplayer
Online Role Playing Game).
Starcraft series are the RTS serie which has the same mechanic
improved from Warcraft II.
And Diablo series are the seris of Action-RPG games. All 3
titles hit the shelf of best game and internationally known.
Worldwide gamers state Blizzard Entertainment as “The
company that never released the bad game”
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Gameplay
In game, you can control either “Green Skin Orc” or “Human
of Azeroth”. Players have to manage their own armies, take
control the resources, decide the usage of magic in order to
claim victory. Each race has its own unique buildable unit and
some certain spells. Unlike “Dune II”, warcraft has special
unit who can cast spell and be able to manipulate magic is the
exciting thing to do in battlefield.
Human Orc
In single player mode, players can choose to play the story
mode or custom mission. Each mission contains variety
objective to follow not just only “slay them all” type of objective
as others RTS games around that time. The mission objective
can be “Build up your armies”, “Sieze the city”, “Adventure
through mystical dungeon”, “Kill the warchief’s daughter”,
“Rescue your troops” etc. These things are the new innovation
in term of mission design.
 In term of controller, the developer try to ease player as much
as they can to suit each player’s playstyle. In order to do such a
thing, Warcraft provide an additional way to achieve what we
would like to do, not just only 1 method.
For example, to navigate around the map. There are many way
which allow players to navigate throughout the whole map.
They can simply drag the sight zone rectangle on minimap to
see-around, they can place the mouse cursor at the screen’s
corner then left click to move, they can just press the cursor
on their keyboard to move, or they can right click their mouse
to center screen to the specific location. Then Players have an
opportunity to choose which is good for them.
Navigate by Draging around minimap
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Hoykey System
As well as the hotkey system, each button has its own hotkey
which can be known as the highlighted letter for each
command. This makes advance player to quickly and easily
command their troop rather than just click click click actions
which is waste of time. This is really nice introduction playstyle
RTS game type which has a fast-pacing gameplay.
Also there is other element that I feel the developer neatly
insert into this game. Like when you want to move your troop
across the map. There is not necessary to actual move your
screen to the specific location and click order to make them
moved, but just simply click the destination in minimap.
Alongside with all features above, Warcraft: Orcs and Humans
is the very first RTS game who offer you an opportunity to fight
against your friends by modem or direct link. Unlike versus
computer A.I., real human has their own strategies and will
give you more pressure.......very awesome.
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 Story Graphics

Compare to present, the graphic of this game might looks so

cheesy. But back to around that age, the graphic is decent and
well illustrate. I also like the feature which building caught in
fire when it is nearly destroyed.

In some others game, such as Command & Conquer, Dune II ,

Victory over Orcish Horde Victory over Stormwind
when you have a large group of army stick together. You won’t
be able to clearly state which unit is which because there are
The story for this game in my opinion is simple. The orc came looks so similar. But for Warcraft, each unit has unique feature
from nowhere to invade Azeroth. Human who live in Azeroth that you will be able to distinct the unittype by just scanning
trying to fight them back. You will be assigned several tasks your eyes around the whole army which is very convenient.
to build up army, protect the town and seize their main base,
the blackrock spire. As the orc, you will be ordered to build Also the burning system which will tell you what building is
up army, expand the invasion and seize their capital city of going to ruin in dust, will cause you to quickly react in term of
Stormwind which will force human to flee from Stormwind defensive or repairing.
to Capital City of Lordaeron in the North(Warcraft II). Both 2
stories(Orc and Human) happened independent and not linked
together. According to Warcraft’s Lore, the orc storyline is the
true situation which happen in Azeroth.

In these simple storyline, there are some twist happen within

this simple storyline such as it was a human who let the orcs
invade Azeroth, or the betrayal within the orc camp and many
sidestory added later to fullfil the Lore. However, due to the
graphic and game engine around that time this game won’t Distinct Unit Sprite Building on Fire
tell us much in detail about what is happening to the main
character.

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 Sound
User interface is also great and well-designed. Players can
quickly understand the situation just by looking at minimap.
Although the sound quality was bad but the tune is very gothic
The command icons have their nice pictures describe what
and catchy. It can not compare to all epic music from Warcraft
these buttons can do. The green frame surround your unit is
II or the others Blizzard’s games but when you beat this game,
telling which unit you are currently selecting. And by selecting
some music will still remain in your mind. Reminds you the
specific unit will trigger out the command for that unit such as
experiences you met during gameplay.
“Train Peon” command for Orc Town Hall or “Heal” spell for
Human Cleric.
Besides the great tune of music. The sound FX for this game
getting close to be epic. In the large battle, they truly gave me
Later on, user interface in Warcraft: Orcs and Humans became
an emotion of fantasy war.
plate of new generation RTS games. Such as Age of Empires,
Command & Conquer: Generals, Company of Heroes, Dawn of
There is also a joke hidden in a game. When you keep clicking
War II.
at the same unit for a few times. They will say some sentence
clearly state that you are annoying by just keep clicking on
them. This feature also reappear in all of Blizzard’s RTS game
such as Starcraft, Warcraft II, Warcraft III

Multiple Selection and UI

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 Impression In the game, the first thing I quickly notice in
this game is difficulty. I might get used to the
new generations RTS game which do not need to
pay too much attention to control my army. In
The first warcraft game I’ve played is Warcraft II Expansion:
Warcraft I, I’ve found the control is so annoying
Beyond the Dark Portal when I was young. Followed by all
and I just can select 1 unit at the time and cannot
famous RTS games around that time. So this was truly the first
“right click” to assign a move or attack. (figured
time I played Warcraft: Orcs and Humans.
out later, by pressing CTRL key will allow me
to select multiple units at the same time with
The intro movie was ok. I’m curious which program they were
maximum of 4)
using to make this 3D pre-render graphics. But I imagine back
into that day if I’d got a game with opening like this it would be
In some part I need to do trial and error in order to proceed.
the best game in the world.
For example, when I need to expand my base. But I have no
idea where the gold mine is. I have to save my game then send
out a troop to scout. Because some way will be too dangerous
which can wipe out my whole army.

Resources is crucial and you cannot waste it too much because

I will running out of gold very quick. Making a wrong discision
may cause me to start it all over again. So it is a good way to
keep saving game all the time.

In term of story, I only heard about Lordaeron kingdom

from Warcraft II and Warcraft III. But I’ve no idea what is
Stormwind City, goldshrine, swamp of sorrow, the dead mines
as present in World of Warcraft. I just thought they make up a
new zone to make game’s world larger. I was very excited when
I saw a map which was draw for almost 20 years ago and there
are these zone already there(also the position is matched!!)
Death in search of Goldmine

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 Another thing is mission objective. When first mission started, Conclusion
I’m quite confident on what to do, so I skip the conversation
part and jump directly into the real game.

In the end I’ve found myself struck in stage 1 even I kill all orcs
Warcraft: Orcs and Humans is definitely the great game in
on the map. I figured out later that I need to build barrack and
history. Every game elements was well-made and elegantly
at least 6 farms to pass the level. Unlike Warcraft II, Warcraft
insert into the game.
III or Starcraft there is no mission objective display while I’m
playing it. The only way to know what should I do is to read the
Combine with excellent sound effect and catchy music make a
conversation carefully.
good experiences while playing it.

The old school dificulties delivered the nostalgic feeling when

I was young playing NES games. These feeling which never
happened in my mind for very long time.

Warcraft: Orcs and Humans deserves to be eldest brother in

the Warcraft universe and also eldest brother for real RTS
games.
Mission Briefing from Mission Objective from
Warcraft: Orcs and Humans Warcraft III : The Frozen Throne

As the game progressed, I started to feel familiar with this

game. Some mission is so addictive especially the mission in
dungeon. I have to think before I make a move and form up my
army in the right position. My knights should be at front and
my archers should be in the back while cleric heal the knights
and so on.

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 References

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warcraft:_Orcs_%26_Humans

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blizzard_entertainment

http://au.pc.ign.com/articles/090/090953p1.html

http://www.wowwiki.com

http://www.gamefaqs.com/pc/565021-warcraft-orcs-and-humans/
reviews

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/part-i-the-warcraft/41870