
The Making of Warcraft 1: Origin of the series & creation of multi-unit select - pwnyx
http://www.codeofhonor.com/blog/the-making-of-warcraft-part-1
======
knowtheory
> Before I started in the game industry I had worked extensively with several
> low-end “Computer Assisted Design” (CAD) programs like MacDraw and MacDraft
> to design wine-cellars for my dad’s wine cellar business, so it seemed
> natural to use the “click & drag” rectangle-selection metaphor to round up a
> group of units to command.

> I believe that Warcraft was the first game to use this user-interface
> metaphor. When I first implemented the feature it was possible to select and
> control large numbers of units at a time; there was no upper limit on the
> number of units that could be selected.

I wonder if this wasn't a possible case of patent infringement given the
current definitions folks are using to sue.

~~~
netcoyote
[note: I wrote the Warcraft article]

/agree

If the patent-standards for the 80's and 90's were as awful as today, I'm sure
that some CAD company would have locked up the idea of drag-select, and the
Macintosh WIMP interface (and hence MacDraw/MacDraft) would have been legally
impossible to create.

On a related note, after Blizzard Entertainment was acquired along with Sierra
Entertainment in a corporate merger, I got to meet one of the principal
developers of some of the old Sierra-style adventure games. One of his first
questions was about the Warcraft path-finding algorithm. When I explained how
I had written the algorithm (which I invented independently -- never having
done any reading on path-finding), he said (more or less) "yeah, Sierra has a
patent on that, but we don't enforce it". Incidentally, the algorithm was
awful but functional -- it's apparently known as "crash and turn", but was
clever in using minimal CPU since it had to run on the limited computers of
the day.

The fact that it was possible for Sierra to patent something that a junior
programmer like myself (at that time, 3 years of professional experience)
could invent from whole cloth shows how weak the patent system is for software
engineering.

~~~
knowtheory
Well, apropos of nothing, i just wanted to say this was a great article to
read, and I hope you won't mind me indulging in a fan-boy moment by saying
that the original Warcraft was a formative experience for me, and I spent much
of middle school dreaming up and sketching out a game that was almost
identical to Starcraft. :)

~~~
netcoyote
Glad you enjoyed the game, and thanks for the kind words. It was very exciting
to build the game, particularly after the multiplayer code was functional --
we just knew folks were going to like it!

~~~
agumonkey
I discovered time travel with warcraft1, 25 min in mind-time, 8 hours in
realworld-time.

------
twelvechairs
> It’s surprising now to think what might have happened had Blizzard not
> controlled the intellectual property rights for the Warcraft universe — it’s
> highly unlikely Blizzard would be such a dominant player in the game
> industry today.

This seems a very important observation. Its interesting how most of the major
pre-computer fantasy universes with big fan-bases (Battletech, Dungeons and
Dragons, Warhammer, Star Wars etc.) never managed to really transition
seriously into computer games (a few hits but lots of misses and certainly no
dominant series like warcraft and starcraft). I think the licencers of these
worlds have been guilty of being far too greedy over the years as a general
rule, and hurt their own pockets through doing so...

Also - great article. I loved playing Warcraft 1, and despite the fact that
the 'RTS race' soon exploded and left it in the rear-vision mirror, it was
still incredibly important in defining the genre... (as a side note, most of
the other Blizzard games around this time were great too - must have been a
great team).

~~~
mikeklaas
What? DnD was the dominant force in 90's computer rpgs
(BG/BG2/IWD/IWD2/Planescape Torment), and continued into the aughts with
NWN/KOTOR/KOTOR2. There are several candidates for greatest rpg of all time on
that list.

Star Wars has had its share of filler games, but also produced many truly
great games. X-Wing/Tie Fighter were huge, and Dark Forces/Jedi Knight were
pretty important in the early fps days. I've already mentioned KOTOR.

~~~
twelvechairs
I guess that statement was a bit of a stretch, probably I could have worded
slightly differently, but I'm not sure its too far from reality. If you look
at [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-
selling_PC_video_g...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-
selling_PC_video_games) the only games which are up there are BG/BG2, NWN, and
Star Wars Galaxies. Which is pitifully few for such previously dominant
companies which had huge fan bases.... Also probably reflects that WoTC did a
better job after buying the D&D trademarks (1997 - just before for 3/4 of
these games) after TSR completely failed to capitalise for 15 years or so...

~~~
Retric
Lists like that are dominated by recent releases because of how rapidly the
industry has expanded over the last 30 years.

~~~
twelvechairs
This is true, but through the 80s and 90s (excluding the last few years
discussed above) there were very few big games from these franchises either.
Battletech had its most successful game in Mechwarrior 2, but this wasnt
really huge. Star Wars fared a the best with a few reasonable hits - Tie
Fighter, X wing vs., Dark Forces and Jedi Knight, but none of these were
really anything approaching the scale of Warcraft 2. D&D released games all
the time but few of them were better than mediocre (Eye of the Beholder was
probably the biggest). Warhammer had nothing either.

------
everlost
> Stu is quite memorable as a voice actor in the role of Human Peon, where his
> rendition of a downtrodden brute-laborer was comedic genius.

Nice to finally know the person behind the still-funny-in-my-head warcraft
phrases - "Yes me lord", "Who me", "Uhuhuh"

~~~
DiabloD3
"Your sound card works perfectly." "Your sound card works perfectly." "Your
sound card works perfectly." "Enjoying yourself?" "Your sound card works
perfectly." "Your sound card works perfectly." "Your sound card works
perfectly." "It doesn't get any better than this!"

~~~
ninjin
For those wanting to experience those days again (or for the first time?):

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_A1GNx0M9M>

Another one that springs to mind is from Constructor; "Hello this is
constructor are you receiving?" with that very distinct British accent.

------
MikeCapone
I spent my youth playing Dune 2 (and then Warcraft, etc).

This brings back so many memories. I had to find some Dune 2 gameplay on
youtube... Hoping some people here will enjoy it too:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiJLOjeyDxs>

Being a fan of Starcraft 2, I can't believe how painful it was to have to
select each unit individually... Glad the mechanics of RTSes have evolved.

~~~
jameskilton
Same here. Dune 2 is the game that made me a gamer. It's also the game I beat
the most times consecutively (iirc twice per side, so 6 times), with the next
closes being Westwood's Nox (which coincidentally was the game that showed me
how awesome multiplayer could be).

Ah nostalgia hit, thanks OP!

------
cpeterso
I read that _World of_ Warcraft was born when playtesting prototypes of
Warcraft III, the first 3D version in the Warcraft series. People were having
so much fun just running around with their 3D heroes that the concept grew.
This is a great example of letting the product lead _you_.

~~~
phaus
Unfortunately, while the heroes may have inspired WoW, they also ruined the
series. With the 3rd installment, Warcraft ceased to be a real-time strategy
game and became an action-rpg. The heroes were so overpowered that you could
win by focusing entirely on power-leveling your hero instead of building a
city and managing units.

~~~
esrauch
Do you mean the single player? While Warcraft 3 is much more micro-focused
than earlier games, in even mildly competitive online play 1 grunt early on or
mildly incorrect base layout is often the difference between winning and
losing. You couldn't possibly win with only heroes.

------
MBCook
> While Warcraft was a DOS “Protected Mode” game, the modem driver could be
> called from both Protected Mode and Real Mode due to quirks in the DOS
> operating system and the 80386 chip-architecture it ran on [...]

Could someone provide more information on this? I'm guessing it had to do with
the fact the serial interrupt could occur while some DOS system call was
executing 16 bit code (or perhaps BIOS code)?

~~~
netcoyote
Yes, you've got it exactly.

When running in real mode, if an interrupt arrived the processor would switch
to protected mode, handle the interrupt, and return to real mode.

This real->protected->real switching process was so slow on the computers of
the day that it was possible to lose data, so it was necessary to write both
real and protected mode interrupt handlers to grab data off the serial port.

You can imagine how much fun this type of code would be to write without any
debugging tools or an Internet filled with code-samples.

------
diminoten
It's a great illustration, this story, about how seemingly unimportant
decisions can be made that then get carried down through a company for _years_
into the future.

------
MikeCapone
I can't wait for part 2. I wish there was a book written about the early days
of Blizzard or Westwood Studios and those kind of great companies, kind of
like the book Masters of Doom about id Software, or Revolution in the Valley
about Apple.

~~~
Wilduck
Have you read the journals of Jordan Mechner from when he was developing
Prince of Persia? They're a fascinating look at the development of early
computer games.

<http://jordanmechner.com/old-journals/>

~~~
barbs
Looks fascinating, but I can't get to page 2 :(

------
MikeCapone
This makes me wonder; would it be possible to get software patents on various
game mechanics? What if the first RTS producer had patented a lot of it? Is
that so different from smartphone interface patents?

~~~
michaelbuckbee
Yes, there are some that have already been granted. The most famous one I'm
aware of is the patent on having mini-games in loading screens:

[http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2008/03/patents-on-video-
game-...](http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2008/03/patents-on-video-game-
mechanics-may-strangle-innovation/)

~~~
fsckin
Kinda like this?

[http://kotaku.com/5595453/youtube-easter-egg-lets-you-
play-s...](http://kotaku.com/5595453/youtube-easter-egg-lets-you-play-snake)

------
justjimmy
Thanks so much for the article. I grew up on W2, C&C and after 15 years, it's
always nice to know how it all came to be/worked in the back ground and the
little details of it all.

"Work, work."

------
kleiba
For some reason I love reading about the development of those old game
classics, be it Warcraft, Prince of Persia, or Paradroid...

------
PuercoPop
What about Dune II? It was way ahead of its time. If I remember correctly it
had unlimited unit select.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune_II>

~~~
ninjin
> Unlike Dune 2, which only allowed the user to select a single unit at a
> time, and which necessitated frenzied mouse-clicking to initiate joint-unit
> tactical combat, it was obvious that enabling players to select more than
> one unit would speed task-force deployment and dramatically improve game
> combat.

Dune II is the grandfather of all of modern RTS (for good and for bad, the
genre hasn't changed that much). But the unlimited unit select wasn't there
and starting/cancelling an attack when you had twenty or so units was a joke.
I wasn't even a teenager at the time and I can remember desperately trying to
get large groups of units off the sand when the sandword was inbound (some
people will know what I am talking about).

What I find really interesting in the article is this:

> Later in the development process, and after many design arguments between
> team-members, we decided to allow players to select only four units at a
> time based on the idea that users would be required to pay attention to
> their tactical deployments rather than simply gathering a mob and sending
> them into the fray all at once.

This, this is probably the reason why Warcraft and Warcraft II (even
Starcraft!) had this limitation. As a kid I could never figure out why this
was the case when Westwood had no limits on unit selection from Command and
Conquer and onwards.

~~~
Argorak
Starting and canceling an attack was actually quite easy: Turn game speed all
the way down to a crawl, click all the stuff you have to click, turn speed up
again :).

------
incision
He admits to the Warhammer influence.

Mass fanboy seppuku in 5, 4, 3...

~~~
cdmckay
I thought that influence was common knowledge?

~~~
sukuriant
Ditto. Especially for Starcraft.

~~~
netcoyote
Actually the influences for Starcraft were -- I think -- much broader than
those for Warcraft.

Warcraft was heavily inspired by Tolkien and Warhammer, whereas Starcraft drew
inspiration from basically every sci-fi series ever made, most particularly
the Alien series (compare the Zerg Hydralisk to Giger's Alien) and of course
from the art direction of Starship Troopers. But yeah, Warhammer 40K was
inspirational too.

The artwork for the two alien races in Starcraft were each redone _three_
separate times. The biggest challenge was that players couldn't easily (and
quickly) grok the differences between the various units.

In Warcraft, you look at a lumber mill or barracks, and you have an idea what
it is and what it might be used for. In Starcraft the difficulty was that --
upon initially playing the game -- it was tough to tell what any unit or
building _did_ for you.

Consequently making game units that looked visually familiar by including
known sci-fi elements is useful in that -- when done well -- gives players a
clue as to the function of a unit.

Or at least that's what we told ourselves when we ripped elements from other
games & movies :)

~~~
meric
It was playing warcraft & starcraft that got me into warhammer and warhammer
40k when I was in high school, rather than the other way around. Funny that.

