blizzards april scherz [Archive]

`peOn

2nd April 2002, 10:03

Warcraft III drops another race, faces further delays

Blizzard decides to remove the orc faction from its upcoming real-time strategy sequel.

Today GameSpot spoke with a source at Blizzard Entertainment who stated that, based on considerable test data, the developer has decided to remove another playable race from the game: the orcs. The game was originally intended to have six playable races, but Blizzard cut an unannounced race in mid-2000,and later turned the demons into a non-playable race. Rather than keep the orcs as a non-playable race, Blizzard has decided to remove the race from the game altogether.
"They just weren't working out," the Blizzard representative said. "One thing we've learned from Starcraft, and from the [Warcraft III] beta, is that having four sides is a lot harder to balance than having three sides." When asked specifically about what issues prompted the decision, the representative replied, "Well, it was really when we removed the pig farms a little while ago. The testers all loved that, so we were all, like, "Why stop there?'"

When asked about how Blizzard expected its fans to react, the representative answered that the change "should be OK," and explained, "[The orcs] have never really been that important to the [Warcraft] series anyway. We could've had the night elves in Warcraft II instead, and it totally would've been the same." The representative added, "And don't worry about the single-player campaign." We then asked about the Warcraft III box design, which features an orc prominently on the cover, he replied, "Yeah, we'll probably have an announcement about that later this week."

Blizzard also stated that the new change will probably affect the game's release date, as the game's producers will "need more time to rebalance the game now that the orcs are gone." The new expected release date will be sometime next year. We'll have more updates on Warcraft III and its ongoing beta soon.

:: orginal http://gamespot.com/gamespot/stories/news/0,10870,2859460,00.html