"Not alive" but also not "pulling the crotch", for the "Warcraft Arc Light Battle" to say a few fair words

On the B station, open the official game demo video of "Warcraft Arc Light Battle", and immediately see a very eye-catching bullet screen.

"There is no living to bite the lighter".

At one o'clock in the morning on May 4, 2022, Blizzard held a "light" and "small" online conference, the protagonist is the one who can be called to make "black and white silent together", the first native mobile game product of Warcraft IP - "Warcraft Arc Light Battle".

The form of vertical light strategy battle, the familiar design of card exit, fee, cultivation, etc., coupled with cartoon-colored maps, small and flexible characters, it is difficult not to think of the sensational work that Supercell launched 6 years ago. Although many players can't believe it, Blizzard happily served this dish.

As soon as "Warcraft Arc Light Battle" was announced, it caused an uproar on domestic social media.

In the comments section of the official video of Station B, some people feel guilty and say that "mercenary war history sorry, I spoke too loudly before"; some people wondered "Is this an outdated April Fool's Day joke?" Someone lived a whole life of "Illidan True, identified as self-seeking death". Among them, the highest number of likes is "this picture feels like the level of the peak of the blizzard", which makes countless players praise "unattainable".

Regarding the player's reaction, it is more consistent at home and abroad, and the difference is only the yin and yang weird rhetoric used.

On YouTube, the official announcement video of "Warcraft Arc Light Battle" received more than 20,000 stamps on the first day, compared with being complained about by countless people, the new promotional film "Dragon Age" of "World of Warcraft" that only received 20,000 steps a week is really more efficient.

Overseas players are even more ruthless, "Blizzard has fallen from a company that creates epic games to such a point", "I ate a very poor dinner today, thank Blizzard for letting me see such a game, help me spit out my food", "Like this kind of thing, directly back to the furnace to redo is its destination".

The key to why the player's reaction is so great is that the previous words give the player too much illusion.

As early as March this year, the official "World of Warcraft" announced that in the next few months, the launch of "World of Warcraft", "Hearthstone" new expansion packs and the new news of the "Warcraft" IP mobile game under development, especially when emphasizing the "Warcraft" IP mobile game being developed, it also admitted that it will bring a bright future to "Warcraft". And during this time, Overwatch 2 and Diablo 4 have been in constant action, which also gives players the illusion that Blizzard must be preparing for a "big live", until the appearance of "Warcraft Arc Battle".

How to play "that's it"?

The reason why "disgust" has become the first feeling of many players is why Blizzard will take out a leftover thing that someone else plays at this time.

In the Warcraft Arc Creators chat video, veteran 3D artist Justine and game associate director Adam came up to give a comprehensive summary of the game, mobile, strategy, fast-paced, hero collection, villain collection, grand PVE campaigns, dungeons and team quests, PVP and co-op content, and everything included in a Warcraft series of games.

Even so, we can still see a lot of The War Royale shadow in Warcraft Arc.

For example, the cards that the player wants to play, although 2D becomes 3D, becomes a three-dimensional chess piece, but the corresponding cost is used, the designated position appears, and even some of them also have active skills; for example, the overall UI design, the amount of health above, the time of the game, the placement of the chess pieces below and the cost counter; there is also a card cultivation system, which gives numerical improvement through gold coins, and unlocks more talents with the level breakthrough, and different playing styles are matched. These are the basic frameworks that make Clash Royale famous, and they are also part of the essence of this kind of gameplay, and "Warcraft Arc Light Battle" chooses to add on this basis, resulting in a sense of both visual and inevitable.

But Warcraft Arc Also gives its own characteristics that are different from Clash Royale. Adam, the game's deputy director, admitted that "Warcraft Arc Light Battle" is a tower attack gameplay game, but also a "happy and chaotic" tower attack game.

Through some real-machine demonstrations, it can be seen that although it and Clash Royale need to release troops and tear down local bases, the map of Clash Royale is fixed, and its flexibility will be limited after the cards are released, and therefore, the game between cards can be amplified.

And "Warcraft Arc Light Battle" part of the map is relatively large, so large that a mobile phone screen "can not fit", the player may also need to take into account the operation of dragging the map in addition to the operation, which also makes the card game and the path game complete a trade-off between the long and the other, such as this PVE map, the player can complete their own attack from the "tunnel", "above the bridge" and "sky" three paths.

At the same time, gold mines, treasure chests, collection stones, wild bosses, but also make the battlefield more uncertain, some maps also have designated tactical play, the current Azeroth-based map has more than 70, may be updated with the future of its PVE will be upgraded iterations, not to mention the weekly update of the dungeon and cooperation mode, as well as team copies with teammates to attack. This is naturally different from the strategic game that Clash Royale wants to highlight.

In this way, if you think about the "joy and chaos" again, it is likely to be related to the efficiency of cost provision, coupled with multiple paths in the map, perhaps players want to play cards at a faster speed, then if you want to become a high player, you need faster flexible thinking and instantaneous reaction, which is also a certain difference from the strategic game pursued by Clash Royale.

Is Blizzard really "swinging"?

If so, why did Blizzard come up with such a product? The answer is obvious, it's good to cool off under the big trees.

Looking at the current US mobile game revenue rankings, Candy Crush Saga, Clash of Clans, Pokémon GO, Clash Royale, and Coin Master are the first echelon members of the radar for many years, and users have given high recognition to their gameplay, and Blizzard's move is called safe in insurance.

Perhaps in recent years, after countless people leaving and pulling at many events, Blizzard's attempt to take a step forward will be accompanied by countless constraints. At this time, combining its own IP with mature gameplay, putting in your own deeper understanding, completing further strategies for users in different circles, and providing help for Blizzard to quickly recover its decline in the mobile game field will certainly be greater than a time-consuming and laborious, user-targeted, and uncertain Warcraft RPG mobile game.

According to Bloomberg's well-known game industry figure Jason Schreier shared on Twitter, Blizzard actually prepared two Warcraft IP mobile games, one is today's protagonist, and the other is similar to "Pokémon GO", but he said that the project has been canceled. This further shows that the appearance of "Warcraft Arc Light" is inevitable, if "Candy Crush Saga" is not King's product, perhaps players may see a Warcraft version of "Candy Crush Saga".

After combing through the gameplay in this way, and then looking back at the player's remarks, it is not difficult to find that "Warcraft Arc Light Battle" is not because of poor quality that players will complain, the key is that Blizzard should not come up with a game for people to play the rest, and it is not a game that Warcraft players want to see.

What Warcraft players want to see is more of a product with Blizzard's own style and characteristics, an RPG product. At present, there is a rhythm of the official video about "Warcraft Arc Light" on the extranet, which is caused by the sentence "You don't need to know more about the "Warcraft" series, you can also embrace the chaos", and many Blizzard extreme fans are making articles about this, thinking that Blizzard is abandoning the old users who have followed them for many years.

Although it is a bit nonsensical, the idea can be recognized because the Warcraft players feel that they have put too much energy into Blizzard, have too much expectation, and they feel that Blizzard should focus more on taking care of the ideas of us veteran players than on coming up with such a product to deal with.

How much you expect, how disappointed, such a reaction is really scary, but Blizzard should also think more about the players who always follow them, after all, your today, they gave it.

Write at the end:

To be fair, there are many places where the Warcraft IP can be written in a big book, especially after the successful case of "Hearthstone", even if 8 years have passed, there are still many people looking forward to the emergence of a new version, and the constantly updated "Tavern Wargame" is still one of the two most successful self-propelled chess products at present. Even the new "World of Warcraft" promotional film "Age of Dragons" has been ridiculed by many people as a feedback brought about by the successful operation of the Dragon Year of Hearthstone.

Image source: Famous Warcraft fan artist "Cross"

Unfortunately, the presentation of the Warcraft IP in "Warcraft Arc Light Battle" is really lacking, so lacking that IP users do not recognize it, and the public players do not feel cold.

Although the toy character display retains many outstanding features in the appearance of the character, it lacks the soul that should have been owned; and more than 60 characters, divided into 5 major forces such as alliances, tribes, undead, beasts and black stones, are also very limited to satisfy the users of the Warcraft IP.

Perhaps using the IP of Warcraft to satisfy Warcraft players, and using market-tested gameplay to make players more generalized happy, is the main reason why Blizzard pushed "Warcraft Arc Light Battle" to the table. But this time for the use of IP, it seems to say that if it really needs to be abandoned in "loyalty and public", the current Blizzard should choose the former.

Now it seems that the controversy surrounding Warcraft Arc will not disappear anytime soon, although in an interview with GameBraves, art director Jeremy Collins and senior software engineer Andy Lim said that it does not include microtransactions and unboxing elements, nor will it join the NFT, making it a little less spray point.

"Warcraft Arc Light Battle" will be launched in 2022, whether it is good or bad, it will be known at that time. It may be a bit unbearable, but as one review said, "Blizzard has no work, Blizzard has collapsed!" "I'm sorry, it's not far from that point.