Warcraft 3: Reforged has arrived, and with it, a whole lot of controversy from the Warcraft 3 community. Some feel that Blizzard’s remaster doesn’t live up to its potential – or its early showings – and that disappointment has been compounded with the fact that the game has merged clients, meaning that anyone who wants to play the original Warcraft 3 is out of luck.
All Warcraft 3 players – whether they’ve purchased Reforged or not – have had to download a large update through Battle.net that converts the old client into the new one. Classic players can continue playing with the old graphics in the new client for free, and Reforged owners can swap to the old graphics with a toggle in the options menu.
However, the new client does not support many of the original online features. There are no online ladders, no clans, no player profiles, and no automated tournaments. Reforged does have skill-based matchmaking, but now there’s little way to track your progress against the broader community.
Reforged also drops support for custom campaigns, so while you can continue to play individual custom maps, there’s no longer a way to play the full, game-length story mods.
Custom maps have had a whole separate wave of controversy, as PC Gamer reports. Blizzard’s updated EULA makes it clear that all custom games now belong to the company, which would theoretically prevent anyone from – just as wild example – creating a custom, competitive multiplayer online battle arena (maybe call it a MOBA for short), and directly spawning at least two of the most wildly successful games on the planet.