Idea: Warcraft IV powered by the Age of Empires-team

[Z3ROR]

Have you guys thought about this? Now Microsoft owns Blizzard that means that some power of other studio's can be used to help out Blizzard with their franchises.

What if Relic Entertainment or former Ensemble Studio, known for creating Age of Empires, assists Blizzard developing Warcraft IV.

I think that would be epic. A new Warcraft RTS with it's phenominal storytelling combined with epic large battlefields. Not just an army of 12 humans/orcs, but 100+ humans/orcs.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

The last time a Warcraft RTS game was outsourced to another studio, we got Reforged. No thanks.

[Vonazak]

Age of Empires IV flopped hard. So, no.

[Xilurm]

I don't care who does it. As long as they don't get shafted like the Blizz RTS team wasn't fired by Activision they can probably make something.

[Snowfunk]

Age of Empires IV flopped hard. So, no.

Can only agree, AoE IV is awful, looks like mobile trash.
They are putting some money into it, so some people are playing it.

But majority of Age community is still sticking with Age II.

[ek0zu]

I played a lot of TFT back in the day and i can safely say that i prefered the Manageble armies that Warcraft compared to those that AoE did. Warcraft had a very good blent o micro and macro that i fondly remember. AoE was a good game but it was nowhere near as good as Warcraft3 was. However, i would like to see Microsoft assisting Blizzard in making a Fourth Installment in our beloved franchise.

[Kathandira]

Have you guys thought about this? Now Microsoft owns Blizzard that means that some power of other studio's can be used to help out Blizzard with their franchises.

What if Relic Entertainment or former Ensemble Studio, known for creating Age of Empires, assists Blizzard developing Warcraft IV.

I think that would be epic. A new Warcraft RTS with it's phenominal storytelling combined with epic large battlefields. Not just an army of 12 humans/orcs, but 100+ humans/orcs.

Unless it is a "Wars of the Past" theme, Blizzard isn't putting out anything that would have a story related to WoW. If it were an RTS to play through previous battles that were in books and in games that would work. But the MMO is the vehicle for moving the story forward, and I don't think they would release something that would further muddy the lore waters.

[Jastall]

I'd be over the moon with a Warcraft 4 in the same quality ballpark as Starcraft 2 was, especially on the campaign side. But Blizzard has made clear that the vehicle for Warcraft's story going forward is WoW, and that's not changing anytime soon. They won't throw good money at a genre considered niche. They did that once with SC2 and it worked but now it wouldn't be approved, and if Microsoft approves any RTS (already a bit of a long shot) it would be SC3 I believe.

Also IMO if RTS have a future it's on the campaign and custom games front. Leave the sweaty E-sports stuff to MOBAs. 4X games and titles like Total War have managed to survive, and sometimes thrive, because they embrace the single-player, sandbox experience where you get to have fun without the pressure of getting trucked because you haven't got your timings down to a nanosecond. But Blizzard games are always, always focused on multiplayer first so they won't do that either.

[Vankrys]

Given how Blizzard has treated Starcraft 2 in the past few years, i am not holding my breath for Warcraft 4.

[Z3ROR]

I totally agree on the Blizzard is bad with RTS lately. That's why i brought up the possibility of Relic Entertainment or former Ensemble Studio to help out on RTS part of the Blizzard games. I think they can do a lot more with it. AoE 2 Def is great and AoE 4 was interesting (maybe not good, but it wasn't that bad either). So I believe if they worked together with Blizzard to make a new Starcraft or Warcraft RTS that it would be great.

[Vonazak]

AOE II is still the peak of what a RTS must be, easy to learn, hard to master, simple mechanics, with some nonsense built on top of it.

Blizzard can pull a Warcraft IV without hiring another studio, W3 was good enough, you do not need to reinvent the wheel, just update graphics, do some improvements here and there and thats it.

There are no good modern RTS.