Revisiting the Past

This is kind of a post about Blizzard rather than just WoW.

I've dabbled in each of Blizzard's big 3 in the past: Warcraft, Startcraft, and Diablo.

I played Diablo, but never beat it. I was too unsophisticated as a gamer back then, I think. I remember playing the Warrior (or equivalent) class. By the time I got to the latter third of the game, I was pretty much going down to my current dungeon, killing a few enemies, chaining my health pots in the process, and then heading back to town to restock. Rinse, repeat. It got to feeling like way too slow of a grind. I was pretty sure I was doing it wrong, but wasn't sure how to do it right. So I just stopped.

I don't even know if I own the game anymore. If I do, it's in my parents' basement (as it was technically my dad's game anyway).

I never played Diablo II. After my experiences with the first, I just couldn't muster up the desire.

I played Starcraft. Just the first release, not the expansion. And only the Human campaign. The Zerg and Protoss play-styles both turned me off. One one side, I had to destroy my workers to create anything, meaning I had to churn out an endless supply of them. And I also had to spread that blight stuff around to place things...which meant actual pre-planning was required. On the other side, stuff was strong, but prohibitively expensive to my run-and-gun playstyle. If I lost one big battle, that was it for me.

On top of that, I really didn't follow the story. It was just kinda jump in and do the missions.

Consequently, I never played the expansion. Though I think I may still own both. (Don't ask...I'm not sure how that works out, either.)

I got into Warcraft with the first RTS. I played that one and the second. Although, like Starcraft, I only did the Human campaigns. And I kinda glossed over the story (though I've learned much of it through WoW).

By the time WC3 came out I was in college. I had my own comp, and it was bad. It couldn't handle the demands of WC3, so I never got to play.

Now I'm an adult (which is not to say I've grown up, really) and I have more patience. I'm a more sophisticated gamer than I was before. I care as much (if not more) for the stories of a game than the game itself. I can grasp the intricacies of combat systems and what abilities are meant for what situations. I can play RTS games with a sight on tactics rather than just defending my base while I amass a fleet of the biggest unit available and then charging in to the enemy and hoping I win. And I have a computer that can run just about anything I really want to play. Especially if the games in question are 10 years old now...

With all the time I've sunk into WoW, I've had an itch to go back and (re)play the RTS games that led up to it. Especially WC3.

With SC2 and Diablo III on the horizon, and looking freakin' amazing, I've had more than a slight itch to go back and give those franchises another try right from the start.

Blizz needs to put together and sell (even if only in digital format) an OMGALLOURPASTGAMES bundle. WC1-3 and expansions, SC and expansion, Diablo 1 & 2 (were there expansions)? I'd totally jump on that. Probably faster than I did my sparkle pony...

Update: It turns out I still had my copies of SC and Brood Wars, so I installed those over the weekend and started spending some time here and there playing.

My dad did still have Diablo, and I managed to get that from him.

So 3 down...