@Keith Mowz  
don’t get me wrong though, I understand the shortcomings of old RTS games, I just feel there was something more to it when the thing about it was just how out there RTS games felt like. For instance, with Dune you had the worms, a completely off the wall thing that made it stand out, instead of the controlled economy that the technically superior and almighty Starcraft 2 has, however exciting that may sound to people.
 
that’s one of my biggest gripes with RTS games nowadays, besides the fact that there’s barely any of them made anymore.

@Keith Mowz  
(Though, on the other hand, as far as modding goes, it had some of the best. It birthed DOTA and I lost I don’t know how many hours playing Green TD.)

@toxicitzi  
Oh, no, you misread my comment, I was not in any way inferring that the original Starcraft wasn’t an awesome well-oiled machine that still holds up to this day. That was partially my point, actually; WC3 felt like a step back.

@Keith Mowz  
well, that could be true for warcraft 3, but I hold my opinion on Starcraft knowing its stuff.
 
For instance, from a design pov, all units are a lot more individualized, much like their own factions. For example, protoss units take up more food and resources, but are a lot stronger and have shield on top of life, while zerg are the cheapest to produce making them the most massive in numbers, but also regenerate and evolve through upgrades, where as terran are somewhere in the middle of technology and numbers, making for a mix of both Protoss and Zerg similarities. I can’t for the life of me get any kind of sense in each faction/race from Wc3’s like that, I know that undead is, undead.. or that humans are the humans.. or that orcs are the beast faction. and night elves are supreme douche bags.  
other than that, what I’m trying to say is that there isn’t any kind of intrinsic difference in any of the 4 factions in Wc3. It’s only slightly less similar to Wc2 in that regard, where both humans and orcs share pretty much the same kinds of units in almost the same order as one another, with a few differences in abilities, but none too striking.
 
as for the controls of Starcraft though, I won’t argue there much. The micro managing aspect makes for some great moments, personally, but the pathfinding is terrible, everyone knows the infamous dragoon pathing..
 
on another note though, regarding RTS games like Sc2, I’ll just say that the whole design of managing your economy is very much overrated and fucking stupid.. I don’t mind gathering resources in RTS games, but Sc2 took it a step further and made it unbearable for me, to the point where you have to be sure they’re doing their job to win the game, instead of actually focusing on the god damn combat.

@Mike
 
Yeah, It’s a pain. But I like to present all options.

@Keith Mowz  
I mostly want to play it for the lore and stuff.
 
@Rikmach  
Lol, I’m not gonna run dosbox to play an old game like that.

@Mike
 
Yup, that’s the ticket. The old ones run pretty well on Dosbox, but it’s a pain to even need it.
 
 
@Keith Mowz
 
Yeah, I can’t rightly say Warcraft 3 is bad, but good god does it show it’s age.

Honestly? I went back and played WC3 again and it did not age well at ALL in my opinion. The combat feels glacial to me, playing it over again between replaying both Starcraft and Starcraft II. It felt like it took a solid 10 seconds of coordinated attacking to kill a single unit, and like a solid minute for buildings. In retrospect I suppose I could partially fix that by just cranking up the game’s processing speed but on the other OTHER hand the combat itself doesn’t feel balanced for playing it any faster.
 
And at this point it’s lost one of what was by far the coolest things about the whole experience in tandem with World of Warcraft, the fact that you could go from the RTS to the MMO and actually see all these places in full scale. But then the Cataclysm happened. So now while you’ve got all this sweet world development (and dear god was vanilla DESPERATELY in need of an overhaul from a gameplay standpoint) you can no longer go back and experience it how it was.

@Rikmach  
Yeah, I looked on amazon for the first, and it said “DOS”  
I don’t think so.  
They have the Warcraft 3 Battle Chest for 20 bucks, though, and if I’m not mistaken, that’s all of it, right? If so, I’ll go with that one.

@Mike
 
Hmmm. Getting Warcraft: Orcs & Humans is basically impossible these days. It’s got some interesting stuff in it, (Like early attempts to do “Dungeon” missions and heroic units that were used again in Starcraft and more fully realized in Warcraft 3) but it’s very clearly blizzards “I’m just learning how to RTS”, both sides are basically identical, with only minor variation, and the story is doled in text screend. I’d only really recommend it if you want to go really old school RTS, and really want to see the non-canon human end.
 
Warcraft 2: Tides of Darkness… ah, I cut my teeth on this one. It’s a bit easier to get- I believe Blizzard sells a digital copy on their site. Blizzard gets a bit more experimental, each side becoming more distinct, but there’s still basically a one-to-one comparison for everything on each side. The text blocks got upgraded to voiceovers, and there’s some CG FMVs as well.
 
Really, while I love this game, I can’t recommend it, again, unless you really want to get your old-school RTS on, but I can recommend it with less reservations than Orcs & Humans.
 
Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos, and it’s Expansion, Frozen Throne, while getting long in the tooth (The 3D models look truly awful), it’s much more fully relaized with Voice acting, hero units, dungeon maps, and many of teh other innovations it’s famous for. Reign of Chaos gives you enough backstory so you’re not hopelessly lost, and it’s very gripping. If you really want to experience everythign yourself, and don’t mind slummign it in old-schol RTS? Play ‘em in order, if you can manage it. If not, tides of Darkness is a good place to start. If you don’t want to go old-school, then Start with Reign of Chaos then Frozen Thone.

@Rikmach  
I’ve actually been interested in playing the old RTS Warcrafts. Should I start with the first one, or does it matter if I jump right to Warcraft 3?

@Mike
 
Eh, it’s a bit different when you’re personally playing through his triumphs and failures than just being informed of them. I recomend the game, it’s a good bit of fun, even if you don’t care for one of the protagonists. (And hey, you get to play as Arthas a big chunk of the game, too.)

@Rikmach  
And yes, I am aware of Illidan’s backstory, but I’ve still never really found him interesting.

@Rikmach  
No.

@Mike
 
Did you play Warcraft III?

I soloed Black Temple once, and Illidan never really seemed interesting to me. Arthas on the other hand…

Face it, Luna’s imprisonment was still much more deserved.

@dt  
the internets take everything seriously and personally

Well at least she got back with her sibling
 
Where as Illidan got a pretty raw deal all around, all things considered.

Ok, I’m giving you props OP for actually giving a sarcastic comeback instead of filling us in with a robotic sentence that in no way could come from another intelligent, living being and in no way, Illidan, about what exactly he’s going on about..

not prepared intensifies

Now that it’s actually happened, I’m very surprised that it didn’t happen sooner.

Honestly, I felt genuinely terrible about killing Illidan, because it felt so goddamn pointless. Yeah, he wasn’t a nice person and made terrible decisions, but he always meant well, even if he kept getting caught in his own ego- and we had the same enemies. Why are we fighting? I would have much rather helped him fight demons and maybe get his help when we finally whupped Arthas rather than murder him.
 
But oh well, plot dictates he’s a villian, so a-stabbing we will go.

Oh, and you could probably add the old gods (c’thun, yogg’saron, y’sarrj) to this pic too.

@ArrJaySketch  
I joined the week before wrath went live so I never caught any of it. Though I’ve heard about what Rivendare’s deathcharger did to people.