championtoxote
Mortal
posted 18 August 2008 12:14 PM EDT (US)
Now I've been looking up a ton of stuff about AoM and WC3 to find out which one's just BETTER. And I don't want to hear any crap about "they can't be compared" because they definitely CAN be.
My personal opinion is that AoM has:
-Better physics: [WC3 doesn't have physics at all, whereas AoM has units being tossed and electrocuted, etc.]
-More units
-More upgrades
-SHIPS
-No unfair advantages [just think about it]
-Realistic (to the most part) stories behind each unit and idea [there WERE these civilizations and the weapons are actually realistic; ie. swords, spears etc.]
WC3 however has tons of unfair advantages, such as flying units. What the hell? Flying units in WC3 are so stupid! The main idea behind my reasoning is that WC3 has such an expensive, small scale gameplay that there's never time to build up your forces to actually ATTACK. In AoM you can simply build up ten archers in a matter of MINUTES so that you can get rid of a flying unit. Buildings and units aren't that valuable also. WC3 has every unit being worth a ton to you. Also, what were they THINKING when they added HEROES? RPG elements in an RTS? Geez! This is pathetic! And still, people get the game and say 'it's better than AoM'! AoM is a classic RTS with a great story and tons and tons of features. There is NOTHING that WC3 has that AoM doesn't have. AoM just doesn't have all these stupid heroes that you 'level up'. Instead, Ensemble (bless their genius) replaced that with God Powers which make a lot more sense.
Please, I want input on this.
P.S. I got my Product Key Codes!!! YAY! Thank you, UbiSoft!
E:8)
pcgamer7070
Mortal
posted 18 August 2008 04:47 PM
EDT (US)
1 / 48
more people play warcraft 3 however its mostly dota which isn't rts. however most people playing aom play scenarios which is not rts. aom is better for the actual strategy. if you want to play rpgs go to wc3(but why would you want to play rpgs 11)
chaosakita
Mortal
posted 18 August 2008 08:59 PM
EDT (US)
4 / 48
From what I've seen (not very much), people prefer to play the user-created maps than the actual RPG.
championtoxote
Mortal
posted 19 August 2008 02:45 PM
EDT (US)
6 / 48
Great! I thought it was just me! But seriously now: why not just go get an RPG?
championtoxote
Mortal
posted 20 August 2008 01:14 PM
EDT (US)
8 / 48
Ahhh... You misunderstand me!
Flying units are fine. Just not when you have limited unit numbers.
In WC3, a civilization that heavily relies upon ground units and has maybe one type of ranged unit - THAT YOU HAVE TO UNLOCK - vs. a civ. that has GARGOYLES and DRAGONS can't possibly win. The nature of these unbalances really make the game grotesque, especially the fact that towers take maybe 30 seconds to build and have, like, a TON of health. This causes usually a player to wall themselves in with towers (oh yeah - no WALLS). Nothing can get past this.
Please. Heroes in WC3 and AoM are just similar in NAME...
pcgamer7070
Mortal
posted 20 August 2008 02:38 PM
EDT (US)
9 / 48
aom has good graphics and it came out 2002. warcraft3 graphics are okay but i don't particularly like them.
what graphics cards do you guys have? i have geforce8800 kickass graphics card. this is only for true pcgamers
pcgamer7070
Mortal
posted 23 August 2008 10:51 PM
EDT (US)
13 / 48
magician you don't know wtf you are talking about. aom takes way more micro the wc3. wc3 has two resources, heroes that pwn everyone, and 3 races.
aom has 12 different gods, a large amount of maps that will change your strategy(strategy depends on gods and map) and atleast 2-3 strategies for each god. aom also has much more economic micro and battle micro with unit counters ect.
wc3 is horrible strategy game
championtoxote
Mortal
posted 25 August 2008 10:11 AM
EDT (US)
16 / 48
Well, to be honest, graphics aren't the main thing important in WC3. People don't play for graphics alone. I mentioned most of the problems and lackings in my first post, but I should clarify them here:
Heros make the game unbalanced, too much micromanaging.
This causes less focus on more important RTS-style aspects such as economy and military. This causes economy to fall lower than it already does, mostly because there isn't that much population anyways, so the player will not create too many peons to begin with.
Once the main battle starts, when everyone has a good amount of resources coming in, air units take the fun out of the game. To be specific: since you have limited resources and the units train so slowly, you can as some races create unbelievably powerful beasts that fly around in the air attacking ground units. The opponent, however, must build 'riflemen' or stuff like that to counter the air units. However, the riflemen will never be powerful enough to take down the air units and the only good defense is towers.
May I also complain about the grid system in WC3. AoM you can build anything anywhere, WC3 you can't. It reminds me of a game called 'Lego RockRaiders'...
Seriously. I think the graphics are just fine in WC3. It's just that the lack of ships and the replacement of units with heros and the dumbing down of the economy with two resources instead of - four - really ruins the game. If I had to choose between WC3 and AoM, I'd definitely go with AoM because of all these reasons.
AoM's heros aren't 'micromanaged' so you you can't say that they both have 'heros'.
E:8)
pcgamer7070
Mortal
posted 25 August 2008 01:32 PM
EDT (US)
18 / 48
for me blizzard doesn't make great rts. they are good at rpgs but there rts sux. i mean the only reason why people play warcraft is for dota which is basically a mini rpg. starcraft is no popular anymore. i have been on a few times in the last several months and not that many people play. of course i don't know to much about starcraft because by the time i was old enough to play it the game was dead and i was playing aom.
championtoxote
Mortal
posted 25 August 2008 09:42 PM
EDT (US)
19 / 48
Well, I personally haven't played StarCraft, and I hope I don't go on another tangent here...
How are those kinds of games made, I mean; sci-fi RTSs?
Aren't they all ranged units without any melee?
Please clear me up people! I love fantasy and mythology, ROMANS most of all (which AoM doesn't have unfortunately, but Destroyers are close enough). I just don't see how that kinda RTS could exist, with only ranged units.
ilyapapa
Mortal
posted 25 August 2008 10:00 PM
EDT (US)
20 / 48
this is how it works for cnc:
buggy>rifleman
rifleman>rpg
rpg>tank
tank>buggy
sc has melee units like zealots
The1337JC
Mortal
posted 26 August 2008 04:28 AM
EDT (US)
22 / 48
I'm a huge fan of both. I mostly played Warcraft 3 for like 2 years but I have periods where I'm into AOM and I'm on a big AOM high at the moment.
I really think you're missing the point by saying that War3 has RPG elements. The point of the game is not specifically to level your hero but rather to not let your enemy's hero become too powerful. It just means that you're not throwing units at each other and letting them die while you mass econ, and it keeps your interaction more involved with the combat (both in terms of micro, as well as watching when and where to fight). Nothing is really expendable and that includes buildings, which are relatively expensive. It's not THAT different to unit promotions in the C&C series.
The RTS elements are still there - you can dedicate a lot of resources to economy by getting early expansions (gold mines) or you can use those resources to build units to pressure your opponent or to stop him from getting expansions. It takes considerable amounts of resources to advance to the next age ("Tier") to get more powerful upgrades.
The thing about War3 is that whatever you are doing you pretty much have to dedicate yourself to whatever you decide to do. If you want to get an expansion, you need to adjust your build to cover the costs, then you have to have the appropriate amount of units to clear a gold mine, then you have to defend both your base and your expansion from harassment. If you want to go air you will have to dedicate the resources to that, making you vulnerable in the meantime, and its possible for anti-air to be start being produced before your air units are even underway. The opponent has to strategize whether he wants to try and prevent you from following whichever strategy you decide to go for or to further advance his own winning strategy.
All these things are why Warcraft is still very much an RTS game at heart, just one that plays very differently to AOM. There's a much stronger focus on micro, and certainly not just the micro of your hero (almost all units have abilities besides attack, and collision boxes are far more noticable, enabling surrounds and so on). There is a huge depth to the game that is perhaps not as apparent as AOM's massive Civilization trees, but it is there. All that stuff you mentioned about choosing your strategy based on the map and your opponent's major god very much applies to War3. Some maps accomodate towers better than others, others favor fast expansions or power creeping, others favor fast units over slower ones, and so on.
On graphics, I'd say a lot of the unit animations for AOM are worse than Warcraft's. Look at the closeups on Arkantos during the single player campaign and compare to the close ups on the death knight Arthas, and Arkantos comes out looking pretty bad. Of course, you can't argue with the terrain and building graphics of AOM -- they are simply gorgeous. I think the main thing that Warcraft's graphics focuses on (and this extends to World of Warcraft too) is to make sure the graphics are well themed across the races, to provide an overall effect and immersion into that civilization, army or environment, rather than making each individual unit into it's own eye popping masterpiece. You can tell any unit in War3 belongs to a particular race immediately, whereas many of the Myth units and some of the units in AOM could easily have gone to different races and nobody would batted an eyelid. (Some more than others -- I mean, Anubits, Wadgets and Scarabs are all very Egyptian themed, but others like Fire Giants, Hydras, Valkyries, Cyclops, Minotaur could all go either way).
And don't get me wrong, I'm not a huge fan of the Battle.net interface, but playing on b.net after playing on ESO is like advancing from the Archaic age to the Heroic age ><.
Overall, they are both great games and the fact that they are so different means people like me get to enjoy all that both games have to offer while the staunch fanboys (on both sides) miss out on one or the other ^^.
championtoxote
Mortal
posted 26 August 2008 07:50 PM
EDT (US)
24 / 48
E:8)
I see...
Well, to finally spill my guts and give away why the hell I posted this in the first place is this:
I want a PRO-AoM string that evenly compares the two games. There are way too many PRO-WC3 forums online. I wonder why people would spend so much time posting about a game and not playing it... Oh well... They're both great games, but I really think that WC3 doesn't give the RTS genre its full potential. 90 Population limit?!
And for the unit animations, I think the reason units in AoM aren't detailed that much are that they have to have a lot more stuff on the screen at once. If the figures were any more detailed I bet some slower computers out there would lag a LOT.
Gameplay considered, AoM is better. Same with graphics and units.
Online menus, okay, I'll give that to WC3.
But as for graphics, I dunno. The unit animations and the terrains and textures do cancel each other out.
I personally enjoy going in random battles with deathmatch, but I haven't been online yet - (yes, that's true) with AoM. I don't have my new product keys installed. I need to do that soon!
Anyways, I like WC3 for the RPG elements when I want to play an RPG. But why not play FATE trial, which comes free with almost all XPs nowadays?
Ah well...
Let's see some more opinions and thank you for the long ones!
pcgamer7070
Mortal
posted 26 August 2008 07:59 PM
EDT (US)
25 / 48
aom has stupid rpgs to. they are for noobs
championtoxote
Mortal
posted 27 August 2008 06:02 PM
EDT (US)
28 / 48
PCgamer7070: Hmmm... Can't remember there being any... It's just a story about a guy in Greece. Where do you upgrade characters to new 'levels' and use special powers you earn? I just don't see the connection.
pcgamer7070
Mortal
posted 27 August 2008 07:22 PM
EDT (US)
29 / 48
first of all don't capitalize my name. and online you can download rpgs and play them with other noobs.
championtoxote
Mortal
posted 28 August 2008 09:21 AM
EDT (US)
30 / 48
I see. Well, PCGAMER7070, I'm sorry if you misunderstood. WarCraft 3 has an RPG theme, whereas AoM doesn't. And I'm currently fooling around making an RPG in AoM where the main character is a Satyr. I will call on of the enemies PCGAMER7070 if you would like. Maybe a militia.
E:8p
PS - You suck.