Warcraft Before WoW: The RTS Series I Lost Weekends To
It’s kind of funny how a simple shareware CD changed the trajectory of my gaming life. Summer of ’95, I was hanging around Electronics Boutique—back when mall stores had those huge PC game boxes lining the walls—and the clerk, this guy with a Metallica t-shirt who always saved the good stuff for me, slides a CD across the counter. “Try this,” he says. “First one’s free.” He wasn’t wrong about the addiction part.
Warcraft: Orcs & Humans looked primitive even for 1994 standards when I first booted it up on my dad’s Packard Bell. The blocky sprites, limited color palette, and interface that took up half the screen shouldn’t have hooked me the way it did. But man, there was something magical about building those little farms, training footmen, and sending them off to die horrible deaths because I had absolutely no concept of unit management. I’d stay up until 3 AM on weeknights, the glow of the CRT washing over my face as my mom yelled from downstairs that I’d regret this in the morning. (She was right, by the way. High school chemistry is rough on four hours of sleep.)
What grabbed me wasn’t the groundbreaking gameplay—because let’s be honest, it wasn’t groundbreaking. Command & Conquer and Dune II had already established the RTS formula. But Warcraft had this chunky, cartoony character that felt alive in a way other games didn’t. The little acknowledgment barks when you clicked units (“Yes, milord?” and “Zug zug!”) became inside jokes with my friends Tom and Kevin. We’d answer each other with “Your command?” in the hallways between classes until our English teacher, Mr. Peterson, threatened detention if we didn’t knock it off.
The simplicity of Orcs vs. Humans seems almost quaint now—two factions with mirrored units save for a spell or two. But that straightforward approach meant I could actually wrap my teenage brain around the strategy. Weekend afternoons disappeared as I’d invite friends over, connecting our computers via serial cable that my dad helped me rig up (after explaining that no, this wouldn’t break the family computer). We’d play 2v2 matches that inevitably devolved into accusations of screen-looking and heated arguments about rush tactics. Kevin was always the rusher—that guy would have six grunts knocking at your town hall before you’d even built a barracks. Jerk.
When Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness arrived in late ’95, it felt like Blizzard had read my dream journal. Naval units! Air combat! Resource management beyond just gold and wood! My first serious girlfriend nearly broke up with me when I bailed on Valentine’s Day plans because I was in the middle of the Orc campaign. In my defense, I was at the mission where you have to sail between islands dealing with enemy destroyers, and you can’t just save in the middle of that kind of stress. (She didn’t buy that excuse, and I spent the next month making it up to her with a series of increasingly desperate romantic gestures involving her favorite candy and mixtapes.)
The expansion Beyond the Dark Portal deepened my obsession. The hero units were a game-changer—having these powerful characters with names and storylines made the conflict feel personal. I remember distinctly the mission where you play as Deathwing, laying waste to Alliance forces, and feeling like I was participating in this epic fantasy rather than just moving units around a map. My buddies and I would argue for hours about the lore while drinking Mountain Dew in my basement, the kind of intense debate that only teenage boys can have about fictional characters.
The Battle.net era with Warcraft II was my first real taste of online multiplayer, and lord was it humbling. I thought I was hot stuff because I could beat the AI on hard difficulty and dominate my local friends. Then I went online and got absolutely destroyed by kids from who-knows-where using build orders and strategies I’d never even considered. I printed out strategy guides from sketchy GeoCities websites and taped them next to my monitor, determined to improve. I can still hear that dial-up sound as I connected, praying nobody would call the house phone during a match.
The five-year gap between Warcraft II and III felt like an eternity. I’d moved on to college by then, and Starcraft had scratched my RTS itch in the interim, but there was something special about the Warcraft universe that kept me checking game magazines (yes, physical magazines—I’m that old) for news about a sequel. When screenshots of Warcraft III started appearing, showing this dramatic shift to 3D with these incredible character models, I nearly lost my mind. I remember skipping a Sociology lecture to read a preview article, which says a lot about my priorities at the time.
July 2002. I’d just started my first “real” job out of college, and I took a vacation day for Warcraft III’s release. My roommate thought I was insane, but this wasn’t just any game launch—this was the continuation of a saga that had defined my gaming life for almost a decade. The introduction of the Night Elves and Undead factions completely transformed the gameplay, breaking free from the binary opposition of the earlier games. And the hero unit system—with experience points, leveling, and unique abilities—added this RPG layer that made each match feel like a mini-adventure.
The campaign storytelling in Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos floored me. Arthas’s fall from grace remains one of gaming’s great character arcs. I still remember sitting in stunned silence after the Stratholme mission, where you’re forced to purge an entire city. It was the first time a strategy game had made me genuinely uncomfortable with the actions I was taking. My girlfriend at the time (a different, more understanding one) walked in while I was playing that mission and asked why I looked so upset. How do you explain to a non-gamer that you’re morally conflicted about fictional war crimes?
The Frozen Throne expansion took everything up another notch. The night I finished Arthas’s final ascension to become the Lich King, I immediately called Tom—who was now living two states away for grad school—at 1 AM just to process what we’d witnessed. He picked up on the first ring because he’d just finished it too. That’s the kind of shared experience that forged gaming friendships in the pre-social media era.
But the true legacy of Warcraft III wasn’t even the main game—it was the custom map editor. Good lord, the hours I poured into that thing. I wasn’t particularly talented at creating maps, but I became an avid consumer of other people’s creations. Tower defense variants, hero arenas, and of course, Defense of the Ancients. Nobody could have predicted that a custom Warcraft III map would spawn an entire genre (MOBA) that would eventually eclipse traditional RTS games in popularity. We were just having fun, you know?
The LAN parties centered around Warcraft III defined my early twenties social life. We’d convert my apartment’s living room into a tangle of ethernet cables and computer towers, ordering pizza at midnight and playing until sunrise. Dave—who always insisted on random race selection because he claimed it made him more “adaptable”—once knocked over an entire two-liter of Coke onto his keyboard during a crucial battle. He still won the match using a half-functional, sticky keyboard, a feat we referenced for years afterward.
When World of Warcraft was announced, I had mixed feelings. On one hand, returning to Azeroth in any form was exciting. On the other, I was a dedicated RTS player—the idea of an MMO seemed like a radical departure. Little did I know that WoW would become a cultural phenomenon that would eventually overshadow its RTS predecessors in the public consciousness. Sometimes I meet younger gamers who have no idea that Warcraft existed before WoW, which makes me feel approximately 4,000 years old.
The transition from commanding armies to controlling a single character was jarring at first. But the rich lore established in the RTS trilogy made Azeroth feel like coming home. The first time I rode into Stratholme as a level 60 character, I had this weird meta-gaming moment—I’d once commanded the purging of this city, and now I was fighting through its burning ruins. The continuity between the games created this unique connection that I don’t think has been replicated in many other gaming universes.
Sometimes I fire up the Warcraft III remaster just to replay certain campaign missions, like visiting old friends. The gameplay holds up surprisingly well, though my reaction time certainly doesn’t. My teenage nephew watched me play recently and asked why the graphics looked “so weird.” I started explaining about the technical limitations of 2002 hardware before realizing I sounded exactly like my dad talking about black and white TV. Full circle, I guess.
What made Warcraft special wasn’t just the gameplay innovations or the evolving story—it was how these games functioned as social hubs. From serial cable matches in my parents’ house to Battle.net competitions in my college dorm to elaborate LAN setups in my first apartment, these games were the backdrop for friendships, rivalries, and countless inside jokes. The actual hours spent playing are just the surface—it’s the shared experiences around those games that burrowed into my memory.
I still have my original Warcraft II battle chest box somewhere in my closet. The cardboard is worn at the edges, and the CDs are probably too scratched to install anymore. But I can’t bring myself to throw it out—it’s a physical artifact from a pivotal period in both my life and PC gaming history. And honestly? I kind of miss the days when games came in massive boxes with actual printed manuals that you could read on the drive home, practically vibrating with excitement about what awaited you when you finally got to your computer. But I guess that’s just part of getting older in the gaming space—you gain perspective and lose hair. Seems like a fair trade. Most days, anyway.
