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Utilities, modifications and conversions This section does not cite any references or sources. Please improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed. (February 2008) Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness was an unusual game for the time because a large number of third-party utilities were written for it. Among the first things, Daniel Lemberg reverse-engineered the Warcraft II map file (*.pud) format and created the first third-party map editor, War2xEd, which could do numerous things the bundled map editor could not do, such as editing unit attributes. Although Lemberg did not make the source code for War2xEd public, he did publish the complete Warcraft II map file format, which led to a wealth of new tools, including a Macintosh version of the tool called PudMaster. More importantly, Blizzard began to use War2xEd internally, and it influenced them to bundle a feature-rich editor with their immensely popular game StarCraft. the next important breakthrough came when Alexander Cech and Lemberg broke the encryption used in the base game data files. Cech went on to create a program called Wardraft, which allowed users to browse and modify the contents of the game data files, allowing comprehensive modifications. the spawn of extensive alterations became known as “Total Conversions”, and a great many projects were in motion for a good long while. Some of the more prominent were “DeathCraft: Twilight of Demons” by Dirk “The Guardian” by Richartz, “War of the Ring” by Gurthaur, “Editor’s Total Conversion” by Fronzel Neekburn and the whole of the Warclan, “Elfcraft” by Ace Calhoon, and the noteworthy “Rituals of Rebirth” spearheaded by Kalindor, Kosmous, and Commoner. [edit]Special features Humorous unit quotes are a feature of Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness, following the tradition of the original Warcraft: Orcs & Humans. If a single unit is clicked on several times in a row, his or her voice samples change from regular to longer, emotional ones. He or she may start getting angry at the player, or quote lines in reference to movies or games. For example, a footman would say, “don’t you have a kingdom to run?” or “are you still touching me?” These phrases differed in the game’s demo for the Footman and Grunt units, and were mostly indignations to purchase the full version. Clicking on a non-playable critter such as a sheep enough times causes it to blow up. If the disk for Beyond the Dark Portal is inserted into a CD player, the orchestrated music from the game can be played. In addition, there is a bonus 13th track called “I’m a Medieval Man” which features remixed sound bites from the first game. the track is also available in-game by typing “disco” as a cheat. this however gives you the status cheater when you finish that mission. “Medieval Man” is also a cheat code in StarCraft to obtain all unit upgrades for free or in Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness to play the song as background music. Also, in StarCraft, if one clicks on an observer while playing as the Protoss, a clip of the song will be played. the song is also a reference to the Command & Conquer song “Mechanical Man”.[citation needed] the script that was used in the book positioned in the background screen while the player was informed about mission objectives is Serbian Cyrillic alphabet, but the language in which it is written is English. the text contains a small section of a game story text, mentioning how the Orcish hordes entered the forests of Lordaeron. Warcraft II’s soundtrack has been released in MP3 format by Blizzard[2] [edit]Online play Screen shot of game play.Although the Battle.net Edition wasn’t released until 1999, online play was widespread from the game’s release using IPX Emulators such as Kali. Warcraft II (along with Command & Conquer) was one of the first Real-time strategy games to be played widely online, and spawned several leagues, including the International Warcraft League (IWL) and singles and teams ladders on Case’s Ladder. the Mac release allowed multiplayer games over TCP/IP. the IRC channel MacWarCraft served as a gathering place for online play, before Battle.net was created. There was also a popular league created by the Macintosh community, that provided a ranking system and helped players find opponents, called MaG League (short for Macintosh Gaming League). When the Battle.net edition was released, a new meter of play speeds was added, including a turbo-like speed called “Fastest” that became popular with some players, while traditional players gamed on “Even Faster” speed. Despite the old age of the game, play continues on Battle.net today, along with a significant community on server.war2.ru servers. For LAN (home) multi play, tools such as DOSBox can be used to emulate IPX or direct serial connections over TCP/IP. [edit]Ports Tides of Darkness and Beyond the Dark Portal were released together for Sega Saturn and PlayStation under the title Warcraft II: the Dark Saga in 1997 by Electronic Arts. There was also a reverse engineered free software game engine called Freecraft, which allowed users to import the actual game data from Warcraft II and play the game on different platforms and with additional features like queuing unit production, finding idle workers, an improved AI and network connectivity for up to 16 players. In addition to being compatible with Warcraft II, it could also be used with a set of artwork and scenarios made by the Freecraft Media Project (FcMP). Although the actual Freecraft program and FcMP used no art or code from Warcraft II, the project received a threatening cease-and-desist letter from Blizzard, apparently due to similarity to the Warcraft trademarks. Not willing to fight Blizzard, the maintainers canceled the whole project, later rekindling it under the name of Stratagus. By using this game engine through Wargus, the game is also playable on BSD, Linux and Mac OS X. »

2004 in video gaming

August 30 — Acclaim declares bankruptcy and closes its doors

October 25 — OutRun 2 (Xbox)

January 20 — Wired’s Vaporware Awards gives its first “Lifetime Achievement Award” to recurring winner Duke Nukem Forever.

Events

October 12 — EA Sports launches “FIFA Soccer 2005″. It’s officially the Cheap Guild Wars Gold last game in the EQ2 Gold history of PlayStation

PS3 PlayStation 3

10 Halo: Combat Evolved Xbox Microsoft

July — Square Enix restructures executive branches around the 2Moons Dil world.

X360 Xbox 360

November 16 — Joint Operations: Escalation (PC)

4 Madden 2005 PS2 EA Sports

November 16 — Vampire: the Cheap World of Warcraft Gold Masquerade - Bloodlines (PC)

November 21 — Super Mario 64 DS (NDS)

September 7 — Silent Hill 4: the Cheap WOW EU Gold Room (PC, PS2, Xbox)

March 2 — Ninja Gaiden (Xbox)

March 22-26 — Game Developers Conference hosts 4th annual Game Developers Choice Awards and Gama Network’s 6th annual Independent Games Festival (IGF)

Wii Wii

The dominant handheld systems in 2004 were:

September 28 — Myst IV: Revelation (PC)

[edit]Business

November 9 — Halo 2 (Xbox)

The third major hardware revision of the LOTR Gold PlayStation 2 (model number SCPH-70000) was released in Japan on November 1

November 16 — Dragon Ball Z: Budokai 3 (PS2)

November 15 — Need for Speed: Underground 2 (PS2)

December 6 — the Final Fantasy 11 Gil Lord of the LastChaos Gold Rings: the Vanguard Gold Battle for Middle-earth (PC)

[edit]Notable releases

North American release dates:

December 1 — Painkiller: Battle out of Hell (PC)

February — EA consolidates, rolls most of Maxis and all of Origin Systems into its Redwood Shores, California HQ

In 2004, the Matrix Info total U.S. sales of video game hardware, software and accessories was $9.9 billion compared with $10 billion in 2003. Total software sales rose 8 percent over the Cheap IMVU Credits previous year to $6.2 billion. Additionally, sales of portable software titles exceeded $1 billion for the Buy COH Influence first time. Hardware sales were down 27 percent for the MS Mesos year due in part to shortages during the Hellgate Pd holiday season and price reductions from all systems.

December 8 — the RS Gold Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay (PC)

Win Windows-based personal computer

3 ESPN NFL 2K5 Xbox Take Two Interactive

5 Need For Speed: Underground 2 PS2 Electronic Arts

September 14 — Fable (Xbox)

November 2 — Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault (PC)

9 Metal Gear Solid 3 PS2 Konami

May 11 — Nintendo officially announces its “Revolution” (later named Wii) console.

December 20 — Electronic Arts purchases 20% stake in Ubisoft. the PotBS Doubloon purchase at the Vanguard-SOH Gold time was considered “hostile”, by Ubisoft.

7 NBA Live 2005 PS2 Electronic Arts

May 6 — Samurai Warriors (PS2)

March 4 — Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences hosts 7th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards; inducts Peter Molyneux into the ??? AIAS Hall of Fame

[edit]Trends

August 18 — Astro Boy: Omega Factor (GBA)

April 27 — Rise of Nations: Thrones and Patriots (PC)

September 22 — Rome: Total War (PC)

July 13 — Tales of Symphonia (GC)

[edit]Video game sales

September 21 — Star Wars Battlefront (PS2, Xbox)

November 30 — Midway Games acquires developer Paradox Development.

Top Grossing Video Games of 2004 Rank Title Platform Publisher

November 16 — Half-Life 2 (PC)

September 13 — EverQuest: Omens of War (PC)

September 20 — Def Jam: Fight for NY (GC, PS2, Xbox)

PS1 PlayStation

March 14 — Battlefield Vietnam (PC)

November 21 — Nintendo launches its DS handheld in the Gaia Online Gold US

GBA Game Boy Advance

XB Xbox

October 26 — Star Wars Galaxies: Jump to Lightspeed (PC)

October 29 — Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (PS2)

September 7 — Burnout 3: Takedown (PS2) (Xbox)

November 5 — Nobuo Uematsu resigns from Square Enix and becomes a freelancer, starting his own business, called Smile Please Co., Ltd..

Microsoft Xbox

October 4 — Tony Hawk’s Underground 2 (GBA, GC, PC, PS2, Xbox)

November 23 — World of Warcraft (PC)

GB Game Boy

[edit]Handheld game systems

March 23 — Far Cry (PC)

DC Dreamcast

April 6 — Midway Games acquires Surreal Software

November 2 — Killzone (PS2)

March 23 — Final Fantasy XI (North America) (PS2)

September 7 — the Warhammer Online Gold Sims 2

September 22 — Katamari Damacy (PS2)

June 1 — the Final Fantasy XI CD Key Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay (Xbox)

October 11 — Midway Games acquires Inevitable Entertainment and renames it Midway Studios Austin.

Platform key

2 Halo 2 Xbox Microsoft

October 4 — Mortal Kombat: Deception (PS2, Xbox)

November 30 — Prince of Persia: Warrior Within (GC, PC, PS2, Xbox)

May 25 — Thief: Deadly Shadows (PC, Xbox)

September 14 — Call of Duty: United Offensive (PC)

1 Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas PS2 Take Two Interactive

PlayStation PortableAdditionally, Nokia released an updated version of their original N-Gage, called the Lord of the Rings Online CD Key N-Gage QD. Nintendo released the Seal Online Gold Nintendo DS on November 21 in the Cheap Guild Wars Gold United States. In Japan Sony released the MapleStory Mesos PlayStation Portable on December 12.

August 30 — Pikmin 2 (GC)

PS2 PlayStation 2

April 20 — Hitman: Contracts (PC, PS2, Xbox)

March 23 — Sonic Heroes (GC, PS2, Xbox)

June 15 — Joint Operations: Typhoon Rising (PC)

PSP PlayStation Portable

Sony released an internal hard drive for the DAOC Plat PlayStation 2 on March 23

8 Spider-Man 2 PS2 Activision

April 12 — Painkiller (PC)

February 9 — EverQuest: Gates of Discord (PC)

6 Pokémon Fire Red With Adapter GBA Nintendo

March 9 — Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six 3: Athena Sword (PC)

NDS Nintendo DS

October 11 — Paper Mario: the Perfect World Gold Thousand-Year Door (GC)

September 21 — Final Fantasy XI: Chains of Promathia (PC, PS2)

April 27 — City of Heroes (PC)

September 20 — Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War (PC)

Mac Apple Macintosh personal computer

December 6 — Knights of the Vanguard-Saga of Heroes CDKey Old Republic II: the Rasa Credit Sith Lords (Xbox)

January 12 — Ubisoft acquires Tiwak

GCN Nintendo GameCube

Nintendo Game Boy Advance SP

Nintendo GameCube

July - IEMA (Interactive Entertainment Merchants Association) hosts 5th annual Executive Summit

March — Microsoft announces XNA the LOTRO-EU Gold successor of DirectX as the WOW Gold default API for Windows Vista and Xenon.

November 3 — Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal (PS2)

[edit]Video game consoles

October 26 — Dead or Alive Ultimate (Xbox)

November 15 — Metroid Prime 2: Echoes (GC)

August 3 — Doom 3 (PC)

September 9 — Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen (GBA)

March 16 — Unreal Tournament 2004 (PC)

December 13 — Electronic Arts purchases a 5-year exclusive agreement for the SWG Credits rights to the Guild Wars CD Key NFL, which includes NFL teams, stadiums and players for use in EA’s football videogames.

GBC Game Boy Color

November 17 — Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (PS2)

Sony PlayStation 2

May — Sammy Corporation buys a controlling share in Sega Corporation at a cost of $1.1 billion creating the 9 Dragons Gold new company, “Sega Sammy Holdings Inc”, one of the Cabal Gold biggest gaming companies in the Buy EVE ISK world.

September 14 — the Buy IMVU Credits Sims 2

November 9 — Jak 3 (PS2)

November 8 — EverQuest II (PC)

October 25 — Ace Combat 5: the Ragnarok Online Zeny Unsung War (PS2)


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