Name: Yao Zhao

Student ID:2921
Instructor: Dr Adrian Bennett
Class Info: Media Studies 3 A
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Date: 4 JAN 2011

Report of

Orcs and Humans

Overview and Backgrounds
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The game human and orcs is a real-time strategy game released by Game industry Blizzard In 15 January 1994
in America (1995 Eu) , Blizzard Game entertainment Company had just been established for 3 years at that time.
The game sold quite high and won three awards and was a finalist for three others. People are impressed by the
characterization and storyline of the game. I think the Human and Orcs is the foundation of all the real time
strategy games in the Blizzard company. Since the success of the Human and orcs the blizzard continued and
developed the “craft” series until it comes to today’s world of warcraft.

Blizzard is famous for its Warcraft , Starcraft and Diablo while before the release of the Human and Orcs none
of these ever appeared at that time. Actually there are only 13 games released before Human and orcs came to
the world, six of these games are about sport games(4 are board games,2 are sport sim games), one of
educational purpose 2 racing games, 2 beat em up games and 1 platform game and 1 strategy game call
castles(alternative genre) but none of these games impacted the world. 2 years before Human and Orcs
released ,“Dune II” which is produced by Game company Westwood studios came to the world in 1992 and it was
the first time people use mouse to directly control units. And it was the first modern real-time strategy game. And
I think Blizzard’s Human and Orcs kind of affected by “Dune II”.

Genre and narrative

We know Human and Orcs and The Warcraft series is famous as strategy games while this is not the origin of
Real-time strategy games. Real time strategy games are sub-genre of strategy video game. In the UK, the genre
real time strategy beginning can be traced to Game Stonkers by John Gibson, published in 1983 by Imagine
Software. In North America, the oldest game classified as real-time strategy by many sources is Rescue Raiders
(1984), designed by Sir-Tech. It was followed by The Ancient Art of War at Sea in 1987 also has been considered
the earliest Real time strategy games.

Stonkers
 Rescue Raiders

Dune II(1992) also known as one of the most successful RTS game in the history ,it is said as the origin of the
modern Real Time Strategy Game. After 2 years in 1994 Warcraft:Orcs and human impacted the world also.

Orcs gives us the impression that the tradition of hot-tempered, brutal, they tend to act first and then think, Orc
intent of killer whales, but also means the sea monster, usually translated as orcs. In the game, they believe in
Shamanism, Shamanism word from the Siberian Manchu-Tungus family language Saman, via Russian from English
of the Shaman, Shamanism is a primitive religion, in many area had a profound effect.

Orcs enlarge the portal until they can transport seven warriors, who killed a person's village. Send back the
human skills, and a report that human beings are defenseless and weak. Orc attack more parties, more daring,
until they hit the main castle of Azeroth. while, humans have been training their soldiers for a long time,
especially fully armed knights by the help of human Sorcerors .They gradually forced to withdraw the orcs through
the portal, and mankind has not discovered.

the orcs got disadvantaged in the next 15 years But the crafty specials administrative realize that humans, got the
upper hand through superior tactics, and organizations use and magic. He united the clan and wizards and
witches from the search for new magic. Prepare joint forces to overthrow human.

In the game you can select human or orcs to start a single player game each race have 12 scenarios for you to
challenge.

Investigation of game details

When I heard about two races fight I highly doubt that the game would be imbalanced because its missions are
more variety and it split the race into human and orcs this is absolutely advanced at that time so I think the two
races can’t be the same it could cause the imbalanced result. While after I played the game I found that the game
editor made it almost the same with both side. here is the statistics I collect from the website
Human unit statistics

Unit Attack Armour Hit Minimum Random Time Gold Lumber

Range Points Pts Damage Damage Train Cost Cost

Footman -- 2 60 1 9 600 400 --

Peasant -- 0 40 -- -- 750 400 --
H Catapult 8 0 120 -- 255 1000 900 200
Knight -- 5 90 1 13 800 850 --
Archer 5 1 60 4 0 700 450 50
Conjurer 3 0 40 6 0 900 900 0
Cleric 1 0 40 6 0 800 700 0

Orc unit statistics

Unit Attack Armour Hit Minimum Random Time Gold Lumber

Range Points Pts Damage Damage Train Cost Cost
Grunt -- 2 60 1 9 600 400 --
Peon -- 0 40 -- -- 750 400 --
O Catapult 8 0 120 -- 255 1000 900 200
Raider -- 5 90 1 13 800 850 --
Spearman 4 1 60 5 0 700 450 50
Warlock 2 0 40 6 0 900 900 0
Necrolyte 2 0 40 6 0 800 700 0

As you can see the statistics almost the same, both side have 7 units and the property is similar. if the minimum
damage is less then the range is greater. The average point keeps the same of each race. At this point the game
designers made both sides as equal as possible for the balance of play, giving both sides’ advantages and
weaknesses. There are more statistics about two races while I compared both side and reached the conclusion :
the two races almost the same under the statistics. While I thought this will lead to a very awkward result if a
single Grunt is fighting with a single Footman in the game that who attack firstly will be the survivor while the
game producer is very brilliant they made the Random Damage so it avoid the situation as I said above. Game
players need an unpredictable result for them to be worried thread and eager to know the answer, without these
the player can’t be absorb into the game. Orcs and Humans did pretty well on this point.

There is another interesting thing while I was playing the game. I found that every time I want to select the units
as a team I held on Ctrl and drag I can only select 4 of them. I was so curious about why I can’t select them all and
move them together while I found the question on the forum it is said in an earlier, pre-release version, we could
select as many men as we wanted, but it made the game too easy and boring. You'd build for a while, then select
all your men to attack, go get some coffee, and start the next scenario. So only 4 units each time your selection is
only a little obstacle for you to play the game. While in my opinion, this is not a quite good idea, the 4 units
selection feature totally let me frustrated while I was playing the game it make the game really hard to control If u
are controlling a large quantity of units.

The non-predict result let the game become more absorbing: the unpredictable are anywhere the random
damage the miss attack of the Catapults, the developing of the enemies, and so on all of these gained the fun of
playing the game.

I was very curious about how does AI developing its own military so I use the cheat code to open the map so I can
see the whole map, to my surprise the enemy was just placed there at the beginning just like the chess on the
board and I watched for a while the peasant still collecting the resources while they never train any units at all.
Then I realized they just train the unit once they lose one. Ai is hard to make and simulated but Orcs and Human
already start to use the basic simulation of the AIs. In this way the enemies become unpredictable for players to
be panic and threaded.
Understanding of gameplay
While playing this game life become unordinary I was melt into the scenarios and become worried about anything
in the game. At the meanwhile when I play this game it was a pure waste. It is a waste of time ,skills, ingenuity
and money. We didn’t gain anything by playing games while the winner is the producer of the game. In other way
I have been addicted to this game is not only I like this game it is also I escape from the real life, I can take no
responsibility of playing it and also quit it. Sometimes we think the life is misleading and pointless while in game
you always have an aim that is always there for you. And no matter what happened the game is still waiting for
your command and the aim never changed it is just pure. While playing game is also a will of being acknowledged
and the doubt must remain until the end so the player is doubt about themselves threaded by the defeat. In my
point of view that what we are playing and why we playing the games.
Cross-reference to Dune II
Orcs and Humans and Dune II as the magnum opus of that time they all impacted the world gaming development.
Dune II was released by the company westwood studios in 1992. The game is known as the first modern real time
strategy game . it is the first time people use mouse to command all the units and first time to use a map to
illustrate where this mission is going to take place and show you the whole map as well. Resource-gathering to
support an unit’s construction is also the first time to appear. The earlier real time strategy games are always aim
to self-protecting while Dune II aim Destruction of the enemy as a goal.

The westwood studios latter’s Command & Conquer also inspired the real time strategy games.
Orcs and Humans which was released 2 years after the Dune II was said the idea is copied to Dune II. I think Orcs
and Humans is quite unique to any other real time strategy games at that time firstly the two totally different
races combat was quite advanced at that time. Secondly the Orcs and Humans also build base, build army,
destroy enemy however it contain more types of missions rather than just destroy the storyline is much more
vivid and remarkable. For example in one mission the player had to kill the Orc chief's daughter. And for another
one the Orc must destroy all the constructions despite of humans tower, in where they can learn the skills from
humans. Thirdly the game sound effects are much better than any other games at that time. The unique voice
when you click different units gives you the unique feeling of the game. fourthly the game orcs and Humans is
the first time game allowing two gamers to compete in multiplayer contests by modem or local networks, and
enables gamers with the MS-DOS and Macintosh version to play with each other. And also the use of random
map generator also gain a lot of fun by offer players the unknown maps. Lastly although the game is in 2d
environment but the head leader was already made in 3D.
Reference
1. picture of Stonker: http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/choboPEon/stonkers5.jpg
2 .picture of Rescue raider: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a9/Rescue_Raiders-1.png
3.pictures that screenshot in the games: Warcraft Orcs and Humans
4.all the information is learnt from Wikipedia.
5.the information of understanding of the gameplay is gathered from the reading section of the media studies
(page19-24 )
6. unit statistics: http://www.cheatcc.com/pc/sg/warcraft.txt