Blizzard Alpha/Beta Stuff BEFORE WoW

[Hallfiry]

Some Warcraft II promo images can be found on the game page of the site of the Brazilian publisher BraSoft.

Actually, this hints towards a far more interesting fact:
http://www.brasoft.com.br:80/produtos/B ... /index.htm

Totalmente em português

There's a portuguese release of Warcraft 2.

[MrFlibble]

Hmm, come to think of it, I don't remember Blizzard's web pages listing the languages in which their products were available. YouTube has plenty of videos showing gameplay of Warcraft 2 in Brazilian Portuguese, e.g. this one.

[Hallfiry]

I spend some time and fixed the colors of the E3 1996 Starcraft shot with interface:



This is the popular version of the screenshot from PC Gamer's website:


I used this mockup for reference, as it's so far the only high quality image of the earliest Starcraft with correct colors.


I replaced all pixels of colors that I could directly match with colors from the good image. For the remaining pixels (probably less than 5% of the image), I simply adjusted the colors by hand so they fit roughly.


Some additional thoughts regarding this screenshot:
1) I don't think I've ever seen it in a magazine aside from PC Gamer back then.
2) The nebula that begins at the far right looks different from the nebula in the other screenshots.
3) The landscape is a lot more decorated, with oozing tubes and spikes on the ground.
From this is deduce that this screenshot (probably a mockup, though the nebula might indicate otherwise) is from a different stage of development than the other E3 type screenshots.

[MrFlibble]

Some Warcraft Adventures images in lossless quality from a Computer Games Online feature:
http://www.cdmag.com/adventure_vault/traditional_adventure/article.html

[MrFlibble]

Here's what I just found in another Computer Games Online article:

To the best of my knowledge, this image was previously unavailable in lossless compression format, however it seems to have been converted from its original palette .

And here's an oddly discoloured lossless shot from an earlier batch (previously only seen at Next Generation - I mean, this version of the minimap):

[eisnerguy1]

[previous text removed]

EDIT2: I've decided to take the wcadv downloads down for now.
The leak has gotten quite some attention and I don't want to be too involved before things are sorted out legally (e.g. Blizzard tolerating the leak).

In the meantime: I've noticed that the Starcraft promo cinematic
http://www.kultcds.com/Catalog/index.ph ... 06247&o=da
closes with a tiny slideshow, that I had never seen before. The pictures aren't interesting, however.

Might anyone still have those files? According to this tweet, it was 2 cd's worth.

[Hallfiry]

I finally made a Diablo 2 prerelease screenshot gallery:
http://www.blizzardarchive.com/pub/Images/Screens/D2/
It's not complete, as it's currently missing all shots that have no interface, but at leats we now have a few guidelines.
Also note, that I added something like 50 shots from magazines and other sources, that were previously unknown to the internet.

[MrFlibble]

Neat!

I think it would also be nice to have a way to annotate the sources for each image.

[Hallfiry]

I found a German ad for Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne:

[MrFlibble]

Warcraft Dry!

Sure they removed the naval force but TFT kinda-sorta brought it back

[Hallfiry]

Found two new vids from around Febrary 1998 on Inside Mac Games 6.1:




Edit: And another one on IMG 5.5:

[Hallfiry]

Finally some ingame pics of Shattered Nations:

[MilkeyWilkey]

Here is some early StarCraft and Brood War shots I haven't seen before. Some have a weird palette glitch that I don't remember was there before, but somebody can restore them.

[makabro]

Have you ever seen this version of Warcraft II Shareware / Demo Disc? It's not the classic jewell case!



What do you guys think?

[Hallfiry]

Have you ever seen this version of Warcraft II Shareware / Demo Disc? It's not the classic jewell case!



What do you guys think?

I've never seen that particular release. Where did you find it? Do you have a copy?

[makabro]

I've never seen that particular release. Where did you find it? Do you have a copy?

It's not mine, managged to borrow it from a friend and could compared it with your CD copy (http://www.blizzardarchive.com/pub/index.php?id=war2) and it's the same version of the Demo (1.08sh, Jan 17, 1996) but the CD lacks of the "Blizzard Demo" folder and content, accesible throught the "Autorun.exe". This exe is the only different file comparing the two cds (apart from the missin folder). Yours is created on "Jan 17, 1996" and this one is "Jan 19, 1996", so it's a newer version of the autorun. Weird, but cool, it's a different CD after all!