The store manager pressed a thick stack of pre-order forms under the cash register and directed the staff to arrange the newly arrived game boxes on the most prominent shelf.
The queue was divided into two distinct groups.
One group consisted of veteran players wearing worn-out T-shirts, holding the DOS version manual of "Black Tide."
They were there for the expansion pack, "Beyond the Dark Portal."
The expansion pack required the original game to run.
"I just replayed the original Orc campaign yesterday," a young man said to his companion in front of him. "I heard that in this expansion, we can fight all the way to the Orcs' homeworld, Draenor. And we can even control Khadgar."
"I'm more looking forward to the new heroes," his companion said, rubbing his hands together. "The magazine review said that if a hero dies, the mission fails. That's a pretty hardcore setting."
The other group consisted of new users who had just purchased Windows 95 computers.
They went straight for the Windows 95 version of "Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal" on the shelf.
For these new players, the cumbersome command-line inputs of the DOS era were irrelevant; they had only started using computers to play games after the release of Windows 95.
What they needed were high-quality games that could be played by simply inserting a disc and clicking a desktop icon.
Thanks to its stellar reputation in gaming magazines, Warcraft: Orcs & Humans became the top choice for testing the performance of their new computers.
Its high-resolution SVGA graphics ran exceptionally smoothly on Windows 95 with DirectDraw support.
The ripples on the water, the animations of the two-headed ogres, and the fire breath of the dragons displayed a remarkably high level of artistry on CRT monitors.
The cash register kept churning out receipts.
By three in the afternoon, the manager had to put up a "Sold Out" sign for Beyond the Dark Portal.
In a university apartment in Boston.
Paul, a sophomore, sat with headphones on, his eyes glued to a 15-inch CRT monitor.
Running on the screen was the Windows 95 version of Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness he had just bought.
He was in the middle of a one-on-one match over a LAN with his roommate in the next room.
Paul was playing as the Human faction, while his roommate was the Orcs.
Fifteen minutes into the game, a decisive battle broke out over the resource point in the center of the map.
Paul's left hand rested on the left side of the keyboard, his fingers moving in tiny, yet incredibly rapid, motions.
He used his mouse to box-select the infantry tanking damage in the front, while his left hand pressed the corresponding key on the command panel to make the low-health infantry retreat.
Immediately after, his left pinky pressed the '2' key, switching to the backline mage formation.
He clicked amidst the dense orc formation, his left index finger simultaneously hitting the grid hotkey for the Blizzard spell.
He didn't need to look down at the keyboard, nor did he have to hunt for letters across the board.
The spell was cast as if it were an extension of his own arm.
Large ice shards smashed down onto the heads of the orc infantry.
His roommate's reaction wasn't slow, either; he controlled his bloodthirsty ogres and charged forward.
Paul pressed the '1' key again, switching back to his main formation, commanding his knights to charge and block the path, protecting the mages in the back.
The entire engagement lasted less than two minutes.
Thanks to the operational efficiency brought by the new hotkey layout, Paul completely suppressed his roommate in terms of micro-management.
Every mage spell was cast at just the right moment, and the stutter-stepping of low-health units was executed without the mis-keying that used to lead to total defeat.
On the screen, the remnants of the orc army began to rout.
From the room opposite, he heard his roommate slam his hand heavily on the desk.
Paul leaned back in his chair, let out a long breath, and took off his headphones.
On the screen, the remnants of the Orc army began to flee.
A sound of a roommate slamming their table came from the room across the hall.
Paul leaned back in his chair, let out a long sigh, and took off his headphones.
The thrill of executing tactical intent with such extreme operational efficiency made his scalp tingle.
In the past, when playing RTS games, his brain would come up with tactics, but his hands couldn't keep up, often causing him to miss opportunities while fumbling for hotkeys.
Now, the grid on the left side of his keyboard felt like an extension of his own nerve endings—what he saw was exactly what he got.
At the same time, the campaign flow of the expansion pack, "Dark Portal," became the perfect proving ground for testing the hero mechanics.
A gaming magazine editor in Chicago, pulling an all-nighter before his deadline, had just cleared the final mission of the Human campaign.
On the screen, the Dark Portal stood tall above the scorched earth.
He controlled a hero squad consisting of Turalyon, Khadgar, and Alleria, venturing deep into the unfamiliar world of Draenor.
The battle was extremely fierce.
The Orc base had impenetrable defenses, and Ogres and Death Knights poured out of the shadows incessantly.
If he had played it the old way, he would only need to madly build barracks in the back and use endless waves of footmen and knights to hold the line.
But in the mission objectives at the top left of the screen, it clearly stated: Destroy the Dark Portal, and all heroes must survive.
This forced him to change his tactics.
He grouped the four heroes into one squad and the main army into another.
The moment battle was joined, he had to constantly monitor Turalyon's health.
Once the Paladin leader was focused-fired by the Orcs, he had to quickly...
He organized the four heroes into group one and his main formation into group two.
In the heat of battle, he had to constantly monitor Turalyon's health.
The moment the Orcs focused their fire on the Paladin leader, he had to quickly use his left-hand grid hotkeys to have Turalyon activate Divine Shield or have the Paladins in the backline heal him.
Khadgar's large-area damage spells were the key to breaking the stalemate, and he had to find the optimal casting position under the cover of the Knights.
This micro-management experience, which placed heroes at the core of the strategy, gave this review editor—who had played every RTS game on the market—a sense of long-lost tension.
When Khadgar finally reached the Dark Portal and unleashed his spell to destroy it, and the cutscene began to play, the editor realized his palms were covered in sweat.
At the end of his review, he wrote: " 'Beyond the Dark Portal' is no longer just a simple game of building armies and rushing the enemy. Blizzard has given these units a soul. When you sacrifice a whole squad of Knights to protect Khadgar, you are no longer just a cold-blooded commander; you are participating in an epic fantasy movie."
At Blizzard Entertainment headquarters.
Alan Adham looked at the first-week sales data aggregated from all major channels.
The dual release strategy for the Win95 version of 'Tides of Darkness' and the expansion pack 'Beyond the Dark Portal' was a huge success.
Old players bought it to continue the story and experience the new mechanics, while new players bought it in search of a top-tier masterpiece on Win95.
The combined sales of the two products have already surpassed the one-million mark and are still growing at a steady pace.
The more profound impact lies in the establishment of operational standards.
With the popularization of the new hotkey system in Warcraft I, players' tastes have become more refined.
They have grown accustomed to the efficient control scheme of keeping their left hand fixed on one side of the keyboard, and when they go back to playing other RTS games that still use initial-letter hotkeys, they feel extremely awkward and sluggish.
Unintentionally, or perhaps with the help of Takuya Nakayama's influence, Blizzard has set a new industry standard for RTS UI interaction.
"The reviews are excellent," Mike Morhaime said, holding a few faxes from gaming magazines. "Especially regarding the improvements to the control feel. Many reviewers mentioned that this game has redefined the operational ceiling for real-time strategy games."
"The feedback on the hero mechanics is also very good," Bill Roper added. "Players are passionately discussing the backstories of Turalyon and Hellscream on the forums. Although the campaign completion rate has dropped slightly because heroes cannot die, the level of player discussion is more than an order of magnitude higher than the original version. They are truly immersed in it."
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