Fansite WarCraft III.net has conducted yet another interview with Rob Pardo of Blizzard Entertainment about the 3D RST in development. While many were hoping for a release by the end of this year, the interview reveals that a somewhat alarming number of issues are still up in the air, from how Night Elves will harvest lumber to many issues concerning the Undead race. Pardo states that the Undead race is still in the stage of "heavy production and design refinement, " and confirms by inference that the game is not yet ready for beta-testing to start.

He also confirms a detail that is not new information, but may be disappointing to fans of WarCraft II -- there will be no Naval units in the game, often considered an essential part of WC2 netplay. Pardo seems to feel that the increased complexity of the units and Heroes makes up for this loss:

WarCraftIII.Net:  WarCraft has always involved primarily ground-oriented warfare. But StarCraft proved that there can be a greater dimension, with its huge variety of flying units. Since the WarCraft III heroes have been grounded, since there are only two flying units per race, and since there are no naval units, do you not worry that people will feel WarCraft III is actually less complex, rather than "next generational" in scope?

Rob Pardo:  Not at all. The game has a lot of strategy and tactics without huge amount of air or water units. Spell casting, hero management, and exploration have nicely filled the void left from the toning back of air and water units.

Rob Pardo Interview at WarCraftIII.Net

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