I was the kid with the backpack Zip drive and Zip disks, like a weird Santa Claus of game piracy. Duke3d, Descent, Quake, you name it. All of it was in service of modem dueling each other. Wild times!
I recently replayed Warcraft II and fell out of my chair when I realized the original did not have control groups. Those were only added with the Battle.Net edition!
Not to be a patronizing old fart, but may I assume that you played II after III? If so I can understand it, but II was very special when it came out, and I never revisited it after.
I think it's a case of being better when it came out than another thing was when it came out, despite the other thing being comparatively better without the context of its time.
2 is a much harder game in my opinion. I don’t think even at the hardest difficulty level Warcraft 3 has any levels that require you to do a contested marine landing and then build a base before immediately being attacked again. The final Orc mission took me forever to beat. And the expansion? Good lord.
III has a better and more interesting story telling. But gameplay wise I really like the starcraft 1 system without the heros. I think warcraft 3 adds too much complexity and gimmickry that takes away from fun RTS gameplay.
That said, Warcraft 3 mods were the shit. There were so many fun and inventive modes of play that you could just barely do with starcraft and not at all with warcraft.
Warcraft 3 custom map mod was the birth of Defense of the Ancients Allstars which then became its own game by Valve as Dota 2 (and Blizzard was pissed and tried legal stuff to reclaim) which now became Deadlock = Dota 3.
I feel like anyone preferring Warcraft III is in their 30s. Grew up with the Warcraft II Battle Chest and it was a vibe.