An orc lay motionless amidst the muddy grass. All around him he heard the sound of battle but for him, he realised, it was over. After just a few short years of fighting, his battle was over.

His head was pounding, his side hurt where the sword bit into him and his fingers were wet with his own blood. He looked to the sky. As he waited for his ancestors to descend and carry him away with them, he spied a couple of Vultures circling overhead. He closed his eyes in resignation, hoping only that death would come painlessly.

…

So, ESL is going to kill WC3 apparently. Forgive me for being blunt, but I beg to differ.

If Warcraft is to die any time soon it will be because of another game, with a similar name, from the same company, not from any MMO. I can’t help but feel that the vultures circling Warcraft from on high have overlooked one glaringly obvious point: WoW is not an RTS game.

Now I can see ESL’s logic with picking WoW, and, for what it’s worth, though I’ll probably be virtually hung, drawn and quartered in the comments for admitting this in a WC3 column, I like the game; WoW has vastly more players and potential spectators than its older brother but then WC3 has lived for years without those players.

WoW didn’t just come along last week and pluck 10 million players out of thin air. It’s been around for three years now, and WC3 has being going along quite nicely all this time. The RTS incarnation is not going to lose players to WoW because if it was they would have already left. In fact a large proportion of the WC3 community despise the MMO for various reasons. The fact is that WC3 has a large enough community to support it as an esport, even now.

So we’ve established that WoW isn’t going to kill off WC3 by itself, but what of ESL’s decision to drop the latter game for its Extreme Masters? Well, I like a good analogy, and I can think of none more fitting than that good old punch-bag, the CGS. The American TV league has made a success out of CS:S in parts of the world but it has nowhere near killed off 1.6. Similarly, ESL will help WoW grow without really damaging WC3.

Originally I thought of the CPL, but there some important differences between ESL EM dropping WC and CPL dropping CS back in the day. For one thing, ESL’s game choice does, on paper, make perfect sense and they will gain viewers from it whereas CPL’s decision made little sense back then and even less in retrospect.

How, though, did CS survive its most important tournament dropping it? Well, the answer is very simple: there was more than just one tournament. It sounds obvious but it’s an important truism and one that holds sway for WC3. Think PGL, think ESWC, and think ESL’s own WC3L. They will still be around, as will Blizzard's own Battle.net ladder.

Defenders of ESL’s decision claimed that WC3 is slowly dying in Europe yet if it were true, surely they would stop running WC3L too. It's true that WC3 is not as strong in Europe as it is in Asia, but that’s missing the point again. It’s like saying British rugby is dying because it’s not as popular as Australian rugby – Brits would rather watch football. Rugby still manages enough fans to keep the sport fit and healthy, though, and so does Warcraft. Just because it isn’t the single most popular game doesn’t necessarily mean that it is unpopular.

What will kill Warcraft, if anything, is Starcraft. I'll make a confession now: I've never touched SC in my life. However, I know enough to realise this game's popularity amongst amateurs and professionals alike. I don't agree with ESL's assertation that esports cannot support two RTS titles, but at the same time it would be naive to think that all the Warcraft players will stick with Warcraft. Even Grubby once told me he would rather play Starcraft if it weren't for the money involved in its fantasy-based counterpart.

Still, I can hope they do stick around.

…

Slowly, blinking, the orc opened his eyes again. The sun beat down on him and reminded his eyes of the pain in his head. His mouth was dry from the baking heat and the thumping in his head had only gotten worse. Nevertheless, he was alive. Slowly his eyes adjusted to the glaring sunlight and he could make out the outlines of clouds above him. The bleeding from his side had slowed to a steady trickle and he took, he realised, his first breath since awakening. As he tried gingerly to pull himself up he realised the sky was clear – the vultures had gone.

He managed, with some effort, to regain his feet and glance around groggily. His clan had gone but so had the humans they had been fighting. The air was silent, punctuated now and then by a breeze or by an insect chirping.

Then he caught a glimpse of something far away on the horizon. Instinctively, his hand gripped the shaft of his axe but his grip loosened when he saw it was not the silver colour of human armor – it was brown. It was still distant enough that he couldn't make out much detail but it did seem serpentine and he was able to make out two vicious looking talons where an orc would have hands. Even from so far away it did not look friendly.

The Zechs Files is back again next Tuesday.