Yeah, the reaction of your potential love interests when they get rejected does seem petty and childish. I felt that way in 1994 and still do now, but in the end that is a very minor gripe.
Oh, I forgot about that - yes, completely agreed with the assessment of the behaviour of the spurned party but I suppose it was all part of the choices and consequences direction they took with WC3.
I didn't like the longbow much either, until I made a commitment to getting skilled with my rear turret!
I'm the opposite play-style, I tend to favour the heavier fighters though I'll admit the Longbow is a slug. IIRC, the Arrow benefits from a little bit of the Excalibur's auto-aim, though perhaps not as extensively, and 'sliding' is also a benefit. The nice thing is that because of these different characteristics every fighter is memorable and distinct.
I think he exaggerates the episodic nature of the plot, but it is a fair point. Take the introduction of Flash during the Tamayo missions; you have 4 interactions with Flash during them and only 2 more for the rest of the game IIRC. He felt a little bit like last minute DLC!
I think the relative lack of interaction is more to do with the fact that he's an optional character. Regarding the episodic nature, IIRC, the way the script was written was just as he described - each system basically being its own little 'episode'. I suppose it's easier to keep track of things with respect to branching missions even though WC3 branches far less than the previous two games.
The ground missions were too ambitious for the games engine, but I applaud the attempt to do something new.
I wonder if that was more to do with the game being focused on space combat. WC3 was derived from the same engine as Strike Commander so we know it could have handled textured ground missions, but they didn't invest in it. Perhaps to save on time, perhaps to save on CD space too. As you mentioned, Hobbes' farewell message being dropped was a big omission - but I suppose they had to account for lower-capacity CDs too, try to lower the already high barrier to entry.
It wasn't console focus that resulted in tutorials today. In the '90s, console games were also frequently bitter and unforgiving difficulty wise... if the game isn't willing to meet me half way to come down the learning curve smoothly, I usually can't be bothered to keep going, because some other game will.
Fair point, I remember games like Battletoads being notoriously hard (or if you prefer 'challenging')... but I suppose that's more to do with the challenge of the game itself, the basic mechanics of at least that particular game weren't hard to grasp. I suppose Star Citizen being difficult to master (at least from the few times I've tried it, it always seems to crash after a few minutes for me) is part of the throw-back to old-school in-depth mechanics style of older games.
I'm also something of an opposite to you - subscriptions don't mean much to me, I only pay for the games I care to play. Admittedly I'm very late, but I gave the original Deus Ex a go last year - from the perspective of a generation that expects 'tutorial' introductions it was a rough start but once I got the hang of it, I started to enjoy it more and appreciate all the game-play details they implemented. Things got a lot easier with the sequels, again, probably due to the shift in game culture that you described.
...all we now have to play for new games is Squadrons...
I know there's been some discussion about Squadrons elsewhere. Initially I was interested but then I heard the focus (of course) is on multi-player. The alternating perspectives of flying for the New Republic and Empire sounds interesting but it sounds like the single-player story is (Edit!)
not on the same level as what we're accustomed to in Wing Commander. The other thing discouraging me is the poor performance in
Proton (it must have improved recently, however, as it's now showing Bronze whereas before it was red for 'doesn't work').
As for my personal experience - started with WC2. Launch the first mission. Point the fighter in the right direction and shoot. Kill enemies, return to base. Not too hard. (Plus it was fun and pretty.) Didn't remember having a problem referring to (paper) manuals for keys - I recall not knowing how to use auto-pilot at first! I suppose it really is a case of being from a different generation.