>>340942729
you'll probably feel put off by its dated visuals and mechanisms.

WC2 is an improvement, and WC3 is the game where just about all WoW's lore and things originate from. It also plays a tad more like RPG than plain RTS, having the Heroes and stuff.

just get wc3

>Thinking of starting the first tonight
Then do it

>>340942729
It's kinda slow, but maybe you can enjoy the atmosphere.

>>340942729
WC1 is very dated and clunky, you can freely skip it to be quite honest and just read up on the lore. WC2 is the perfect RTS game though, and WC3 was very good too although more because of the custom maps.

>>340942729
It's very dated and barebones. WC2 is good if you find newer Battle.Net Edition. Play that one.

>>340943707
don't listen to this guy, WC3 has the best campaigns ever in RTS games.

>>340942729

Warcraft 3 has aged very well and is probably the one you should play, it's by far the most relevant to WoW. If you're up for it then sure, you can play 1 and 2 first but it's not necessary.

>>340943710
This, OP

Try WC1 first to see what it is like. It is pretty clunky for todays standards, so it's hard to get into. After that, play WC2 Battle net edition is great, it has a lot of enhancements to make it more like Starcraft and works better on modern machines too.

Warcraft 3: TFT > Warcraft 2 > Warcraft 3 > Warcraft

WC1 is archaic at best.
It's worth a playthrough for the original experience, but WC2 is superior in basically every way.

OK, thanks, all. I was wondering if I could/should skip it or not. I think I'll give it a go, but if it is too old/clunky I'll move on to 2.

Warcraft 1 is not worth your time in any way. Read up on the lore online and move on.