WarCraft III: When Men Were Men, Orcs Were Orcs, and Customs Were Fun

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Retro Games > WarCraft III: When Men Were Men, Orcs Were Orcs, and Customs Were Fun

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Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

LethalGeek posted:

I simply want to stop in for a moment to thank you all for your posts so I can better understand exactly how bad Blizzard managed to screw this up in every possible way.

Same, frankly; I was looking forward to this enough that even with the bad reviews I might have bought it if it weren't for you folks explaining exactly how much of a waste of money and HD space that would have been

# ? Feb 13, 2020 22:46

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# ? May 16, 2024 13:51

Herstory Begins Now: Aug 5, 2003; SOME REALLY TEDIOUS DUMB SHIT THAT SUCKS ASS TO READ ->>

LethalGeek posted:

I simply want to stop in for a moment to thank you all for your posts so I can better understand exactly how bad Blizzard managed to screw this up in every possible way.

It wanders all over the place into various other ways blizzard does boneheaded stuff, but the death watch thread is a huge deep dive into this stuff, too if you want further reading

# ? Feb 13, 2020 23:30

CyberPingu: Sep 15, 2013; If you're not striving to improve, you'll end up going backwards.

Ainsley McTree posted:

Same, frankly; I was looking forward to this enough that even with the bad reviews I might have bought it if it weren't for you folks explaining exactly how much of a waste of money and HD space that would have been

I rarely bitch about video games. Its even rarer for me to ask for refunds on stuff.

This is the first game ever that I've asked to be refunded.

I suffered through poo poo like Haze, Duke Nukem Forever, Resident Evil 6. All shockingly bad games but I never asked for a refund.

I got 4 hours into this and noped out.

# ? Feb 14, 2020 00:06

Horizon Burning: Oct 23, 2019

so, in some missions, heroes lack inventories. as in, they can't pick up items at all. a reason has been found:

quote:

This is because the modern Classic Games Team opened and saved the old campaign missions. In the Reign of Chaos, �all heroes have an inventory� was a hard-coded element of the game.

Now, when the Frozen Throne expansion was released, they wanted the World Editor to have more flexibility. So, �all heroes have an inventory� was removed. Instead, they added an ability called �Inventory (Hero)� to provide heroes with inventory. You can also give this ability to a non-Hero unit, and then the unit will have inventory. This allowed them to add the Backpack upgrade into the game.

Unfortunately, this change meant that any Reign of Chaos custom map where a hero�s non-Hero �normal� ability list had been modified now had stored to that unit an altered list that did not include the Inventory (Hero) ability � because when those units were made, that ability didn�t exist and wasn�t necessary. And, the changed ability list is saved as a list and not as a list of changes . For example, maybe the developers on Mission 2 decided to remove Shadowmeld from Tyrande in 2002 while the mission was being developed. I have not confirmed this is the case, I�m just suggesting it as a possible example. When the 2002 developer wanted to say, �Tyrande does not have Shadowmeld in this mission�, he would click on the �Abilities� list in the editor, click on Shadowmeld, push �Delete Item�, and then press �OK�. But, this saves to Tyrande in the data files that �her ability list is now empty� rather than �her ability list has Shadowmeld removed.�

So, when her ability list gained Inventory (Hero) in The Frozen Throne pre-patch in 2003 to make up for the fact that now �all heroes have an inventory� was no longer a rule, the custom mission�s data files said �overwrite her ability list with an empty list�. This meant that after you patched to the Frozen Throne and played those missions out of the Frozen Throne client, heroes would lose their inventory. This affected my custom maps at the time, since my heroes lost their inventories in that 2003 prepatch. This affected any custom map with a hero with custom unit abilities, for that matter, such as a custom hero who had the Shadowmeld skill but didn�t originally have it.

Maps under active development are easily fixed. But the 2003 team realized that a large number of historic .w3m files had this problem. So they put a special piece of code into the game, if I�m not mistaken, so that maps saved in the old version of the World Editor would automatically add back inventories to heroes affected by the issue. How did they do this? Each map has a stored instance of the World Editor version that saved it. So, a special rule was added to the game code: if the World Editor version that saved a particular map is older than XX (some 2002 patch), then while the map is loading, add back the 6 slot inventory to any hero unit where it is missing.

This was fine for years. It means that if you open Warchasers and you save it again, your saved copy will become bugged because its �saved World Editor version� is now the new version. You can see this on the Megatron X hero. He will lose his inventory if you open Warchasers and save it again and then try to play your modified copy. You will note that this difference appears even when you do not change anything in the map, even though the original map file is fine.

So, now the year is 2019 and the Classic Games team comes alone with a new budget and an opportunity to update the game. They are constantly frustrated by the complexity of the game and the limits of their human mind, so they decided that there should not be a different copy of each campaign map file for each language. Originally, if you played the Warcraft 3 Campaign in Spanish, you played a totally different map file where the text was in Spanish. If you played the Warcraft 3 Campaign in Russian, you played a totally different map file where the text was in Russian.This complexity frustrated the new Classic Games team, so they decided to add a new system to handle the loading of locales. Now, you should be able to import any file into your map under the path �_locales/.w3mod/file� and then different imports within the single map file would load depending on Language setting. That�s simpler and easier than having many copies of the map � isn�t it?

And it was at this time that the developers opened the map files with the World Editor, or a an automated tool that was a derivative of the same application logic. When they ran this tool on the ancient campaign missions, it saved the �war3map.w3i� map information file inside of each map to now encode that the map is using the newest 1.31 World Editor version � not the ancient 2002 World Editor version that had been encoded in these map files for years.

Unfortunately for the Classic Games team, the part of the game code that knew how to deal with this issue was added hastily to the game client, and not to the World Editor. So, their map modification tool vaporized the inventory of any hero with a custom list of unit abilities � just like we users see happen to Megatron X if we try to make a custom copy of Warchasers.

They are probably going to find it and fix before too long. I gathered from talking to them that they intend to pay a human being to open each campaign map file and press the Add button in the World Editor to add back inventories to each and every campaign hero rather than fixing a problem that arose due to automated tools using again an automated fix. So, something that would take a seasoned programmer about 12 minutes to fix with a �for each map file in folder, for each unit in w3u, if rawcode[0] is upper case, add AInv to ability list, end loop, save map� is instead going to take innumerable hours of fixing because of the way that bureaucracy and ignorance can combine to form one perfect hybrid.

Or, maybe I�m wrong, and they�ll ask a tools guy to spend 12 minutes on it. Until then, you�ll have to make due without an inventory. Or, you could spend the 12 minutes yourself. If you do it yourself, you have to add +1 hour for getting a CASC library to load all of the campaign missions from code, so you don�t have to click them. Then +1 hour for getting an MPQ parser to parse the map file. Then +1 hour for getting a w3u parser to parse the unit data. Then +1 hour for dealing with a bug in the open source w3u parser that you may encounter because it probably wasn�t built for Reign of Chaos style stuff, only for Frozen Throne stuff. Then +1 hour because you need a coffee. Add another hour for a meeting with your team lead, and you�ll be spending probably about the same amount of time as the Tools guy at Blizzard.

# ? Feb 14, 2020 01:22

jokes: Dec 20, 2012; Uh... Kupo?

Goddamn, Blizzard.

It�s like they had someone who wasn�t too good at coding build the entire toolbox to make the game. Then they fired him and hired someone else to figure out how to use the toolbox. Then that new guy had to explain how to use the toolbox to the actual team that makes the game. But he could only do it over the phone while in an elevator.

# ? Feb 14, 2020 07:14

Khorne: May 1, 2002

jokes posted:

Goddamn, Blizzard.

It�s like they had someone who wasn�t too good at coding build the entire toolbox to make the game. Then they fired him and hired someone else to figure out how to use the toolbox. Then that new guy had to explain how to use the toolbox to the actual team that makes the game. But he could only do it over the phone while in an elevator.

Nah, that is fine. That was just a hack to avoid having to put massive work into getting older maps to "just work". It's not even a hack, it's just saying "old version did it this way, new version does it this way".The knowledge got lost during the 18 years between when the hack was made and when wc3r was made.

The real failure is that they didn't notice that heroes have no inventory in testing. Once you notice it it's not hard to fix.

Khorne fucked around with this message at 17:17 on Feb 14, 2020

# ? Feb 14, 2020 16:08

The Wiggly Wizard: Aug 21, 2008

I'm getting a desync and immediate drop in about 50% of my games. Good times

# ? Feb 14, 2020 18:20

Goons Are Gifts: Jan 1, 1970

If you happen to download the game in the one language and swap to another it, as with all Blizzard games, downloads the missing localisation assets. However in doing so, it doesn't overwrite the existing ones but creates massive amounts of duplicates leading to the game to be unable to locate any maps, units or basically anything, instant crashes when you try to select a custom map and the inability to join someone else's game if it has one of the duplicate (aka every Blizzard-made) maps.

Also sometimes creeps spawn but are just invisible. Not in a game mechanical way that true sight would break, but simply invisible and not engagable by any unit.

It's fun.

# ? Feb 14, 2020 20:23

Horizon Burning: Oct 23, 2019

For all their attempt to turn Grom Hellscream into Grommash Hellscream, he is still 'Grom Hellscream' in all his dialogue tags in the mission where you cut down the Night Elf forest lol

# ? Feb 15, 2020 13:44

1st_Panzer_Div.: May 11, 2005; Grimey Drawer

The Wiggly Wizard posted:

I'm getting a desync and immediate drop in about 50% of my games. Good times

Reinstall? If you've spent money and don't want a refund, the game is playable enough... for multi-player RTS fans. The mrmr system is a bit rough, rolled in around 2000-2200, generally either rofl someone at the same rank or I get demolished by someone above 2900 that has 200+ apm.

I played someone in Spain who was the local host, I got near 2000 ping. Most fun game so far, very even, couldn't micro at all, was random NE vs NE, made a small distraction army T1 all-in and 10 ballista to snipe his base during the fight, timing worked out so he had 1 bear.

# ? Feb 15, 2020 19:25

Horizon Burning: Oct 23, 2019

There's one of those awkward half-Reforged cutscenes where the Infernals rain down on the final Orc RoC mission.

Also, the Hellscream splice when Thrall shouts for him is incredibly awkward. But less awkward than the fact that Grom has NO lip-syncing in any of his lines.

# ? Feb 17, 2020 14:04

Horizon Burning: Oct 23, 2019

Did they remove Furion's old model? He emerges from his barrow den on the back of a stag lmao

# ? Feb 17, 2020 14:42

Aces High: Mar 26, 2010; Nah! A little chocolate will do

Finally got around to checking the install on another computer I have (since my newer computer males a habit of refusing to run a number of older games for some reason) and it turns out I never even updated the game to the 16:9 patch

However that means I can only play multiplayer by any means that doesn't require connecting to battle.net, correct?

# ? Feb 17, 2020 17:02

The Wiggly Wizard: Aug 21, 2008

Horizon Burning posted:

Did they remove Furion's old model? He emerges from his barrow den on the back of a stag lmao

nah I remember that from the original

# ? Feb 17, 2020 17:47

Zaphod42: Sep 13, 2012; If there's anything more important than my ego around, I want it caught and shot now.

Aces High posted:

Finally got around to checking the install on another computer I have (since my newer computer males a habit of refusing to run a number of older games for some reason) and it turns out I never even updated the game to the 16:9 patch

However that means I can only play multiplayer by any means that doesn't require connecting to battle.net, correct?

Yes, you have to VPN and play "LAN" to avoid bnet

# ? Feb 17, 2020 18:11

Telebite: Aug 23, 2018

Zaphod42 posted:

Yes, you have to VPN and play "LAN" to avoid bnet

You don't have to VPN. You need LAN and a third party tool like WC3Connect. (I had previously heard that patch 1.27b was the last patch that supported LAN, but WC3Connect apparently says that it works with 1.30.1.10211; the link includes download urls.)

Telebite fucked around with this message at 18:57 on Feb 17, 2020

# ? Feb 17, 2020 18:54

Zaphod42: Sep 13, 2012; If there's anything more important than my ego around, I want it caught and shot now.

Telebite posted:

You don't have to VPN. You need LAN and a third party tool like WC3Connect. (I had previously heard that patch 1.27b was the last patch that supported LAN, but WC3Connect apparently says that it works with 1.30.1.10211; the link includes download urls.)

That's basically the same thing, what do you think a VPN is?

Like yeah, you can use Hamachi. But going "you don't have to use vpn you can use vpn like tools! :goonsay:

" just shows you don't fully understand what a VPN is. You seem to be thinking of a specific kind of VPN.

You don't have to use a paid 3rd party VPN server, no, but I didn't say that.

# ? Feb 17, 2020 20:00

Kith: Sep 17, 2009; You never learn anything
by doing it right.

Horizon Burning posted:

Did they remove Furion's old model?

Yes. He was also supposed to appear unmounted in several cutscenes as well, where he just... didn't.

# ? Feb 17, 2020 21:40

Orcs and Ostriches: Aug 26, 2010; The Great Twist

https://twitter.com/UESP_net/status/1229513724110745600?s=20

quote:

Pictured: A tombstone in Warcraft III: Reforged, with what appears to be "gently caress OU" written on it in Daedric. They were most likely spelling out "gently caress YOU", but chose to follow the rule of the Daedric Alphabet to omit any "X" or "Y".

# ? Feb 17, 2020 23:19

Horizon Burning: Oct 23, 2019

The Wiggly Wizard posted:

nah I remember that from the original

oh really

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxkmWPzjiaU

# ? Feb 18, 2020 00:30

Telebite: Aug 23, 2018

Zaphod42 posted:

That's basically the same thing, what do you think a VPN is?

Like yeah, you can use Hamachi. But going "you don't have to use vpn you can use vpn like tools! " just shows you don't fully understand what a VPN is. You seem to be thinking of a specific kind of VPN.

You don't have to use a paid 3rd party VPN server, no, but I didn't say that.

I'll admit that I haven't used WC3Connect or similar tools. When a VPN is enabled (for example by using Open VPN), it takes over the entire LAN on a computer, so that all Internet traffic (web, bittorrent, anything that uses Internet) goes through the VPN when the software is running. I can't imagine that WC3Connect wants to funnel *all* of a client's Internet traffic through it, so I had the impression it worked as a proxy, identifying *only* packets from WC3 (via port or something else) and rerouting them.

# ? Feb 18, 2020 01:05

uniball: Oct 10, 2003

Telebite posted:

When a VPN is enabled (for example by using Open VPN), it takes over the entire LAN on a computer, so that all Internet traffic (web, bittorrent, anything that uses Internet) goes through the VPN when the software is running.

one of my favorite things is when someone tries to be pedantic but is just blatantly incorrect

# ? Feb 18, 2020 01:09

Zaphod42: Sep 13, 2012; If there's anything more important than my ego around, I want it caught and shot now.

Telebite posted:

I'll admit that I haven't used WC3Connect or similar tools. When a VPN is enabled (for example by using Open VPN), it takes over the entire LAN on a computer, so that all Internet traffic (web, bittorrent, anything that uses Internet) goes through the VPN when the software is running. I can't imagine that WC3Connect wants to funnel *all* of a client's Internet traffic through it, so I had the impression it worked as a proxy, identifying *only* packets from WC3 (via port or something else) and rerouting them.

That's not true of all VPNs no

Like I said, you're mistaking a type of VPN for all VPNs and that's not how it works.

You're thinking of a "full tunnel" VPN but they don't all have to work that way. Hamachi, WC3Connect, anything that makes your computer think its LAN'd with something it isn't physically LAN'd with is basically a VPN. There's different flavors.

Zaphod42 fucked around with this message at 01:15 on Feb 18, 2020

# ? Feb 18, 2020 01:11

Telebite: Aug 23, 2018

So far everything I've read seems to indicate that tools like WC3Connect are proxy servers, not VPNs. I would not call a tool like Privoxy a VPN but a local proxy server, but maybe in recent years the terminology is shifting? Warcraft 3 LAN uses specific ports (6112, etc.), and again while I am not a programmer, the JAVA Code for WC3Connect looks to me like it's working like a proxy, intercepting traffic on specific ports on the local host and rerouting them to the Internet.

I can see that I'm derailing the thread over what appears to be just an issue with semantics... "You call it this, I call it that" and serves no purpose to the discussion, so I'll apologize for my apparent ignorance and shut up now. :gerty:

# ? Feb 18, 2020 01:41

Khorne: May 1, 2002

Telebite posted:

So far everything I've read seems to indicate that tools like WC3Connect are proxy servers, not VPNs. I would not call a tool like Privoxy a VPN but a local proxy server, but maybe in recent years the terminology is shifting? Warcraft 3 LAN uses specific ports (6112, etc.), and again while I am not a programmer, the JAVA Code for WC3Connect looks to me like it's working like a proxy, intercepting traffic on specific ports on the local host and rerouting them to the Internet.

I can see that I'm derailing the thread over what appears to be just an issue with semantics... "You call it this, I call it that" and serves no purpose to the discussion, so I'll apologize for my apparent ignorance and shut up now.

Independent of these programs, one of my work VPNs only works with certain applications. It doesn't reroute all traffic from my system.

VPN just means virtual private network. There's no requirement for it to reroute all traffic.

Khorne fucked around with this message at 02:35 on Feb 18, 2020

# ? Feb 18, 2020 01:54

Aces High: Mar 26, 2010; Nah! A little chocolate will do

it's not just me that is weirded out that they decided to change Tyrande's picture to be a close up of her face as opposed to a zoom out of her on her tiger, right?

Also I hope I'm not the only person that for many years thought Tyrande was a tiger

# ? Feb 18, 2020 06:28

Tunzie: Aug 9, 2008

Aces High posted:

it's not just me that is weirded out that they decided to change Tyrande's picture to be a close up of her face as opposed to a zoom out of her on her tiger, right?

Also I hope I'm not the only person that for many years thought Tyrande was a tiger

I kind of thought it was a good change, actually.

# ? Feb 18, 2020 10:21

porfiria: Dec 10, 2008; by Modern Video Games

Aces High posted:

it's not just me that is weirded out that they decided to change Tyrande's picture to be a close up of her face as opposed to a zoom out of her on her tiger, right?

Also I hope I'm not the only person that for many years thought Tyrande was a tiger

Malfurion marrying a tiger does sound like something he�d do.

# ? Feb 18, 2020 18:07

World War Mammories: Aug 25, 2006

do NOT elfshame

# ? Feb 18, 2020 19:29

SoundwaveAU: Apr 17, 2018

porfiria posted:

Malfurion marrying a tiger does sound like something he�d do.

I mean I don't wanna get weird but I'm JUST SAYING that the Night Elf Druids can literally turn into animals and I feel that could have potential effects on their society

# ? Feb 18, 2020 19:53

Kith: Sep 17, 2009; You never learn anything
by doing it right.

Tunzie posted:

I kind of thought it was a good change, actually.

It's a lovely change. Unit portraits are supposed to clearly identify what unit is selected, but now at a glance Tyrande and Malfurion are very similar.

# ? Feb 18, 2020 21:38

jokes: Dec 20, 2012; Uh... Kupo?

porfiria posted:

Malfurion marrying a tiger does sound like something he�d do.

"Hush, Tigger" doesn't have the same meme potential as "Hush, Tyrande"

# ? Feb 18, 2020 23:31

Teriyaki Koinku: Nov 25, 2008; Bread! Bread! Bread!

Bread! BREAD! BREAD!

I've never seen a AAA studio ask for players to make their own .txt files for key binds before lol.

E: Taiwan is also a restricted word in game creation. :china:

Teriyaki Koinku fucked around with this message at 15:36 on Feb 21, 2020

# ? Feb 21, 2020 14:30

Flayer: Sep 13, 2003; by Fluffdaddy; Buglord

To be fair making your own custom text file for your hotkeys is from the original WC3 release and it's actually really good considering the sheer amount of units. You can even use the text file to create custom hotkeys for UMS games if you go into the map and find the unit code (at least you could in the past!).

# ? Feb 21, 2020 18:55

1st_Panzer_Div.: May 11, 2005; Grimey Drawer

Teriyaki Koinku posted:

E: Taiwan is also a restricted word in game creation.

There is a map that is trees spelling out Free Hong Kong, it can be hosted under any name.

# ? Feb 22, 2020 16:28

Comrayn: Jul 22, 2008

1st_Panzer_Div. posted:

There is a map that is trees spelling out Free Hong Kong, it can be hosted under any name.

Truly we are all so very brave for hosting it. Xi�s days are numbered now.

# ? Feb 22, 2020 16:40

Tubgoat: Jun 30, 2013; by sebmojo

Lmfao WarCraft III's install is literally 5 times the size of Skyrim. Activision Blizzard execs get the slow-motion dull guillotine.
Edit: But at least my game has a normal framerate now, even though this loving exercise was completely pointless. It is incredibly nice to play again.

Tubgoat fucked around with this message at 19:49 on Feb 22, 2020

# ? Feb 22, 2020 16:47

Herstory Begins Now: Aug 5, 2003; SOME REALLY TEDIOUS DUMB SHIT THAT SUCKS ASS TO READ ->>

I posted it in death watch, but ToD has a podcast with a bunch of pros/major wc3 figures and while it was originally intended to be about wc3, since the drop of reforge it's been just non-stop making GBS threads on everything to do with how reforged was release. And not just pointless making GBS threads upon it by random uninvested idiots, eg me, but by pro players who had legitimately set things up in their lives to play the game full time and make a go of it only to have all their potential sponsors run for the hills in fear of being associated with reforged.

It's insightful and pretty much all of the guests from the episode I saw were people at the tier of play that they were actively consulted by blizzard and brought in on the process so it's been interesting viewing. It's long, but if you're curious about the fallout and just wtf all went wrong, then it's worth throwing on in the background.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG79mEHDOZg

They also have a laundry list of small but important features (half of which are just poo poo that broodwar reforged had, like various improvements to the spectator interface and the ability to zoom out etc.) that would've been basically trivial to add and that people have been asking for for 15 years.

Herstory Begins Now fucked around with this message at 22:12 on Feb 22, 2020

# ? Feb 22, 2020 22:10

Frustrated: Jun 12, 2003

The Dreamhack Anaheim tournament is starting to look like a disaster. Moon v Thorzain has had two disconnects with Thorzain leading in both games. Good thing Blizzard removed LAN and never implemented a way to pause and reconnect...

Edit: They switched to classic TFT on LAN!

Frustrated fucked around with this message at 23:02 on Feb 23, 2020

# ? Feb 23, 2020 22:50

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# ? May 16, 2024 13:51

Fifteen of Many: Feb 23, 2006

So it seems like I may have lost my original RoC/TFT keys, so I'm stuck riding the reforged wave if I want to replay the game. How sad am I going to be now that it's been a while since release?

# ? Feb 24, 2020 00:10

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Retro Games > WarCraft III: When Men Were Men, Orcs Were Orcs, and Customs Were Fun

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