The Hive is a Warcraft III modding community. If you are totally new to the game or very skilled, you may either learn and get help or teach others: there is a place reserved here for you! The site also contains a vast resource section including most of the resources that anyone will ever need for a Warcraft project. You will find campaigns, icons, maps, models, skins, spells and tools. Extensive tutorials contain realms of information on how to create, improve and perfect your resources and maps. The Hive's forum allows everyone to talk about the game, modding, making resources and many other subjects.
With 1.24 coming out sooner or later, there will need to be some changes to the maps and spells sections. Naturally, incompatible maps and spells will need removal, but the two sections will handle it differently:
In maps, it will be primarily a user based initiative—please report any maps you attempt to play that do not work with the new patch via the Maps Moderation Forum or the Report Post feature. We may additionally write a script which attempts to find such maps, but this is not guaranteed.
In spells, the entire section will be purged, both due to the high volume using 1.24-incompatible code and that there will be a simultaneous tightening of the spell rules. The purge will work (when it comes about) by the spell's uploader having two weeks to confirm their resource's acceptability under the new rules—at the end of this period, all resources not marked with this will be deleted. After this point, users are encouraged to report any resources which still do not conform to the rules but whose authors kept them anyways. A news announcement will be posted when the purge (that is, the two-week counter) begins.
The new spell rules will come into effect as of the release of 1.24, but please do not post spells incompatible with them even before that. The changes will be:
1.24-incompatible spells will not be acceptable.
Spells requiring WEU, UMSWE, or any other third party GUI modification will not be acceptable.
Spells must be fully multiinstanceable, and done so competently (IE no "indexing systems" which just populate a massive array and count upwards until they hit a maximum, then restarting from the first possible value regardless of whether the position is taken).
Spells not created by the submitter will be rejected regardless of permission.
As I know that the maps and spells sections are a concern to many of you, I'll be keeping you updated via news posts about the latest important staff changes in the development section. I'm still looking to promote several new moderators for Maps and Spells, as we are quite understaffed, so you can expect several new arrivals in the next few months. In the mean time, if anyone has any suggestions as to what they think might help out the sections, they are more than welcome to post them in Site Discussion, the relevant Resource Moderation forum, or private message them to me (depending on how private they want them).
First off, Linaze will be joining the team as a Map Moderator. I hope you'll all welcome him and support him in his job to come. As bounty has been busy for a bit and will be for the rest of the summer, hopefully this (as well as any other appointees that may come) will help stem the tide of maps which are being submitted.
Second, bounty hunter2 will be on vacation for the summer and thus unable to review maps, so don't try to contact him with regards to moderating during this time. This will likely cause the maps section to slow down a bit during his absence.
Finally, Eccho is retiring as a Spells Moderator, at least temporarily but most likely permanently. I hope you'll all give him thanks for his contributions to the spells section.
For those of you who haven't seen, some very important changes are happening recently with JASSing in WarCraft which will break backwards compatibility by fixing the return bug. To compensate, GetHandleId (H2I) and StringHash (s2i) have been added, as well as a host of new fairly fast hashtable lookup functions which support most handle types.
GUI has included these natives as well, meaning multiinstanceability should be much easier to achieve in future GUI scripting.
For those of you who do not code but are avid gamers, this could mean a lot of older JASSed maps which are no longer maintained will break as of a full 1.23b release.
Finally, this return bug fix will remove all threat of the exploit which has been circulating recently with regards to infected maps.
EDIT2: A lot of people have been asking about the return bug and its use, so here's an explanation:
Return Bug and JASS
In the old JASS compiler, a function with multiple returns was only type-safe on the last return. That is to say
function A takeshandle h returnsinteger return h endfunction
Would break, as h is not an integer. However,
function B takeshandle h returnsinteger return h return0 endfunction
Would compile fine, as 0 is an integer and only the last return is type-safe. As functions exit after they hit a return, this allowed JASSers to "convert" types, such as getting an integer index of a handle via the above function B (called H2I).
However, this could also be exploited with functions to convert code to and from integers, allowing people to write and execute arbitrary bytecode. As a side effect, you could do a buffer overflow attack on the VM, allowing arbitrary machine code to be executed, obviously posing a significant security threat.
Rather than fixing the buffer overflow problem, Blizzard decided to instead fix the return bug. This may seem minor, but the return bug was key to attaching information to objects; you could get an object's ID via H2I and then use a gamecache to store things to it. Additionally, you could also pass around objects as integers and convert them back via a reverse I2H function.
As a solution for the demand for this kind of function but still feeling the need to close the return bug, Blizzard introduced the hashtables and StringHash/GetHandleId functions above. While for most things they will suffice or even be better, this means that all maps using the old system need to be recoded to support them or they will not work.
EDIT3: The adventure continues.
The return bug is still out there, and is exploitable by a simple change. Hopefully Blizzard will either fix the buffer overflow attack or just fix the return bug properly this time.
I apologize, but once again, there will be no interview for the First Plane page. Hopefully it'll be here again on the next edition.
On this June News Batch, we bring, as usual, news of our hosted projects, this month's top 10 downloaded maps, updates on what's going on on the Arena, and a bunch of hilarious quotes!
With Summer and the holidays approaching, this can only get better!
Happy vacations, and good luck for your exams, if you have them.
Index
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The Hive's Projects All news concerning the Hive Workshop's hosted projects and forums!
The Hive's Arena
Caught!
Last Page
Opening picture by Archian. News Batch content by Rui. Top+
Every month, the Hive's News gather the data of the month's top downloaded maps and bring them here under analysis.
The data was gathered on the 4th of June at 22:00 approximately.
With still no new versions released, "Diablo III Beta" once again occupies the first position, yet with less advantage: 5.400 downloads, far from the last month's achieved 11 thousand.
Great ascension since last month! "Angel Arena Allstars" has scored over 4 thousand downloads, and rises to position #2 from #7! The little advertisement from the last news batch must have helped!
"DBZ Tribute Elite" has fallen one position. It is separated from the second spot by 1,5 thousand downloads. ikcilapmada's map's download count is stable, which guarantees the resource will stay on the top for long.
1)ark_NiTe seems to have spent some time developing his work. "Against the Darkness" has been through modifications since last month, and is separated from the third position by no more than 50 downloads!
Like "DBZ Tribute Elite" or "Diablo III Beta", The Chosen Ones, the only campaign of this top, maintains a stable position, oscillating between the fifth and sixth positions.
Gilles' rating was not so favorable for the map, but "Fortress Siege" manages to get to the #6 spot nonetheless, climbing three positions in a month period.
"Nickba's ORPG" maintains its position with 1,6 thousand more downloads. It was given the rating of 4/5 by VGsatomi, but the user average rating is 3,7.
With "Upadoro TD"'s dropout (a major one, from position #4), a new map, "DAtC", by Sleepwalker and Wherewolf, debuts on the top. It is an AoS with 31 heroes and 110 items that has received an average rating of 4,6 from the users.
Doctor-Pepper has released no new versions for his "DBZ The Saiyan Race", but his map has had enough downloads (1,1 thousand) to remain on the top, and falls from #3 to #10 this month.
Roller Coaster is a four player game where you can build and ride coasters. Recently risk_fan2 has rebuilt the physics engine, and the rider camera and rider cart have been improved a lot.
A project by rover2341.
The Human Sin is an offensive/defensive style campaign revolving around the story of Gabriel and Baxter, who are in search of a human with a pure soul who can help defeat King Hades, an evil power who has descended to the earth to destroy all humanity for their cruel sins.
By Septimus.
The slowness of Diablo III Warcraft is about to come to an end. CloudWolf and his team (LTGH, redmarine, The_Silent, Darkholme, and dansaDisco) have been reworking the entire game to make it look even more professional than before!
Changes for v1.18 include a whole new inventory system, distanced from the rudimentary six slots, an adjust to the game angles, a revamp to the boss events featuring new spells and abilities, a vast amount of terraining updates for an even more beautiful scenery, brand new skills for all existing classes, new mob groups to test your capabilities, and an improved difficulty system that autobalances the game taking into account the number of players.
But CloudWolf guarantees that there's even more on the sleeve for the future! BETA tests are coming in the following weeks, exclusively for Hive members!
Eleandor has found out that vJASS can be used in the campaign without screwing it up completely, which called the attention of experienced modders such as Av3n. Eleandor is developing a new quest system to be similar to that of World of Warcraft.
After being questioned about using Wc3:WoW with WarSoc, Craka_J has replied that the first version of the project will be Single Player, and that orders towards that direction will only come once MindWorX and SFilip's mod is stable.
Craka_J also adds that it is difficult to say when the first BETA of the game will be released.
Since Eleandor is on vacation until June 16, the team is currently focusing on models, textures and interface!
AtD fans can stay tunned: a new version is about to be released in the next few days, bringing three new ultimate items, a new kick system, slight item balancing, and more efficient coding.
The project has also reached a popular Chinese modding site, which will help catch new players for Against the Darkness! The translation was made by mfdsrax2.
The Hive's Arena
Cinematic Contest #3 Sorrow: The Cinematic Contest has been archived for lack of submissions. The only participant who finished his work, Bob27, will get half the promised reputation.
Terrain Contest 7 - Small World: The objective of this seventh edition of the Terrain Contest is to represent the world from a perspective of something larger.
Phoenix Trial #5: A new Phoenix Trial is here! This time, you'll have to design replacements for the ability buttons of existent Warcraft III spells! On the participants list you can find bananaHUNT, who won the previous edition.
Texturing Contest 13 Voting: The poll is closed already, but it is still worth it to take a look at the awesome Naga skins. Pins's Abyss Fiend was found most agreeable by the public.
Modeling contest #13 - Results!: After deliberation, TDR and BlinkBoy provide their overviews on the submissions of the Modeling Contest's thirteenth edition.
"nah I am going to mow my grandmother. later guys!
Ralle's reply to Shados's invitation to play gmod.
Craka_J
"Teamspeak is a secret to keep Harriet Tubman off it. You are Harriet Tubman... you just don't know it."
Craka_J's answer to NoAmmoSrry.
MasterHaosis
"AHAHAHAHAHA I cant stop laughing. I almost failed from my chair.
On the Chat.
Kimberly
"I just want to squiggle all over your beds :>"
On the Chat.
Vegavak
"I hate pie, I hate screenshots of pie, and I hate idiots who can't read pie. And I hate idiots who falsely accuse me of Pie"
Firelord213
"If I'd show how much I love computers then I'd need a condom for that."
leet.firefox
"You may have a bugged version of Jasshelper. I hear it's quite common.j"
"Ever watched the other guys penises in the shower after gymnastics class?"
"I don't have a problem with guns either. It's the bullets that get to me."
Last Page
PurplePoot is the new Development Director! Focusing on the Maps and the Help Zone will be Rui.
Tranquil is not only the author of "Fortress Siege". He is also a modeler. The third, fourth and fifth most downloaded of these resources are made by him! They are "King", "Angel", and "Royal Captain" respectively. He's not the only one. Other mappers, like CloudWolf, also possess art resources. The icon "CWArchmage", by the creator of "Diablo III Warcraft", has risen interest among the users.
A number of changes have taken place to the development section recently:
I (PurplePoot) am now the development director, and Rui will be handling maps and the Warcraft III Modding forums (Which he focused on already).
The map rules have been tweaked slightly but crucially; maps now follow the same authorship rules as other resources in that you need to prove you have the author's permission to submit a map that is not yours.
The spell rules have been rewritten, although many of the key points are the same.
A new approach will be tried on the spells section. Don't expect any instantaneous change, as there are over 1,000 pending spells and rising. We'll be trying more so to reduce the amount slowly but steadily (as much as possible). As a side effect of this, spells won't get full code reviews, unless such reviews are specifically requested and a moderator has some free time.
EDIT: An update in the revival of the coding aspects of the site.
aznricepuff will be handling the Jass section for the most part. He's relatively quiet outside of the coding forums, but is a great and helpful coder and guy.
hvo-busterkomo will be handling the Spells section along with Dr. Super Good and Eccho. I'm sure most of you know him already, and for those who don't, he's a helpful coder with a good deal of knowledge and experience.
Hello Everyone!
Today I will share good news with you all.
From today on Hakeem will be the Community Director. I feel that he is more in touch with the community than the prior, Ghan_04.
I hope you all welcome Hakeem in a friendly matter.
On a related note, the social groups have been restored and Hakeem is deleting the ones we do not need.
Ghan_04 will not be removed from the staff, he will have a role where he does everything that I do, when I am not here. So far I have called him Vice Chieftain, but I am not sure if that name fits.
Something totally different. I have successfully implemented the resource display pages into showthread.php (the general thread displaying page) which means that the resources will have good looking names as threads do. It also means that we will be ready for whatever the guys over at Jelsoft plans for displaying threads.
I have deleted 344 social groups and disabled the creation of new ones.
I know some of you will hate me for this but most of the social groups were just spam and not useful. I have now restricted the creation of new groups to shamans and me.
We will hopefully soon have a ruleset on how to deal with social groups.
EDIT:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ralle
I have disabled social groups for now. I have reimported all the old groups. Hakeem will start a purge next time I see him.
I am sorry to hide the latest news with this.
I was updating the site to the newest version of the forum software we used and screwed up pretty bad. The software I use doesn't understand that merge doesn't mean replace everything and delete the rest. So we lost a lot of stuff. Mostly forum stuff like profile pictures and avatars. Fortunately.. i am doing what I can to patch the scars. Don't hesitate to bug report any change since earlier today. If it isn't like before, something is wrong.
After so many years of modding, Warcraft III still surprises even the most experienced. Around a week ago, it was discovered that using a JASS function you could turn integers (alphabetic and numerical characters) into bytecode, yet the script that allows you to perform such an action had been there the whole time! And the discovery was made by a user that barely knew what he was doing.
A discovery that's not (only) good news. Allowing bytecode to run compromises your system's safety, since it permits harmful code. For this reason, many people have started to advertise the problem and advising Warcraft III players not to play until patch 1.24 is out.
Six years have passed since its release. It was probably one of the first custom campaigns to be available. Known by many as the best campaign for Warcraft III (story-wise at least), Wanderers of Sorceria (by RazorclawX) is now completed with the release of its sixth and final book. You may now follow the story through to its end! Check the discussion thread here.
EDIT: Joe-black-5 is our new Chat moderator, and zombie2279 will, from now on, moderate icons!
Have a nice May, and good luck for your exams and tests (if you have them).
Index
Top+
The Hive's Arena
Caught!
Last Page (NEW!) Somewhat like Did you know...?.
Opening picture by Archian. News Batch content by Rui. Top+
Last month I said it was the top 5, but I never thought the download counter would become so heterogeneous after a month, so I'll follow my original idea: making a top 10 instead of top 5.
It was not a short-lasting victory. "Diablo III Beta" scored 11.000 downloads this month, with no new version released. An example to the many RPG maps out there.
"DBZ Tribute Elite" is the Hive's top downloaded map, but with "Diablo III Beta" climbing so fast, ikcilapmada's map might lose this position! Its download counter this month was but a fracture of CloudWolf's RPG -- 2.200! Still, it is not a bad result.
Doctor-Pepper's "DBZ The Saiyan Race" has climbed up one position since last news batch. Its download counter increased by 2.000 since last month. The constant releasing of new versions might have helped (last news batch the version number was 1.31).
"Upadoro TD" fell two positions since last Top+. The download counter summed 1.700 more downloads, resulting in 6.500 total downloads. EpixBelongToMe's map has a rating of 4,43, which is better than those of Doctor-Pepper's and ikcilapmada's maps.
Now with a trailer video on YouTube to promote the project, "Against the Darkness" makes it to #5 on the Hive's Top 10! The survival type game got over 1.500 downloads this month, making a total of nearly 17.000!
Having fallen 1 position since last news batch, The Chosen Ones occupies position #6, with almost 1.500 downloads this month. It is the only campaign of this Top+, and the second most commented resource (being surpassed only by "Diablo III Beta").
Featuring 91 heroes (plus 16 special ones), 21 bosses, 400 creeps, and many items, including recipes for fusions, "Angel Arena Allstars", by youkaiz, debuts at #7 of the Hive's Top 10. The map was last updated on the 1st of May.
The preview looks far better than the minimap. The second Role-playing game of the top, "Nickba's ORPG" combines various custom systems like attribute, damage, and experience, plus, of course, a save/load. Additionally, 11 hero classes are available.
The ninth most downloaded map this month, summing over 1.000. This map's rating (4,74) is the exact same of "Against the Darkness"'s, but with 12 more submitted opinions. The map was approved by Gilles in June of last year.
A hero arena containing 26 anime and video game characters. Among them you can find Sephiroth, Vivi, Sonic, Pikachu, and Mario! The game allows you to play from solo to full house! "Grand Battle" has been downloaded 1.000 times since the 4th of April.
Cinematic Contest #3 Sorrow: Only Bob27 has submitted his cinematic. The contest's deadline has been postponed.
Terrain Contest #6 Results: The results of the Terrain Contest #6 (ancient mythology theme) have been posted! Check ~Void~'s, frostwhisper's, and Gilles's ratings on each terrain and get to know the winner!
Texture Contest #13: The Texture Contest's thirteenth edition has ended. This competition's theme was to design a Naga themed skin.
Modeling Contest #13 - POLL: A poll with 8 submissions has been created. Vote for your favorite model, and join the sixty people who already did! Each of the participant's resources shall be judged by TDR and BlinkBoy.
Caught!
Kimberly
"Im so confused....again :/ I dont know why im punishing myself. i think its awesome cake pie."
On the Chat (1-May-2009)
PurplePoot
"MY NEIGHBOR HAS JUST INSULTED ME BY NOT TAKING A BATH BEFORE BED"
In answer to oh_snap about his country's state laws, on the Chat.
Ralle
"awesome quote database :P"
Referring to kharma's Hive quotes database, on the Chat (3-May-2009)
shamanyouranus
"kharma, people were making tea long before they knew how."
Did you know that the Hive Workshop has a Roleplaying forum? In this section you can post any sorts of text role-playing, and there's also a child forum specifically for Warcraft.
You can now report private messages! The button is located to the top right of the box.
The good news
You can now post german triggers without translating them! But of course, it's recommended to translate them for more people to understand them. It's mostly useful when using the pastebin and showing your german friends a trigger.
The bad news
I just changed a "set-it-and-forget-it" setting. It's bad I know but in the end it will be good.
Instead of having f### for forums in links, we now have complete names.
Like instead of this: http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/f97/hiveworkshop-com-do-list-changelog-32064/
It now looks like this: http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/site-discussion-97/hiveworkshop-com-do-list-changelog-32064/
But the problem is that the first link will not work. So Wherever we link to things like this, we have to update it. But the end result looks better and is more self explanatory.