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Differences between Starcraft 2 editor and Warcraft 3

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war3 con : very old, no1 left for playing except bots and shitty limitations
sc2 : con : too complexe and time consuming and a sucky arcade system and sucky bnet 2.0

overall: moding is dead, if you won't spend years of your life, at best with a team of 2 or more your map won't be played at all, so do not start with it
 
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SC2 editor is straight up superior for all practical purposes, once you learn all of its ins and outs. There's a lot more to learn, particularly the object editor (data module) but if you want to, you can ignore the data module for the most part and just copy existing units and alter the basic fields; it's still a little more time consuming than the WC3 object editor, though. You are still fully capable of just using dummy units (or dummy actors) and triggers to accomplish all the things you could in WC3, but with a much better trigger module interface.

The aforementioned data module is probably the closest thing to a downside for me and a lot of people. It feels like it makes you do an awful lot of work to accomplish things that were simply a few clicks in WC3 like setting up basic dummy units/abilities/etc. - while it provides more depth, again it feels that most of what you can achieve through actor events, effects and behaviors were pretty simple to do in WC3 just through triggers.

Essentially Blizzard took the part of the editor that was the most basic and approachable, but at the same time the least flexible, and made it the most complex while adding a ton of versatility; but I'm not sure the tradeoff was worth it in the end for how many steps it adds to the process of very basic things. And it kinda shows in the quality of most arcade maps, where quite often abilities don't even have visual or sound effects attached because people don't even know HOW to set that up; it really isn't as straightforward as it should be for something so basic.

Also, not really related to the editor itself, but mentioned by the second poster - the biggest downside of modding in SC2 is the arcade system is just set up awfully and the only maps that get exposure are pretty much the first maps to gain popularity. Even the random map queue only seems to pick from the top 100 or so most played maps. So it's extremely tough to actually get any exposure for your map regardless of quality, and the most played maps are all rather terrible and simple - not even WC3 quality, they feel like Brood War maps.
 

Dr Super Good

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Also, not really related to the editor itself, but mentioned by the second poster - the biggest downside of modding in SC2 is the arcade system is just set up awfully and the only maps that get exposure are pretty much the first maps to gain popularity.
That has changed to a more classic WC3 style where now any map will get players as long as someone is willing to create a lobby for it and stay in the lobby until full house.
 
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That has changed to a more classic WC3 style where now any map will get players as long as someone is willing to create a lobby for it and stay in the lobby until full house.

the 2nd part is just not true.
it's nearly impossible to find players to test a new map, if i wouldn't have such a great clan i couldn't test any of my map ideas. waiting hours, one is joining, waits 30 secs leaving, another one joins and leaves and so on and on
-------------------------------------------
i fully agree with Meticulous + it feels like the maps on top ten are the top ten 3 years ago.
and one more downside of sc2 editor, after 3 years of patching this damn editor still regulary crashes which pisses me off hard, for luck you can load the EditorTestMap autosave

oh and i didn't mention the slowness of the editor yet
 
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Dr Super Good

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it's nearly impossible to find players to test a new map, if i wouldn't have such a great clan i couldn't test any of my map ideas. waiting hours, one is joining, waits 30 secs leaving, another one joins and leaves and so on and on
You just need to be patient. I played a lot of new maps and most have a full house.

the 2nd part is just not true.
it's nearly impossible to find players to test a new map, if i wouldn't have such a great clan i couldn't test any of my map ideas. waiting hours, one is joining, waits 30 secs leaving, another one joins and leaves and so on and on
You kind of contradicted yourself...

it feels like the maps on top ten are the top ten 3 years ago.
Actually you will be surprised that there are the odd new comer here and there. As long as you provide something different and not "generic AoS", "generic Guess Who", "generic Arena" or "special forces rehash #" you have a good chance at becoming popular.

and one more downside of sc2 editor, after 3 years of patching this damn editor still regulary crashes which pisses me off hard, for luck you can load the EditorTestMap autosave
It crashes occasionally for me, not really a problem as it saves considerably faster than WorldEdit does. If it crashes more then you likely have an overheating problem.

oh and i didn't mention the slowness of the editor yet
Slowness? It seems pretty fast to me. Only time it is slow is when first opening windows or changing data views to sounds/actors with campaign dependencies on.
 
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i remember the old days of wc3 where their were LOAP maps with strip-clubs and drug-dealers and you could get high on cocaine in your apartment. Can you do anything like that in SC2?

you wonder why you don't see any sc2 LOAP maps? ya cause its so strict ... so all the nazi censorship does matter...

btw you misspelled 'hear' as 'here'

Partially it's done to avoid retardness like the one you described, so it is good to have some restrictions.
 

Dr Super Good

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you wonder why you don't see any sc2 LOAP maps?
Because the editor is beyond the limited intellect of the people who made LoaPs in WC3. I never did find a good Loap, the closest was Resident Evil where the maker put effort into trying to balance things.

btw you misspelled 'hear' as 'here'
What does this have to do with anything?

so LOAP is retarded?
99.9% of them were. No balance, no gameplay, and horribly boring and time wasting. Like I said, LoaP Resident Evil was about the best ones as the map maker bothered to at least try and give some gameplay and balance to it. The very fact that drugs were represented as tomes is evidence by itself.
 
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^ You showed that you are a retard, many keep telling you but you stil don't get it, especially with this shit avatar.
 
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Warcraft III:

Pros

- Easy to learn. This also means more maps are generally made as a greater population is able to use the World Editor tool.
- Larger variety of units of various different types, allowing for a greater diversity.
- Heroes seem very natural in Warcraft III, making hero maps much more native and fluid. For example, inventory, EXP and Stat system is built into the UI. EXP gain, EXP share is prebuilt into Warcraft III.
- Easier to model with. Many more models available for WC3 than SC2.
- Been around for a while so there are more tutorials, custom models and other help available.
- Editor seems to be lag free and load much faster than SC2. Older game, easier to run.

cons

- More Limited than StarCraft 2.
- Various leaks in coding (laggier maps)
- Apparently the coding is less efficient than StarCraft II. However, this is hardly a concern given how less demanding Warcraft III is than StarCraft II.
- Dying community. Less maps being hosted, less people joining, etc.
- Lots of bigger and more complex maps can suffer from fatal errors. Not much support or any action being taken by Blizzard.

StarCraft II:

Pros

- Much more possibilities than Warcraft III
- Apparently more efficient coding. But again, StarCraft II still overheats my poor laptop. Efficiency of coding seems redundant when comparing SC2 to WC3.
- Larger community. Easier to get more players into your games.
- I think its easier to make custom icons for StarCraft 2. At least something is easier in SC2.

Cons

- Very difficult to learn. Less map makers come about due to this.
- Simple tasks seem to take forever to do
- Heroes do not feel as native to the game. Still have not got use to some silly item systems out there. You have to put in a LOT of effort to mimic WC3's hero system. Abilities, items, etc take forever to make! This is a pity because so many games seem to revolve around heroes...
- Less custom models available
- Harder to make models
- Less unit diversity.
- Seems to take much longer to load and much laggier. Newer game, it is expected. It is still however a con to consider.
- More bugs, crashes, etc.

Conclusion:

I prefer mapping in Warcraft III over StarCraft II. I wish they would overhaul the StarCraft 2 editor in the next expansion to copy the easy to use interface the World Editor had to offer. Still involving the search function on triggers, and new possibilities, but making an easy to use, easy to learn interface and in a less time consuming manner.
 

Dr Super Good

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You forgot that StarCraft II has a far superior pathfinding system. In Warcraft III you could order 400 Zerglings to move from A to B and they would struggle to move there and be forced to move one at a time. In StarCraft II all of them would begin moving instantly and would have no problem moving at maximum movement speed.

StarCraft II also has a fully customizable interface. Think the mini-map is too small? Make it bigger! Miss the portrait model being left of unit stats like in WC3? Move it there! Warcraft III did not let you do anything like that.
 

Dr Super Good

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Actually WC3 and SC2 maps of the same size are the same size, the only difference is the scale in WC3 is smaller.

In WC3 building placement used half-tiles where as SC2 can only use full tiles. However there was no standard building in WC3 that was smaller than a full tile (Human Farm, Scout Tower, Watch Tower were all 2*2) so in reality this is not much of a problem. In SC2 cliffs are also made larger as they are meant for tactical usage and not as walls. This gives the feeling the maps are smaller when in reality they are not.

And as for the XXL maps that were possible in WC3, no good maps I know really used them next to maybe TKoK RPG. The fact is you could not populate such a large map with any detail due to performance constraints.

FockeWulf said SC2's pathfinding has trouble in larger than 256x256 maps
Could he elaborate? Trouble as in poor performance? Trouble as in breaks? Trouble as in messed up results?

WC3 had a limit on map size because units used floating point positions. If a map was too large, units would move rather poorly at the map edges due to floating point precision. This is why the origin was in the middle of the map as it allowed maximum precision from the floating points.

SC2 has a limit on map size due to the fixed point system used for unit position. Unlike WC3, this keeps the same accuracy no mater where on the map a unit is however it does have upper and lower bounds. This is why they have no problem placing the origin at the bottom left of the map, like it should be in WC3 if there was not an offset defined to centre it.

However it should still be enough for very big maps. The fact the path finding system does not support such large map generally means that Blizzard may have programed in a hard-cap to the size of the path finding system as in reality mesh based pathing systems should scale very well.
 
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I never used Warcraft Editor and I also never played Warcraft. Although I must say the SC2 Editor is very hard to understand. I started with programming from scratch in March 2013 with the SC2 Editor and yet I still know so little. But the reason for that is because I lack knowlegde about computer programming and my English is very bad. Many therms are Chinese for me, I dont even know what the most Var's does. The only things I can accomplish so far are simple things with the Data module and also the simple triggers.

But with all, I must say the SC2 seems very good to me. Sometimes it crashes indeed, but I dont know any programme that doesnt. Further the possibilities are way more than I would've exspected.
 

Deleted member 212788

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Deleted member 212788

Yes, the SC2 editor does offer more options when it comes to modding or mapping in general but it's model base is currently very very limited. In addition, every account can upload only a set size of maps so unlike WC3, once you reach that 10 Mb limit, you gotta start asking ppl to upload your maps. But again, that's one of the cons of Bnet 2.0.
 

Dr Super Good

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In addition, every account can upload only a set size of maps so unlike WC3, once you reach that 10 Mb limit, you gotta start asking ppl to upload your maps. But again, that's one of the cons of Bnet 2.0.
Incorrect, the map size limit is larger than 10MB. I know for a fact Undead Assault 3 has a file size >10 MB.

Also unlike WC3 where you have to upload all custom models with the map. SC2 allows you to upload them with mods. If these mods are public, other authors can even link to them and thus the same awesome model might be used by 100s of maps yet only need to be downloaded once. Since the user of the model is not uploading it, they do not have the resource count against their storage limit.

The storage limit is basically so large that unless you release dozens of poorly made junk maps it is impossible to fill.
 
Could he elaborate? Trouble as in poor performance? Trouble as in breaks? Trouble as in messed up results?
From my experimentation, a map larger than 256x256 takes 4 bytes into consideration (or 6), turning the hexadecimals from taking the second and fifth byte to second, third, fifth and sixth (00 01 00 00 01 00). However, I doubt this has major impact on performance with pathfinding.
 
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I hope this doesnt count as a necropost, though this subforum doesnt seem to get much activity anyway.

Being a bit rusty with wc3 at the moment but i dare to say that im more proficient with it than most of the thw's population. The thing is, as said before WC3 has its limitations and some 'hardcoded' this that are impossible or extremely hard to change. But such limitations only affect you when you really want to make something specific. For example, you want to make a map with turn based combat like in XCOM, you'll find those limitations very quickly. The one I personally hate the most is the inability to modify default UI.
I adore SC2 for that, mostly because wc3 had UI assets designed for 4:3 screens which these days you can only see on office PCs and iPad (not thatthey are relevant in any way). Wc3 interface when scaledup on a wisescreen is a disaster, because it takes up ~50% of the sreen, leaving you with a horizontal stripe as if you were wearing a knights helmet.
Ofcourse, the GUI while easy to use, is quite 'dirty' in a way that it makes a mess with mem leaks. But then again its easier than learning some obscure programming language which's syntax doesnt make sense half of the time.

SC2 is 'slower' in a way that its interface is such a clusterfuck you usually spend more time trying to figure out what to do next instead of actually doing something. But I do not deny it, SC2's versatility and expanded capabilities blow WC3 out of the water.
You can take Android vs iOS comparison as a good paralel to SC2 and WC3.
SC2 being similar to android in this case, has the adaptability and bluntly said, is capable of more. On the other hand iOS is somewhat limited but more refined and user friendly.

So in the end, the choice is up to you. Sc2 modding community as seen in this forum is quite young and inexpirienced so you cant expect as good support as WC3 has. While far from dead, WC3 wont get significant popularity spikes unless blizzard gets hit by nostalgia and make WC3 completely free, which is as likely as snow in july (actually even less likely than that).

Unfortunately WC4 wont show up any time soon but there were rumours of it using the SC2 engine (not sure how trustworthy that information is). So if you want to go with SC2, do try out WC3 first, mostly just to get the hang of how it works, since both editors are similar save some obnoxious ui decisions in Sc2 which might make it significantly harder for a newbie.
 
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I hope this doesnt count as a necropost, though this subforum doesnt seem to get much activity anyway.

Being a bit rusty with wc3 at the moment but i dare to say that im more proficient with it than most of the thw's population. The thing is, as said before WC3 has its limitations and some 'hardcoded' this that are impossible or extremely hard to change. But such limitations only affect you when you really want to make something specific. For example, you want to make a map with turn based combat like in XCOM, you'll find those limitations very quickly. The one I personally hate the most is the inability to modify default UI.
I adore SC2 for that, mostly because wc3 had UI assets designed for 4:3 screens which these days you can only see on office PCs and iPad (not thatthey are relevant in any way). Wc3 interface when scaledup on a wisescreen is a disaster, because it takes up ~50% of the sreen, leaving you with a horizontal stripe as if you were wearing a knights helmet.
Ofcourse, the GUI while easy to use, is quite 'dirty' in a way that it makes a mess with mem leaks. But then again its easier than learning some obscure programming language which's syntax doesnt make sense half of the time.

SC2 is 'slower' in a way that its interface is such a clusterfuck you usually spend more time trying to figure out what to do next instead of actually doing something. But I do not deny it, SC2's versatility and expanded capabilities blow WC3 out of the water.
You can take Android vs iOS comparison as a good paralel to SC2 and WC3.
SC2 being similar to android in this case, has the adaptability and bluntly said, is capable of more. On the other hand iOS is somewhat limited but more refined and user friendly.

So in the end, the choice is up to you. Sc2 modding community as seen in this forum is quite young and inexpirienced so you cant expect as good support as WC3 has. While far from dead, WC3 wont get significant popularity spikes unless blizzard gets hit by nostalgia and make WC3 completely free, which is as likely as snow in july (actually even less likely than that).

Unfortunately WC4 wont show up any time soon but there were rumours of it using the SC2 engine (not sure how trustworthy that information is). So if you want to go with SC2, do try out WC3 first, mostly just to get the hang of how it works, since both editors are similar save some obnoxious ui decisions in Sc2 which might make it significantly harder for a newbie.

So discussion ends here... sc2 editor is better than wc3 editor if you like sc2 editor but wc3 editor is better than sc2 editor if you like wc3 editor...
 
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You forgot that StarCraft II has a far superior pathfinding system. In Warcraft III you could order 400 Zerglings to move from A to B and they would struggle to move there and be forced to move one at a time. In StarCraft II all of them would begin moving instantly and would have no problem moving at maximum movement speed.

StarCraft II also has a fully customizable interface. Think the mini-map is too small? Make it bigger! Miss the portrait model being left of unit stats like in WC3? Move it there! Warcraft III did not let you do anything like that.

But if you have 400 zerglings on the map in SC2, only .5% of the population will be able to run said map above 1 FPS :xxd:
 
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StarCraft II also has a fully customizable interface. Think the mini-map is too small? Make it bigger! Miss the portrait model being left of unit stats like in WC3? Move it there! Warcraft III did not let you do anything like that.

While you can edit the UI files to move around or otherwise edit certain elements, the dialog system is far more advanced and can allow you to create completely custom UIs which are completely different from the original. For example, you can create your UI to mimic WoW's UI, or Final Fantasy's.
 

Deleted member 219079

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Deleted member 219079

SC2 : Boring s*it

WC3 : The s*it

Basically SC2 doesn't have any interesting arcade games atm. And I hate games of these days. Actually not every1, epsxe is a good modern game ^^

In the past, you had to optimize the h*ll outta your game to get it working. Now something like Minecraft gets super popular, even though it's rendering has been s*ittest s*it ever, afaik.

Just look at the specs required for wc3:
WINDOWS XP; 400Mhz Pentium II or equivalent • 128 MB of RAM • 8MB 3D video card(TNT, i910, Voodoo 3, Rage 128 equivalent or better) with DirectX 8.1 support • 550MB HD Space (In addition to your Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos installation) • 4x CD-ROM drive

8MB 3D Video card, that's it. The graphics look good to me, and game size is below 5GB.

Also the size of custom maps in sc2 is horrifying, some maps can be even >100MB. I have 2mbps connection, wc3's 8MB limit is great for me.

My comparison of these two is here: http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/off-topic-478/warcraft-3-vs-starcarft-2-101-a-254737/

I ended up preferring sc2 over wc3, because wc3 is dead. Still the bnet 2.0 in sc2 sucks, why cant you name your own lobby -_-
 

Dr Super Good

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Just look at the specs required for wc3:
Most custom maps need 2-4 times those specs to even consider performing well.
Also the size of custom maps in sc2 is horrifying, some maps can be even >100MB. I have 2mbps connection, wc3's 8MB limit is great for me.
No maps cannot be 100 MB, read the documentation. They instead depend on mods for the assets and these are downloaded once and can be used in many maps. Good luck doing that in WC3.

why cant you name your own lobby -_-
Because companies would use it for free advertisement space like they ended up doing in WC3. Seeing 90% of games on battlenet being "10$ HOST ROBOT" really annoyed me.
 
Dr Super Good said:
No maps cannot be 100 MB, read the documentation. They instead depend on mods for the assets and these are downloaded once and can be used in many maps. Good luck doing that in WC3.

Sure, it's called local files and one giant directory. Blizzard sadly made a mistake by not having it on by default though.
 
Yeah, sadly, nobody wants to waste their time setting up 100MB sized folders just to play a map.

In SC2's case, the mods are used by many maps.

Simple, make an installer. :thumbs_up:

Since it's wc3 where not many people know of the advanced programming required for something past WE, many people here would not know how to do that since once you get good and make a few good resources you usually move onwards and do something else. However a few have managed to do so.

I'll likely never move to SC2 just simply because it is inferior well to my opinion, it has some stuff better then wc3. However I would rather just move onto programming after wc3.

Main difference is well if you want to make something for a wide user base easy to get too and got lots of time then sure SC2 is a good choice. You need lots of time due to even the easiest things costing lots of time similar to real programming, but still limited to whatever Blizzard did/said/made.

If you want to make something where you'll have dedicated players and have an easier time with more resources... Then WC3 is a better choice however players are hard to find if you don't know where to look.

Both games are great and both should be played. =)

Both are still quite limited/laggy for the complex advanced stuff as well.
 

Dr Super Good

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Sure, it's called local files and one giant directory. Blizzard sadly made a mistake by not having it on by default though.
So let me get this straight. Something that needs a registry modification, a third party installer and still will probably cause people to fall out of synchronization in multiplayer is superior to something where it is downloaded automatically and just works? Sorry please explain the logic behind that.
 
So let me get this straight. Something that needs a registry modification, a third party installer and still will probably cause people to fall out of synchronization in multiplayer is superior to something where it is downloaded automatically and just works? Sorry please explain the logic behind that.



Nope it won't cause people to fall out of synchronization. Nah it's mostly on par.
 

Deleted member 219079

D

Deleted member 219079

Most custom maps need 2-4 times those specs to even consider performing well.
You could still experience the campaign with those specs :)

No maps cannot be 100 MB, read the documentation. They instead depend on mods for the assets and these are downloaded once and can be used in many maps. Good luck doing that in WC3.
That's funny, I bet my **** I've seen over 100MB download in sc2 one day...

Because companies would use it for free advertisement space like they ended up doing in WC3. Seeing 90% of games on battlenet being "10$ HOST ROBOT" really annoyed me.
You sure host bots could be used? Also Blizzard has the feature which kicks out afkers off the lobby.

EDIT:
Also, some user feedback regarding sc2 optimization which I talked about;
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1805275
 

Dr Super Good

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That's why you don't let the players play until they run the installer...
Yes exactly. In SC2 I can join a map, have the dependencies fetched for me automatically and then play immediately after the download is done. In WC3 I need to be kicked from the game, search the internet for the dependencies, run an installer which might be malicious and install malware at the same time and then find a new session of the map to join while hoping it all works. See how much easier to use SC2 is?

laggy/leaky as well buggy game.
It has much better response than WC3 with highly responsive user input (people have made working FPS maps and I can play them on the American server from Europe). SC2 has no leaks as far as I can tell, it will only leak if you do something logically very stupid (let orphaned actors live indefinitely). SC2 is nowhere near as buggy as WC3, where as I can write an entire book on WC3 bugs SC2 only has a few non-critical ones and almost all do not cause a fatal error unlike WC3.

That's funny, I bet my **** I've seen over 100MB download in sc2 one day...
As I stated, they depend on mobs for assets which total over 100MB. The actual map file should only be around 5-10MB at most. The advantage of this is the map can be update for only 5-10MB download while possibly 100-1,000 MB of assets used do not need to be re-downloaded as the mods that contain them were not changed. Additionally that 100-1,000 MB of assets can be used by any number of maps if it was made public so you will not need to re-download it.

Also Blizzard has the feature which kicks out afkers off the lobby.
Yes but a robot can easily trick it. There is absolutely no reason to name a session lobby anything other than the map name.

Also, some user feedback regarding sc2 optimization which I talked about;
So? You tried playing WC3 with 4 AI recently? Put yourself on an island so they cannot reach you and watch how in WC3 the game stalls every second for several frames as the AI desperately and repeatedly tries to reach you.

It is very well possible it was performing poorly if he had 4 cheating AI. They have absolutely crazy APM (near unlimited) so consume far more resources than humans playing.
 
So? You tried playing WC3 with 4 AI recently? Put yourself on an island so they cannot reach you and watch how in WC3 the game stalls every second for several frames as the AI desperately and repeatedly tries to reach you.
So that was the reason.. I was making a melee map with islands last year and it lagged like hell until I used whosyourdaddy and annihilated the enemy base. (well nearly)
 
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