As some of you might know, I slave away making changes to the site and logging them in my changelog. Sometimes these changes are nice and helpful but not worthy of news but sometimes they can be quite significant.
Today I am happy to announce to you the "Preview Triggers" function. On every map without map protection in the maps and spells section you will find a little link right next to the famous "View Resources In Use" called "Preview Triggers":

This shows you a replica of the World Editor's Trigger Editor with all triggers of the map. These triggers can be copy-pasted into [trigger] tags with correct indentation and each trigger also has a link so you can reference it in a post.

This will be a useful tool in many situations: when showing examples of how things are made in the World Editor Help Zone, when spell and map moderators take a quick look at the source of a map to form an opinion, when browsing for a spell and looking at how its made before deciding to download it and many more.

This tool also brought along with it a much more exact specification for the war3map.wtg file format which is big progress for the modding community. Now we are one step closer to knowing everything there is to know about the file formats in maps so we can one day seize control and make our own full alternative World Editor!

Please post all feedback related to this tool in Site Discussion / Bug Reports. I am very interested in differences between the World Editor and this Trigger Viewer in terms of rendering text. I know there are a few cases where they are not the same. Please help me make it more accurate .

Warcraft 3 Patch 1.28.5 is LIVE
Link to Patch 1.28.5 battle.net post

Additionally (not in the patch notes), the

Preloader

JASS native is working again.

Patching seems to be much faster as well, indicating that the launcher no longer re-downloads the entire game.

Today, Warcraft III turns 15 years old since it was first released on July 3, 2002.
Happy Birthday to our favorite game! Click the image for full size

It goes without saying that both ladder and custom game players alike have dreamed of playing other races in WC3. It's been quite some time since we had an altered melee hosted on Hive. Scars of Conflict was the last one, but now we've returned to the genre with a splash. Presenting Warcraft: Ultimate Battle! Ultimate Battle is a massive total melee race compilation, perhaps the biggest project of its type, brought to you by @Unregret, @Wa666r, @ZiBitheWand3r3r, with major contributions from other creators. The main map, Raging Stream, allows you to play as one of 4 original races or 14 custom and unique races and counting! Each race has their own strategies, differing units, expansive techtrees, exciting heroes, and unique abilities. The aim was for them to be as complete as the main four races, but also to make sure they have their own identity just as the original four. Most of the custom races even have fully functioning AI. But if you prefer playing with and against other players, you can! Thanks to Blizzard's 1.27b patch, you're able to play this over battle.net without any third party tools. The series also uses an a plethora of custom resources from Hive authors. Without all the custom models, skins, UI, spells, and icons, the factions wouldn't be able to stand on their own. 14 Playable Custom Races 1 Massive Compilation Map 11 Individual Race Maps Fully Functioning AI Thousands of Custom Resources Unique Strategies Join us in making one of the most enjoyable altered melee compilations ever to exist on Warcraft 3! -> Enter Forum <-

Warcraft 3 Patch 1.28.3 / 1.28.4 is LIVE
Link to Patch 1.28.3 / 128.4 battle.net post

The game turn rate being lowered is perhaps the biggest update in this, as it dramatically reduces the lag / delay in battle.net for both melee and custom game players. User MindWorX found this out a little over a month ago, that the 250ms delay would be reduced to 100ms, and it's been confirmed. This was perhaps the most suggested fix in the entire battle.net community, especially in the competitive scene where minimal delay is of extreme importance. And it's finally here!

You can also now switch between The Frozen Throne and Reign of Chaos in game, in addition to what was said in the patch notes about the editor.

Next up, there are more compatibility and quality of life changes which can hopefully both make the patching process and game itself run easier. Perhaps not so exciting, but it's good that this stuff is being prioritized as well.

If there's any new information that arises, before and after the patch is live, we'll make sure to update it!

BattleNet Latency Reduction

UPDATE: Patch 1.28.4 released, hot fixes some things. ~Updating thread.
Addressing Windows XP issue
Windows XP Issue Resolved

UPDATE 2: The import manager in the editor isn't working for some right now, so while we wait for Blizzard's fix, you can use the WEX editor as it works there.