#1 Warcraft 3 Reforged Modding Community

Statharas · Aug 17, 2013

Creators of the 'StarCraft MMO' Seek $80,000 to Make It Free-to-Play

StarCraft Universe, the "StarCraft MMO" concept that got a bunch of Blizzard's lawyers itchy and nervous a couple of years ago, is aiming toward a full fledged release—with Blizzard's permisson—and is looking for $80,000 in Kickstarter funding to do so.

StarCraft Universe did release a version—SCU: Chronicles of Fate—over Battle.net earlier this year, but the mod was a singleplayer prologue meant to introduce players to the story and acclimate them to playing the game, said creator Ryan Winzen. StarCraft Universe will be fully multiplayer (and may be soloed), will incorporate typical MMO features like player progression, inventory retention and the like.

Winzen says players do not need to own a paid version of StarCraft II to play StarCraft Universe (or Chronicles of Fate, which acts as kind of a demo, for that matter). "You'll be able to play it with the free downloadable Starter Edition of StarCraft II" he said in an email.

StarCraft Universe is being made by a shop Winzen heads called Upheaval Arts. This game began life in 2011 as an MMO-style mod that Winzen and other collaborators built. Of course they called it "World of StarCraft," which got Blizzard's attention. The StarCraft developer wanted to be sure Winzen and his team wasn't screwing around with the game using something other than the official toolkit; they weren't. Once that understanding was reached, Winzen moved forward with the project, and Blizzard even flew him out for a meeting as a goodwill gesture.

StarCraft Universe, according to its pitch page, will feature four playable classes in two races each, Terran and Protoss, with player and weapon customization, usable vehicles with mounted passengers for combat, crafting, progression trees and a slew of features common to the MMO experience. Winzen is writing its story, set in an alternate StarCraft Universe, and voices will be supplied by actors who have worked on World of Warcraft and League of Legends.

The project is two days into its fundraiser and has raised $12,000 so far. If it can reach $100,000, the team will add a Zerg playable race. There's plenty more information, and other stretch goals, available at the link.

Source: Kotaku.com

Statharas · Aug 14, 2013

Launcher Update: Get the Desktop App for Battle.net® Now

Blizzard said:
In the months ahead, the game launchers for StarCraft II, Diablo III, and World of Warcraft will be automatically updated to our new desktop app for Battle.net, designed to improve the launcher experience and streamline your ability to play Blizzard games—but if you’re interested in upgrading now, you can!

The open beta test has begun, and everyone’s invited to download and install the app now in preparation for the switchover. If you’re interested in upgrading in advance, simply click the button below.

Download the Battle.net App

What’s this launcher update do? The new single sign-on functionality allows players to log in once to access World of Warcraft, StarCraft II, Diablo III, and the upcoming PC and Mac versions of Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft, and stay logged in for up to 30 days.

Players can also install games directly through the app and, if you choose to leave the app running on your desktop, keep them up-to-date automatically even while you’re away from your computer. Please note that it’s entirely up to you whether you wish to leave the app running—you can exit it at any time, and it will automatically re-launch whenever your standard launchers would.

For more information, check out the FAQ.

Once the open beta test ends, everyone’s launcher will be updated automatically when they start up the launcher for World of Warcraft, StarCraft II, or Diablo III. Players will be auto-updated in waves over time, so the exact date you’ll get the update will vary from person to person.

Today also marks the end of our Battle.net desktop app closed beta test. If you’ve already been using the app as part of the closed beta group, you don’t need to redownload or reinstall anything—you’re already good to go. Thanks again for all of your great feedback throughout the course of our testing, and we look forward to hearing everyone’s thoughts on the open beta in the Battle.net forums.

Screenshot of the launcher

Also, if you're a StarCraft II Modder, we'd love your opinion!

Please take a few seconds to vote on a poll about the resource section!

Frotty · Jul 29, 2013

WurstScript Released!

WurstScript is a new Scripting language, which can, similar to vJass, cJass and zinc, be translated to Jass.
It’s goal is to provide a development environment where code can be written faster and errors in your code are detected as early as possible.

Small Feature Overview:

Less verbose, indentation-based syntax (a mix of python and jass)
Better code editor via the eclipse plugin
- context aware code completion
- syntax checking while you type
- easy code navigation
- interpreter and REPL to test some functions without running the game
- integrated documentation with hotdoc
More safety, less hacks
- no “struct extends array”
- no implicit casting
- forced conventions
- modules that are more than textmacros
- tuple types
Built-in optimizer (name compression, inlining, ...)
Open Source and on github, contributions are welcome

Project Thread: http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/...se-wurstscript-wurst-jass-compile-ide-238522/

Homepage: http://peq.github.io/WurstScript/

Bibendus · Jul 28, 2013

This version was focused mainly on improving user feedback.
Additionally a bug that may have caused AI freezes and game slowing should have been fixed now.

Considering I did not upload any gameplay video in the past months I decided to record myself playing 1vAI in easy mode. During the game I tried to show all features that I could imagine at the moment.

Full changelog:

BALANCE
o Goliath damage reduced by 37%
o Waves 8-9-10 of map Hive Fort have been slighly tuned down

CHANGES
o New spawned drones will now priorize close tasks
o Improved mineral tiles textures
o It's now possible to right click on army unit frames to move the camera close to a random unit of that type
o Added supply informations in the UI
o Increased width for the army and the alert panels
o Increased pheromone slap area
o Added ingame tips in multiplayer games: conquer a nydus worm, build lair & hatchery & library, research rooms & spells
o Added ingame checkbox to enable/disable ingame tips
o Changed alerts layout
o Tutorial improved with new informations and UI buttons highlighting
o Added tooltip additional infos for rooms
o Hatchery and Library tiles brightness increased for better visibility
o Library room renamed to Psionic Nest
o Workshop room renamed to Furnace
o Call to Arms spell renamed to Pheromone
o Removed misleading level 2 research cost for unimplemented rooms and traps

BUG FIX
o Fixed bug that was causing lag and AI breaking whenever a player reached 0 minerals
o Fixed error message shown when creatures were receiving damage over time from dead units
o Improved movement rotation sensitivity in possession mode

Orcnet · Jul 21, 2013

A NEW HOSTED PROJECT BY: Bibendus

About the Game:

Dig underground tunnels, build rooms and attract creatures at your service, then use your army to annihilate your enemies. Each room has a different use and can attract a specific type of creature, so it's up to you to build the best hive possible. You can even build traps or research new spells to improve your defense capabilities.

This map is freely inspired by Dungeon Keeper 2 but all the game will be transported to the starcraft universe. That means that all DK units, rooms and spells will be converted in SC2 units, giving them similar roles and abilities as they had in the original game.
For people who don't know, Dungeon Keeper was one of the most in depth strategy game created by Bullfrog in the old '90s.

Gameplay Features:

- Use your drones to dig and build your perfect underground hive/dungeon
- Attract different creatures researching and building new rooms types
- Full featured creatures AI that allows them to eat, sleep, train and work autonomously if you provide them the needed rooms
- Each creature has different a different abilities and can level up fighting or training
- Quickly drag and drop your creatures where they are needed, you can even slap them to increase their work efficiency
- Research and build traps to welcome any intruder that dares to step into your territory
- Research and use spells to quickly destroy your opponents or support your army
- Play in different game modes, against waves of invading heroes or against other keepers
- Full featured playable tutorial

Game-based Media:

See The Images/More Videos here: LINK

Hosted Project Forum: LINK
ModDB Forum: LINK

VOLUNTEERS NEEDED! For a Notepad++ work for vJASS Development

User Nestharus suggested that we must help him complete a set of Native/BJ Descriptions for Notepad++ for it to be a better vJASS environment.

About the need of assistance:

In order to progress Warcraft 3 and Starcraft 2 development, non-GUI coding should be moved from World Editor into a text editor such as Notepad++. To achieve this, common World Editor coding features, like autocomplete with function hints and highlighting, should be created.

Notepad++ uses two xml files, the styler and the autocomplete. The styler is used for highlighting and the autocomplete is used for everything else.

The project is a c++ program that takes user input and outputs the autocomplete xml file. The highlighter has already been finished.

Users will put data directly into the program and then the program will run and output everything. There are around ~2000 functions that need to be plugged into this program.

The autocomplete will include: function name, return type, parameters, parameter descriptions, and function description. Many of these descriptions will come from thehelper wiki.

A parser can't be used due to the requirement of descriptions. Everything that could be parsed has already been parsed. There is a list of functions with missing descriptions.

The community should really get involved with this project as it can't be done by a small group of people.

By supporting this project, the JASS Class can be reformed to work out of notepad++ and various tools to link jasshelper up with notepad++ can be created.

To contribute to the project, simply reply to the thread with how many functions you are willing to work on. You will receive a pm with a list of functions to do as well as what files they come from and a link to the first function's wiki page so that you can cnp descriptions if there are any. Be sure to fix any incorrect descriptions. If you are unsure about a function, you can always reply saying that you don't want to do it and it can be thrown back into the pool of stuff to do.

Keep in mind that \t (tabs) do not work, so pure spaces must be used. Text wrapping also doesn't work, so \n should be used (try not to go past the dashes).

Thank you for taking the time to read this, and please support the project :ap:

For more Information about the vJASS work and the thread itself, please proceed here: LINK

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