🏆 Texturing Contest #33 is OPEN! Contestants must re-texture a SD unit model found in-game (Warcraft 3 Classic), recreating the unit into a peaceful NPC version. 🔗Click here to enter!
It's time for the first HD Modeling Contest of 2024. Join the theme discussion for Hive's HD Modeling Contest #6! Click here to post your idea!
This has been a passion project of mine that started in 2020, shortly after Warcraft 3 Reforged released.
If you are unfamiliar with the original War of the Lost Kingdoms, here is a short summary of what you can expect from this map:
After crashing on the Island, wait for your Life Raft (Zeppelin) to arrive. Enter it, head to the mainland, and drop your Survivor near an unoccupied Base to purchase it. Unique units will spawn from the base every 90 seconds. Killing enemy Units gives you 10 gold per kill. Use this gold to purchase more Bases, or upgrade your existing ones.
PROTECT YOUR SURVIVOR!!! If he is killed, ALL of your units and bases will transfer to the Player that killed him. If killed, you may bring your Survivor's Ghost to one of the 4 Resurrection Stones found on the map to transform them into a vengeful Revenant! Revenants make excellent Hero-Killers, but they only earn 50% gold from kills until they kill at least 1 Survivor or King - so HAPPY HUNTING!
Improvements over War of the Lost Kingdoms: DISCLAIMER: While some may believe that these are too subjective to be considered "improvements", I disagree. I believe that having more options (When they aren't forced upon you!) and implementing much-needed performance optimizations, are net-positives and fit the definition of "improvement". Other changes and features that I personally feel modify the core experience of the original are listed below in the "New Additions & Features" Section. (Though I'm hoping you find some of those to be "improvements" as well!)
Support for 23 Players (Up from 12)
AI/Computer Player Support
- Very basic AI that is programmed to take neutral bases, and attack enemy bases (even other AI bases)
- Does not technically have a Survivor or King to kill, so their units must be killed and bases must be taken by force.
- AI gets random unit upgrades for free throughout the match -this should make them more difficult to farm.
- Not recommended for competitive PvP matches. The feature is just there for fun/solo matches, if you want to use it.
Rally Point Support
- Setting a Rally Point for a Base will order units spawned from that base to attack-move to the designated point.
Interface-driven Diplomacy
- This was not possible in classic WotLK, which used text-input commands.
Optimized Spawn Triggers
- The game doesn't freeze during the spawn trigger, even when all bases on the map are occupied. This was an annoying bug in the original.
Optimized Unit Collisions
- All units have their model size and collision size reduced by over 50%.
- This trick allows a greater number of units to determine pathing simultaneously, which means large armies won't constantly pause when given consecutive move-orders.
- The original map experienced movement-lag when 100 troops moved at once. The new map can handle over 300 units moving MUCH further distances (which is good, since this map is 180% larger than the original)
Armies Rebel when a Player Leaves
- When a player used to the leave the game, their remaining bases would continue to spawn units until the base was taken.
- This resulted in free farm for some players, but also worse performance for the entire map if the base was ignored.
- Now, the leaving player's units will turn on each other, effectively culling the extra units that would otherwise cause lag.
- Their bases are also handed over to the Neutral-Hostile AI, and their spawns are disabled.
New Additions & Features:
Reforged HD Graphics
Cinematic Intro
New Hand-Crafted Map sized at 286x318 (180% larger than the original)
New Tile Set that offers greater environment & terrain variety
43 Unique Bases/Spawns (Up from 22 compared to the original)
Boss Battles with custom Spells & Triggers
Boss Bounty System
Balanced Creep Spawns
Player Ghosts (Allows you to continue watching the game after death, instead of getting booted from the game)
Revenant System (Allows you to return to the game once as 1 of 4 types of Revenant)
Custom Unit & Hero Abilities
Custom Items (All use unique models)
Passive Gold Income (+10g per spawn)
Tiered Unit Spawn Limit & Food System
Unclaimed Base Pings (For first 120 seconds)
Instant Tier 1 Spawn once base is purchased
Scaling Gold Allowance
Q&A:
1. How is this different than the original map? Barring the core idea, this is a completely new map built from the ground up with different terrain, bases, units, abilities, mechanics, triggers, the list goes on... For a comprehensive list of differences, please refer to the Additions & Features section above.
2. Why can't I play with Classic Graphics? Unfortunately, Blizzard misled consumers (and map makers) when they claimed that Reforged maps and Classic maps would be backwards compatible. In truth, many Reforged assets either don't have alternative models in Classic, or even cause crashes for players using Classic graphics when encountered. I spent 100's of hours trying to make my map playable in both Classic & Reforged -constantly finding and working around incompatibility bugs that Blizzard introduced with each update. Eventually I gave up and fully committed to using Reforged assets.
While this wasn't the outcome I wanted, I believe I've taken full advantage of the graphical improvements that came with Reforged by making a beautiful, detailed map. I've also included many high quality assets from this awesome community that wouldn't be possible with Classic, so there's still plenty to enjoy here with Reforged!
Credits: The Man. The Myth. The Legend. King_Leopold - While the Last-Person-Standing/Battle Royale/Mass Unit Spawn concepts aren't new, he came up with a an extremely fun and creative way to blend them all together to create the original map that inspired this one. I'll never forget the countless hours my brother and I spent playing the map, forging alliances, and avenging players who died to the dreaded Murloc+Sasquatch cheese strat... I have nothing but love & respect for this man that I've never met, but if he's reading this I just want to say THANK YOU for your contributions to Wc3. I hope my attempt at iterating on your idea can bring as much joy to other players as your maps brought to me
If it's heavily based on someone else's map, have you contacted the original author to get permission to make your own version?
A credits list in the map description with the names of the authors whose resources you've used is mandatory. That includes models, skins, icons, custom spells, systems. Also, sounds, music and everything outside this site.
This helps you with the models, skins and icons from Hiveworkshop: Resources in use by Lost Kingdoms Reforged 16
The description has unnecessary coding in it that doesn't turn to coloured text.
A credits list in the map thread description is required where the names of the resource (models, skins, icons, spells, sound etc.) authors are mentioned along with the specific resource. It would be a luxury to have links leading to the used resources. Credits in the Quest Log would be appreciated too.
A detailed changelog in the first post would be helpful to reviewers and notify fans about the newest implementations to your map.
Map thread tags are important. Please use those that fit and not more or none.
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