Blizzard Survey Indicates Potential Relaunch for Warcraft III: Reforged

[Himperion]

I dunno what to think about this, beyond prepare to the worst. I'll get a good laugh when the legacy client gets a backed 1.35 just in case.

Being serious, even if i believe that Lemonsky graphics are not proper Warcraft models compared to the SC2 HD bundle from 2016, a re-reforge of the models is nearly impossible at this date, unless in 2016 they did the hundreds of models for a total reconversion and are in cold storage in some pendrive, we're going to live with Lemonsky graphics forever, maybe whem someone invent a AI modeler that can enhance polygons and we can upload our SD from one side and get HD from the other.

And there are a lot of half assed stuff for multiplayer, or the occlusion and ambient sounds. It looks like a bigger job to repair reforged than grab 1.31 and begin again, or this is an excuse to monetize the game like Diablo Inmortal.

1$ everytime you open the jass editor xD

 

[OutsiderXE]

I just find i strange that they might push both graphics mode. I guess the fear is losing either group.

 

[Shar Dundred]

Seems like a rather vanilla survey to me, nothing interesting to see there imo.
I wouldn't expect jack from this.

Legacy WarCraft III In-Game Art Update

God, I dread to think what they'd do there.

 

[~El]

yeah please dont fucking touch my sd assets
i want my grubby lookin 150 polycount grunts tyvm

 

[Bitterman]

I believe that the "Reforged Graphics are going to be deleted" is just a cheap scare-mongering attempt that circulates in the community.
I'm up for optimizing and fixing many legacy features and improving the graphics to be more cleaner.

The Portrait animations needs a remake to be closer to warcraft 3
or port the war 3 ones into it while making fluid

Hots models kinda works well with a few tweaks

Seems like a rather vanilla survey to me, nothing interesting to see there imo.
I wouldn't expect jack from this.


God, I dread to think what they'd do there.

If they are smart, they will let samwize and metzen do that.
Mainly because technically hd war 3 is also HOTS

 

[AngelCraft]

A doubt, Grubby comments that blizzard is already listening to the community, possibly they are looking for the community again to interact with their video games with their opinions ?

 

[Homor]

I assume since its a "soft relaunch" we won't see many crazy things happening. But I'm praying for HD Asset Opt-out (not deletion!)

 

[Tommi Gustafsson]

I hope that the SD version of the game will be smaller in file size.

 

[Linaze]

How about simple things that existed in classic which are missing in reforged, like squelching players?

Can't you the use !mute <player> command?

 

[deepstrasz]

But I'm praying for HD Asset Opt-out (not deletion!)

Don't you already have that but you still have to keep them on your disk or are you referring to choose whether to install those as well or not.

 

[Homor]

Don't you already have that but you still have to keep them on your disk or are you referring to choose whether to install those as well or not.

Right now, even if you don't have Reforged, you have to download the HD assets.

 

[Blahblah_Blagar]

There's no way anything good will come out of this. I don't want to be a contrarian, but I'd put more trust into a small, but devoted fan team rather than a greedy company, which has nothing to do with the original creators of the game and contracts a cheap malaysian studio to do their work for them.

Look up Lemon Sky animations. They're the guys behind those weird uncanny clips for kids on Youtube

What a remaster really needs are sharper textures, more polygons and improved lighting (and I don't mean, make everything shiny or make the shadows sharp). No need to change the artstyle (giving the grunts weeb neckbeards, changing the icons into something out of a cheap mobile game), reimagine the graphics (making the UI weirdly bloomy) or anything of this sorts. Hell, just call it Warcraft 3 HD

Damn, I've just eaten the best sandwich in my life

 

[Retera]

I also received this survey.

Mostly I filled out the survey fast without deep inner thought so that I would give my honest opinion. I pinged Kam on Discord for tips about what I should say, but he didn't say much and said I should hold them to their promises.

But after he said that and I reflected on it, I told him that I felt maybe "holding Blizzard to their promises" is part of the problem. Feels like Reforged was made to "check the boxes" in a hurry and didn't have the same feeling Reign of Chaos did that the people making it were having fun. For example, where are the WarChasers and The Death Sheep types of maps on Reforged? Yes, the Hive has plenty of custom maps, but Reforged not including any new developer custom maps gives off an eerie sense that the developers might not have made any maps.

So, when I was filling out the survey, I shilled for the Frozen Throne. I told them I preferred them to make a smaller size download and fix the menu and whatever else boxes that they offered that even loosely correlated to the idea of having The Frozen Throne as an official, purchaseable game again.

But then in the open ended prompts, I wrote some stuff. The first one I forget exactly what I wrote, but in the final open ended prompt I basically told them this:

When I have a conversation with a family or friend about Warcraft III: Reforged, I tell them that it is a "perfect failure" of sorts wherein any attempt to fix it with any amount of money or people will always fail, because attempts to fix one aspect of the game will break a different aspect. This is surely an exaggeration in my own mind; in reality, Blizzard can choose a focus group and improve the game marginally for that focus group and measure their success and determine that they have indeed succeeded. But, it seems very likely to me that I will not be the focus group chosen because their survey did not even mention many of the features of Reforged that were specifically created to pander to the type of audience like me, such as UI Natives, LUA Script support, configurable [TWN1] used for reveal timers on custom maps, and 2003 Frozen Throne map support in general.

Again, this was not an exact quote of what I put in the survey because I did not save my response, but my response was conceptually very, very similar to this.

Edit: P.S. to any of you who are asking for a "soft relaunch" or "SD+ second remaster," I would ask that you please instead support the Hive Workshop and the artists who created 20 years of custom SD art files, because Blizzard has shown us with changes like the recent Naga Water render bug that supporting Frozen Throne mods and supporting "remaster" art rendering are at odds with each other technologically.

 

[fenix140]

Well, as Retera comments and Kam mentioned, how are we going to know if they will do something good, if they decide to cut off Hive's communication and therefore with the community.

The most concrete thing would be to have an art of models of Blizzard's own style and not by another company, in itself many disliked how the HD of a Reforged model spoiled the microgame strategies since it is more difficult to analyze what a unit will do With these modeling designs.

I know that companies now focus on creating powerful models to create screenshots haha, and they forgot a lot about how intuitive a game looked with few resources, low graphics, achieving very good visualization results on a low-end computer, I would prefer the improvement of the game engine so that it supports good HD models, with the essence of the warcraft 3 legacy models and optimize the game so that they work on old systems with few resources, surely in the future it would be possible utility so that many can play custom maps within mobile devices :v, what is your opinion?

 

[Retera]

low-end computer, I would prefer the improvement of the game engine so that it supports good HD models, with the essence of the warcraft 3 legacy models and optimize the game so that they work on old systems with few resources

Maybe this is evident from my post before yours, but I disagree with most of the sentiment of what you are wishing for.

I have been trying to write a clone game engine based on Warcraft 3 since 2018 when Reforged was announced, and in my clone game engine everything runs worse than how the Frozen Throne runs. It would take a lot of time to make it run better. And Goblins on World of Warcraft teach us that "Time is money, friend." So, you're asking for this huge expenditure on top of Reforged even though Frozen Throne already exists and works.

Trying to rewrite the game kind of makes me feel old, and has taken a lot of time, although I have probably spent more time online being an advocate of my style of thinking moreso than the time I spent actually writing this "rewrite War3 game engine" software. So, although someone could put more time into it than me, I do not see anyone else doing that anytime soon. What do they have to gain?

I feel like rather than SD+ gross nonsense it's getting to be time that we asked Blizzard for an officially supported way to buy and download the Frozen Throne again. If they tried to add a third graphics mode, then they would Reforge the Reforged even further and the technology is just going to get worse and more messed up. For the sake of a consistent, coherent technology base I would prefer that Blizzard published something like the Patch 1.31 with more campaigns and characters in that same format, possibly using assets from the Hive Workshop (with credits and citation). If Blizzard Entertainment is not capable of adding more campaigns to the legacy Warcraft III game without "reforging" the engine, then they weren't interested in playing and developing for my game anyway so I don't want to care what they're doing.

would be possible utility so that many can play custom maps within mobile devices :v, what is your opinion?

I compiled and ran my "rewrite" game on the phone as a joke. This took 20+ hours of code refactoring and a lot of shenanigans. I enabled experimental "new" feature support on my newer phone hardware to get it to work and was playing with a $1000 Samsung S10+ that I got in 2018. On this hardware, the game would still tell me that no map was playable other than Harrow and Ogre Mound because all the other maps ran out of RAM.

The official Warcraft 3 game is written better and with more care than my rewrite, so maybe if Blizzard compiles it to their phone they will be able to play larger maps than just 64x64 size maps. But they probably would not bother. If you want a game like that, go indie and create it for yourself or else be part of a community who creates it. At that point, why tie yourself to Warcraft III?

 

[fenix140]

I feel like rather than SD+ gross nonsense it's getting to be time that we asked Blizzard for an officially supported way to buy and download the Frozen Throne again. If they tried to add a third graphics mode, then they would Reforge the Reforged even further and the technology is just going to get worse and more messed up.

The community helped Blizzard in their game with concepts, such as system models, etc. And the case of Warsmash is a good example of what can be done and how Blizzard took ideas from it. The only thing Blizzard missed is making a game in less time than estimated. Almost 4 years have passed and I think they took many tips into account and surely as a hidden project they started working during this time to improve the game and now that they are more confident they launched that survey to see what the community does now and what they want. After failing with Reforged the community is still here still in force. And what you say is what many of us really want.

The official Warcraft 3 game is written better and with more care than my rewrite, so maybe if Blizzard compiles it to their phone they will be able to play larger maps than just 64x64 size maps. But they probably would not bother. If you want a game like that, go indie and create it for yourself or else be part of a community who creates it. At that point, why tie yourself to Warcraft III?

I mention it jokingly, but of course there are many people who could emulate the new game in the future, and surely maps like Custom TD would be played on these. It might be a bit of a silly idea, but playing maps on mobile wouldn't be bad at all, as with the user interface provided by the revamped editor you can do things you couldn't before. Let's hope everything goes well, since I wouldn't like a new disappointment in a game that I really like and with which I learned a lot about pure programming.

 

[Retera]

Let's hope that everything goes well, since I wouldn't like a new disappointment in a game that I really like and that I learned a lot about pure programming with it.

Well, they cannot disappoint me, because I have no expectations for them. They turned from that path a long time ago. I suppose I expect them to make things worse for me, so if they disappoint me and make things that are still somewhat functional like Patch 1.35, then that might be somewhat disappointing because there would be less for me to laugh at.

 

[Bitterman]

Well, they cannot disappoint me, because I have no expectations for them. They turned from that path a long time ago. I suppose I expect them to make things worse for me, so if they disappoint me and make things that are still somewhat functional like Patch 1.35, then that might be somewhat disappointing because there would be less for me to laugh at.

Blizzard could take a few minutes to look at the return of the storm page at moddb, they could learn a bit since hots is technically the "next step" on warcraft 3's own art assets since all it was made by samwize didier

Shaman image - Return of the Storm mod for Warcraft III: Frozen Throne

View the Mod DB Return of the Storm mod for Warcraft III: Frozen Throne image Shaman

www.moddb.com

 

[noob]

IF it's not just a random PR move and they're serious about remaking a 20 year-old-game-that-isn't-monetized-with-microtransactions AGAIN, so that's a huge if :
just make the graphics like the Rebirth mod : closer to WOW so the artstyle is mostly the same, but units are still easy to recognize in normal gameplay, and it doesn't take 30 GB on your hard drive.
Or just remake the campaigns in starcraft 2 with the assets already talked about in previous posts, so the pathfinding is better and you can select more than 12 units...

Someone is redoing all the WC3 campaigns in SC2.
They already made the orc prologue.

 

[Retera]

Orc Prologue in SC2 has existed and been playable for 5-10 years already.

When will Frozen Throne be playable?

 

[Armelior_is_back]

Someone is redoing all the WC3 campaigns in SC2.
They already made the orc prologue.

I know : my point is Blizzard should just do what modders do/already did but with (hopefully) more ressources.

 

[Bitterman]

Orc Prologue in SC2 has existed and been playable for 5-10 years already.

When will Frozen Throne be playable?

At this rate is easier to open 1.0 mpq's and pack them as a custom campaign now that cinematics are working

 

[Augustus]

What I want:

Classic+ graphics in the style of those updated icons.

Improved Reforged graphics. It's a mixed bag for me. I like a lot of it but a significant chunk of it is either unfinished or not good enough. Just give me that cinematic Footman already.

This might be pie in the sky but I want new campaigns too.

 

[Herod]

I agree, with all posts, my opnion is to make a remake of the classic gameplay with new better skins, new textures, classic gameplay. I like warcraft not cause it has beatifull graphycs, its because of the gameplay, reforged killed this.

Take a look in Warcraft rebirth mode, For long time I´ve prefered this mode than reforged

 

[Bitterman]

I agree, with all posts, my opnion is to make a remake of the classic gameplay with new better skins, new textures, classic gameplay. I like warcraft not cause it has beatifull graphycs, its because of the gameplay, reforged killed this.

Take a look in Warcraft rebirth mode, For long time I´ve prefered this mode than reforged

My issue with rebirth is that most of the human models animations and portraits are terrible, and wcunderground became a tubby clubhouse full of blithering spiteful idiots clashing their egos.

i wish that warcraft 3 mod with vanilla wow models went forward at moddb, at least it looked promising and it still was samwize didier's art, though is vanilla wow.

Warcraft 3.1 mod

Another experimental old style HD mod for good old Warcraft. The idea of the mod is not only in changing of all models and textures but to create a slightly revised skirmish mode for multiplayer and singleplayer game.

www.moddb.com

 

[Vibe]

I feel like rather than SD+ gross nonsense it's getting to be time that we asked Blizzard for an officially supported way to buy and download the Frozen Throne again. If they tried to add a third graphics mode, then they would Reforge the Reforged even further and the technology is just going to get worse and more messed up. For the sake of a consistent, coherent technology base I would prefer that Blizzard published something like the Patch 1.31 with more campaigns and characters in that same format, possibly using assets from the Hive Workshop (with credits and citation). If Blizzard Entertainment is not capable of adding more campaigns to the legacy Warcraft III game without "reforging" the engine, then they weren't interested in playing and developing for my game anyway so I don't want to care what they're doing.

I think everyone in this post should learn from you when they come up with ideas, Retera. At least Retera's idea doesn't cost Activision Blizzard more manpower and money.

Whenever SD players and melee players shout that they want a SD+ graphic, I want to ask them, who do you think you are? The payment level of your veteran player group is very poor, which is not as good as World of Warcraft or mobile gamers, and cannot impress companies like Activision Blizzard.

If you just wish for the moon, you won't get anything.
If you pragmatically propose a feasible path, it is possible to achieve it.

 

[Retera]

If you pragmatically propose a feasible path, it is possible to achieve it.

Insiders say that reinstating the 1.31 servers is not feasible, because they demolished the original Frozen Throne game's server side systems in a way that can never be repaired. So, to be fair, I do not have guaranteed data that what I am asking for is feasible for this company. It may be that while it requires less effort, they are still not willing nor capable to do it. My opinion is simply my opinion.

 

[Goffterdom]

Imho, we're throwing a lot of stuff here, but can we talk about what would be "logical and practical"?

Missing Features

• Tournaments
• Clean Ladder
• Commands (such as ping, stats, mute etc.)
• Clean Custom Campaigns (haven't tried their last patch, maybe they are in a good state now?)
• Others? (don't remember if we're missing something else)

Bug-Free

• Cleaning up all bugs introduced since Reforged
• Cleaning up all bugs there were previously

Missing Reforged Promises

• Reforged cutscenes
• Reforged UI
• Others? (don't remember if something else was missing)

I feel like everything else would just be a "dreamer's wish". Doesn't hurt to dream, but let's be realistic: do they have money for anything? Doubt so. Consequently can we really hope for more than "fixing what's not working / adding what's missing"? Actually maybe, since they're asking that in their survey.

What more could there be then?

Reforged Issues

• Fixing menu performance / bringing back old menu (whatever the solution is)
• Opt-out HD assets

SD Upgrade

• UI Rework
• Model/Texture Rework
• Advanced Shaders

HD Upgrade

• HD/SD compatibility (by reworking base scale and rotation of HD assets)
• HD upgrade (would basically wreck havoc on the Reforged modding scene that existed since its launch)
• Adding the missing animation variations for all HD assets
• Switch SD/HD voice-over

Others

• Engine limitation lift-off (like unit order bug, pathing, size limit, element limit etc.)
• Reconnection system

What else is there? Probably many individual's wishes.

Imho, if they are going for AT THE VERY LEAST the first batch of issues, basically what I call "logical and practical" I would be very pleased. This is what we paid for when we first purchased Reforged.

The second batch is very either controversial (not everybody wants SD art rework) either far off their "assumed" budget for this project.

 

[Evilhog]

I wonder if Blizzard realistically estimates the scope of work they will have to do if they decide to implement the said missing and/or new features. Such undertaking would require a dedicated team of full-time developers... Unless the poor intern guy who does patches is a twenty-armed Hindu god is disguise

 

[ShadiHD]

I believe the best way for blizz to work on this is to reach out to HIVE again, and take notes from the big names of the modding community.

 

[Spacebuns]

Well, how would you determine who is a big name and who isn't in the modding community?

 

[Retera]

Well, how would you determine who is a big name and who isn't in the modding community?

You could do it by how much money they have. For example, in the old days before Reforged there were a lot more of little custom Wc3 map makers and inspired people having fun who just naturally grew into it for years.

But now with Reforged I only ever heard of enough large projects that I could pretty much list them on one hand:

• W3Champions
• Quenching mod
• Re-Reforged
• Chronicles of the Second War

Because Reforged made modding so difficult, people were forced to work together and group up for a few small major projects more like how the SC2 modding scene was historically instead of many small projects like how Warcraft 3 had been years ago. It's a good step in direction of re-establishing the sense of natural order that only really rich people can get things done instead of democratizing creativity by having a World Editor that worked for the average user like in 2003.

Maybe they could take it a step further and make World Editor a paid service for $300/month or something. So few people would buy it that it would quickly become clear who the big names in modding are, since those would be the people willing and capable of paying.

 

[YourArthas]

You could do it by how much money they have. For example, in the old days before Reforged there were a lot more of little custom Wc3 map makers and inspired people having fun who just naturally grew into it for years.

But now with Reforged I only ever heard of enough large projects that I could pretty much list them on one hand:

• W3Champions
• Quenching mod
• Re-Reforged
• Chronicles of the Second War

Because Reforged made modding so difficult, people were forced to work together and group up for a few small major projects more like how the SC2 modding scene was historically instead of many small projects like how Warcraft 3 had been years ago. It's a good step in direction of re-establishing the sense of natural order that only really rich people can get things done instead of democratizing creativity by having a World Editor that worked for the average user like in 2003.

Maybe they could take it a step further and make World Editor a paid service for $300/month or something. So few people would buy it that it would quickly become clear who the big names in modding are, since those would be the people willing and capable of paying.

I don’t always like your wall of lunatic texts but this one was spot on.

 

[Retera]

this one was spot on.

To be fair, there are two or three other projects we could include on my list that probably also deserve credit and that I simply forgot to list, such as maybe FrostCraft, Assault the Throne, and Daemonic Sword. We could consider it my own ignorance that I forgot to list those, but it doesn't change the fact that I could count on my fingers how many notable projects would go on the list.

 

[Bitterman]

I say, now that Allow Local Files is a thing, they need to fix the hd and sd model folder hierarchy, because as of now you can replace all HD models with SD+ from her at hive by using the ol Units folder, instead of leaving it as hd.w3mod/units.

also explain how the cutscenes resolution works, because i tried to convert and use the old release

To be fair, there are two or three other projects we could include on my list that probably also deserve credit and that I simply forgot to list, such as maybe FrostCraft, Assault the Throne, and Daemonic Sword. We could consider it my own ignorance that I forgot to list those, but it doesn't change the fact that I could count on my fingers how many notable projects would go on the list.

WC3 could copy what bethesda modders does, open a patreon, donations and offer service.

 

[Armelior_is_back]

Maybe they could take it a step further and make World Editor a paid service for $300/month or something. So few people would buy it that it would quickly become clear who the big names in modding are, since those would be the people willing and capable of paying.

Please don't give them ideas. I suppose this a joke, but any talk of money is no joke with Actiblizz...

 

[Retera]

I suppose this a joke

Okay. So, you are supposing my idea is a joke. What is your alternative proposition? If money is not a usable metric, how else would you measure who is a "big name" from the community and therefore whose voice should be heard?

 

[FeelsGoodMan]

Okay. So, you are supposing my idea is a joke. What is your alternative proposition? If money is not a usable metric, how else would you measure who is a "big name" from the community and therefore whose voice should be heard?

I know you're just dicking around, but the "big names" aren't necessarily measured in how much direct money they bring to Blizzard/Activision, but rather how impactful their opinion is in the modding community. People who have a lot of persuasive power are always gonna be more important than the plebs, since word of mouth has a lot to say, marketing wise. Nobody are talking about a WE subscription, and everyone knows that's never gonna happen, which is why your idea is a satirical joke.

With that said, I don't necessarily think the "big names" have any more valid opinions than the lowly "peasants". Who has the most viable and logical opinions about how Blizzard should move forward with Warcraft III shouldn't be determined by biased people who are developing their own projects, but by people who can forward objective opinions about the state of the game, and who can communicate the consensus in the community. Just because someone has a promising and advanced project up-and-coming doesn't mean they know what's best for the modding community in general. If I were to personally dictate the course Blizzard should take I'd most definitely tell them to fix the stuff that directly impacts my own project, without a single doubt.

As for Reforged modding; It's not that hard as long as you stick to the default resources and the ones uploaded to Hive's HD section. Making resources that fits to HD mode shouldn't be that hard but there seems to be an unwillingness to share the information about how to make ORM textures. After several years there's still no official guide in the tutorial section on how to hook up a model with ORM textures, despite countless users asking for it. If you ignore the ORM textured models there's not really that much difference when it comes to making projects. Maybe it's just the modding community in general that are creating less promising projects? How many promising SD projects vs. HD projects are there?

 

[Retera]

Who has the most viable and logical opinions about how Blizzard should move forward with Warcraft III shouldn't be determined by biased people who are developing their own projects, but by people who can forward objective opinions about the state of the game, and who can communicate the consensus in the community.

Isn't this our collective delusion? To think that there is a community, or that ABK has any onus to listen to anyone other than their own financial advisors?

If I were to personally dictate the course Blizzard should take I'd most definitely tell them to fix the stuff that directly impacts my own project, without a single doubt.

I managed to prod Kam a little and do some of this on Reforged. Maybe that is why so many people complain about it? It is very possible that they hate all the things I like.

How many promising SD projects vs. HD projects are there?

If you only count projects post 2020, then I think you're being comical, because a lot of people creating on SD could make the claim that their motivation was dramatically reduced by a disrespect for what they enjoyed doing for the preceding 18 years. Conversely, if you count the 18 years of projects leading up to that point, I imagine a number of them probably are/were more promising than HD projects of today.

 

[InsaneMonster]

You could do it by how much money they have. For example, in the old days before Reforged there were a lot more of little custom Wc3 map makers and inspired people having fun who just naturally grew into it for years.

But now with Reforged I only ever heard of enough large projects that I could pretty much list them on one hand:

• W3Champions
• Quenching mod
• Re-Reforged
• Chronicles of the Second War

Because Reforged made modding so difficult, people were forced to work together and group up for a few small major projects more like how the SC2 modding scene was historically instead of many small projects like how Warcraft 3 had been years ago. It's a good step in direction of re-establishing the sense of natural order that only really rich people can get things done instead of democratizing creativity by having a World Editor that worked for the average user like in 2003.

Maybe they could take it a step further and make World Editor a paid service for $300/month or something. So few people would buy it that it would quickly become clear who the big names in modding are, since those would be the people willing and capable of paying.

Money?

 

[FeelsGoodMan]

To think that there is a community

How isn't there a community?

or that ABK has any onus to listen to anyone other than their own financial advisors?

Listening to financial advisors and the community is not mutually exclusive. If they are smart they take public opinion into consideration. Economists also have broad experience and knowledge about marketing, and marketing is all about the value they bring to their customers.

I managed to prod Kam a little and do some of this on Reforged. Maybe that is why so many people complain about it? It is very possible that they hate all the things I like.

Not sure what you're referring to here.

If you only count projects post 2020, then I think you're being comical, because a lot of people creating on SD could make the claim that their motivation was dramatically reduced by a disrespect for what they enjoyed doing for the preceding 18 years. Conversely, if you count the 18 years of projects leading up to that point, I imagine a number of them probably are/were more promising than HD projects of today.

Why would I count pre-2020 projects when we are talking about HD projects? If people who are creating on SD got reduced motivation as soon as HD came out that's on them. They are still able to produce maps on whatever patch suits them best, and they can play said maps however they please. Chances are the maps they make even works on the latest SD patch (and they can also lock their maps to SD mode). Nobody are stopping anyone from producing SD projects, and creating SD projects as opposed to HD projects isn't all that different. The biggest difference is the ORM textures, there's literally no other difference.

 

[Retera]

Money?

Mhmm

How isn't there a community?

It's not a revenue stream for ABK. So it's not a community of their interest groups, i.e. not a group of people that they consider of any relevance to themselves. There might be a community of people who specialize in how to cook potatoes on a potato forum online, but Activision will not allow the potato cooks club to dictate how their Warcraft III product should be made. My intuition is that this is how they approach Warcraft III modding on the high level for the most part, and actions contrary to that were the result of lower level people in the company who saw themselves as doing favors for us.

and marketing is all about the value they bring to their customers.

Seems like the ABK viewpoint is probably that either Warcraft III should convert to a mobile game, or else it should be destroyed and people playing it should be told to stop playing. How is any other decision financially viable on their part? Even if they could convert 1/10th of Warcraft III players into Arclight Rumble players, they would probably increase revenue. If the other 9/10ths of players left or hated them, then they could just tell those people that it's those peoples' fault. Like when someone whined about Reforged on the Arclight Rumble forum and the reply was that Reforged is over, and anyone whining about it should know its their own fault that they are whining. That was actually the opinion published on WAR's forum, although it was not an official poster we can assume at last someone out there has that opinion.

Not sure what you're referring to here.

[TWN1]/[TWN2]/[TWN3] being used for the reveal timers instead of a preset list in Scripts\Blizzard.j . It is an extremely niche feature that caused bugs in Reforged Beta for relatively little gain, other than for custom altered melee maps. If I had known they would not implement my suggestion correctly at first, I would most likely not have suggested anything, because it inadvertently made them look bad. Also, this is only one example -- there may be others.

Nobody are stopping anyone from producing SD projects

My Heaven's Fall mod was injected onto several maps for me to play back in the 1.29s and 1.30s era patches, but the patches kept getting more and more buggy until Reforged. On Reforged, this mod won't work because it has abilities with more than one techtree requirement and models that use animated texture IDs. So, yes they removed the public server where I could play the fully working fully featured version of my maps with others and replaced it with a server where some of the features don't work. That's pretty niche, and in a lot of cases you are probably right that for a lot of users details like that don't matter and they just find workarounds. Isn't your own project like constrained to 1.31 when some of these older systems still worked and stuff? I guess you could move it to 1.35. But then that just puts an expiration timer on it, and in 2 years when 1.35 is replaced with a Patch 1.36 that breaks support for your work beyond repair, what are you going to do? Go back to 1.31? Complain on the forums and hope that your bug gets fixed? That sounds miserable in my opinion.

Sorry to be such a downer, but I'm starting to feel increasingly distant from the Warcraft 3 live patches because of Activision's decisions to do things like ruin the fundamental animated texture ID system and never fix it, or break the world editor so it always alerts about netsafe nonsense and PKBs being the wrong format. The glory days of Reforged are coming to an end, and frankly I have no vision for what Activision sees as the thing that comes next. But I have been building myself a little ark where I can go and hide and survive no matter what happens, and very few people have made concerted efforts to try to actually bring their projects into my ark or make a concerted effort to join it.

If people who are creating on SD got reduced motivation as soon as HD came out that's on them.

So, yea, I guess, maybe that's on me to complain about it. But also, later when Blizzard annihilates support for Reforged modding as it exists today, and it becomes something that only exists on old offline bootleg patches, I will likely say to anybody who had not already moved onto my engine instead that that's on them.

 

[InsaneMonster]

View attachment 423568
Mhmm

Oh no don't think you can just get away with memes. You are basically telling that the big names of the HD scene are like that because of money. That we are the proof modding in W3R is not a democratic process anymore. I can only speak for myself, but I don't have a ton of money. And I don't earn a ton of money. I do earn something through donations, but my project is (as per the EULA) entirely free. And all of my maps are completely open to edits. And I have released as many tutorials/systems/scripts as I could for the community. I even develop live on stream. I even tried as hard as I could (probably to no avail) to share and report as many bugs I could find, many of which also affect the SD modding scene. Most SD people of the "good old times" you speak about never did all of that, and some of them are very proud of their antidemocratic protected maps. I really fail to see nor I can accept your accusation of having contributed in making the modding process less democratic. So, please, if you are to put the name of my project in your little list, at least consider better what are you going to say about it later on.

 

[Retera]

You are basically telling that the big names of the HD scene are like that because of money.

Do I understand correctly that you did not start on your project until the Reforged assets were made available by Blizzard, at the cost of possibly many hundreds of thousands of dollars on Blizzard's part? Whether your project takes your own money as input or not, wasn't it only able to exist because of a large input of money from Activision into the existence of the concept of Reforged?

Edit: Source for dollar figure: @YourArthas and his buddies once told me in 2020 that they got a quote from DragonFly studios for making a second remaster of the art of Warcraft III, and that they were quoted $100,000. I'm guessing since Activision is big, a studio like LemonSky would have asked Activision for more than what DragonFly asked YourArthas for. I could be wrong, but that is the information that I had.

 

[Bitterman]

Do I understand correctly that you did not start on your project until the Reforged assets were made available by Blizzard, at the cost of possibly many hundreds of thousands of dollars on Blizzard's part? Whether your project takes your own money as input or not, wasn't it only able to exist because of a large input of money from Activision into the existence of the concept of Reforged?

Edit: Source for dollar figure: @YourArthas and his buddies once told me in 2020 that they got a quote from DragonFly studios for making a second remaster of the art of Warcraft III, and that they were quoted $100,000. I'm guessing since Activision is big, a studio like LemonSky would have asked Activision for more than what DragonFly asked YourArthas for. I could be wrong, but that is the information that I had.

LemonSky had more freedom working with C&C remastered per their own words than Blizzard who mistreated them badly in a regular basis.

 

[Spacebuns]

LemonSky had more freedom working with C&C remastered per their own words than Blizzard who mistreated them badly in a regular basis.

No wonder this guy was done dirty... look at his model and portrait lmao

 

[Retera]

So, please, if you are to put the name of my project in your little list, at least consider better what are you going to say about it later on.

They say that absolute power corrupts absolutely. And, on my Warsmash project, I am trying to gain absolute power over the system. So, maybe I am in the process of becoming absolutely corrupted.

I messaged with Shadi a few days ago on Discord a little bit and I became aware that he has to worry about that sort of "fear of news" from Activision, depending on what Activision would decide to do and whether it is bad for his project.
Because my project predates the existence of his as far as I know, and my project is an attempt to gain absolute freedom so that I have no "fear of news" on this topic, the problems he (and possibly you) now have to consider seem entirely predictable in advance from my standpoint. And it would seem that I have lived my life while trying desperately to prevent myself from having to deal with them, in a certain kind of way.

So, I did not mean what I said as a personal attack against you. Your project is one of a few that have a really stunning, stellar amount of effort put in and that can clearly inspire others just by letting them see a video of it.

But, even if I know that your project is like that, sometimes I can't shake the feeling that when we interact with Reforged that we are all kind of in a mind prison created by Bobby Kotick and his minions, where they intend to be able to herd us like cattle in one direction or other to make sure that they retain their empire. They want their money, and if you could prove you have it, they may be more amenable to your opinions. Why did the PBR/HD graphics support on Hive only begin when Bobby Kotick and his minions created that technology and paid LemonSky, and not when Warcraft III modding on Hive decided to assimilate that technology into the game on its own independently? Was it perhaps chosen by Bobby Kotick and his minions as a technology that our existing systems couldn't handle, so that the 18 years of MDX technology that I had played with would be cut off and left behind a sort of wall, so that they could justify their paywall? It is hard for me to know exactly. But if you choose to be inside the little wall he builds, then find out it was made of paper and created so that he could control us, to me it just feels like you should have predicted that. Like these people telling me that for people stuck on SD graphics "that's on them." If you stand inside Bobby Kotick's paper house and then he burns it down and sells tickets to see the fireworks as it burns, and you suddenly feel used by him, that's on you in my opinion.

I hope that I'm wrong about everything. It would be really nice if I was just having a bad day and I am wrong about everything, and then Bobby Kotick and his minions step in and bring us into a new era of Reforged modding where everything works better and is better supported -- and then they can show through actions and not words that they really care about all the people who play Warcraft 3, in whatever fashion, and wish to continue to support us all. I think that would be really nice.

 

[FeelsGoodMan]

It's not a revenue stream for ABK. So it's not a community of their interest groups, i.e. not a group of people that they consider of any relevance to themselves. There might be a community of people who specialize in how to cook potatoes on a potato forum online, but Activision will not allow the potato cooks club to dictate how their Warcraft III product should be made. My intuition is that this is how they approach Warcraft III modding on the high level for the most part, and actions contrary to that were the result of lower level people in the company who saw themselves as doing favors for us.

I was simply saying there is a community, not that the community necessarily was of interest to Activision Blizzard. Although I do believe that if they were to make big changes to Warcraft III it would be in their interest to gather information from their users, and Hive is a big source of free information.

Isn't your own project like constrained to 1.31 when some of these older systems still worked and stuff?

It was.

I guess you could move it to 1.35.

It has been moved already.

But then that just puts an expiration timer on it, and in 2 years when 1.35 is replaced with a Patch 1.36 that breaks support for your work beyond repair, what are you going to do? Go back to 1.31? Complain on the forums and hope that your bug gets fixed? That sounds miserable in my opinion.

Well I certainly won't be happy, but I'll probably look into some sort of workaround for the issues I'm facing. There's nothing stopping me from making other projects while I wait for a bug fix that may never come. Is it demotivating if my project comes to a grinding halt due to bugs? Yes, but I know what risks I'm taking, and so should everyone else considering Blizzard's track record of breaking stuff with new patches.

So, yea, I guess, maybe that's on me to complain about it. But also, later when Blizzard annihilates support for Reforged modding as it exists today, and it becomes something that only exists on old offline bootleg patches, I will likely say to anybody who had not already moved onto my engine instead that that's on them.

Last time I tested my project on your Warsmash engine there were a lot of issues. If all these issues are fixed, and you actually manage to get a large frequent player base I'd be willing to consider it. It's an interesting project for sure.

Bottom line is; I don't inherently disagree with you, I guess I have just come to stop expecting anything from Blizzard, or maybe I always expect the worst. I have become numb and apathetic to their patches, so I'm never surprised or outraged when they break shit. People can continue modding on whatever version they like, and there is nothing actually stopping anyone from modding on older versions that will never break like 1.31, since you don't have an "always online" requirement with 1.31 and below. If people choose to continue modding HD or SD on the latest patch they should do so at their own risk, since they already know how dangerous these new patches can be. As for if Blizzard should reach out to the community or not; It depends entirely on what their strategic goals are. If they're actually doing a soft-relaunch then it would benefit them to some degree to get information about the different markets they operate in. They have sent out a survey, and you can also bet they get information from other sources like Hive. They won't reach out to individuals personally with DMs and stuff since most people will be biased or have unreasonable demands (unreasonable in the sense that they're not viable in a business sense, like fixing ALL bugs in one or two patches). They're gathering information to identify and cover needs of their player base, with the end goal of capitalizing on it. The fact that these surveys were sent to people in Hive (I'm not sure if people were targeted specifically or if it was random) shows that they do indeed have some interest in the knowledge and experience Hive's members have.

 

[Armelior_is_back]

I don't play multi at all, is there a multiplayer scene still on war3 ? If yes it's probably more relevant to Actiblizz than the modding scene, since multiplayer needs to be connected, with the possibility to get player data and sell microtransactions.
Unless they hope a new DotA is created and they can make bank with it... good luck on that !

 

[Retera]

Last time I tested my project on your Warsmash engine there were a lot of issues. If all these issues are fixed

For me, choosing an open source system is a matter of being able to fix the issues moreso than a matter of whether all issues are fixed. But, I see how you could arrive at the perspective you shared. It would be nice if all issues were fixed and we did not ourselves have to fix them.