Blizzard's unused ideas (based on voice paths)

[MrRious]

I've recently discovered that there are some weird voice paths hidden in the voices list in unit editor.

I've only found two of them, but there might be more.

 

[Hermit]

'MaievLater' sound set is used in some campaign missions. The only difference from 'Maiev' is that the "Illidan is out there somewhere" line is removed.

More sound sets that share some or all sound files

Maiev and MaievLater
Bristleback and RazorMane
ForestTroll and ForestTrollShadowPriest
Gnoll and GnollKing
HeroMountainKing and HeroAvatarMountainKing
Proudmoore and HeroPaladin
SludgeMonster and WaterElemental
Assassin, Watcher and Archer
IceTroll and IceTrollShadowPriest
DoomGuard, Wendigo and Zombie
ChaosGrunt and Grunt
KotoBeast and KotoBeastNoRider
ShamanX and Shaman
Nerubian and CryptFiend
Revenant and Gargoyle
Skeleton and SkeletonArcher
BloodElfWorker and BloodElfEngineer
OgreOneHead and Ogre
HighElfSwordsMan and Priest

Ent and CorruptedEnt sound sets use duplicate sounds (different files that sound completely the same), which means that one of them can be safely owerwritten.

'HeroDreadLordMorphed' was probably used in the Warcraft 3 Beta, where Dread Lord had an ability called Gather Shadows, that allowed him to morph into a swarm of bats (similar to how his Death animation looks like).

The sounds referenced by that sound set no longer exist in the current mpq archives, but they can still be found in the War3beta.mpq archive that can be downloaded from this post, among other things.

 

[Rui]

Like you can deduce from what @Hermit's mentioned, some of the those voice sets actually "exist" even though you can't find their folders in the sound editor. Sometimes it's just small changes, such as MaievLater. A similar case: HighElfSwordsman is the same as Priest, except he doesn't say the line «Is someone injured?»

 

[Sieben]

I love those unused and almost hidden legacy treasures

I noticed today in Sound Editor that Night Elves had a soundset called BearDen, which contains one sound: BearDenWhat1.wav. I suppose it was some equivalent to Hunters Hall in order to train Druids of the Claw in alpha or beta.
Similarly, Undead have an unused building soundset called GargoyleSpire, which, I suppose, was used with the Gargoyle Spire model you can see here.
Anyone knows something about how those worked?

I also noticed that audio files of some Night Elves buildings have names that don't match the current buildings names:

• Ancient of Lore: Ancient of the Earth
• Ancient of War: Ancient of the Moon
• Ancient of Wind: Ancient of the Wild
• Chimaera Roost: Den of Shadows

It's really interesting. It makes me wonder what the alpha and beta versions of the game looked like

 

[Hermit]

Other goofs related to sound sets:
PigFarm - doesn't work since it references a file from the wrong folder.
SacrificialAltar - references a nonexistent file.
OrcLumberMill - also references a nonexistent file (the missing sound file can be found in the Beta mpq archive).
IceTrollShadowPriest - a file for one of his pissed quotes is missing, which results in a blank click (the missing sound file -"Got any chapstick?" can be found in the Beta mpq archive).
PocketFactory - doesn't work because the file path mistakenly starts with a backslash.

These problems are not exclusive to sound sets: they are also found in many sound events (sounds emitted by models).

 

[deepstrasz]

It's really interesting. It makes me wonder what the alpha and beta versions of the game looked like

Warcraft III: Alpha/Beta
Warcraft III: Alpha/Beta
WarCraft III BETA Models - Wc3C.net
Warcraft 3 Alpha Music
The Warcraft 3 prerelease material thread
Warcraft 3 alpha RPS
Videos 1, 2, 3, 4. More here Moritz Ernst Jacob

Other Blizzard video archives BlizzardArchive

 

[Sieben]

I was wondering mostly about the gameplay: how NE buildings worked, was it different, with the different building names? What about Gargoyles?
But the stuff you linked is pretty interesting, there are some things I didn't know about, the alpha soundtrack particularly. Thanks!

 

[Rui]

(...)

I love browsing through this. Took the chance to listen to some alpha music.

 

[Trill]

'HeroDreadLordMorphed' was probably used in the Warcraft 3 Beta, where Dread Lord had an ability called Gather Shadows, that allowed him to morph into a swarm of bats (similar to how his Death animation looks like).

Huh, I knew he had ability with that name, but couldn't find what it does anywhere. I must have missed a source of info! Where did you get that?

 

[Hermit]

Huh, I knew he had ability with that name, but couldn't find what it does anywhere. I must have missed a source of info! Where did you get that?

In the War3beta.mpq\UI\SoundInfo\AnimSounds.slk there are two sound events named "GatherShadowsMorph" and "GatherShadowsMorphAlternate", that respectively reference "DreadLordMorphIn1.wav" and "DreadLordMorphOut1.wav" from the "Units\Undead\HeroDreadLord\" folder.

 

[Trill]

In the War3beta.mpq\UI\SoundInfo\AnimSounds.slk there are two sound events named "GatherShadowsMorph" and "GatherShadowsMorphAlternate", that respectively reference "DreadLordMorphIn1.wav" and "DreadLordMorphOut1.wav" from the "Units\Undead\HeroDreadLord\" folder.

Ah, so its only from sounds? I thought there was a description, a video, or a screenshot of the effect.
I guess I'll have to look into sounds.

 

[Hermit]

Ah, so its only from sounds? I thought there was a description, a video, or a screenshot of the effect.

I couldn't find anything about that ability except those sound events and BTNGatherShadows:

I guess I'll have to look into sounds.

You can find the names of removed abilities even in the current AnimSounds.slk and AnimLookups.slk (UI\SoundInfo\).

 

[Sieben]

A few interesting facts I stumbled upon today while browsing the Sound Editor:

• Jaina's soundset has a line called "JainaOnFootDeath.wav". It suggests there was of a mounted version of her.
• Apparently, Spell Breakers used to be called Spell Thieves, according to their soundset("BloodElfSpellThiefDeath1.wav").
• For some reason, Orc Burrow's soundset is called "TrollBurrow". I wonder if it had a different model.
  
• Orc War Mill's "what" sound is called "TrollWoodWorksWhat1.wav", which suggests the War Mill used to have another name, and maybe another model.

 

[Trill]

A few interesting facts I stumbled upon today while browsing the Sound Editor:

• Jaina's soundset has a line called "JainaOnFootDeath.wav". It suggests there was of a mounted version of her.
• Apparently, Spell Breakers used to be called Spell Thieves, according to their soundset("BloodElfSpellThiefDeath1.wav").
• For some reason, Orc Burrow's soundset is called "TrollBurrow". I wonder if it had a different model.
  
• Orc War Mill's "what" sound is called "TrollWoodWorksWhat1.wav", which suggests the War Mill used to have another name, and maybe another model.

Orcs were to have Pig Farms (model is still in game), Burrows were introduced as defensive structures, AFAIK. I'm not sure if they replaced farms as food source right away.

War Mill was called Forge (icon is still called BTNForge), didn't have the circular saw and was the Blacksmith equivalent. There are icons for Orc (or Troll) Lumber Mill, lumber and architecture upgrades in beta files, much like what Humans got. (interestingly, BTNOrcLumberUpgradeTwo is not found on Scroll of Lore / Beta files, but found its way into WoW files under different name). The original model has apparently been extracted from Beta files and is available on Hive, plus I think there have been recreations with in-game textures.


Also, it makes me really wanna make some grand compilation of all Alpha/Beta knowledge. There are WarcraftIII.net wayback machine, Scrolls of Lore, Warcraft III Evolution Guide on WoWPedia, a few threads like this one on Hive, stuff like icons from WC3 Alpha in WoW files, but each has only part of the picture. Its all so... disjointed.

 

[MrRious]

https://images.igdb.com/igdb/image/upload/t_original/do7fzlkypmp22x37a5ks.png

Skeleton Warriors used to look differently (similar to ghouls).

 

[Sieben]

Also, it makes me really wanna make some grand compilation of all Alpha/Beta knowledge. There are WarcraftIII.net wayback machine, Scrolls of Lore, Warcraft III Evolution Guide on WoWPedia, a few threads like this one on Hive, stuff like icons from WC3 Alpha in WoW files, but each has only part of the picture. Its all so... disjointed.

That's a great idea

 

[Dr Super Good]

Jaina's soundset has a line called "JainaOnFootDeath.wav". It suggests there was of a mounted version of her.

Which fits with the Archmage being mounted. They probably made her on foot so that she would not tower over Arthas who was also on foot when you used them both.

Apparently, Spell Breakers used to be called Spell Thieves, according to their soundset("BloodElfSpellThiefDeath1.wav").

Likely in development names before they were finalized. This is fairly common in game development where assets are called something different from what uses them due to final name only being chosen later.

 

[Hermit]

https://images.igdb.com/igdb/image/upload/t_original/do7fzlkypmp22x37a5ks.png

Skeleton Warriors used to look differently (similar to ghouls).

The skeleton model has a separate geoset for its Death animation; the "Death" geoset still has additional details such as larger shoulder plates and what appears to be hair.