Current Patch - Old Map Compatibility

[Eikonium]

Hey guys,

I'm currently planning an oldschool Warcraft 3 LAN party (no Reforged) and wondering about the optimal patch to play custom maps.
I have 1.31.1 (up to date) and 1.28.5 available.

Do you know:

1. How likely is it that a recently updated map on hive is not compatible with 1.28.5?
2. How likely is it that an old map is not compatible with 1.31.1?
3. When trying to play incompatible maps on 1.31.1, at which point would I see the incompatibility? Directly when trying to host the map via local network? Or might there even by mid-game crashes that wouldn't occur with 1.28.5? In the second case, I should better use 1.28.5 for safety...

Just as a sidenote, I already hosted a Wc3 Lan in december 2018. At that point, most if not all custom maps were incompatible with the newest version of Warcraft (which was 1.29 or 1.30 back then, I suppose).

Thanks in advance for your suggestions!

Eikonium

 

[Tommi Gustafsson]

1. Maps created with 1.29 or later are not compatible with 1.28.5. Essentially anything created or updated since April 2018 will not be compatible with 1.28.5.
2. Warcraft III attempts to be compatible with old maps, unless the map used something like return bug, which was fixed in one of the patches. Maps using mostly triggers should be compatible.
3. I guess it varies map-by-map.

 

[Eikonium]

Thanks a lot!
I guess, 1. was kind of obvious, but still wanted to ask, if there is any kind of upwards compatibility, when editor functions have not changed from one patch to another.

Regarding 3., I would also appreciate more input from everyone with experience. Mid-game-crashes are the worst thing to experience during a LAN party

 

[Lizreu]

Regarding 3., I would also appreciate more input from everyone with experience. Mid-game-crashes are the worst thing to experience during a LAN party

In my experience, the later patches are more unstable with older maps. I think 1.28.5 was fine but I don't remember exactly. The last patch can be a huge PITA with some maps though. Mid-game crashes and desyncs are not uncommon.

 

[Daffa]

Personal best patch on the house would be 1.29.2 at the moment. It goes both ways from 1.24 (when Return Bug is fixed) to the 1.30.X patches.
1.31 has AI issues for melee games (I think it was present there first, if not 1.30) and introduces a whole new layer of code for UI manipulation.

So, a safe way for handling things would have these 3 patches:
1.28.5
1.29.2
1.31 (most recent)
And for Reforged, 1.32

If you use Memhack, add 1.26 to your list.

 

[Eikonium]

How do you determine, whether to use 1.28.5 or 1.29.2 for a particular map? Just from experience?

 

[deepstrasz]

How do you determine, whether to use 1.28.5 or 1.29.2 for a particular map? Just from experience?

If the authors are still active, they can give that answer if not, it all goes down to testing it yourself.
However, we want to have maps that work on newer patches here. Of course, with the old ones which have inactive authors/editors, the story is not the same and many of them might not work on newer patches. For sure, there are many issues with some custom models and skins which use older paths for some textures with changed paths in 1.30+. So, currently, those have to be fixed manually, assuming they're not protected, otherwise you'd need an older patch like 1.27 (link) to play them.