Detailed Guide on Hosting in Warcraft III

[Ironside]

Detailed Guide on Hosting in Warcraft III

1. What we must do

In order for you to be able to host, you must open a port for the computers to connect to you and therefore being able to join your games.

You can think of this like a door: Let's say you are selling something, and someone wants to buy your object from you. He must enter the garage in order to talk to you (let's pretend the host can't hear you otherwise and that the customer can't break the door), so if the door is closed, the customer cannot talk to you (join you) since the door (port) is closed.
Now after we port forward, it's like we'd open the door with the only key that can unlock the door, and now the customer can talk to you (join you) and so now you can host games on Warcraft III.

2. Getting required information

First of all, let's begin by going to start > all programs > accessories > Command Prompt (cmd) (or simply start > run > cmd).

Now type into the console that appeared ipconfig.

It should look somehow like this:

Screenshot

Now notice the fields Default Gateway and IP Address . I suggest you to write these two numbers down somewhere or else you can remember them.

3. Entering your ISP website

Now use the Default Gateway that you got from the last step and open up internet explorer, or another web browser and type http://Default_Gateway so in my case it's http://192.168.1.254

So now if it asks you for Username & Password, the default is admin, admin. If that doesn't work, try the following:

Username, Password:

admin, <empty>
root, <empty>
root, root
blank, blank
blank, <empty>

If none of these work, then ask your ISP (your Internet Service Provider).
Or your parents... You should've got all information on a paper when you ordered the internet...

4. Opening ports

Once you managed to enter your ISP website, we have to find the place where we can portforward, usually it's something called a Toolbox or Games & Application sharing, Portforwarding, etc.

In my case it's Toolbox, then Games & Application sharing, and then Create a new Game or Application. After you find your page it would look somehow like this (note that pages look very different!):

Follow the picture to put the correct values:

Screenshot

The picture shows that I've portforwarded all ports from 6112 to 6119, you can also just portforward 6112 alone!

After you are done, apply the changes and if you have to, put the application to be used by you (mine for example, needs to be applied for a certain user that will use this application). So after this save the changes and exit the site.

5. Testing

Now it's time to go test if you can host games! I suggest hosting a game of DotA as you'll find out the fastest if people can join. Wait for a few minutes, if nothing then you might want to read the tutorial and see if you did something wrong.

If you are unable to find the problem, then post a reply here and I will try to help.

6. Things to know about hosting

You need to refresh the game every maximum 30 seconds, you do this by closing and opening slots. Refresh brings your game back to the front page.
It is recommended that you get a Autorefresh tool instead. You might also want to get yourself a banlist, which allows you to ban players, so they cannot join your games.
The best tool for hosting is GHost, it has autorefresh, banlist, autohosting, kick, votekick, ban, warn, mute, and much, much more; basically all you can imagine to host a game.

Most of these programs can be found here on Hive workshop at the Tools section (http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/tools.php)

As for GHost here is a full guide on how to set it up:

http://www.d3scene.com/forum/warcraft-3-bots/21228-ghost-professional-hosting-program.html

8. Feedback

Found a problem? Got stuck at any part of the tutorial? Send me a PM or ask for further help on our website dedicated to computing, Link: Site

 

[PurgeandFire]

Nice job. I can't see anything wrong with it, and the organization is good.

~Approved. A useful tutorial.

 

[Ironside]

Thank you, was quite sure it will help someone.

 

[StoPCampinGn00b]

I think this tutorial is very obsolete and misleading for hosting. Not saying it's badly written - it's very informative . +rep Ironside. But hosting in these two ways haven't been recommended by the general community for the past 3 years. It doesn't have to be semi complicated at all.

1. Hosting via forwarding ports these makes it very difficult for a lobby to fill and it doesn't cross server host. Hosting across multiple servers helps connect WC3 communities more and fill multiple times faster.
2. Personal GHost bots work to a point but aren't recommended as they fill slower unless supported by MMH. The link to the GHost bot information is also outdated and links to a pretty bad site: D3scene.com is popular for Warcraft 3 Hacking and Cheating - it's disgusting that they willingly publicize that stuff imo.

TL;DR, people don't need to do the things in the tutorial to host anymore as it's much easier to host before. Public games in connection with these also much faster.
Users can host and find games on either:

• HiveWorkshop partner: MakeMeHost.com [Battle.net - Lordaeron (US west), Azeroth (US east), Northrend (Europe)]

• ENTgaming.net [Battle.net, entconnect, GArena, Gameranger(?), Eurobattle(?)]

 

[Dr Super Good]

1. Hosting via forwarding ports these makes it very difficult for a lobby to fill and it doesn't cross server host. Hosting across multiple servers helps connect WC3 communities more and fill multiple times faster.

Not officially supported. Needs third party robot. I still manually host maps on a server if I want a few people in chat to join and see as it is far easier and faster than any robot.

2. Personal GHost bots work to a point but aren't recommended as they fill slower unless supported by MMH. The link to the GHost bot information is also outdated and links to a pretty bad site: D3scene.com is popular for Warcraft 3 Hacking and Cheating - it's disgusting that they willingly publicize that stuff imo.

You and your over zealous morals... If they promote viruses and malware that is another problem and I agree they should be black listed. However maphacks, exploits and cracking protected maps is not nice, but hardly "disgusting".

MMH robots have terrible network connections. Although they claim "100mbps" they are actually closer to 0.5mbps. Many people will actually have a better hosting experience if they self-host. If they really had 100mbps I would download maps in less than a second, instead it takes several minutes.

ENT robots seem to have pretty good connections. However they have a terrible hosting policy and are one of the reasons why you cannot normally host on a single server anymore.

 

[StoPCampinGn00b]

Not officially supported. Needs third party robot. I still manually host maps on a server if I want a few people in chat to join and see as it is far easier and faster than any robot.

The point I was making is that you won't find players to join your game if you don't host via these two sites unless you call someone over or you are pretty lucky. Pros and cons are always abroad but most people I would think would want a fast game to fill rather than having to work to call other people over.

You and your over zealous morals... If they promote viruses and malware that is another problem and I agree they should be black listed. However maphacks, exploits and cracking protected maps is not nice, but hardly "disgusting".

You misunderstand, the disgusting part was just added on as an opinion. The reasoning for me pointing this out is that we shouldn't have these sites linked in the Hive in this manner to reduce the popularity of these things.

MMH robots have terrible network connections. Although they claim "100mbps" they are actually closer to 0.5mbps. Many people will actually have a better hosting experience if they self-host. If they really had 100mbps I would download maps in less than a second, instead it takes several minutes.

ENT robots seem to have pretty good connections. However they have a terrible hosting policy and are one of the reasons why you cannot normally host on a single server anymore.

I've talked to the ENT admins and they claimed that they are well aware that MMH connection is much better for other people than ENT (and vise versa of course). Their hosting policy, looking more in depth, may not be as bad as you think.

Cross server user hosting pretty much keeps much of the general custom games community alive.