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How one programmer at Blizzard could single-handedly make everyone love Reforged in a couple hours

Would you launch Reforged and play this content if the changes detailed below were for real?

  • Yes

    Votes: 4 40.0%
  • No

    Votes: 6 60.0%

  • Total voters
    10
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A lot of people say that Reforged is a big sign of corporate greed or something they don't like about Blizzard, whatever, it's kind of the same story on repeat. Let's try a different story, today. What if we imagine a world where the problems people have with Reforged are actually caused by the developers caring too much rather than too little. Let's assume the developers all wanted to do too much, and nobody could figure out how to fund doing what they wanted, so everyone started on everything and then had to stop half way, but then put duct tape over it so that they could claim that they "still did it" because they were so worried about injuring their pride and how much they legitimately cared about the game.

And that gave me a great idea. What if you took the opposite approach -- don't try to do everything, that's too much, and changing code is hard. Instead, make like a Warcraft 3 modder and just use the code you already have and assume changing it is costly and difficult.

And that gave me a few ideas for a series of swift, easy-to-make changes that I think we would all agree on. Too many players blame Reforged, sometimes I blame the people, but we don't have time to talk about that. We have to imagine what a Blizzard employee can do right now , and what follows is what I imagine this would be like. 15 years of Warcraft 3 modding taught me that every time that I care about the game, I do so out of confusion. What I actually cared about are the people and the human beings I encountered in my life who were willing to play the game with me.

So, given that we are faced with a time of unprecedented levels of frustrated people who want to hate what the game has become (I know, that's sad, but let's face it, some of that is real), we must EMBRACE it, like never before. Take "not taking ourselves too seriously" very seriously, and see what happens. You think I'm kidding, but what if I was not kidding? Time is limited, we just need the game engine to entertain people. So here's how I think we can do it:

Patch 1.33: The Pirate Patch
  • Accept that the majority of players of this game these days are pirates from the third world country who want to steal the game. So we make a pirate themed patch.
  • For the non-pirate players who hold a valid Reforged license, who are melee-playing 35 year-old dads in North America, add a new item called "Pirate Booty" in honor of this patch. It doesn't do anything, and you can't reach it without some kind of exploit, but you should hide at least one copy of this item in every melee map that is currently in the ladder pool. Place this item in a "crate" doodad in each map in the corners, or preferably if it's a water map then place the booty on an island that nobody can reach. If you get really into it and have spare time, make this item able to cast Polymorph, but only on friendly units, and it turns them into Admiral Proudmoore. Seriously, just Admiral Proudmoore. Don't waste time on new assets. Take this seriously.
  • Now that we have the thematic flair out of the way, we need to do the technical work. This part is a little difficult and requires basic knowledge, like maybe 1 week of an introductory C programming class. Here's what we do: every EXE program on Windows has something called Args. Get it? Arg? Currently Reforged can be launched without the Battle.net app using the Arg called "-launch", but then it presents players with a login screen anyway as a means to ensure that they didn't pirate it and stuff.
  • Because all the players of this game until Reforged came out were mostly pirates, add a new arg similar to "-launch" but this time in honor of pirates it is the string value "-arggggg" and when you pass this Arg to the game, it will launch into the buggy old 1.31 menu. I once saw that the Reforged Beta was able to be hacked to support a way to play with the old in-game menu, but then on that menu the Battlenet button didn't work and playing maps would launch them instantly without a loading screen. It was clearly running the skeletons of the old code that were left inside the game's programming data. Just make this the officially unofficial way to launch that mode, and don't spend any time fixing the bugs on it, since it's only for pirates. Argggg!
Now that we have pirates playing the game, the userbase will increase substantially, and we will get media coverage of this ridiculous patch. Social media! Arggggghhhhh!

Patch 1.34: The Fun Patch

  • At this point, the influx of pirates into the game is increasing, but they don't have a way to go online to play with their friends. Their "-arggg" mode isn't able to use the Battle.net button so there isn't multiplayer for them, so they just keep using the Custom Campaigns menu which mostly crashes.
  • For this patch, there are a few simple steps
  1. Go online since everybody is working from home and get in a call with all the WoW team people.
  2. Now in the group call, tell everyone they have to take a 1 day break, get drunk or if they don't drink like me then drink a lot of sugar, and then open World Editor.
  3. Now the drunk employees each must make 1 map in the World Editor. Tell them there are no rules, doesn't matter what you make, there are no standards. Take that very seriously. The only rule is you have to make something. Yes, even Timmy over there, who is just going to make a map filled with sheeps that stand in a line that spells out "TIMMY" on an otherwise blank lordaeron summer dirt map. But that's OK.
  4. Put all of these maps included in the default game install in this next patch in a directory called "Maps\Reforged\Scenario\Community", even Timmy's map. We call it Community so that nobody catches on to where the maps came from, and nobody complains about our deliberate lack of standards.
Now we have both pirates playing the game, and also content for those people to play. Suddenly editing Timmy's map becomes an internet sensation, and a new Dota is born from modified clones of Timmy.w3x, called DotAmmy.

Patch 1.35: The Balance Patch

  • The only thing harder than making fun content is balance. Get the guy who is paid by the hour to change the Crypt Lord's Carrion Beetle hit points from 490 to 410 each month and tell him it's time to assume his true form. Get him to replace Night Elf with Vulpera units. The reason to do it is because of how bad an idea it is, but we're trying to accept the player hate on ourselves and see if we can roll it over to a negative number. And that's also what we do with the Crypt Lord Carrion Beetle hit points: just type in a negative number. It makes them invulnerable. Trust me, if Spirit of Vengeance can have it, so can a little summoned beetle.
  • Since Grubby will complain if we put the carrion beetle hit points to negative, change Crypt Lord Carrion Beetle's "DataE" value to 1. See what I did there?
  • It turns out making Vulpera units is too much work, so just use the naga instead. Enter it in the "unitskins.txt" file as a custom skin for each night elf unit. Making new GUI options in the menu is a waste of time, though, so just make a new in-game cheatcode: Whenever a player types "mrglglrlglrlrlr" all of their Night Elf units get replaced with naga and murlocs (changing their SkinID, not their physical stats). That still requires programming though, so, nevermind, the data guy isn't legally allowed to do that, it's against the rules.
  • So it turns out we can't touch melee, whatever we do ends badly. And we have to do it in Microsoft excel, so we end up making less successful changes to the game's SLK files than what those drunk WoW devs could do, because they used the World Editor's Object Editor which is actually kind of good.
  • So that gives me a new idea. Make a new option for a different melee balance that players can enable in custom maps. Talk to the World Editor guy to just add it as a third dropdown in "Game Data Version". Along with "Reign of Chaos" and "The Frozen Throne", the third option can be called "Experimental". On this version, just change everything for the sake of change. So, yes, it will only show up in custom maps when people turn it on. Sorry guys, the melee players wouldn't let this happen any other way.
  • On Experimental balance, give each race a flying hero like in those pictures of the 2001 alpha of the game. Use the new UI natives to bring back the Mana Stones resources as the third resource in the game, and each hero costs one, like in the 2001 ads for the game. Give Mountain King "Summon Gold Mine" back as his ultimate skill (just use "Build Tiny Altar of Kings", dont write new code). Give the Dread Lord a dress and make his ultimate "Dark Summoning" and give him a skill to morph into a bat. Replace the keeper of the grove with the Archdruid, who has "Force of Nature": a skill that morphs into a Moonkin. Now we can reuse the Keeper of the Grove 3d asset for a new neutral hero at the tavern, but use that Emerald Nightmare Cenarius asset and call him the "Greater Satyr" or something fun like that. Just give him "Dark Portal" from Archimonde as his ultimate skill, don't spend too long making the content, we're on a tight budget here. I was kidding about giving the Dread Lord a dress, that takes too much time to develop the artwork, just use the fat Dread Lord as the base hero and make him turn into a black-tinted gargoyle because asset development time takes too long.
  • Now we had all this fun making the third balance option, but all the pirate players can't even figure out how to launch the World Editor, and they forget to use it, so they forget to use the new balance option. But we gotta bring them in somehow.
  • So, to give them something to do, make a new mode where they get to play all the campaign missions, but you have to play them backwards, and they're harder because nether dragons constantly attack you at random. Rename the dragons to Infinite Dragons and call it Caverns of Timewalking mode. Don't spend more than two days making this mode, otherwise you're doing it wrong. Take the extent to which I am suggesting not doing much work very seriously. Honestly, one whole day will be spent changing the triggers of each map manually to point to each next "reverse order" map anyway. This costs a lot of time because nobody ever thought of automating it.
  • Some of the Caverns of Timewalking missions will be literally impossible because you have this single-hero mission in a cave, but now you get attacked by a bunch of dragons, which are level 10 creeps (the most powerful kind). That's just how it's going to be, but to give the players a sliver of a chance, add some new items that are not in any random drop pools, they're Campaign class items, but they give +100 damage or +300 damage or +50 armor. Make their stats far beyond what they ever should have been. That's okay, it's not so much about balance here as it is about content. One guy is going to find that one sword of a thousand truths that gives +150 armor that lets him survive on a Thrall solo mission in a cave when the dragons kill everybody otherwise, and he'll tell his friend, and it'll start a rumor going. Sorry, now that means it will take 3 days of development time to get this going because of the items. DO NOT make any new C++ changes to make new item abilities (WASTE OF TIME), just add entries to the SLK tables.

Alright, thank you, my dear Reader, whoever you may be, for your time. I gave several suggestions to Blizzard for Reforged in the 2017-2019 years, and when I listen to people rant about Reforged I realize that all of my suggestions were terrible because they made the assumption that people would keep playing the game. They took the people for granted, and assumed it was worth while to make game engine upgrades. Now I can feel relieved that I gave good suggestions that might actually make those people quit complaining.
 
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Well, as far as joke posts go, this surely is a quality one :)

So we make a pirate themed patch
Also, if someone tries to play legitimately, he gets booted to desktop with an error message saying "yarrr! no landlubbers allowed!" :)

Yes, even Timmy over there, who is just going to make a map filled with sheeps that stand in a line that spells out "TIMMY" on an otherwise blank lordaeron summer dirt map.
Agreed! Timmy needs some love too, he's such a remarkable talent!

Now the drunk employees each must make 1 map in the World Editor. Tell them there are no rules, doesn't matter what you make, there are no standards.
Jokes aside, I think this could result in some actually fun maps being made :D

Get him to replace Night Elf with Vulpera units.
Okay, you got me with his one, lol :D

Whenever a player types "mrglglrlglrlrlr" all of their Night Elf units get replaced with naga and murlocs
Why limit ourselves to just Night Elves? MURLOCS FOR EVERYBODY!

Make a new option for a different melee balance that players can enable in custom maps. Talk to the World Editor guy to just add it as a third dropdown in "Game Data Version".
You mean something like they did with SC2, where you can basically create some dependency/data thing that modifies melee maps? :) That's not a joke, that's a genuinely good idea, that is if they actually allowed modders to use it to create altered melee maps.

Give the Dread Lord a dress and make his ultimate "Dark Summoning" and give him a skill to morph into a bat.
Nah, give him a skill to morph into Jaina, because we all know Jaina is secretly a Dreadlord :)

But again, jokes aside - I actually wouldn't mind a special balance setup with super-wanky stats, units and stuff. It would be fun to just have... fun sometimes :)

make a new mode where they get to play all the campaign missions, but you have to play them backwards, and they're harder because nether dragons constantly attack you at random
This would be hilarious :D I'd pirate the damn game to try this :D

Now I can feel relieved that I gave good suggestions that might actually make those people quit complaining.
Yeah, if everybody quits, there won't be anyone left to complain! :)
 

deepstrasz

Map Reviewer
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The question to be asked is, do we actually need Reforged? It doesn't even stand up to StarCraft II's engine, so there's really no need for it until it actually gives us something other than hard to make high poly models and skins. The lighting system is unimpressively similar to the original.
We only need the Classic with new natives and constantly evolving and expanding World Editor features.

I think most pirates actually play online on various platforms rather than custom campaigns.
 
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deepstrasz said:
We only need the Classic with new natives and constantly evolving and expanding World Editor features.
Pretty much this. I genuinely like the classic graphics (rose tinted glasses or not) and the ever expanding library of community resources available for that graphics mode. If they fix a number of key issues still present and provide another batch of useful natives I'm more than satisfied.
 
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Those losers are blindly hanging on to a dead souvenir of the past, i'd take these updates over the ones we have atm anyday!
705881222647251036.png
 
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Did anyone even noticed why some of the members are stucked at patches below 1.32+?
Anyone ever wondered that why we're divided? Is it because of reforged? It's a yes & no.

Why yes? Simple. They made the game hard to get. Admit it or not, one of the features that developer didn't even considered for reforging is the portability of it. The 30+ GB and online requirement already jeopardized most of the Warcraft III fans. Honestly, not everyone here can download that big and having one to online per se just to mod or even play is ridiculous. Where's the consideration here? AND if anyone ever wants to quote me on this please don't boast your "It's 2020", "I have 1 TB of space", "I have high-end pc", "I have postpaid internet pc" insensitive arguments.

Why no? the reforging idea is good for this game from the beginning. You'll obviously notice that since 2018 BlizzCon everyone's getting the hype.
Only they've executed it so badly, unexpected things are here and there which made a disappointment from their fans. Reforged is now notorious.

If ever the developers are reading, please take these sentiments as a consideration for us.
Even though you failed, modders here are obviously hoping for an accommodating patch...
 
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Why yes? Simple. They made the game hard to get. Admit it or not, one of the features that developer didn't even considered for reforging is the portability of it. The 30+ GB and online requirement already jeopardized most of the Warcraft III fans. Honestly, not everyone here can download that big and having one to online per se just to mod or even play is ridiculous. Where's the consideration here? AND if anyone ever wants to quote me on this please don't boast your "It's 2020", "I have 1 TB of space", "I have high-end pc", "I have postpaid internet pc" insensitive arguments.
*Raises hand*
Australia's internet just... sucks. I was able to get the thing itself (but most of the time just have it shifted off on an external harddrive, so both points technically apply for me), but sometimes I can't even play it, at times also just getting booted out of single-player things as well. It's not great at all.

I'd maybe consider playing it instead of any previous version seriously if needing to be online wasn't a requirement.

and seemingly i can't even post this, thanks for proving the point australia.
 
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As a pirate i would've actually bought reforged if it were to be implemented right without all the updates on license agreement bs and gamebreaking bugs and missing features this is the only thing that stopped me :/
Look here even if there were to be a new dota game phenomenon why not actually cooperate with the developers :)
Add like a rule (instead of your effort and intelectual property belongs to Acti-Blizz) where Acti-Blizz becomes a shareholder(a 10~30% of that custom map i guess i dunno) of the games that derive from Warcraft3 custom community in case of monetization so in which other case they wouldn't be able to monetize if they were to break copyright with other companies...

But no i dissagree with some points of this post the game needs actual development not a shitty balance patch ,not a sorry we won't do this, no silence on stuff promised(which includes all old functinality) or not mentioning anything about missing features.

I doubt people cared that much about cutscenes as long as the game was playable i mean at least to the older standards of gameplay. These are only features that need the least amount of time to waste on.
I think that the developers wasted most time on integration with Battle.Net client api than actual game development, cuz greed for their DRM bullshit :) and antitoxic stupidity that happens only in because of their own actions or inactions.
 

Zwiebelchen

Hosted Project GR
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They took the people for granted, and assumed it was worth while to make game engine upgrades.
Ouch... The truth hurts.

Pretty much this. I genuinely like the classic graphics (rose tinted glasses or not) and the ever expanding library of community resources available for that graphics mode. If they fix a number of key issues still present and provide another batch of useful natives I'm more than satisfied.
Usually I would agree on this but I actually like a lot of the new models after closer inspection. The new environmental models are great and I wouldnt want to miss them.

Dont get me wrong: Reforged has a lot of problems but I think they are currently moving into the right direction. They just could be a bit faster moving...
 
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Usually I would agree on this but I actually like a lot of the new models after closer inspection. The new environmental models are great and I wouldnt want to miss them.

Dont get me wrong: Reforged has a lot of problems but I think they are currently moving into the right direction. They just could be a bit faster moving...
I never said there was something wrong with the reforged graphics in my post, just that I prefer the classic ditto. This in part is because of visual clarity in-game and part because of nostalgia I'm sure.

Especially for maps where for whatever reason visual clarity from the top-down view is not as important (maybe you're just controlling one unit or playing at a 3rd person angle) I can definitely see the benefit in using reforged graphics. Obviously they will also make for a lot prettier cinematics if nothing else.
 

Zwiebelchen

Hosted Project GR
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I never said there was something wrong with the reforged graphics in my post, just that I prefer the classic ditto. This in part is because of visual clarity in-game and part because of nostalgia I'm sure.

Especially for maps where for whatever reason visual clarity from the top-down view is not as important (maybe you're just controlling one unit or playing at a 3rd person angle) I can definitely see the benefit in using reforged graphics. Obviously they will also make for a lot prettier cinematics if nothing else.
Oh the original graphics absolutely have more clarity. I cant argue with that. But there are so many custom games where it doesnt matter so its great to have them. Especially when its optional.
 
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