Is the tutorial section dead?

[Jaccouille]

The tutorial submitting section contains a bunch of tutorials that have been "stale" for years: no reply from a moderator or sign of approval (here's one that I find fairly useful).
The last 3D modelling tutorials approved go back to 2021.

Is this section not important anymore?
Is there no one to review them?
Have we reached the pinnacle of Warcraft 3 modding information?

No activity can discourage people from further participating in sharing knowledge.

 

[IronBladeClan]

I was literally just wondering something similar and came here to ask - what's the difference between the stuff in the submission section and the other tutorial subforums? Is someone supposed to be migrating submitted tutorials to a particular tutorial subforum?

If someone could go through the tutorials and review/sort them, it'd be easier to find tutorials of use for one's projects, instead of having to comb through all the submissions ourselves to see if there's anything of interest.

Kind of discouraging as someone who is working on a project and who might be interested in giving some of the more advanced stuff described in tutorials a try if they were better organized/marked as finalized.

 

[Chaosy]

In a sense.

No one except me to review them and I have near zero knowledge about 2D / 3D art and so they remain unapproved.
There are a couple of exceptions where I have also skipped over non-art tutorials but it's for the same reason, if I don't feel that I can understand or fully grasp them and thus fairly judge them I don't think I should.

But yes, in a game which does not get updated (in a modding sense) there are only so many things which can be taught without being extremely niche.
I wouldn't say it's dead but it's on life support and has been for 10 years.

There are things that I think would be nice to add/fix to maybe make it more usable but I am not sure that is (reasonably) possible given that we're bound by forum layout.

 

[Luashine]

No activity can discourage people from further participating in sharing knowledge.

The underlying reason has got to be that the behavior on the internet has changed. I see a lot of guide/tutorial threads everywhere in the archives of 2000s, of varying quality, but still. Then we have somehow shifted from providing knowledge to consuming knowledge.
Example: writing explanations and tutorials -> asking questions for personal projects.
I mean, I can't get enough people interested to write down their current knowledge to expand jassdoc (it's a documentation for all game natives)

I think instant chats like Discord had a hand in this. Why write long texts (forum culture), especially if you need to learn the subject in depth beforehand, if you can just come and ask at any time. Does the quality of replies suffer? Yes. Does everybody get an answer? No. And if people don't like reading long texts anymore, that's another reason why activity moved away from articles to chats.

No one except me to review them and I have near zero knowledge about 2D / 3D art and so they remain unapproved.

And this is like a fear to break something. A mental barrier? That's not the paradigm of "move fast & break things". I feel we've had more of this in the old internet too.

 

[General Frank]

And this is like a fear to break something. A mental barrier? That's not the paradigm of "move fast & break things". I feel we've had more of this in the old internet too.

People are also 'plagued' with mentality of not trying themselves because of 'If this does not work instantly then I don't want to waste my time'.. and then end up not doing anything or waiting for replies that are they should be 'bird-fed' to them.
Acquisition of skills is easier now than ever before. Maybe it is analysis paralysis or maybe the whole world jut became lazier.

 

[Chaosy]

And this is like a fear to break something. A mental barrier? That's not the paradigm of "move fast & break things". I feel we've had more of this in the old internet too.

People are also 'plagued' with mentality of not trying themselves because of 'If this does not work instantly then I don't want to waste my time'.. and then end up not doing anything or waiting for replies that are they should be 'bird-fed' to them.
Acquisition of skills is easier now than ever before. Maybe it is analysis paralysis or maybe the whole world jut became lazier.

No I just think that if you take your time to submit something it should be reviewed by someone who knows what they're talking about and not someone who barely knows the difference between a texture and a model and a 20 minute crash course is not gonna change that meaningfully. Maybe there is a disconnect in the competence expected of a 'reviwer' between you and me but in the spell section the standard of competency of a moderator/reviewer is quite high - in my opinion anyway.

Is it physically possible to be a true jack of all trades? yeah absolutely if you have the interest in all those areas.

Of course ironically me trying to uphold a 'high standard' results in nothing being given at all which is arguably worse.
Me personally, I would rather let them stay where they are rather being letting something unworthy slip through the cracks because in my head 'approved' still means something for some sentimental reason, equally I would be upset if my submission got rejected because the reviewer don't know what they're talking about. I respect the opposite opinion I just disagree. Mistakes happen but the likelihood of a misinformed decision is too high.

 

[Kyrbi0]

It's a fascinating shift; Tutorials used to be a much bigger deal, back in the day. Nowadays yeah, they really seem to have dropped off; I can't remember the last time I used one. And I resonate with Chaosy's concern; as the (apparently?) only Tutorial Reviewer, there's simply not enough expertise & time to handle the existing workload. (Thankfully, Tutorials that have been submitted can still be searched & viewed, right?)

That being said, I have had reason, a number of times, to use the excellent "Warcraft 3 Ability Insight Guide" (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1z17FTnhyfVL87tJgLmwWks3Low6TuQ0tjfKHXBELWpo/edit?tab=t.0), which is perhaps a new sort of Tutorial; done in a sort of Wikipedia-style (open-source, editable by anyone in the community) on a shared google Doc.

Maybe this new era isn't all bad; stuff like this was barely conceivable way back when.

 

[deepstrasz]

An idea could be, that resource reviewers/mods to go through those and give the OK or nay badge. Tutorials are varied combining stuff from all kinds of the Warcraft III modding scene.

 

[Chaosy]

It's a fascinating shift; Tutorials used to be a much bigger deal, back in the day. Nowadays yeah, they really seem to have dropped off; I can't remember the last time I used one. And I resonate with Chaosy's concern; as the (apparently?) only Tutorial Reviewer, there's simply not enough expertise & time to handle the existing workload. (Thankfully, Tutorials that have been submitted can still be searched & viewed, right?)

That being said, I have had reason, a number of times, to use the excellent "Warcraft 3 Ability Insight Guide" (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1z17FTnhyfVL87tJgLmwWks3Low6TuQ0tjfKHXBELWpo/edit?tab=t.0), which is perhaps a new sort of Tutorial; done in a sort of Wikipedia-style (open-source, editable by anyone in the community) on a shared google Doc.

Maybe this new era isn't all bad; stuff like this was barely conceivable way back when.

There is finite knowledge that can be 'reasonably' shared, as in the fundamentals. I don't think it's weird that you personally use less tutorials now than you did 15 years ago, the chance of you finding something there which you've not found yourself at that point is less than slim.

Just speaking for myself when I was more actively modding the UI tutorials were a MUST HAVE because the information is complex enough that it's not easy to have in memory at least for me and the information sure as hell is not given out by blizzard.

Not to say there are no flaws in the old system. Navigating them is kinda ass by modern standards and is 20 years behind the other sections.
We only have approved and non approved, a simple/useful would have been handy even if the backlog to handle this would be quite big.
There needs to be a section for 'useful but not a tutorial' such as lists which I do not consider a tutorial and thus have rejected or left in the submission unapproved.

Even if you like the google approach a general thread with these google docs links would be useful because the google docs is only as usable as your ability to find them.

 

[Panda]

I feel like all the tutorials for the hive have already been created already for each section therefore no one really wants to put the time in to make another one being that there are already plenty to choose from.. From back in the day.

Not necessarily saying people are lazy to make another one.. its that there is already alot made..

But, there are always room for more or different ones but im sure its not on most peoples radar to do that..

 

[Chaosy]

There are gaps but they're probably too niche.
For example in coding we have made toolsets for other languages other than the traditional ones (gui, (v)jass, lua)
I started to write a Zinc tutorial in 2016 which I still have in my pastebin I just never got around to finishing it and it seems I am one of very few who actually liked the language.
But I also think that A LOT OF PEOPLE don't even know that this language existed and was baked into JNGP (and the vjass compiler?) by default and and as such it never got as popular as vjass.

Spoiler: WIP

Learning (v)JASS with Zinc By Chaosy Introduction What is JASS? What is Zinc? Introducton I decided to write this tutorial despite the fact that there are similar ones already. Reason being that I think they are quite hard to understand due the JASS syntax (the way to write code) is simply confusing to understand. I personally read every single guide multiple times and I never understood more than declaring (creating) a function. I think that learning JASS with Zinc is way easier, even more so if you have worked with programming language C before.​ What is JASS? JASS is basically the raw code used in Warcraft 3 maps and stands for Just Another Scripting Syntax.​ What is Zinc? Zinc is a small feature that is somewhat hidden in the JNGP (Jass New Gen Pack). It simple make you write the JASS code differently, and generally the code gets shorter and thus it's easier to learn.​ Where do I start? To begin with we need a clean trigger. Create a new trigger and then press "edit > convert to custom text". The trigger will then get converted to: function Trig_TRIGGERNAME_Actions takes nothing returns nothing endfunction //=========================================================================== function InitTrig_TRIGGERNAME takes nothing returns nothing set gg_trg_TRIGGERNAME = CreateTrigger( ) call TriggerAddAction( gg_trg_TRIGGERNAME, function Trig_TRIGGERNAME_Actions ) endfunction This is completely useless unless you use vanilla JASS, which quite frankly is pointless. Thus, simply remove all the code so nothing is left.​ Start Coding Now, as we're going to use Zinc we start of by writing the following to tell the editor that we are special and use another syntax (type of writing code). //! zinc //everything written after a "//" is not considered code by the editor and will be written in green //everything between the //! zinc and //! endzinc will be treated as Zinc by the JNGP //! endzinc Sadly it does not stop there, we also need something called a library. Luckily this is easy to add. Just name the library to something that suits what you are going to code, you could view it like naming a trigger in GUI. //! zinc library Name { // now we can actually start coding here } //! endzinc Functions Functions are simply where we put commands/actions. Functions are given names as well to make them unique, for learning I suggest naming your function "onInit" because it's a special name that makes the function run once the map is launched which allows us to test code without worrying about events. //! zinc library Name { // now we can actually start coding here function onInit() { // here we put our actions/commands. // To use a fuction you just write the name of the function and then "()" BJDebugMsg("Hello world!"); //all commands/actions must end with a ; in Zinc } } //! endzinc

I would have to go and fact check this but I think there is still no Zinc tutorials.
Typescript modding is a thing, almost no tutorials for that either.
Wurst never hit 'mainstream' either but it has a couple of tutorials but I would say there is a pretty big hole of "best practice" with that given that it has a standard library which works quite different than the other alternatives.
UI tutorials are still kinda underserved, the ones that exist are basically technical documentation and less of a tutorial.

Speaking outside of 'my' field I would imagine that there are more modern tools to work with in 2d/3d art which could be covered? surely you don't animate exactly like you did in 2005.
I remember briefly trying to convert Maya models to wc3 in 2014~ in order to not have to learn the primitive tools that most people seemed to use.

I don't think everything is covered but I think we're in some sort of catch 22 death spiral where less people use the section so less people feel inclined to write because 'no one' is interested. That said I don't think it'll sink below a certain baseline because there is fundamentally some useful stuff there and stands the test of time.

 

[IronBladeClan]

I feel like all the tutorials for the hive have already been created already for each section

As a complete noob to modeling who would like to learn enough to do basic edits, I don't think there are enough modern tutorials.

For example, although Retera has a YouTube channel with a number of little videos, there isn't even a basic tutorial on how to use Retera Model Studio, and even the people in Retera's modeling discord admit that there aren't enough tutorials on the subject...

I personally find it very frustrating, as it seems the best way to learn fundamental modeling things in 2026 is still just messing around on your own while shouting into the void for help and hoping that someone responds...

I think the sheer number of simple edit model requests the site gets (most of which seem to go unfulfilled) is an indicator that there aren't enough tutorials on how people can do things themselves.

Maybe areas besides modeling are fine, but, speaking as total beginner, I think modern modeling could use a crowdsourced wiki project of the sort we've gotten for JASS and abilities.

This also doesn't seem to be the first thread about the tutorial section being neglected.

 

[tillinghast]

I think the sheer number of simple edit model requests the site gets (most of which seem to go unfulfilled) is an indicator that there aren't enough tutorials on how people can do things themselves.

no it's an indicator of people being unwilling to do things on their own
if you've been here since 2008 and didn't learn anything then yet another tutorial won't help
everyone else has learned how to model, somehow
open a model in rms and click around

as someone who is working on a project

how about putting out a playable demo first and getting custom models later?

 

[IronBladeClan]

if you've been here since 2008 and didn't learn anything then yet another tutorial won't help

Sure it would help. Part of the reason I've come and gone is because getting started was so opaque.

I don't want to get into...uh...elitism here, but...if I end up succeeding at learning things, then I will start making basic modeling tutorials that are geared towards beginners myself...and will prove that there's a gap just waiting to be filled that can only be addressed by either directly getting knowledge passed down from individuals on concrete tasks (the path it seems I will have to go down), by brutal trial and error that doesn't actually teach you proper technique, or through good documentation and accessible tutorials that there aren't enough of (especially from the past 7+ years for newer tools) despite the fact that "everyone else has learned how to model, somehow" (which isn't the case given the huge number of requests people still make) because those people haven't been thoroughly documenting their knowledge. If I go through that first path, I bet I could make a bunch of tutorials to enable that third learning path for others, at least for basic things. My only question is, why hasn't anyone else done this comprehensively before? Which brings me back to the crowdsourcing/wiki idea.

I'm just speaking from the perspective of someone who wants to learn.

how about putting out a playable demo first and getting custom models later?

I may have to do that, but seeing as how my model requests from the past 15 years have all gone unanswered, "later" will never come unless I commission something (which thankfully is a thing that I'm able to do now), since even if I learn basic modeling, it will definitely not be enough to make new models unless I devote my whole life to it and get completely sidetracked from my actual project goals.

Anyway, I'm not the only one who thinks there aren't enough modern modeling tutorials...

That said, I think the main point of this thread is just that there are a lot of tutorials stuck in the submission section.

 

[General Frank]

Don't forget how decentralized the community have become... in multiple ways.
Maybe it is a sign of the changing times or maybe some people that want something done rather want other people to do that thing.

I feel that asking 'why have not done X in Y years' kinda stupid because this is after all just a hobby with some benefits.
Maybe people asking such things just self-report themselves of being insecure in what they do... or don't in that case.

 

[deepstrasz]

I'm just speaking from the perspective of someone who wants to learn.

Buzzcock, I have 0 modelling skills and still find Retera's Model Studio quite intuitive for most basic things without looking at tutorials. For more technical stuff, I did and it helped. But saying you want step by step AI gibberish kind of explanations... I mean, how many tutorials you need, even ones for how to open the model editor on your PC?
There's no such thing as modern tutorials. These model editing programs are almost as old as the game.

 

[IronBladeClan]

AI gibberish kind of explanations

? Who said anything about AI?

These model editing programs are almost as old as the game.

Retera Model Studio isn't...

how many tutorials you need

I would have preferred not to get into the details in this discussion, b/c I think it's a separate topic deserving of it's own thread, but, since you asked...

For example, I noticed that someone in Retera's discord made a list 2-3 years ago of what kinds of (video) tutorials would be good to have (they haven't gotten made):

1. how to download and install RMS
1.2 how to download twilac and install RMS
2. how and where to locate and export assets
2.2 why delete LODs
3. how to import geosets
3.2 how to move, rotate, and resize geosets
3.3 how to assign animation bone in geosets
3.4 how to configure visibility
3.5 how to do the birth, upgrade, and death models for buildings
4. how to animate
4.2 how to import animations
4.3 how to troubleshoot animations
4.4 how to correlate animations for abilities (stand channel, spell slam, spell attack, spell throw, spell attack slam, etc.)
5. how to import event objects
5.2 how to troubleshoot facefx and bindpose
6. how to edit and replace textures
6.2 how to edit normals
6.3 how to edit ORM and team color
6.4 how to use materialize
6.5 how to optimize textures
7. how to configure portrait camera
8. how to optimize model proper and portrait

 

[Ralle]

Would be amazing to give it some love. Thanks!