While a lot of Reforged icons are even less fitting Warcraft style than its models, some of them are pretty good when scaled down to 64x64, providing higher/crisper detail. Same goes for SFX, some of which is pretty good.
However,
I don't own Reforged and not planning to. As such, the important question is - would it be legal for me to take SFX/icons from Reforged and import them into regular Warcraft III?
Normally there's no problem in taking stuff from other Blizzard games, but Reforged being specifically a version of Warcraft III it may be covered by different rules.
"CGAUP" = Custom Game Acceptable Use Policy.
"EULA" = Blizzard's End User License Agreement.
LEGALLY THIS:
The act you mentioned can be understanded as reproduction (copying the icons to use in your project) or adaptation (modifying them, ie. changing their extensions, etc). To do this you need a license. A license is an authorization granted by the owner of copyrightable work, in respect of copyright rights. It's an unilateral act of the owner.
The EULA is a contract, because it grants you a license, as long as you comply with the terms. Only the parts of the EULA that refer to copyright rights are the actual license and those parts are not very clear to be fair. Ie. the "no bot usage" clause, even the "non commercial usage" (to be more clear: it's copyright infringement if the usage is in the ocassion of copyright rights) clause are but contractual obligations that you must comply if you want the license running. Does executing and playing a game recquires you to have a license? In fact, YES, but because to execute any program, the program must be loaded (ie. copied) from the external or internal storage into memory, which is a form of reproduction, which is a copyright right (executing the program, as for any use, is an entire different thing though). But this is not the point.
But to be elegible for the license you must accept the EULA first. In your example you are assuming that you will not acquire the game, so you will not even be get noticed by Blizzard about the EULA, let alone accept it.
Still, most software companies will assume you have the licenses if you have the program installed, because they already dispossed means to control acquisitions (ie. cd-keys) they consider valid, like an online payment or payment to authorized (ie. licensed, therefore dudes that already payed the company) distributors.
PRACTICALLY THIS:
Because of the last thing i said and the fact that Blizzard thinks that they own the custom games, and IP related rights (ie. trademarks, ie. DOTA, but that clause was surely modified after the Valve/DOTA/Blizzard conflict) and the like, as stated by CGAUP, they will most likely not do anything, even if you are confessing all this stuff, given the fact that you are just introducing things (to the custom game) that they already own. Just don't get any profit from the map.
