Official "Classic" Version? (Similar to Community Edition)

[Homor]

it possible that you could just highlight where in the Reforged codebase they should change something to make the game be how you want,

I'm not a programmer so I have absolutely zero idea how I'd do that.

 

[General Frank]

I mean,

How is it a matter of how much they care? Even if Brad Chan says he cares and wants to fix the game, what could he possibly do? He can't go back and publish 1.27.3 like I said without fixing the security vulnerabilities, which is maybe actually really time consuming. I linked a good summary how he could fix the "arbitrary code execution" vulnerability above in this thread, but I don't have a solution for him to fix the GDPR thing. He would have to find the code for the 1.30 / 1.31 servers and try to launch it again, which according to an insider is allegedly not possible.

So instead it becomes a game of just doctoring Reforged until it's "classic enough" for you, or whatever.

At what point will it be? How much is enough?

Edit:

View attachment 548773

How about this picture? is it enough to make it like a picture of frozen throne on the background instead?
Apparently not...

What do you want that he can actually do ???

You can even switch to the original(-looking) 3D mesh main menus nowadays too.

 

[Pekisa7]

I mean,

You can even switch to the original(-looking) 3D mesh main menus nowadays too.

Nah.

 

[General Frank]

Nah.

Yes you can. It was even in the patch notes a while ago.
Don't disagree with something just because you lack the knowledge and never tried it yourself.
I would advise you to stop behaving like an angry teen and actually do something productive.

 

[Retera]

I'm not a programmer so I have absolutely zero idea how I'd do that.

Nobody is a programmer. Some people have dark skin and some people have light skin. They are born that way.

Nobody is born a programmer. There are not such people. There are only people who happen to know things, and people who did not learn those things yet.

Like you, it is very possible that the person who is in charge of this game did not learn things about how to accomplish what must be done (yet).

Last winter he made a patch where he is trying to make the menu please you and look classic:

And that wasn't good enough, people like you were still complaining, so he changed it to look like the picture Frank posted now.

How much does he have to change it to make it classic to you?

 

[Pekisa7]

Yes you can. It was even in the patch notes a while ago.
Don't disagree with something just because you lack the knowledge and never tried it yourself.
I would advise you to stop behaving like an angry teen and actually do something productive.
View attachment 548775

First of all I am not acting like an angry teen. Second of all I've tried Deforged and I didn't like it it feels weird playing it. Third of all no I don't have to play it because I don't want to. Oh and i am doing something productive every day as you seen on my youtube channel and instagram.

Nobody is a programmer. Some people have dark skin and some people have light skin. They are born that way.

Nobody is born a programmer. There are not such people. There are only people who happen to know things, and people who did not learn those things yet.

Like you, it is very possible that the person who is in charge of this game did not learn things about how to accomplish what must be done (yet).

Last winter he made a patch where he is trying to make the menu please you and look classic:

View attachment 548774

And that wasn't good enough, people like you were still complaining, so he changed it to look like the picture Frank posted now.

How much does he have to change it to make it classic to you?

I don't know just bring back classic client. If people don't like reforged why are you forcing them to.?

 

[Homor]

Even if Brad Chan says he cares and wants to fix the game, what could he possibly do?

It's a tough question and quite frankly he's in an unenviable position. Especially with the corporate jackals at his neck. So, I'll try my best to express it:

1) Distribute their own version of Community Edition. (It doesn't need to have Battle.Net compatibility.)
2) Update Reforged to have so many different toggleable options that you can basically make the game totally indistinguishable from 1.29 or lower, right down to the filesize and system requirements.
3) Release the original source code for Warcraft 3 so people can fix it themselves.

If none of the above are possible, then, there's nothing Brad Chan could do. He's in an impossible scenario with no win condition, and the only people I believe are capable of doing the game justice are the Community Edition team, because the very way Blizzard is structured makes fixing WC3 impossible.

 

[Pekisa7]

It's a tough question and quite frankly he's in an unenviable position. Especially with the corporate jackals at his neck. So, I'll try my best to express it:

1) Distribute their own version of Community Edition. (It doesn't need to have Battle.Net compatibility.)
2) Update Reforged to have so many different toggleable options that you can basically make the game totally indistinguishable from 1.29 or lower, right down to the filesize and system requirements.
3) Release the original source code for Warcraft 3 so people can fix it themselves.

If none of the above are possible, then, there's nothing Brad Chan could do. He's in an impossible scenario with no win condition, and the only people I believe are capable of doing the game justice are the Community Edition team, because the very way Blizzard is structured makes fixing WC3 impossible.

Well for me Im still on the train for 1.3.2. classic.

 

[Retera]

1) Distribute their own version of Community Edition. (It doesn't need to have Battle.Net compatibility.)

It's called Reforged. Not to parrot Frank, but this is the game on my computer now:

The guy actually patched it so that the fog in the background affects the clouds. [Edit: and that's why my screenshot is different from Frank's] He's probably sitting there trying to make the menu look Classic and more Classic just so people stop complaining that Reforged is not Classic client.

2) Update Reforged to have so many different toggleable options that you can basically make the game totally indistinguishable from 1.29 or lower, right down to the filesize and system requirements.

System requirements will not be reduced. They basically had to rewrite the game for DirectX12 (hence circa patch 1.29-1.31 the render pipeline all changed). They're not going to go back to compiling programs for Windows 98. I could write a book on why not -- and other people understand it better than me -- but they won't do it.

There's obviously some slight hope they might reduce the filesize, but if it was easy to do I imagine they would have done it already.

3) Release the original source code for Warcraft 3 so people can fix it themselves.

they probably never will but I like this idea personally

the only people I believe are capable of doing the game justice are the Community Edition team, because the very way Blizzard is structured makes fixing WC3 impossible.

If this is true, it means the thread here won't lead to anything better than what we already have.

 

[Homor]

It's called Reforged.

Reforged isn't good enough imo. They'd need to do way better than they've done now. Changing the menus and putting new coats of paint on everything isn't good enough.

Community Edition is almost good enough IMO. It needs more work, but it's almost there. It just needs a bit more polish.

 

[Pekisa7]

It's called Reforged. Not to parrot Frank, but this is the game on my computer now:

View attachment 548776

The guy actually patched it so that the fog in the background affects the clouds. [Edit: and that's why my screenshot is different from Frank's] He's probably sitting there trying to make the menu look Classic and more Classic just so people stop complaining that Reforged is not Classic client.


System requirements will not be reduced. They basically had to rewrite the game for DirectX12 (hence circa patch 1.29-1.31 the render pipeline all changed). They're not going to go back to compiling programs for Windows 98. I could write a book on why not -- and other people understand it better than me -- but they won't do it.


they probably never will but I like this idea personally


If this is true, it means the thread here won't lead to anything better than what we already have.

How do you know this won't lead anywhere. Maybe Blizzard is secretly listening and reading this.

 

[Retera]

Well for me Im still on the train for 1.3.2. classic.

Can you explain for me in a couple of sentences how you envision the product might look like (versus the thing Frank and I took pictures of)?

Maybe Blizzard is secretly listening and reading this.

Right. Totally agree. Maybe they are. If so, what do you see as the takeaway, like, what would be the thing that the person secretly reading this would do as a conclusion from our discussion?

Changing the menus and putting new coats of paint on everything isn't good enough.

What do you perceive to be the difference between "Reforged [w/ Classic graphics slider]" and "Patch 1.29" other than the menu?

[Edit: and I know, I've mentioned before about the Ribbon Emitter darkness thing. I hate that. Maybe the people working on this game will fix it. What else?]

 

[Homor]

Maybe Blizzard is secretly listening and reading this.

I doubt it but man, would I love that. Even if it doesn't lead to anything, knowing we were actually heard by the people on the dev team would mean a lot to me.

If they can't or won't do anything, so be it. I'd at least take comfort in knowing I did what I could do with what I had. It would mean a lot to me to be heard.

 

[Retera]

I doubt it but man, would I love that.

You might find that the euphoria of your "love" gets old really fast and is replaced by a sense of terrible, terrible responsibility.

If they can't or won't do anything, so be it. I'd at least take comfort in knowing I did what I could do with what I had. It would mean a lot to me to be heard.

Well, as someone who doesn't dabble much in Reforged lately, I just launched the PTR and clicked around and the first things I am seeing are:

• The new menu system pretending to be the old menu system isn't as pretty, polished, or convenient to use as the old menu system, so I think they should put it back to the "FDF" subsystem classic menu, even though someone obviously spent a bunch of effort trying to make the new menu pretend to be the old one.
• The ribbons are still dark on the absolute latest PTR so they should fix that

So if my voice could be heard, I would distill it to those two bullet points. How about you?

 

[Homor]

What do you perceive to be the difference between "Reforged [w/ Classic graphics slider]" and "Patch 1.29" other than the menu?

30gb of assets you cannot opt out of, performance issues, Chromium backend (which have never been changed), UI, balance, various functionality -- the list goes on and on. Basically everything they've added after 1.31 that I can either see or feel, be it overt or subtle.

 

[Pekisa7]

Can you explain for me in a couple of sentences how you envision the product might look like (versus the thing Frank and I took pictures of)?


Right. Totally agree. Maybe they are. If so, what do you see as the takeaway, like, what would be the thing that the person secretly reading this would do as a conclusion from our discussion?


What do you perceive to be the difference between "Reforged [w/ Classic graphics slider]" and "Patch 1.29" other than the menu?

[Edit: and I know, I've mentioned before about the Ribbon Emitter darkness thing. I hate that. Maybe the people working on this game will fix it. What else?]

Well patch 1.3.2. for classic would look the same as the backed up 1.3.1. Everything can stay the same to have that classic fell to it. But Blizzard could add also somthing new. Like new sizes of maps and multiple tilesets select just like in reforged but better. Multiple unit control fix some issuies with uints. They don't have to add skins for heroes in melee games unit bar colors. No need to rework fonts and everything. By that Blizzard is secretly listening I mean they don't have to do anything but who knows.

I doubt it but man, would I love that. Even if it doesn't lead to anything, knowing we were actually heard by the people on the dev team would mean a lot to me.

If they can't or won't do anything, so be it. I'd at least take comfort in knowing I did what I could do with what I had. It would mean a lot to me to be heard.

Right I agree with you. At least we suggested something. We don't have to be heard. But at least we tried. So props to us.

 

[Homor]

So if my voice could be heard, I would distill it to those two bullet points. How about you?

My bullet points would be:

1) Copy Community Edition's homework. Do what you have to do to either distribute a fork of it yourselves or make your own version. If you could go even older than 1.29 and somehow make it work, try for that.
2) Failing that, HD asset opt out, allowing you to switch back to the old menus and UIs, allowing you to revert as many Reforged changes as possible for you game in the options. You should be able to make the game feel so similar that it's completely indistinguishable. I can't get into all the technical aspects of how. I can can only tell you what I'd like.

Basically these are just me elaborating on my previous points a bit.
Also I know of all my "unlikely" ideas this is the least likely of all, but if you released the Warcraft 3 source code I'd consider your team to be modern day saints who made the greatest triumph of the 21st century.

 

[Retera]

Basically everything they've added after 1.31 that I can either see or feel, be it overt or subtle.

Alright Clancy, file me a jira ticket to "delete _hd.w3mod from source control and always run the game with -classicui (and include it in non-Debug builds again). I'm going to bed.


And fix the mouse wheel scroll camera to be 1.31 style. Can see here, same map, same start location, tilting camera gets a different result:

2.0.3:

1.31:

Why is that every time since 2020 tilting the camera spins about a point fixed in the air above the scene, instead of spinning about the ground target point? Makes me sick sometimes.

 

[Pekisa7]

My bullet points would be:

1) Copy Community Edition's homework. Do what you have to do to either distribute a fork of it yourselves or make your own version. If you could go even older than 1.29 and somehow make it work, try for that.
2) Failing that, HD asset opt out, allowing you to switch back to the old menus and UIs, allowing you to revert as many Reforged changes as possible for you game in the options. You should be able to make the game feel so similar that it's completely indistinguishable. I can't get into all the technical aspects of how. I can can only tell you what I'd like.

Basically these are just me elaborating on my previous points a bit.
Also I know of all my "unlikely" ideas this is the least likely of all, but if you released the Warcraft 3 source code I'd consider your team to be modern day saints who made the greatest triumph of the 21st century.

I wouldn't want the copying other's homework. Let them do it themselves. Don't put hd classic assets there please.

 

[Retera]

Don't put hd classic assets there please.

See what's probably going to happen here pretty soon is that they're going to delete the HD assets from patch 2.0.4 or whatever. Only reason they can't right now is that people paid for them and it's better to avoid deleting something people paid for. Ha...

This should be illegal. It's zooming out too far. Whatever market research group in 2020 decided that zoom out was a bad idea was right. Once it's available, everyone is obligated to use it in order to win. But it's not actually more fun. It makes everything harder to see.

My redshirts on 1.31 on the same PC look just right. I hope someone is taking notes.



cool:

not cool:

Edit:

then I joined chat and it's empty:

what a reforge... chat is empty


Below text on graphics looks bad:

Below text on graphics looks good:

 

[Pekisa7]

See what's probably going to happen here pretty soon is that they're going to delete the HD assets from patch 2.0.4 or whatever. Only reason they can't right now is that people paid for them and it's better to avoid deleting something people paid for. Ha...


View attachment 548792


This should be illegal. It's zooming out too far. Whatever market research group in 2020 decided that zoom out was a bad idea was right. Once it's available, everyone is obligated to use it in order to win. But it's not actually more fun. It makes everything harder to see.

View attachment 548793

My redshirts on 1.31 on the same PC look just right. I hope someone is taking notes.

Well If they are deleting hd assets form War3 in patch 2.0.4 in reforged than its not reforged anymore its just classic. They could just boot up the old servers and thats it. Reforged is known for the hd graphics.

 

[Retera]

Well If they are deleting hd assets form War3 in patch 2.0.4 in reforged than its not reforged anymore its just classic.

I don't know what they're doing, to be honest.

I have... absolutely no idea... what they are doing.

 

[Pekisa7]

See what's probably going to happen here pretty soon is that they're going to delete the HD assets from patch 2.0.4 or whatever. Only reason they can't right now is that people paid for them and it's better to avoid deleting something people paid for. Ha...


View attachment 548792


This should be illegal. It's zooming out too far. Whatever market research group in 2020 decided that zoom out was a bad idea was right. Once it's available, everyone is obligated to use it in order to win. But it's not actually more fun. It makes everything harder to see.

View attachment 548793

My redshirts on 1.31 on the same PC look just right. I hope someone is taking notes.



cool:
View attachment 548794


not cool:
View attachment 548795



Edit:

then I joined chat and it's empty:

View attachment 548796
what a reforge... chat is empty


Below text on graphics looks bad:

View attachment 548797

Below text on graphics looks good:

View attachment 548798

They can fix this even if they revert back. No problem.

 

[Retera]

They can fix this even if they revert back. No problem.

Yeah, actually looking at the work they've been doing, the next step is probably to revert back away the Reforged graphics.

That's hilarious. Removing Reforged graphics from this mess and calling it fixed would be hilarious.

I'm getting too old for this. I really am going to bed now.

 

[Pekisa7]

Yeah, actually looking at the work they've been doing, the next step is probably to revert back away the Reforged graphics.

That's hilarious. Removing Reforged graphics from this mess and calling it fixed would be hilarious.

I'm getting too old for this. I really am going to bed now.

I meant fix the name of the map of 1.3.1. patch if they revert back.

 

[Homor]

It seems this thread has become a wishlist for people and a place for them to talk about what they want out of the game.

And I'm all for that. That's awesome, and was pretty much always the purpose of the thread.

 

[Retera]

a wishlist for people and a place for them to talk about what they want out of the game.

Guess so.

I want the source code. The source code to Patch 1.26 or 1.27 would suffice. And for both the game and world editor!

That's what I really want.

Edit:

@Homor you might be interested in this...

In a Discord server I'm in, they're saying that 1.29 - 1.36 are also vulnerable. I'm guessing that if 1.36 is vulnerable then it's quite likely 2.0.X is as well.

I never really thought of Reforged as being so dangerous...

 

[Homor]

Guess so.

I want the source code. The source code to Patch 1.26 or 1.27 would suffice. And for both the game and world editor!

That's what I really want.

Edit:

@Homor you might be interested in this...

View attachment 548851

In a Discord server I'm in, they're saying that 1.29 - 1.36 are also vulnerable. I'm guessing that if 1.36 is vulnerable then it's quite likely 2.0.X is as well.

I never really thought of Reforged as being so dangerous...

Okay, so nowhere and nothing is safe. That's nice to know.

 

[Drake53]

If my imaginary Patch 1.27.3 sounds so good, it might be worth taking a moment to imagine the consequences if the official Battle.net launcher actually started offering this game Warcraft III (2003) as an available production similar to the Diablo II (2000) offering that was present last time I was on the Battle.net launcher. (For the sake of argument, I'm going to assume D2 still exists as a game even though someone earlier in this thread tried to claim it no longer exists, and I am not presently at a Windows computer to review the matter.)
An interesting consequence of this game being for sale again would be that Footman16 probably would not play it. Deepstrasz probably would not play it. Tulee probably would not play it. They would remind you that "Classic slider on Patch 2.0.X Reforged engine" is the-same-but-better-in-every-way for every use case in their life.

That raises some interesting questions that might merit some discussion (@ Homor / @ Drake53 or to a lesser extent @ Pekisa7 despite my aforementioned disagreement with you):
- What are the use cases that exist in your life but not theirs, that would make this product meaningful to you. (Maps? Mods? Campaigns?)
- If those use cases were resolved on the 2.0.X client in a future patch, would you move to it? Or is the biggest gripe the menu difference that it "feels different" ?

My main issue as I said before is I'm not even able to play the game right now. I'm mostly into multiplayer custom games and used to be active daily before 1.32 cut me off from all my online warcraft 3 friends. I have no idea how many of them still play today.
I also have a few custom maps that I worked on over the years. My main pc only has 4GB RAM though, the bloated system requirements (first with CASC in 1.30, then again in 1.32 with electron) make map development pretty much impossible, world edit + reforged + web browser or some other stuff in the background simply doesn't fit.
Everything else I could probably tolerate, the chromium menus, the 30GB assets which I will never use, the bugs that never got fixed. But at this point, I don't really care anymore. I don't see myself ever returning to this game, or at least not the official client. Instead, I'll just follow your example and make my own warcraft 3 client. I already have the core functionality for handling the game files thanks to the tools I created. While I had the idea before I never considered it seriously because of the time investment, but now with AI maybe I can just vibe code it.

Rate it again today.

Can't really rate it more than 0 points when I can't even play the game, sorry.

I have not encountered this problem.

Uh okay. I'm glad you never had to deal with this, but I guess I expected a bit more, I don't know.. empathy?

 

[deepstrasz]

Can't really rate it more than 0 points when I can't even play the game, sorry.

Can't or won't?

 

[Homor]

Can't or won't?

Both? Probably both. I don't think he would if he could play it because from everything I can tell it doesn't seem like his core issues are addressed. But not being able to play the game himself is still reason enough to rate it 0, because a rating is based on how much enjoyment you got out of something, and if you can't even play it anymore, a 0 seems like a fitting score.

(in the interest of civility and forgiveness I'm taking you off ignore and replying to you again. Footman taking the high ground really changed my perspective on things.)

Despite admittedly having still a fairly decently sized playerbase, the MetaCritic score for Reforged is still 0.5% and the Google Review score is 23%. You're very, very unlikely to see those numbers go up anytime soon because every single one of those reviews (the legit ones) represent someone who felt left behind and likely stopped playing, at least on the official client. To get the score up, you'd either have to convince enough people that the game has positively improved that they feel inspired to come back and change their scores, or you have to drum up so much new support for the game that there are a bunch of new positive reviews that balance things out.

Uh okay. I'm glad you never had to deal with this, but I guess I expected a bit more, I don't know.. empathy?

I think Deep means well but ultimately just doesn't get things. Like he doesn't have the ability to see things from a different perspective. That's also a problem I've struggled with in this thread, seeing as I made many comments I thought were innocuous, but came off condescending and hostile, and how my passion turned into defensiveness and I wrongly started accusing well-meaning people being bad faith, which only made people more frustrated in a thread that's already about a tense subject. One I kind of took for a given wouldn't be controversial without realizing how protective people are of the game they love and the fear this would only hurt it more. I still disagree but I understand much better now, I think.

Deep, you didn't ask for advice and you probably still don't like me very much anymore, but I'd feel like like I'd be remiss if I didn't say something I thought would be helpful: you gotta be more empathetic. You gotta understand that just because you don't have a problem or it isn't effecting you, that doesn't mean there aren't people who are negatively impacted, and it doesn't mean what they're going through doesn't suck or doesn't matter. I don't say this to be condescending or "win" the argument, I say this sincerely in the hopes that it'll help.

 

[Retera]

While I had the idea before I never considered it seriously because of the time investment, but now with AI maybe I can just vibe code it.

If you successfully vibe code it, please consider posting your work for others (such as me).

 

[deepstrasz]

Both?

I wasn't asking you, sorry.
Citation needed for most of your I know what others think answer.

I think

You don't really. But have fun with your imaginary Classic split obsession forever.
Also I thought you ignored me. Have you suddenly matured? Or rather, one thing you say, another you do?

you gotta

You, you, you. That's what I read when you're allegedly giving advice, a narcissistic babble.
The reality is you have to tolerate people. I and others gave our arguments as to why what you want won't happen for the foreseeable future. It's as simple as that. No ill will intended, just how things are. I can't be empathetic for a circle jerk thread which essentially says the same thing. If you'd have done like Retera or the Community Edition folks and done something yourself rather than rant, then you'd have my "empathy", rather respect.
You're not affected at all when you have the CDs, i.e. the original game experience, true Classic/SD, you name it.

 

[Homor]

I wasn't asking you, sorry.
Citation needed for most of your I know what others think answer.

You don't really. But have fun with your imaginary Classic split obsession forever.
Also I thought you ignored me. Have you suddenly matured? Or rather, one thing you say, another you do?

You, you, you. That's what I read when you're allegedly giving advice, a narcissistic babble.
The reality is you have to tolerate people. I and others gave our arguments as to why what you want won't happen for the foreseeable future. It's as simple as that. No ill will intended, just how things are. I can't be empathetic for a circle jerk thread which essentially says the same thing. If you'd have done like Retera or the Community Edition folks and done something yourself rather than rant, then you'd have my "empathy", rather respect.
You're not affected at all when you have the CDs, i.e. the original game experience, true Classic/SD, you name it.

Given our earlier hostilities I understand your frustration, but I'm still disappointed with this response. I guess I shouldn't be surprised you won't listen to me at all when I didn't listen to you earlier. I'm especially concerned that you don't even seem to be reading my posts anymore since I explained exactly why I stopped ignoring you and started replying again.

As for the idea that I think I know what "most others think": I don't. Nobody does for sure. We both know a lot of people agree with our different viewpoints, because we both have evidence for you. You have player numbers, and I have thousands of negative reviews and comments from people who feel alienated from the game. It doesn't matter which group is "bigger" -- they both have tens of thousands of people, and they all still matter.

I can't be empathetic for...

That's the problem. Empathy is important even when you don't like or agree with people.

I wish you well. Sorry things didn't work out.

I'm not quite sure why the issue of "majorities" keeps coming up. You don't need to be the "majority" to be a significant amount of people, and you don't need to be the "majority" for there to be enough of you to matter. A significant number of fans were left disenfranchised, alienated and hurt, and many stopped playing the game.

It's important to keep in mind: user reviews for Reforged still remain very low across multiple sites. Google, IMDB, Metacritic -- all of these still have new reviews coming in to this day, yet the ratio's remain as low as 1/5, 3/10, 0.5/10 and 1/5. It isn't just the abundance of bad reviews that should be important, it's the lack of new, positive reviews or people deleting their older bad ones. People still feel strongly enough that the state of the game isn't where it needs to be that they aren't changing what they've written.

When you talk about Reforged on YouTube, Reddit, Twitter or other social media sites, discussion still remains relatively negative. It still has a passionate and robust community who plan the game despite the problems because they genuinely love it and don't consider Reforged's problems, in its current state, to be a dealbreaker. We can use cross-sectional data to get a rough estimate of how many of these people there are vs people playing on other versions, but the issue is if they're single-player or offline, it's naturally going to be much harder to track them. We know that upon Reforged's release the playerbase doubled, however this can be attributed to the hype around a new release, and as far as I've seen (there hasn't been much new data. It could be there, I just haven't seen it -- maybe someone linked it earlier in the thread? But it's been quite a long ride and I have struggle with ADHD, so I may have missed it.

We have no way of knowing how many people are playing on older versions that aren't being tracked or cataloged, and we especially don't know just how many people stopped playing altogether and never came back.

Whether they represent 50% or 10%, there are still thousands of people who feel hurt, abandoned and alienated by the state of the game, and like they lost the game they loved. Players who, currently, don't feel Blizzard has done enough to fix the game to make them come back. Every fan left hurt or lost represents a painful circumstance.

The question shouldn't be "What does the majority of the playerbase and fandom want?" as if it were an election. Instead, we should ask ourselves "what's the best way to make the maximum number of people happy and restore good faith in the game from those who lost it?" I believe my proposal would be the best way to do this, though others have made their disagreement clear. I'm open to a compromise of some kind, but I wouldn't be satisfied by one that doesn't address my concerns about game preservation, data bloat, and retaining the original experience of the game.

If the circumstance is "Blizzard is not going to ever make a Legacy Client or even anything close to it, there will be no more major changes to Reforged beyond stability, bugfixes and quality of life improvements" and, with that premise granted, you ask the question: "What do you think Blizzard can do to win back the fans they lost, restore goodwill and unite the community?" then my answer would be: "Nothing." If the way the corporate structure is built means that they're completely unable and/or unwilling to address the root issues, then I don't believe Blizzard is capable of ever "fixing" Warcraft 3, and their attempts to do so will always come up short.

That would mean that, in my opinion, the only people truly capable of fixing the games are fans like the Community Project team and Retera. Dedicated, passionate fans who aren't constrained by profit motifs, budgets or burrearcracy. People who are free to follow their passions and free to do what they think is best to help the game and community, regardless of monetary gain.

 

[Shar Dundred]

Yes, give an unreliable individual like Retera, who has been lying to the entire community & internet about being sued by Activision and only admitted it was all a made up lie after it had already created quite the online drama, the ability to work on Warcraft.
I am convinced only good things can come from that. He certainly would not cause any complications at all.
Best idea of the century.

 

[Homor]

Yes, give an unreliable individual like Retera, who has been lying to the entire community & internet about being sued by Activision and only admitted it was all a made up lie after it had already created quite the online drama, the ability to work on Warcraft.
I am convinced only good things can come from that. He certainly would not cause any complications at all.
Best idea of the century.

Whoa! What? I have zero context for this. That's a really severe allegation and until now I've never heard this.

 

[Shar Dundred]

Feel free to read it up on Hive. You might also find a thing or two about the guy doing several other things to further boost this lie.
And find out that you would do best not to believe the stuff he posts.

Happened after Reforged release. Pretty off topic for this thread to dive deeper than what I already said.

 

[loktar]

I don't see anything wrong with an official Classic client, something like 1.27.3 in maintenance mode (i.e. just fixing bugs and security issues), even with Battle.net support. I would be extremely surprised if it ever happened though.

 

[Homor]

I don't see anything wrong with an official Classic client, something like 1.27.3 in maintenance mode (i.e. just fixing bugs and security issues), even with Battle.net support. I would be extremely surprised if it ever happened though.

Thanks man. I definitely think it'd be a good thing but I also agree that I don't have much faith in Blizzard to do it, at least for the foreseeable future. They're a very stingy company and don't seem to want to allocate funds or resources to anything unless they absolutely have to. The fact that the new team have been able to make any positive progress at all is actually pretty surprising to me.

As for the Retera drama, I'm gonna stay out of it and wait for him to give his side of the story before I make any calls.

 

[tillinghast]

i can't wait until everyone learns their lesson and just ignores this thread
and then it keeps going for like several hundred pages of just Homor and Pekisa7 going "i think classic client would be cool" "i concur" at each other
Homor whose last upload was in 2019, and Pekisa7 whose last upload was never
let them circlejerk here forever for the rest of their lives, just the two of them

 

[Homor]

let them circlejerk here forever for the rest of their lives, just the two of them

That's a really nasty thing to say considering the discussion has been pretty civil and respectful between everyone for the past two pages. I don't think there's anything from the thread that should offend you so much you have to insult me.

Also, what on earth does the date of my last upload have to do with anything? I've been updating and maintaining my maps for years. As recently as 2023 I've been editing my maps to give players the best experience possible. Not that the date of my latest upload was anything at all to do with the validity of what I'm saying.

Do you know why I stopped? The technical difficulties that came from having to juggle different versions. I've been unable to update or support maps I've been putting effort into for over a decade because they were saved to 1.31, and I couldn't figure out how to downgrade them.

I don't think there's anything about this discussion that should inspire this level of vitriol in you, or make you pretend nobody is interested in this except two people when at least half the posters in the threads have talked about the idea positively at some point.

So, I have to ask: why do you find so particularly distasteful about this thread that you felt the need to come in here and insult everyone for having a discussion you weren't even involved in?

 

[tulee]

I don't think there's anything about this discussion that should inspire this level of vitriol in you, or make you pretend nobody is interested in this except two people when at least half the posters in the threads have talked about the idea positively at some point.

Half the posters.... because there's only like 6 people talking.

So, I have to ask: why do you find so particularly distasteful about this thread that you felt the need to come in here and insult everyone for having a discussion you weren't even involved in?

The way I read tillinghast's message is your main engagment with hiveworkshop is, just from a surface look at your post history, mainly writing negative comments/views about the latest version of Wc3, either in this thread or whenever there's a new patch list posted as a thread. Most of the people who are arguing against what you are saying, are engaging with hiveworkshop in many other ways, either in resource moderation, resource creation, etc. Basically being productive members of this forum.

I also have no clue why you keep referring back to the meta score of "Wc3 Reforged" as being at all relevant to any discussion. It's been 5 years. Maybe it is time to move on.

 

[Homor]

@tulee, that isn't it at all. I've been engaged with the community and the people in it for years, well before and after Reforged. I've complained plenty about Reforged, but I've praised new models and maps that were made, I've talked about the things I love about the game, I've praised community edition, I've did my best to keep my maps updated and maintained even years after the fact because it brings me great joy to know people are still playing and loving something I put my heart and soul into even years later. I've been a "productive" member of this forum just about as long as you have, and I love the game just as much as you.

If all you see when you look at my activity here is the fact that I don't like Reforged, you're overlooking everything else. I don't appreciate being treated like I'm "not a real fan" or I'm some kind of deplorable just for disagreeing with you about whether Reforged is good or not. I get might not wanna keep hearing it after five years, but you don't have to engage with the thread or be involved with.

You certainly shouldn't engage in bullying behavior over it.

It's been 5 years. Maybe it is time to move on.

Does that mean you think nobody should ever criticize the game at all or talk about what they want from the people supporting it? Because fandom shouldn't mean "blind devotion with no room for dissent." It also shouldn't mean that a game you love, care about and put your heart and soul into making content for should be off limits to you ever.

I'll keep critiquing the state of Warcraft 3 until it gets better, because I love this game and won't give up on it. Maybe you already think it's perfect and doesn't need anymore improvement. In which case: why are you in this thread?

 

[deepstrasz]

I guess I shouldn't be surprised you won't listen to me at all when I didn't listen to you earlier. I'm especially concerned that you don't even seem to be reading my posts anymore since I explained exactly why I stopped ignoring you and started replying again.

Condescending but of course you're not. It's just that I don't understand, period. Not my perspective by the way.

I wish you well. Sorry things didn't work out.

I'm not the one splitting my veins for Classic.
Also a lot of inventions about what I think and have written in your post.

It's important to keep in mind: user reviews for Reforged still remain very low across multiple sites. Google, IMDB, Metacritic -- all of these still have new reviews coming in to this day, yet the ratio's remain as low as 1/5, 3/10, 0.5/10 and 1/5. It isn't just the abundance of bad reviews that should be important, it's the lack of new, positive reviews or people deleting their older bad ones. People still feel strongly enough that the state of the game isn't where it needs to be that they aren't changing what they've written.

Most reviews are not reviews at all but rants. Most did not correct their childish tantrums by checking the recent versions of the game. There's also no interest to even try, you yourself being one of these people. And you're contradicting yourself with the majority thing talking about Reforged's overall score. It doesn't matter how they feel. It matters if they are being rational about it or not. I'm pretty sure, it's the latter.

The question shouldn't be "What does the majority of the playerbase and fandom want?" as if it were an election. Instead, we should ask ourselves "what's the best way to make the maximum number of people happy and restore good faith in the game from those who lost it?" I believe my proposal would be the best way to do this, though others have made their disagreement clear. I'm open to a compromise of some kind, but I wouldn't be satisfied by one that doesn't address my concerns about game preservation, data bloat, and retaining the original experience of the game.

It's bad management not only economically to consider individual wants.

If the circumstance is "Blizzard is not going to ever make a Legacy Client or even anything close to it, there will be no more major changes to Reforged beyond stability, bugfixes and quality of life improvements" and, with that premise granted, you ask the question: "What do you think Blizzard can do to win back the fans they lost, restore goodwill and unite the community?" then my answer would be: "Nothing." If the way the corporate structure is built means that they're completely unable and/or unwilling to address the root issues, then I don't believe Blizzard is capable of ever "fixing" Warcraft 3, and their attempts to do so will always come up short.

BlizzEnt is working to keep Warcraft III alive through the eyes of money gain (foremost I guess). I don't think they are interested in building costly bridges across the universe hoping for something good to happen somewhere in the future. Having one client will be easier to update and enhance, as they are doing now (more than 16 tilesets etc.; some of these changes will affect ladder in good ways too).
On the contrary, that's what happened to Diablo II, the original/classic version stopped being updated for years while Resurrected was somewhat recently updated.

For the last time: you have the original game. If you want it to remain compatible with future OSs, please do something meaningful and write about it on the official forums for the game to be sent to GoG or some platform as with the first two Warcraft games, for preservation.
I and many others, on the other hand, would like the game to evolve even if that means it will slightly stray from the original material.
You have to find very solid arguments for your passion to be considered by Blizzard though considering the facts.

 

[Footman16]

I'd like us all to avoid attacking people over a discussion about version preservation or the original topic of the thread.

If we can't be civil or keep the inflammatory comments to ourselves I will lock this thread, not out of a desire to stifle debate but out of recognition that the conversation has exhausted itself and devolved to pettiness and snark.

So if we can continue with a bit of respect for all other users, that would be appreciated. Also let me clear if any member doesn't take this onboard there will be warnings issued.

 

[Homor]

Condescending

Deep, you're the only one being condescending anymore between the two of us. You're the one whose been insulting me, making personal attacks, calling me irrational and insignificant etc. You're the only one engaging of a battle of insults, while dismissing and ignoring everything I say.

I'm not going to engage with you in any kind of good faith debate when you act like this, and certainly not when you keep ignoring all my points or the reasons I gave for why your solutions don't end the discussion for me.

I had to get that said and moved on from. Continuing to the next comment:

I'd like us all to avoid attacking people over a discussion about version preservation or the original topic of the thread.

If we can't be civil or keep the inflammatory comments to ourselves I will lock this thread, not out of a desire to stifle debate but out of recognition that the conversation has exhausted itself and devolved to pettiness and snark.

So if we can continue with a bit of respect for all other users, that would be appreciated. Also let me clear if any member doesn't take this onboard there will be warnings issued.

Thank you, Footman. Once again, I am so sorry for how I contributed to the negativity. Especially towards you. You've been a voice of reason in the thread and despite our disagreements, you are a very wise, polite and patient person, and I'm deeply ashamed of the negative things I said about you. They were stupid ad homs and clearly not accurate, because you've shown incredibly restraint, kindness and respect at a time when I've been very upset and hurt by people I've always admired and respected. Hearing Tillinghast talk to me so harshly and dismissively was especially hurtful, since I've always loved his models.

I take back anything bad I said about you. You've shown you are a fantastic community manager and more deserving of the spot than anyone I could think of. Once again, thank you.

Edit: I respected this response so much I went back and deleted anything insulting I said about Footman16. You're doing great out there man

 

[loktar]

I don't get why people are getting so angry about this. It's not an unreasonable wish to have, and even if you think it's a bad idea, can't you just disagree in a calm and respectful manner? Just calm down people, it's just a game lol.

 

[Pekisa7]

Condescending but of course you're not. It's just that I don't understand, period. Not my perspective by the way.

I'm not the one splitting my veins for Classic.
Also a lot of inventions about what I think and have written in your post.

Most reviews are not reviews at all but rants. Most did not correct their childish tantrums by checking the recent versions of the game. There's also no interest to even try, you yourself being one of these people. And you're contradicting yourself with the majority thing talking about Reforged's overall score. It doesn't matter how they feel. It matters if they are being rational about it or not. I'm pretty sure, it's the latter.

It's bad management not only economically to consider individual wants.

BlizzEnt is working to keep Warcraft III alive through the eyes of money gain (foremost I guess). I don't think they are interested in building costly bridges across the universe hoping for something good to happen somewhere in the future. Having one client will be easier to update and enhance, as they are doing now (more than 16 tilesets etc.; some of these changes will affect ladder in good ways too).
On the contrary, that's what happened to Diablo II, the original/classic version stopped being updated for years while Resurrected was somewhat recently updated.

For the last time: you have the original game. If you want it to remain compatible with future OSs, please do something meaningful and write about it on the official forums for the game to be sent to GoG or some platform as with the first two Warcraft games, for preservation.
I and many others, on the other hand, would like the game to evolve even if that means it will slightly stray from the original material.
You have to find very solid arguments for your passion to be considered by Blizzard though considering the facts.

First of all Diablo 2 still has its old client up and runinng unlike Warcraft 3. If they care about money so much I think them bringing back classic client and upadating it to 1.3.2. will give them lots of money. They can add the + 16 tiles to the old client and many more features and why are you forcing reforged on us. They don't have to listen to us but we gave our toughts on what we want. Now we see what happens.

 

[Homor]

I don't get why people are getting so angry about this. It's not an unreasonable wish to have, and even if you think it's a bad idea, can't you just disagree in a calm and respectful manner? Just calm down people, it's just a game lol.

In fairness I did more than my fair share to contribute to the negative atmosphere. I tried to keep cool at first but once I got more spirited disagreement from more people than I expected I let my emotions get the better of me and said some stupid, overly-confrontational stuff. I only hope now I've been contributing to the cooling of tensions.

 

[deepstrasz]

If they care about money so much I think them bringing back classic client and upadating it to 1.3.2.

Citation needed.
They've done it with WoW because they saw it would work. I definitely can't say the same about Warcraft III.

They can add the + 16 tiles to the old client and many more features and why are you forcing reforged on us.

I'm not forcing anything on you. Blizzard isn't either if you have the original game (CDs). You haven't bought the future of Warcraft III but the state it was in then. Whether you agree with their current policy or not is your problem. It's their game after all.
Going back to add what you want would mean more work which would have to be payed for and moreover could create other bugs and complications with the old code that's hard to work with properly. You can imagine why it took so long to get Reforged stable through these years.