[Request] Allow MPQs and TXT files to be bundled with Maps/Campaigns

[PiesOfNorth]

I think this would be nice for mappers who want to bend War3 a little more than the World Editor itself will normally allow.

With 1.28 or 1.29, people can make a convenient War3Mod.mpq to go with their project so whatever features are in their map/campaign could be easily extended to other maps/projects. Earlier versions can used a modified War3Patch.mpq that the player would first back-up their existing one before using.

Txt files would be good in case the user wants to include a readme or some extra information that could be useful for the player.

For example I would like to add these files to Zerg Campaign, so that people don't have to go to Mod DB to actually play it.

Fingers crossed that eventually Reforged will have proper mod support, but until then, I think a lot of creators would appreciate this.

 

[Kyrbi0]

Oh man this was such a big thing back in the day. Definitely support this for legacy projects/versions.

 

[deepstrasz]

Sure, as long as you can prove those files are safe.

 

[BogdanW3]

Neither MPQs (other than on pre-1.28) nor text files are able to cause any harm, so they are just as safe as any jass file or model or texture
Bundling a War3Mod.mpq in a campaign might defeat its purpose depending on the exact content of that War3Mod.mpq. Some people used it to bundle needed campaign data (due to the file size limit), but they can also be used to provide higher-quality assets to replace the default ones (and are thus meant to be optional download). At least for this second purpose, it would make more sense to provide separate download links for War3Mod.mpq files, and the Campaign's page should always be sufficient readme (and all players should be reading them ). On the other hand, a second readme is not a bad thing.
I'll also note that including any changes to the base game files will break the game for every other map if not also make it crash, so these should be provided with heavy disclaimers.

@PiesOfNorth I would also like to come back to your initial statement about Reforged not having mod support. If you mean in a sense SC2 does, that's likely not going to happen, but it does have the same support old versions did, just not in the form of War3Mod.mpq, but rather Local Files. And as this is a system that can be used with every version of the game and has basically the same function as War3Mod.mpq, it would make more sense to mention it than just the mod mpq. It has a very obvious downside of not being one file and not being compressed like MPQs were, but it has always been a thing and continues to be so. Technically, in 1.30.X, you can extract files into a folder called war3mod.mpq to get a sense of sortedness back.

 

[Ralle]

You can drop it in a permanent pastebin entry today and expand your description to note of its importance.

Tomorrow (not literally) you may be able to do this. But we typically like to support the latest version of the game rather than cater to makers using older versions.

However, given the uncertain state of Reforged and the latest PTR patch which they will hopefully fix , I might not move to be this strict.