Some modding and multiplayer suggestions

[Barade]

I haven't really read the other threads or all the release information and I don't care about melee games:

• Provide a mod starter which loads a folder like the custom War3Mod.mpq folder but where you can select the modification. Games like Gothic II provide such mod starters. The mod starter should allow to start either the game or the World Editor loading a custom folder of data.
• Allow players to join into multiplayer games after they have started (an option could be set on hosting or in the map itself). This doesn't necessarily make sense for melee games but can be useful for RPGs or other custom maps which provide save codes or do not depend on the progress of the game.
• Allow dedicated servers which replace host bots. There should also be an API which allows communicating with the running game and could be used to provide information on a website or store data on the server (which would replace save codes).
• Allow multiplayer map transitions. The savegames could be stored on the hosting server (again dedicated servers are necessary) or all PCs of the participating players. This would allow us to play campaigns in coop mode!
• Allow more than two cliff type textures. There can be 16 cliff types per map? But only two different textures will be displayed. I have added four types to my custom map and the third and fourth look like the first and second.
• Add a translation tool. The classic game allows you to extract the war3map.wts files manually but what happens if you change the map strings? There is no diff tool which handles strings automatically and updates war3map.wts files in other languages which do already contain translations. I have tried to implement such tool called wc3trans in my project: tdauth/wc3lib
• Add a real JASS debugger which allows us to set break points and watch variables etc. when testing a map. It should also log critical errors.
  
• Add JASS functions to change the UI dynamically. We would not be restricted to the four races anymore. We could add more buttons on the screen to use more abilities and create custom UIs.
• Add a native or example JASS third person camera system which recognizes doodads or destructables behind the camera and handles the actual Z value correctly.
• Allow multiple layers of pathing maps in one map with custom Z value ranges. This would allow us to place bridges where units can walk under the bridge and we could create more interesting dungeons.
• Allow to set the pathing map manually with the terrain editor or a custom module.
• Simplify the selection tools: Allow the selection of specific object types only.
  
• Allow more than one water color per map. The color should be set per region of water or tile.
• Linux support: JUST DO IT!
• The Sound Editor should support adding custom sound sets for units. I have to modify the global SLK file to achieve this with the classic game.
• Provide more editor modules like: all the SLK files like Weather effects, MPQ Editor.
• Provide an API for World Editor plugins. This API should allow access of the map, object data, sound data etc. etc. It would help us to write our own tools and integrate custom scripting languages.
• Improve the World Editor's tooltip editor (see JNGP extensions) to show previews of the rendered tooltips.
• Allow us to refer to icons in tooltips.
• Add a checker tool to the object editor which checks for all referred <ID,DataA1> etc. fields and validates them.
• The object editor should allow us to change the object ID.
  
• Improve the performance of the whole World Editor GUI. The object editor should be much faster etc.

I really think that the best feature would be COOP campaigns/multiplayer map transitions. I know that there is the 2 Players Campaign project but the save codes are annoying and I cannot really play the Bonus Campaign with it or other campaigns where I have to move between maps all the time. Look at Half Life 1 and 2 and how much fun it is to play them with more than one player.

 

[alex05]

Here, some of my suggestions include new modding features:
Reforged - Warcraft III Reforged - Community Feedback

- The new UI is interesting, but please also let us use the original one as an option/alternative, or at least a SC2-like variant of the original.
- The 16-unit selection limit should either be done away with, or at least we should have the option to remove it in custom maps and mods, as well as disable in custom games (there's enough place on the side bar that allows us to disable the fog of war, etc.). Maybe leave it in for ladder/ranked/tournament play.
- Integrate additional hero selection and race selection into the race selection dropdown menu when making a custom game. I talked to the UI lead for WC3 Reforged at BlizzCon and he said this should be easily possible. A mod called WarCraft III: Nirvana already does it. The Executable file for the mod reads an altered storm.dll (I think that's the dll file involved) file when it starts up. This dll file contains a list of all races in the game that can be selected and played, with the filenames of their UI, Music and Town Hall and Worker units, so that it knows what to start you with once it loads the specific race. As the file is modified to add 2 new races, it gives you the new listed races in selection screen. This could also be used to pre-select heroes on MOBA maps. For example, an altered dll file would be added into the map or mod file, and the game would read that variant upon clicking on the custom map. War3 already pre-loads certain map data when clicking on a custom map in the map selection screen, so it could easily be programmed to read the dll file inside the map file (maps are MPQ files in War3 that contain other files inside as well) and load 2 new races in the dropdown race selection bar/menu. The UI developer and I talked and he figured out how he could make it work. This way, we can have custom races - would be pretty epic, especially since War3's community has had many custom races! Only thing is most of those do not modify the executable or dll file, so they have to program a trigger at the start of the match to let you select a custom race and even then, you won't have custom UI and music for the specific race. This could change that and it's already been done with Nirvana and it's been proven to work.