Stop the CASC madness

[YourArthas]

The mpq's are all gone, first allow local files then use war3mod.mpq FOLDER.

 

[Zwiebelchen]

Does anyone have the old wc3 mpqs around and can upload them to the pastebin? I need to drop these in my directory to get all the model viewers working again.

 

[Dr Super Good]

You can construct them from the CASC archive I would imagine. Extract the appropriate MPQ named folders from the CASC archive then bundle all the files into a MPQ using a tool like MPQEdit.

 

[pyf]

Does anyone have the old wc3 mpqs around and can upload them to the pastebin? I need to drop these in my directory to get all the model viewers working again.

@Zwiebelchen: Maybe this is what you are (not) looking for?

 

[Zwiebelchen]

@Zwiebelchen: Maybe this is what you are (not) looking for?

Yes, that's exactly what I was (not) looking for.

 

[Eregos]

I used to make changes to singleplayer campaign maps that I'd overwrite the original maps in the MPQ with to fully integrate them to singleplayer. Mostly silly stuff, sometimes serious, that myself and a few friends would enjoy. I basically finished a serious one back in May, would War3Mod.mpq allow me to overwrite the original campaign files? I would guess not. Otherwise it seems I'm screwed because changes to CASC are overwritten when Warcraft 3 is run, and releasing my map requiring an older version of warcraft 3 would be dumb and super inconvenient. It was not meant as a standalone custom map either, being reduced to playing it that way would be painfully stupid.

Funny thing is, back in May (1.29 I think) I added my map to my MPQ and used it for a playthrough of the singleplayer. I got one full playthrough with my modifications to the official singleplayer, proper widescreen, fixed cinematics, and the most up to date version of the game that could swap into B.net at a moment's notice. A golden moment that likely will never be repeated.

I assume it doesn't work to make changes to the CASC, change it to read only, then launch Warcraft III? It might not allow B.net play. edit: Fortunately not necessary for my purposes.

 

[Tasyen]

One doesn't need to change any default file in warcraft 3 V1.30. You can always overlap them. Either by placing your custom ones were the default would be inside war3.mpq / local language one (local file) or by placing them into war3mod.mpq (war3mod.mpq has to be treaded as warcraft 3 root).

To replace roc campaing mission one place a map here.
"war3mod.mpq\maps\campaign\human01.w3m".

tft human mission 1.
"war3mod.mpq\maps\frozenthrone\campaign\humanx01.w3x"

"war3mod.mpq" can be a normal folder.

 

[Eregos]

I can confirm this works. The folder does need to be called 'War3Mod.mpq' not merely 'War3Mod'. As long as you rename it from .w3x to .w3m, you can even play Frozen Throne modified maps as replacements of Reign of Chaos singleplayer campaign maps. Although I've only tested this with modified hotkeys and a few doodads so far.

Retera also voiced concern a few pages back about leaving Casc viewer running with Warcraft 3 stuff open while trying to run warcraft 3 causing Warcraft 3 to become permanently corrupted. I made this mistake, it did corrupt the gamefiles, but after closing Casc viewer and repairing the game everything seems OK.

 

[Razorclaw_X]

Retera also voiced concern a few pages back about leaving Casc viewer running with Warcraft 3 stuff open while trying to run warcraft 3 causing Warcraft 3 to become permanently corrupted. I made this mistake, it did corrupt the gamefiles, but after closing Casc viewer and repairing the game everything seems OK.

This is basically a known issue with CASC Viewer; occasionally you will have to repair the game even if you don't run the game with it open (which you shouldn't do anyway). All the CASC games are good enough about catching it that it doesn't make it a permanent issue, but it's still annoying.

 

[Retera]

Why does the CASC viewer open the files with write privileges at all? I never understood that. Someone should write a better one?

In theory, modern operating systems allow programs to open files in "read only" mode, which means the program cannot break the file.

 

[Eregos]

Crossposting from elsewhere exact instructions on how to extract campaign maps from Casc, tested and working. This thread is a top google result for extracting warcraft 3 maps. I apologize if there's already been a post that explained it this simply, A-Z.

1. download Casc Viewer Casc Storage - Main page
2. Run the viewer and open your Warcraft III directory. (Never run the game with Casc viewer open, it corrupts the data files. If by accident you do, run Warcraft III Launcher and repair install)
3. Navigate to EnUs-war3local.mpq, or whatever your preferred country localization is.
4. Navigate to maps and either Campaign or Frozen throne.
5. Right click and Export the entire map folder to a location of your choice.
6. Close casc viewer.
7. Run worldedit and drag and drop the folder of whatever specific map you want to open into Worldedit.