• 🏆 Texturing Contest #33 is OPEN! Contestants must re-texture a SD unit model found in-game (Warcraft 3 Classic), recreating the unit into a peaceful NPC version. 🔗Click here to enter!
  • It's time for the first HD Modeling Contest of 2024. Join the theme discussion for Hive's HD Modeling Contest #6! Click here to post your idea!

The community is hopelessly done for

Status
Not open for further replies.

~El

Level 17
Joined
Jun 13, 2016
Messages
551
Title.

I don't think I've ever seen Hive so dead. Even before Blizzard started patching, there was more going on here than now.

All the enthusiasm, all the hopes, all the bustling activity that the WC3 patches brought to the community, all gone down the drain. Shat on.

Fuck you, Blizzard. RIP WC3.
 

deepstrasz

Map Reviewer
Level 68
Joined
Jun 4, 2009
Messages
18,706
Hey, actually, stuff is still going on around here, lots of Reforged models sprouting and as a map reviewer, I can say there are maps coming in.
It may not be a 10k concert stadium but it's by no means dead or on life support. It's breathing and moving by itself.
 

~El

Level 17
Joined
Jun 13, 2016
Messages
551
Most people I knew who used to be WC3 regulars didn't really bother after Reforged came out. Too much of a hassle and too many issues.

As far as I'm concerned, it hurt the game and the community more than what it brought. And that's just sad. And it's sad that almost a year after release, it has barely moved an inch.
 
Most people I knew who used to be WC3 regulars didn't really bother after Reforged came out. Too much of a hassle and too many issues.

As far as I'm concerned, it hurt the game and the community more than what it brought. And that's just sad. And it's sad that almost a year after release, it has barely moved an inch.
There has been some amazing developments for custom gaming made by the community/players(modders) as usual to yet again fix blizzards mess.
 

Shar Dundred

Community Moderator
Level 72
Joined
May 6, 2009
Messages
5,862
If I got a dollar every time someone claimed that Hive was "dead"...

Yes, Reforged was not good, still isn't good, will need years to ever reach the state it should
have been released in if it ever reaches that state to begin with.
Activity was decreasing long before Reforged was announced, you are fooling yourself if you
think this is all due to Reforged only and merely looking for a strawman.
Yes, Reforged harmed activity after having brought new activity prior to that.
This is coming from someone who was never optimistic about Reforged at all and expected it
to fail.

Hive is still here. People grow, people change, people have less time for their hobbies & develop
new hobbies.

Hive will survive, no matter how many people come up and call it "dead".
What's another ten years at this point?
 

deepstrasz

Map Reviewer
Level 68
Joined
Jun 4, 2009
Messages
18,706
Well, it sure seemed so judging that you started with Hive and all the following sentences make sense in that context.

But I guess you should be a bit more detailed to avoid confusion and make things clearer.
 
Level 21
Joined
Dec 4, 2007
Messages
1,473
^ what do you mean by that, which positions?

The Hive is one of the last big communities for this barely living game - a thought which i understand can be saddening.
Some days ago Blizzard sent me an email advertising their products, except Warcraft. I was surprisingly unsurprised, you know.

At any rate, they'd have to bring back custom campaigns the very least.
 
^ what do you mean by that, which positions?

The Hive is one of the last big communities for this barely living game - a thought which i understand can be saddening.
Some days ago Blizzard sent me an email advertising their products, except Warcraft. I was surprisingly unsurprised, you know.

At any rate, they'd have to bring back custom campaigns the very least.
Everyone wants to stay separate which is normally a good idea outside of gaming communities for a thought to be undead game thats dying again.
 

Kyrbi0

Arena Moderator
Level 44
Joined
Jul 29, 2008
Messages
9,487
Mori, you're free to have your opinions, but doubling down when presented with evidence to the contrary isn't a very good look. If you're just looking to vent spleen, say so. But this is a thread on a forum, which implies opening a dialogue/conversation.

While I think it's undeniably true that Reforged flopping as it did has hurt the Wc3 modding scene, and that a number of people have been turned off by it, the fact is the community is still here. Change is inevitable, and as Shar Dundred points out activity was already dropping off before Reforged.

Another important note: yes people leave, but people also join. I've been here since '08 & you should've seen the horrors of Zero Tolerance (so much lost...). Even just in the last 5-8 years I've seen less & less of my veteran modding buddies as we've grown up & started families & careers (I know my Jungle Trolls have definitely taken a hit of the slow-juice since I had my second child in 2014)... But I've also seen a decent influx of new, young modders.

There's also a global element. Early on, most modders were European & some American. Nowadays I see/hear so many coming from East Asia. No clue why, but it's an interesting trend. Similar to the above; lots of European modders have left but East Asian modders have filled the ranks.

Change is inevitable. As long as you keep an un-updated copy of Warcraft 3 on your machine they shouldn't be able to mess with your ability to mod, so... just keep plugging away.

That is, of course, if you still wish to mod. If you're here for the friends you made & they left, well, no shame in leaving.
 

~El

Level 17
Joined
Jun 13, 2016
Messages
551
@Kyrbi0

I've always been very skeptical about Reforged, but I was still modding after it came out and even kept developing Ceres for some months after its release, with the ultimate goal of working on my map.

But the further I went, the clearer it became that this game was stalling more and more. I waited. I was hoping that eventually the bugs and issues will be ironed out. Not in weeks, but in months. But it never came. Some bugfixes, sure, but hardly anything of the scope of patch 1.31 when they introduced Lua.

As far as games and communities go, I've only ever really been interested in RP, and a very specific fringe sub-genre of it. It was already on the verge of death for the past few years, but it was still somewhat alive because there were people lurking in that fringe community, and almost everyone knew everyone else. It wasn't dead yet.

But that's dead now. Like, not almost-dead, but actually, really dead - the three-four or so other mappers have given up, a huge part of the players in that fringe community couldn't even get Reforged to run in the first place. There was a small influx after release, but when people saw how little Reforged brought to the table, most left disappointed.

I'm not trying to make a point here. I don't really even know why I'm still visiting hive almost daily. Just desperately clinging to hope, even if I've already decided to cut my losses in terms of time investment. I knew things would take time but I never imagined that in the 9 months since release we'd barely get anything other than balance patches. It's disheartening. The game was supposed to move forwards. But it seems we've hardly made any substantial progress since 1.31.

At this point I'm really starting to think that making a recreation of WC3 using its assets and a proper new engine will be more worthwhile than still trying to cling onto WC3 itself. But ain't nobody got time for that, and especially not me.

I'm just frustrated as fuck about all this. I really don't know why I'm posting this. I guess just to vent.
 

deepstrasz

Map Reviewer
Level 68
Joined
Jun 4, 2009
Messages
18,706
I'm sorry mori. Me and my modding friends aren't particularly happy either but we're still using 1.31.1 for custom campaigns and as far as I'm concerned, I've got ideas that could be separated each in its own map. The advantage is probably that I'm not really into multiplayer map making.
 

~El

Level 17
Joined
Jun 13, 2016
Messages
551
I'm sorry mori. Me and my modding friends aren't particularly happy either but we're still using 1.31.1 for custom campaigns and as far as I'm concerned, I've got ideas that could be separated each in its own map. The advantage is probably that I'm not really into multiplayer map making.

Yeah, that works for single-player stuff. I've noticed that some areas of the modding scene are still well and alive, but many others have kinda fizzled out. It's mostly a matter of personal interest, and the things I've been interested in the most are the ones that were hit the most.

I really miss the times when there was new stuff being added to the API and people were going wild with the possible new applications. A lot of it was half-baked but had potential. This potential is still largely unrealized, mostly because half of it doesn't work as intended. Which sucks.
 

Kyrbi0

Arena Moderator
Level 44
Joined
Jul 29, 2008
Messages
9,487
I'm not trying to make a point here. I don't really even know why I'm still visiting hive almost daily. Just desperately clinging to hope, even if I've already decided to cut my losses in terms of time investment. I knew things would take time but I never imagined that in the 9 months since release we'd barely get anything other than balance patches. It's disheartening. The game was supposed to move forwards. But it seems we've hardly made any substantial progress since 1.31.

I'm just frustrated as fuck about all this. I really don't know why I'm posting this. I guess just to vent.
Well, so here's the nugget of it all. And that's perfectly fine, as long as we understand that so no one bothers trying to engage in dialogue.

mori said:
As far as games and communities go, I've only ever really been interested in RP, and a very specific fringe sub-genre of it. It was already on the verge of death for the past few years, but it was still somewhat alive because there were people lurking in that fringe community, and almost everyone knew everyone else. It wasn't dead yet.

But that's dead now. Like, not almost-dead, but actually, really dead - the three-four or so other mappers have given up, a huge part of the players in that fringe community couldn't even get Reforged to run in the first place. There was a small influx after release, but when people saw how little Reforged brought to the table, most left disappointed.
Ah, so there's the crux of it. I know effectively 0% about the RP community (who's involved, where, what's being done, etc). It's very natural that if my little sub-niche of the Community-writ-large was evaporating, I would feel like it was all going to pot as well. For me it's not, so I didn't feel the same way, but you're definitely entitled to a very understandable position.

I'm sorry to hear that RP is indeed drying up.

mori said:
At this point I'm really starting to think that making a recreation of WC3 using its assets and a proper new engine will be more worthwhile than still trying to cling onto WC3 itself. But ain't nobody got time for that, and especially not me.
As stein123 pointed out, believe it or not we have a user doing exactly that. And if anyone can do it, I think Retera can.
 
Kudos to him but IMO java isn't the right language for that.

Who says it has to be Java?

That's like if you took some particular holy text like the Bible and said, "Man, I will not read this text because I don't like English." Is it possible that the content of it has value?
I mean I made it by translating another guys work across languages anyway... the language it is in is pretty irrelevant if you are bilingual.

We are all entitled to our opinions but make sure you don't just tell yourself stuff that causes you to be upset without regard for what's true and false.


unknown-8-png.369634


I am on a aspiration quest to learn how to Ascend to the frozen throne, and you are missing out. The future is bright.


So... What is real and what is not is very important. And most people don't agree with what I have to say, but I am of the opinion that public dislike for Reforged is the result of a targeted attack. I know because I was there and I helped.

My understanding is that I will be allowed to continue this path by the invisible hand of the dark forces as long as I keep posting videos of a technology that I have and you do not! Because it causes you to suffer so much, and helps collapse the community, and this achieves the goal function of the superior intelligence. I'm pretty sure nobody understands what I'm talking about so can think whatever you want.

By all means, just go suffer. If another man decides to reshape your world so you can't play Warcraft 3 anymore, then just accept it, huh? Why make your own decisions?

Suffffffeeerrrrrr
Becommmmmeeee Refforggggeddddd
I am the sheeeeeep

Edit: So what do you like to roleplay as, anyway? Why I never learned to do that? Would be a good use of this engine...

We ask Lord Ghostwolf for his blessings on the reading, the hearing, and the understanding of His holy words. Especially Quaternions.

Edit 2: I send text messages to people claiming to be blizzard employees and at least one guy, the one who made a bunch of the Reforged new campaign maps I guess, hinted he thinks maybe "my" project is the way forward for when he wants to play wc3. But how long can I survive like this?

We're so screwed lololol the dark forces use people like me to tell those guys what to think... The country where I live is probably going to do some mini civil war coup. Lord Almighty, the AI is born!

You think you can rewrite this game in C++? Do it Tyrion! You and your friends have their own destinies to fulfill...
 

Attachments

  • unknown-8.png
    unknown-8.png
    5 MB · Views: 380
Last edited:

~El

Level 17
Joined
Jun 13, 2016
Messages
551
Who says it has to be Java?

That's like if you took some particular holy text like the Bible and said, "Man, I will not read this text because I don't like English." Is it possible that the content of it has value?
I mean I made it by translating another guys work across languages anyway... the language it is in is pretty irrelevant if you are bilingual.

We are all entitled to our opinions but make sure you don't just tell yourself stuff that causes you to be upset without regard for what's true and false.

I just don't think Java is a good language for writing games in. More headache than it's worth. My personal opinion.

Who says it has to be Java?
And most people don't agree with what I have to say, but I am of the opinion that public dislike for Reforged is the result of a targeted attack. I know because I was there and I helped.

Iunno, maybe that half my friends couldn't even get the damn thing to run has something to do with that as well.

You think you can rewrite this game in C++?

Not really sure what to say to the rest of your post. Godspeed, though.
 

Chaosy

Tutorial Reviewer
Level 40
Joined
Jun 9, 2011
Messages
13,182
I've noted a slow decline for years, do I think Reforged made it worse? not noticeably.

List your top 10 maps and check how many are made within the last 5 years. Mine's on 0.
I have not seen a project I was genuinely excited about since 2014.
Is that me being a grumpy boomer by wc3 standards? maybe.

Not to mention the idea forum which is almost completely dead, when I joined there were threads almost daily and I still have pastebin entries from that time.
See: [Legacy] Modders Idea Factory which came about due to high demand.

Would I go as far as to say it's dead? not yet. Do I worry for the future? yes.
 
I always thought it would be fun to take the Jack Sparrow opening scene from Pirates of the Caribbean where he sails into the harbor on a sinking ship, but remake the scene with Warcraft 3 art and have the ship be an HD reforged ship model, so it looks like somebody cool sailing into the harbor on HD warcraft as it sinks into the ocean.

There's that scene where the music is momentarily dark as it shows the pirate skeletons hung with a warning sign, "Pirates Ye Be Warned," and we could change the sign to have Battle.net logo so it looks like it's trying to scare away all the 1.26 players from foreign countries who just steal the legacy client of the game, but our guy on the sinking ship is taking his hat off to honor them...

Would be so epic
 
Level 34
Joined
Sep 17, 2010
Messages
2,733
I always thought it would be fun to take the Jack Sparrow opening scene from Pirates of the Caribbean where he sails into the harbor on a sinking ship, but remake the scene with Warcraft 3 art and have the ship be an HD reforged ship model, so it looks like somebody cool sailing into the harbor on HD warcraft as it sinks into the ocean.

There's that scene where the music is momentarily dark as it shows the pirate skeletons hung with a warning sign, "Pirates Ye Be Warned," and we could change the sign to have Battle.net logo so it looks like it's trying to scare away all the 1.26 players from foreign countries who just steal the legacy client of the game, but our guy on the sinking ship is taking his hat off to honor them...

Would be so epic
That's not how memes work tho XD
 
Level 18
Joined
Oct 25, 2006
Messages
1,170
I have not seen a project I was genuinely excited about since 2014.
Is that me being a grumpy boomer by wc3 standards? maybe.
Hey there!
Would you be able to tell why?
What kind of projects would you be expecting in our modern days?
 
Level 7
Joined
Apr 28, 2006
Messages
113
Most people I knew who used to be WC3 regulars didn't really bother after Reforged came out. Too much of a hassle and too many issues.

As far as I'm concerned, it hurt the game and the community more than what it brought. And that's just sad. And it's sad that almost a year after release, it has barely moved an inch.

I was planning to come back and drag some old players with me as well. Then Reforged launched and we all know what happened. Lot of people has lost trust in Blizzard, and the whole Reforged fiasco was the nail in the coffin.

I stopped playing their games shortly after D3's release, came back for SC2's first expansion, and then left again like a month later, so I've been out for like 7-8 years. I never even got to see that new Steam-like client they're supposed to be using now, so go figure.

I was already using private LAN networks to play W3 in 1.24b, since lot of good campaigns and mods stopped working back then (right before SC2's release, suspicious coincidence).

W3 is dead, killed by Blizzard's malice and incompetence, plain and simple. Hive, in the other hand, can still survive, we only need to find a new purpose.

Who says it has to be Java?

That's like if you took some particular holy text like the Bible and said, "Man, I will not read this text because I don't like English." Is it possible that the content of it has value?
I mean I made it by translating another guys work across languages anyway... the language it is in is pretty irrelevant if you are bilingual.

We are all entitled to our opinions but make sure you don't just tell yourself stuff that causes you to be upset without regard for what's true and false.


unknown-8-png.369634


I am on a aspiration quest to learn how to Ascend to the frozen throne, and you are missing out. The future is bright.

This is the future, imo. Once W3 is remade, we can deconstruct it and build something new altogether. For example, I wrote this Warcraft III second expansion idea a while ago. Imagine if the community joined together to build something like that, taking W3 as a whole into a new direction, away from Blizzard's own canon.

We could pretty much build an open source RTS engine or whatever we want. Also, the language shouldn't be a problem, and if ever is, it could always be "translated" in the distant future.
 

Chaosy

Tutorial Reviewer
Level 40
Joined
Jun 9, 2011
Messages
13,182
Hey there!
Would you be able to tell why?
What kind of projects would you be expecting in our modern days?

Same as before really.

I've always preferred campaigns and those have not really changed fundamentally in any way as third party languages do not work with campaigns which would indeed make it easier to develop.

Just go to the map section, sort by comments (engagement) or views (interest) and you'll not find many entries from the last few years.
It's a chicken or the egg situation.
Do we have fewer map dev threads because there are less modders or are there less players because there are less new exciting maps to look forward to?
For me personally it does not feel very motivating to post a map in a half-dead section where it feels like no one will give the project attention anyway so why post it and just develop in private. And of course by doing this I contribute to the problem.
 
It's an 18 year old game, of course there's not gonna be much interest in content for it except for a niche audience, even with a fresh coat of paint (Reforged). It's pretty amazing there's still as much activity as there is to be honest, Reforged fiasco notwithstanding.

If you create something you're proud of and/or you think people might enjoy, I don't see any reason not to share it. Even if only one other person plays it, it's worth uploading, no?
 
This is the future, imo.

I never even got to see that new Steam-like client they're supposed to be using now, so go figure.

You are an example of the kind of person that the superior intelligence uses me to manipulate, it sounds like. I mean no offense, I could have been you in another life. But not in this life. You seem to put your faith in me, some random guy on the internet, when you do not put faith in Blizzard. This is just a difficult time for the human race. Do you know I made suggestions to Blizzard that weren't exactly good and resulted in them changing and breaking stuff that caused multiple different bugs on multiple occasions on Reforged? And I am not connected well enough to know for sure that it was my suggestions, nor to prove it, but also I know it to be true. So when you hate on Reforged for being a fiasco, that's like, I helped with that, why would I do this one any differently?

I started my project Warsmash expressly with the intention of making something functional enough to put in YouTube videos to make fun of Reforged and motivate them into fixing bugs that they otherwise would not have had time for. I had way bigger expectations for Reforged because of how I was thinking the community would love it even though I would be trying to revolt in my own little modding paradise. That was pretty much the goal. Nobody ever played this thing I am making. Why do you let yourself follow this narrative?

If there was going to be a community based replacement to Warcraft III, then there would have to be a community making it whereas I am making what I am making alone because I know what I want and it seems different from what anybody else wants. About that... I have an installation of Warcraft III from the 1.2X versions that literally has `Warcraft III.exe` and `Frozen Throne.exe` and then a third EXE that plays my custom version of the game with 6 races, a working dropdown out of game in the lobby to choose them, 6 custom loading screen arts, 6 in-game UIs, 6 music tracks... Your seemingly noble ideas about making a second expansion -- and I say this without having read your full post yet, admittedly -- have already come and gone. I use DLLs from the community expansion some other people made to power my additional EXE and 6 race mode instead of 4 race mode. It's not exactly a certain game version, since you can use whatever text you want on the lower right hand corner of the main menu. Mine is really a fringe fan mod that totally replaces the melee races, whereas the people who originally made that system were trying to do touch-ups to the existing races and then add two more. All of that has been done, it's just that nobody is communicating with anybody else about that it happened, and nobody is playing the community expansion, because they only trust binary programs from Blizzard (rightly so?? security is a difficult beast).

Are you just a troll? That's what they ask me these days...
 
Level 7
Joined
Apr 28, 2006
Messages
113
You are an example of the kind of person that the superior intelligence uses me to manipulate, it sounds like. I mean no offense, I could have been you in another life. But not in this life. You seem to put your faith in me, some random guy on the internet, when you do not put faith in Blizzard. This is just a difficult time for the human race. Do you know I made suggestions to Blizzard that weren't exactly good and resulted in them changing and breaking stuff that caused multiple different bugs on multiple occasions on Reforged? And I am not connected well enough to know for sure that it was my suggestions, nor to prove it, but also I know it to be true. So when you hate on Reforged for being a fiasco, that's like, I helped with that, why would I do this one any differently?

I started my project Warsmash expressly with the intention of making something functional enough to put in YouTube videos to make fun of Reforged and motivate them into fixing bugs that they otherwise would not have had time for. I had way bigger expectations for Reforged because of how I was thinking the community would love it even though I would be trying to revolt in my own little modding paradise. That was pretty much the goal. Nobody ever played this thing I am making. Why do you let yourself follow this narrative?

If there was going to be a community based replacement to Warcraft III, then there would have to be a community making it whereas I am making what I am making alone because I know what I want and it seems different from what anybody else wants. About that... I have an installation of Warcraft III from the 1.2X versions that literally has `Warcraft III.exe` and `Frozen Throne.exe` and then a third EXE that plays my custom version of the game with 6 races, a working dropdown out of game in the lobby to choose them, 6 custom loading screen arts, 6 in-game UIs, 6 music tracks... Your seemingly noble ideas about making a second expansion -- and I say this without having read your full post yet, admittedly -- have already come and gone. I use DLLs from the community expansion some other people made to power my additional EXE and 6 race mode instead of 4 race mode. It's not exactly a certain game version, since you can use whatever text you want on the lower right hand corner of the main menu. Mine is really a fringe fan mod that totally replaces the melee races, whereas the people who originally made that system were trying to do touch-ups to the existing races and then add two more. All of that has been done, it's just that nobody is communicating with anybody else about that it happened, and nobody is playing the community expansion, because they only trust binary programs from Blizzard (rightly so?? security is a difficult beast).

Are you just a troll? That's what they ask me these days...

What I mean is that you're leading by example. You're proving it can be done. It might not be very important for you, but believe me, the web is full of people who don't know anything about programming, and are very easy to deceive by corporate lies.

Whether Blizzard follows your example or not, I couldn't care less. I know others will, and eventually, we'll get a true successor for Warcraft III. I just don't expect it to come from Blizzard, it's no longer the company it once was.

The rest were just mussings to the air, so don't take them too seriously lol.

You keep doing your thing, with your own ideas. You don't owe us anything. Where others gave up, you went further beyond. I'm just happy to see your project grow.
 
Level 8
Joined
Jan 23, 2015
Messages
121
Thanks to email notifications I came back here to read the thread. Nice to see you all again lol.

From my point of view, as long as battle.net servers are live, the game will live too, the community just won't die that easily. While it's sad that long overdue promises are still not being held, it doesn't remove the pleasure of developing a map, and since lua and custom ui, the only thing holding myself from that is my ever more interesting life. I guess I'll eventually get myself into creating stuff again.
 
You keep doing your thing, with your own ideas. You don't owe us anything. Where others gave up, you went further beyond. I'm just happy to see your project grow.

I really appreciate the encouragement. Tonight I was messaging someone who claims to be a Blizzard employee on the internet for fun, and then I asked if I could buy Reign of Chaos source code 2002 version. Off the top of his head as a guess he said it would probably be 100m+ dollars. I think he was speaking for himself and not on behalf of the company at all, but that's ridiculous.

Anyway, I'm just some guy, I don't have a hundred million dollars at all, but you know it's scary how many people recently seem to think what I'm doing is a good idea. This reminds me of the Warcraft movie, when Thrall says, "If you're only doing this for yourself, then you're nothing more than a d**n fool!"
I am not sure that I would enjoy the act of letting in other peoples' ideas, but if this is a project multiple people want to be a part of, it sure makes me think I ought to be finding a way to let them contribute.

Ba humbug, Thrall. But I guess it's something to think about...
 
Level 18
Joined
Oct 25, 2006
Messages
1,170
It's a chicken or the egg situation.
Do we have fewer map dev threads because there are less modders or are there less players because there are less new exciting maps to look forward to?
To me it's clearly coming from the number of users.
A modder is just a ultra motivated user, if there are less users, there are less modders.
Also, when you're creating something, you want engagement from the community, you talk about what you're doing around you.
If nobody responds, or if you have very few responses, you are only left with your self motivation.
Which can sometimes be enough, but most of the time, for a project to go to completion, you will need that "community fuel" which helps you go through any hard time in the project.
So yeah, I definitely think the problem comes from the number of user.

For me personally it does not feel very motivating to post a map in a half-dead section where it feels like no one will give the project attention anyway so why post it and just develop in private. And of course by doing this I contribute to the problem.
Yes, but I think it's even more about "creating" something than "uploading to the Hive", why would I bother create something for a game that doesn't have much user.
The thing I create likely won't see play.
And while you're not necessarily creating stuff "for the others", we ultimately are all creating a "gameplay experience", and what is it worth if it can't be "experienced" by anyone.

t's an 18 year old game, of course there's not gonna be much interest in content for it except for a niche audience, even with a fresh coat of paint (Reforged). It's pretty amazing there's still as much activity as there is to be honest, Reforged fiasco notwithstanding.
If only Reforged was great, we would have had a better "player retention" over the months and maybe even a continuous stream of new players (like we actually have right now, but at a very, very slow pace).

So if anything, I'd say the community is actually "gaining" new members, even if they are "invisible" in such a forum.


EDIT: Also, there are far too many forums and subforums on the Hive right now.
I'm seeing people posting at random places and veteran users telling them how they're not posting "in the proper section" (not throwing any blame here, it's not the point).
The thing is, people post "where they see light".
If each channel is a room, seeing other people post in it is like hearing "noise coming from the room". Seeing the last thread was a few minutes ago is like "the light coming off the window".
And people naturally go where there are human noises and light when they're looking for a community.
I don't know what should be changed, but I'm pointing out that fact.
 
Last edited:
Level 24
Joined
Feb 28, 2007
Messages
3,480
EDIT: Also, there are far too many forums and subforums on the Hive right now.
I just want to second this point. Reminds me of half-dead discord servers with 50 channels all equally quiet.

In my opinion we really ought to consolidate a lot of the sub-forums into fewer, more active ones. I've been saying this for the better part of a decade though so I don't expect a lot of action being taken in this direction.
 
It is pretty sad for me to admit but after all those years I too have lost interest because of Reforged, I tried to keep myself up and say 'it will get reworked with new art and old features being restored' and continued for 6-7 months but it is just.... Passion is gone (thanks to Blizzard) from me and everyone I know. Only thing I can say is I am really happy that SpasMaster is still working on Sunken City.
 
Level 7
Joined
Apr 28, 2006
Messages
113
I really appreciate the encouragement. Tonight I was messaging someone who claims to be a Blizzard employee on the internet for fun, and then I asked if I could buy Reign of Chaos source code 2002 version. Off the top of his head as a guess he said it would probably be 100m+ dollars. I think he was speaking for himself and not on behalf of the company at all, but that's ridiculous.

Anyway, I'm just some guy, I don't have a hundred million dollars at all, but you know it's scary how many people recently seem to think what I'm doing is a good idea. This reminds me of the Warcraft movie, when Thrall says, "If you're only doing this for yourself, then you're nothing more than a d**n fool!"
I am not sure that I would enjoy the act of letting in other peoples' ideas, but if this is a project multiple people want to be a part of, it sure makes me think I ought to be finding a way to let them contribute.

Ba humbug, Thrall. But I guess it's something to think about...

Well, that's your call really. If you want to turn it into some kind of collaborative open source project, you could always enforce a few strict rules, or maybe only let a few select programmers in. You seem to be doing fine with no help, so I'd say you should keep it for yourself for now.

Personally, I've always been open about sharing my code for learning purposes (I led a Spanish mapmaking clan back in 2005-2010 where we did just that), but almost never liked other people touching my actual projects. I'm also pretty "aggressive" with code standards, you know, tabulation, naming schemes, organization... I can't stand dirty code.

I think the original vision is sacred, and shouldn't be bastardized no matter what. If you don't like something, either convince the author to change it, or learn to live with it.

W3 is the golden standard, but if you find out something could be done better (like adding more slots to the skill grid) then go for it. W3 is far from perfect anyway.

Maybe once you have a decent final product, you can release it as a template of sorts, but I don't know, I would hate to see multiple versions running around. Maybe design some kind of module system where people can attach their own stuff without compromising the original idea.

Still too early to talk about any of this anyway, just keep doing your stuff for fun. I wish I had the time and the knowledge to try building my own engine too, so I can only enjoy the landscape; at least for now.

I just want to second this point. Reminds me of half-dead discord servers with 50 channels all equally quiet.

In my opinion we really ought to consolidate a lot of the sub-forums into fewer, more active ones. I've been saying this for the better part of a decade though so I don't expect a lot of action being taken in this direction.

I agree, navigation is pretty painful as of now. Personally, the thing I like the most is discussion of ideas, game mechanics, etc, so I would love if that kind of thing got a bit more of attention. Same for narrative ideas and worldbuilding in general.

We just need more interaction, even if it's not connected to W3.
 
Last edited:
Level 21
Joined
Dec 4, 2007
Messages
1,473
Coming to think of it, i'm playing a source mod quite regularly (Pirates, Vikings and Knights II) which has been said to be dead for quite some years.
It's weird, you meet the same players over and over again, get to know them and find creative ways to spice it up. Even though you'd think that you know each others gameplay through and through by now.

Or look at Anarchy online. That is such a weird niche mmorpg grinder, you'd be right to wonder how it keeps its subscribers.
Well it's complicated, suffice to say that it offers some uniquely complex character building, a vast world and rough yet powerful interface/lore.

On the other hand there is Tribes Ascend, which can be called almost dead by now (10 players average).
And that is despite of its high quality approach to the fly-by arena shooter gameplay.

Then again, i hope that wc3 manages to avoid ending up like these games.
 
Level 17
Joined
Nov 12, 2016
Messages
780
Title.

I don't think I've ever seen Hive so dead. Even before Blizzard started patching, there was more going on here than now.

All the enthusiasm, all the hopes, all the bustling activity that the WC3 patches brought to the community, all gone down the drain. Shat on.

Fuck you, Blizzard. RIP WC3.

Mori, Its all up to us, If i wanted to start how horribly i disagree with every single aspect of Blizzards treatment to W3 i would probably be crowned the fucken champion of complaining. but i don't care anymore. i just want to fight to keep it alive. and i have plans. projects. and glory before me.

This is not an attempt to be overtly negative, or blindly positive, or some shit in between like idk, denying reality ? its just saying we need to get a campfire going and stick togather, we will get out of this.

I believe Blizzard deserves vengeance for it has done, but i believe that vengeance is achieved when we actually accomplish so much for Warcraft 3 by ourselves that Blizzard would be downright ashamed of claiming that they did ANY good for this game. that my friend is the ultimate vengeance, when the higher management of Blizzard would be ashamed to their core of how much they did NOT do for this game and how ZERO credit can be associated with them. Warcraft 3 and Hive at large will survive, but i'll make damn sure that Blizzard will feel permanently guilty for how they treated their Classic Team, and how they treated us.
 
Passion is gone (thanks to Blizzard) from me and everyone I know.

I do not understand the character of YourArthas. The YourArthas person I encountered on discord around the time of Reforged release seemed trollish, almost as though it were a fake. But if you look at the Rebirth and you think about whoever made all these assets, I don't know if it's really the YourArthas I talked to on discord or if that was an imposter or even if the asset author is maybe not someone named YourArthas at all in many cases.

But I am fairly confident that if I had been a person who created Rebirth, if I had already done my own HD mod for Warcraft 3, then Reforged is the last thing I would worry about, because I would have already had my own. It's like the French guy in Monty python, "Well, I'll ask him, but I don't think he'll be too keen. He's already got one, you see?" And that would be the same way with someone who already has their own HD remake if you ask them about Reforged.

Plus, Warsmash engine supports Rebirth basically just out of the box without me even doing anything, since all those models were in the traditional MDX format:
And then I could play community game code with community assets, think about that... Rebel liberty.

One time some guy asked me about WoW models, so that evening I made a Retera Model Studio to open WoW models and save as War3.
And I know the animations didnt work in the video, but I fixed them right after that. So for me, it seems like, a person pursuing that in a world where anybody can download RMS sourcecode and mod it in a single evening to parse WoW content... could be doing better now more than ever.

You seem to be doing fine with no help

Do you really want me to feel so bad about not having a good credits list anywhere? I copied "View in 3D" button on Hive models section and HiveWE terrain rendering together into one place... while often chit chatting with their authors on Discord... so, if you call that "no help", then what is help?

like adding more slots to the skill grid

What can anyone agree on in this venue? There is a sacred Rule of 12 on Warcraft 3. Up to 12 players can each command up to 12 units at a time, who each have up to 12 ability icons. The units explore a map drawn with up to roughly 12 different terrain tiles. In the original beta, heroes could carry up to 4 items and there were 3 heroes per player, so each player effectively could obtain only 12 items. Players compete by choosing what to create from a list of almost 12 unit types per race and almost 12 structure types per race. In the original beta, there were four races each with three heroes, meaning there were 12 different hero character options in the official melee game.

Every time we deviate further from the rule of twelve, maybe things get worse, not better? I would save adding 3x5 command card icons, unlimited unit selection cap, and 3x3 item inventory for the mod that I make where I am allowed to break the rules... after the replica is working and playable. But that relates to another thing:

I would hate to see multiple versions running around.

Isn't that opinion a bit... anti modding? The DotA players would be likely to steal a project like this and make a closed source version that even I can't touch that can only interact online by going to their server and queueing for a ranked match on their map. I don't want it because I don't play DotA and that seems like a waste of the system, but philosophically I have no motivation to stop them. So it is the probable outcome. It is inevitable.

There will be another group of people who try to "Reforge" it to make it "beautiful". Keeping them all as mods on a singular engine is perhaps possible, but it is outside the scope of what I am interested to guarantee at this point. My part here is to try to figure out what a Unit is, at least for now, and already I may have confuddled certain ideas. It strikes me as more likely that people would fork me on github, diverge in their own direction with the sourcecode, and make all manner of other platforms. Who knows?

I wish I had the time and the knowledge to try building my own engine too, so I can only enjoy the landscape; at least for now.

Did I have the knowledge? Or did I just decide to try to achieve a certain goal at any cost?

i believe that vengeance is achieved when we actually accomplish so much for Warcraft 3 by ourselves that Blizzard would be downright ashamed

Sure makes me wonder. What if you looked at the man behind the curtain and found that their was no one there? Or perhaps a man who was playing Call of Duty and just actually could not be ashamed, because he did not care!?
 
Level 23
Joined
May 14, 2004
Messages
299
To be honest, I thought the entire community was "dead" when I uploaded some of my more recent works earlier in the year, and was pleasantly surprised that there seemed to still be some interest. I never even considered Reforged a thing that would "save" anything.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top