by the way, you have to note at the wishlist:
ms over 522: you have to add game constant for that, else tons of maps may be broken. all those things which are limited by no reason should be covered the same way. sight range, fog update time, etc etc.
if mapmaker would use it, he will check a field. and no backward compat issues
Yeah, there are a couple of notes that will break backwards compatibility if not done correctly. But the list was aimed towards stating what people want--the engineers will ensure that backwards compatibility is not broken.
But moving forward with the list, it might be a good idea to state what may break backwards compatibility and what may not.
I wonder how will all this effect the performance..
If such maps are not playable on low-end computers, people just won't play them. As a mapmaker, you want to make sure that your project is accessible. Wc3 is an old engine, so you're working with constraints regardless.
WaterKnight said:
Surely their company building is nicely decorated, as seen many times before. It may motivate them or attract more staff. However, I see no reason this would lead to more love for Warcraft III at this point other than that they still have that game on their shelves.
I just added them as an aside for anyone curious.
That is why the last part is labeled as the "Takeaway". It is the TL;DR of the post.
WaterKnight said:
Why did they invite you to a date when they had little spare time?
It just turned out that way. I don't know the details of the time scheduling (Kam might've set it up that way), but we didn't know about the patch date at the time.
It wasn't necessary for us to be there. Everything we talked about could've just as well been done through a voice chat. But it was a really kind gesture and it definitely showed some love to their communities.
WaterKnight said:
Why did they have to release the patch just at this moment? Because they announced it a week prior? Why did they announce it in the first place (and with a short deadline) when they are not ready (as seen by the immediately visible new bugs anyway)? The Wc3 community has been waiting for years, there is no rush. What stakeholders are there besides us players for these legacy game? The company itself? But it is supposed to be the legacy team, not available for more current projects, especially not for an extended period.
They were ready. We didn't ask why they were releasing it so soon, but I imagine it was to get the compatibility issues out of the way. This way they'll be able to focus on resolving those issues first. I would say the biggest error in this patch was the msvcr error. But it is understandable that it would get past QA--they probably have a default setup for each system that includes the distributable. Ideally they would have a PTR to get those issues out of the way, but Wc3 doesn't have that.
I don't think stakeholders are involved. When I asked Rob "why now?", he said it was really just a service to the fans. For wc3 in particular, they noticed: (1) there is still a
massive playerbase in China (2) there is
still a lot of interest in modding/melee worldwide. That is rare for a 13 year-old game. They wanted to do more for those loyal fans, and so the NetEase client came into fruition--and now this patch.
WaterKnight said:
Moreover, why did they let you "test" the new patch and even try out the compatibility with JNGP exactly as they are in need of releasing? There would not have been any time for adjustments. Since it was a compatibility patch, what information would playing one game on their specs gain? We do not know what you discussed in detail, the remainder reads like an adventure day.
I think part of it was just to give us something cool to do. The fixes were compatibility-related, so they honestly could've just had us install the game if they
really wanted to test their changes. Perhaps it was a sanity check if nothing else, but they told us that they had tested melee along with some popular maps already.
As for JNGP and 3rd party mods in general--their goal isn't really to "support" them. People will adjust the memory addresses, recompile, and everything will be good as new. But it would certainly be convenient if the patch didn't break the
good things. Map hacks? Who cares, they can rot for all we care. Modding? I would consider the 3rd party tools as "good". You want to give people as much reason to patch as possible. They asked us what were the core tools that may be affected by the patch, and we tested it out for them. Even if something had gone wrong this late in release, they would at least be able to make a blue post to inform people.
WaterKnight said:
That may be deigned to you, I cannot quite take it as a proof of Blizz's seriousness. When you want to achieve something, better keep in touch, which brings me to my main concern: As we know from Software Engineering class, implementing the thing is only a fraction of the work. It was stated Blizz would read the forums. Where exactly? There is too much content, unrelatedness, repetition, rants, lack of knowledge. You created a document internally (which is different from reading the forums). How about we had a section dedicated to build on such requirements specifications where you can discuss the pros and cons of the individual requirement, collect existing bugs, evaluate the priority and direct Blizzard to this subforum, so they see a well-formed and updated concerns list. It would have to be moderated similar to the other content sections.
Good idea. I'll bring this idea up with the other mods.
Avahor said:
yeah!
personally I think max width & height gets a relevant point into map size increment. As we know JNGP moved default max width to more than 440 (I can't remember exact number). but it still is low to deploy extended stages for some kind of maps (mostly rpg's).
on my case I have doubts making maps with more than 16 - 24 mb of imports space but width and height map extensions are very needed.
(thanks kam for tell to blizzard about hive's voices)
It could be cool to extend the limit, but wc3 might not be too great at running it. Wc3's engine keeps a lot of global state even though the bulk of the rendering is focused only on what is within view. But I'm not an expert. I guess only time will tell!
)
