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Try to make custom campaigns in Reforged

Hello everyone, I am a user of World Editor from China Forum.

I have been researching custom campaigns for a while, and this is my latest result.

Here are four examples of custom campaigns I added. Their tabs are behind the Rexxar campaign.

自定义战役-暗影国度.gif


In general, these contents are completed by editing TXT files and JS files.

Here are the steps :

Step 0. Since version 1.30, the game has used CASC to store data files. And you should learn to use Cascview to observe and extract data files. You can visit this page to learn about Cascview.
Casc Storages - Main page

Step 1. Understand how [allow local file] works. It can be described as the game will preferentially read local files instead of files in CASC, When [Allow Local Files = 1] in the registry , which under the path [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Blizzard Entertainment\Warcraft III\].

Step 2. You extract a certain media file in the game, modify it, and place it in [Warcraft III\_retail_\]. Refer to the correct path under the Cascview extraction path [war3.w3mod\]. You will find that you can replace most of the media files of the game as long as you want.

Step 3. Open [war3.w3mod\ui\campaigninforeforged.txt] in Cascview, read it, and get how it works from its comments. It has a CampaignList listing the campaigns that should be displayed in the game. It also has a series of [Tutorial], [Human], [Undead], etc. to define some of the parameters of the campaign (they are only partially useful, some have been abandoned)

Then you can add your own custom campaign project. When you are finished, put the TXT file in the correct path, refer to step 2. You open the game and you will see it, although it does not yet have any media file support, you can still see its black title and a default battle tab border.

Step 4. Open [war3.w3mod\webui\gluemanager.js] in Cascview and modify it.

This step is a bit complicated and requires you to have some basic knowledge of the JavaScript language.

The [gluemanager.js] is a code text file that controls the main menu interface. You will find it is confused/protected, so it is difficult to read and modify. But fortunately we have code beautification tools [Online JavaScript beautifier]. After you restore it, it will become easier to read.

before_after.png


Then you can look for content related to the custom campaign in the ocean of code. One trick is to search for "OrcEx", which is the name of the last campaign. When the code mentions it, it must be related to the custom campaign.

When you search for "OrcEx", you will find 8 results.

The first result is in [t.STORY_BACKGROUNDS], which determines the name of the webm background corresponding to the custom campaign opening interface. (The path of webm is [\webui\webm\])

The second result is in [t.AMBIENT_SOUNDS], which decides to customize the music used by webm used in the opening interface of the battle. (The name and path of the music are defined in [\ui\soundinfo\ambiencesounds.slk])

The third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh results are all in the obfuscated CSS code. You can also use [beautifier Online JavaScript beautifier] to restore them. They control the custom title font style, subtitle font style, tab image background path, and banner image path of the settlement interface.

The eighth result is to serve the getStoryBackground command and specify the serial number of the custom battle background.

After completing the addition and modification of your own campaign content in the above eight positions, I think you can achieve the same effect as mine.

If you cannot understand these steps, ignore them. Just download the ZIP package I provided. Unzip it to [Warcraft III\_retail_\]. You only need to modify the TXT, replace the PNG and WEBM materials, and then you can make a custom campaign.
 

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Hey, never saw this before. It is certainly interesting, maybe you should explain in simple terms what steps needs to be taken for this?

Also, I suspect this includes altering the game files even for end users who wants to play custom campaigns, so it might not be so relevant to most people's interests.
 
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Hey, I am looking for someone to collaborate on a custom campaign for the short film.

If we make a custom campaign, more people will know that making a custom campaign is possible in Refrorged, before Blizzard officially opens it.

In this way, more people will look forward to it, and more people will be willing to make a custom campaign in Refrorged.
 
So basicly it uses maps to list them in the Warcraft 3 reforged campaign menu or it uses the custom campaign file .w3n ?
It does not use the W3N format. But custom maps can share imported materials.

It adds a new "official campaign" through the allowlocalfile mechanism.

I updated the file and it is now playable (make sure the value of your allowlocalfile is 1).
 
Nice! You have just opened possibilities for custom campaign makers out there. I'm not really an avid player of custom campaigns, aside from the Orc demo that came with the game during the Classic days. But with the new graphics, camera angling/perspectives and animations for cutscenes, I'm excited to see what the content creators of the community would do with it; it's their playground. The Re-Reforged Campaign would be the first I would play, but I want it to replace the original prologue campaign in the game. Is there a way to do it? :mwahaha:

EDIT: I found a guide about changing campaign [chapters] which I didn't see before. Silly me.
 
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Level 18
Joined
Oct 25, 2006
Messages
1,170
This is awesome.

But if you're not a super user, it will be pretty hard for a "typical" player to actually download and play a custom Reforged campaign this way.

Unless, we find some kind of "automatic" way to set this up for any user, in link a single click of a small executable...

But I'm by no mean qualified to do this. I was just hard searching for information about custom campaigns in Reforged and found this thread.

Thank you very much for providing these steps, making it clearer would be even better but I'm not sure it's worth the time investment if nobody can make the process "mainstream".

Keep up the good work in any case, I've been putting a lot of hours lately into potential mechanics and plots for a custom campaign and I'm starting to become more and more craving for a fully functional custom campaign system.

I'll be following this thread with great attention.
 
Level 7
Joined
Jun 5, 2018
Messages
180
After reading your tutorial, I still don't know how to install a custom campaign w3n itself. Should I divide w3n into separate w3x files and then put them into <retail\campaigns> folder?
If true, how about the campaign object data? How can these data be imported?
 
After reading your tutorial, I still don't know how to install a custom campaign w3n itself. Should I divide w3n into separate w3x files and then put them into <retail\campaigns> folder?
If true, how about the campaign object data? How can these data be imported?
If this issue can be solved somehow that'll be a big thing.
 
Level 3
Joined
Nov 18, 2014
Messages
8
It does not use the W3N format. But custom maps can share imported materials.

It adds a new "official campaign" through the allowlocalfile mechanism.

I updated the file and it is now playable (make sure the value of your allowlocalfile is 1).
First of all, thanks for sharing this method, we needed a way to play custom campaign :thumbs_up:

Now I have quite a big issue : I have modify the files to match my campaign, put the maps that I exported from campaign editor (.war3m) and put them in the right folder. I can see my campaign in menu, can launch the first map, all was going well !

But, shared models/data from campaign editor aren't loaded (here: custom model for a hero that doesn't show up). I thought that's what you meant by that:
But custom maps can share imported materials.
Or is it only variables / levels / hero inventory etc. ? :vw_wtf:
Did you get the same thing during your tests ? If so, how did you fixed it ? :grin:

___

Also, a lesser issue but quite bothering : even if the map set player1 (red) as human player and bot as player 2 (blue), when I start the first map, player1 (red) is the bot, and player 2 (blue) the human player. Did I miss a field in the fields that define human player color ?
 
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Level 28
Joined
May 14, 2021
Messages
1,095
is it hard to do ? cause im really bad with mod and all that stuff ^^
You'll have to follow the instructions on the Quenching Mod official thread so that you can play custom campaign.
However, there is a downside when you play the campaign using this mod:
You can't play a custom campaign which is:
1.Open in somewhere else like worldeditor
2.It's protected like the choosen one

I'll consider to make some imporvment in cc
Some campaigns are compatible with this mod, while others don't.
You might have to wait another update for the mod to make all custom campaigns compatible with Reforged.
 
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