Warcraft III - Patch 1.27b

[Zwiebelchen]

Most logical reason: They probably need an artist for a Bnet 2.0 UI or for a remake of the UI that supports widescreen monitors.

The fact that the job proposition lists "animation experience" as optional imho kinda confirms that. They would have made that a must-have if they planned to have this artist make actual new unit models.

 

[LordDz]

So Hivers this is your chance to work at Blizzard and provide us with leaks, apply!

 

[Emm-A-]

omg whaaaaaaat? How could I exist without knowing that for several days

thank you a LOT for sharing this!!

 

[Himperion]

Question, abilities created from cluster of rockets are still bugged? 0 damage and only stun.

 

[Shar Dundred]

Abilities created from Cluster of Rockets worked before the patch as well.
Pretty sure you did something wrong with the ability.
Did you set anything from 0.25 to 0.00?
If so, set it to 1.00.

 

[Xarwin]

The dawn of a new era has arrived.
Great to see that Blizzard is still doing things for Warcraft III!

 

[A]mun]

Here's hoping for expanded custom sounds/music in maps.

 

[Ujimasa Hojo]

This is the time.
*Open Hive's Map and Ressource section.Click on Models.Starts mass model downloading.Exits model section.Enters icon Section.Starts mass icon downloading.*

Come to think of it, we're going to have to redefine our definition of "file size too large" for models and textures too.

 

[Himperion]

I think that a texture over the 1mb is too large, similar with models, you can optimize wow rips under the mega by deleting extra frames, anything over that limit is lazy.

 

[BloodSoul]

I'm not sure... Is this a new function?

constant native GetObjectName               takes integer objectId          returns string

 

[Flux]

I'm not sure... Is this a new function?

constant native GetObjectName               takes integer objectId          returns string

Nope. You can use that to get the name (e.g. Item) based on its id instead of an actual handle.

 

[Dr Super Good]

HIDDEN CHANGE

Warcraft III now supports loading (not using) BLP files with dimensions bigger than 512*512.

The technical maximum dimensioned BLP file, 65,535*65,535 pixels, can now be loaded in game. This limit comes from the format only supporting 16 mipmap levels, of which the top level must always be 1*1. The lowest mipmap to be at most 512*512 pixels is used as the full scale image with any larger being ignored.

Additionally in JPEG content BLP files if any mipmap level is not a valid JPEG file then all mipmap levels load blank. Before only the invalid mipmap level would be blank. JPEG files with different dimensions from the mipmap level are still considered valid with the same resizing behaviour occurring as before.

BLP image dimensions are logically limited at 65,535 pixels. Any larger and they are implicitly clamped down to 65,535 and the image is still loaded.

 

[Screamernail]

I logged into Battle.net. Now what?

 

[Dr Super Good]

I logged into Battle.net. Now what?

If you can login to battlenet in game then you have the patch.

Otherwise download here.

 

[Screamernail]

If you can login to battlenet in game then you have the patch.

Otherwise download here.

I'll try it

 

[Ezekiel12]

Holy moly. So blp's above 512x512 are not scaled down but actually fully supported?

 

[Dr Super Good]

Holy moly. Are blp's above 512x512 scaled down or are they actually fully supported?

They load, as opposed to before 1.27b where they did not load. That is all I can tell at the moment. Definitely no cropping is occurring, but I cannot tell if they are being subjected to subsampling.

It is worth noting that the editor uses a less robust BLP loader than in game. JPEG content BLPs that have invalid mipmap levels (invalid JPEG file) will crash the editor.

EDIT: Ok after tests they load, but not at full resolution. It will select the appropriate mipmap level as full scale so that the full scale image is at most 512*512 pixels.

EDIT2: Attached is a 1920*1080 BLP texture for testing. I cannot find anyway to get WC3 to load lower than mipmap level 2. The texture will load, just not at full resolution.

EDIT3: Updated with more correctly calculated mipmaps.

 

[gorillabull]

nice it only took 13 years
@ doctor maybe they forgot to set a limit

 

[Dr Super Good]

@ doctor maybe they forgot to set a limit

There is no need for a limit, the way the file is processed is technically correct. However the game seems to discard any low level mipmaps that are bigger than 512*512. Possibly there is a limit somewhere else so they actively need to discard such huge low level mipmaps.

 

[looking_for_help]

Is there already a ready-to-use package of the patch for Version Switcher available?

 

[pyf]

Not yet I believe.

However, ReplayKit has been updated to be 1.27b compatible
ReplayKit / Wiki / Installation Guide

Unfortunately, XP users are once again out of luck with this one. Damn.


The black FMVs bug is still there, or so it seems:
https://us.battle.net/forums/en/bnet/topic/20752596390

 

[DracoL1ch]

With all of my "love" for blizzard, Im still sometimes wonder how can they fuckup even more.
Well, did anyone of you yet wondered where Preload now goes? Tada!

Preload now only saves files in the directory CustomMapData inside the WC3's folder
any sub-folders aren't allowed
file may have only these extensions:

pld
txt
sav
mgv
mg

Fucking love that. Not to speak, this change, as well as who knows how many others, went undocumented, under "fixes" part. So mapmakers now should look for what else been broken by those guys without any idea. Nice fucking 'patch'

 

[EdgeOfChaos]

Sub-folders are allowed with preload. I could show you my CustomMapData but right now I have folders EpicCraft and TheSacrificeRPG (since I saved in those two). Preload saves files like before, except now the base directory is WarCraft III\CustomMapData instead of just WarCraft III.

This should only really affect you if you're trying to save things that are not text. As far as I know, there's only one map that does this non-maliciously, and that's Gaias saving their HTML files. Unfortunately, that will have to change now.

...I'm just glad preload still exists. There was no guarantee it would, especially as it is a glitch.

 

[DracoL1ch]

you sure? then it must be my absolute path issue

 

[karaulov]

call PreloadGenEnd("./../test.pld")

Create test.plz in Warcraft III root. Warcraft III\test.plz

blizzard have noobs coders

If warcraft 3 installed at System drive possible access to system directories now but still protected extensions )

 

[EdgeOfChaos]

Lol. Wow....
How many months since last patch and they can't still can't protect their preload right.

 

[Dr Super Good]

They should just remove this preload nonsense from being able to write files and instead import the StarCraft II bank system and add some native wrappers for it.

If warcraft 3 installed at System drive possible access to system directories now but still protected extensions )

It should throw a security access exception as only administrators can modify or write system files. Only fools who have been tricked into running Warcraft III constantly in administrator mode or who run on an old OS like XP which is not as secure have to be really concerned.

Personally I would blame the lack of C++ having a proper file system API as to why the fix was not good. Apparently one is planed for C++ but only in like 2020 time frame.

 

[karaulov]

but c++17 have filesystem Filesystem library - cppreference.com

 

[Dr Super Good]

but c++17 have filesystem Filesystem library - cppreference.com

Will have... If it is finalized next year. Then compilers need to add support for it. Then people need to adopt using it etc. 2020 is a good estimate in that case.

 

[edo494]

Visual studio 2015 has full support for filesystem API, yes it doesnt allow you to do certain things, but the API is full and complete.

It has been merged to C++17, it has been accepted and voted in already

 

[chusrubi2]

Could anyone explain briefly what is the preload bug and why did they thought they fixed it but they actually didn't?

Thanks!

Only fools who have been tricked into running Warcraft III constantly in administrator mode ...

I cannot log into bnet if w3 isnt run as admin.

 

[Dr Super Good]

I cannot log into bnet if w3 isnt run as admin.

Faulty firewall setting?

Could anyone explain briefly what is the preload bug and why did they thought they fixed it but they actually didn't?

Allows one to write data to a file. Problem is that file could be placed anywhere, such as in operating system folders which have their content dynamically processed on startup, or replacing system critical files, or possibly even worse. If Warcraft III is run as an administrator normal security checks for operating system files will not apply so it is free to cause all kinds of damage.

The idea was they wanted to limit the preload usage to a single, safe folder. However they forgot about relative path modifiers such as path to parent and so one can still escape outside the safe folder.

 

[chusrubi2]

They should just remove this preload nonsense from being able to write files and instead import the StarCraft II bank system and add some native wrappers for it.

It should throw a security access exception as only administrators can modify or write system files. Only fools who have been tricked into running Warcraft III constantly in administrator mode or who run on an old OS like XP which is not as secure have to be really concerned.

Personally I would blame the lack of C++ having a proper file system API as to why the fix was not good. Apparently one is planed for C++ but only in like 2020 time frame.

Faulty firewall setting?

Allows one to write data to a file. Problem is that file could be placed anywhere, such as in operating system folders which have their content dynamically processed on startup, or replacing system critical files, or possibly even worse. If Warcraft III is run as an administrator normal security checks for operating system files will not apply so it is free to cause all kinds of damage.

The idea was they wanted to limit the preload usage to a single, safe folder. However they forgot about relative path modifiers such as path to parent and so one can still escape outside the safe folder.

Thanks very much for the explanation.

About running w3 as admin: I've had problems in the past with A LOT of w3 fresh installations that if I weren't running the client as admin it wasn't able to connect to battlenet (similar to this). Since then, I've always thought it was mandatory but now I just tested it and it works perfectly without it. Could it be that since it was a fresh installation, it needed admin privileges in order to download and install the patch or something?

Btw: on the new w3 that you download from the official website, it comes by default running w3 as admin activated so I bet 99% new installations have it activated and people won't change it.

 

[karaulov]

Blizzard coders check patch for "..\\" , but not for "../" (bad coders !)

Just need use ./../Save/file.ext for example. (ext: pld,mg,mgv,txt,sav)
It save file.ext to Warcraft III/Save/file.ext

They could make compatible with all the maps, but apparently they are very bad coders made this bad and not even told the players.

They could just take the file name and extension, extension to do a safe and a file name to save in /CustomMapData/MapName/filename.safeext. But they are bad stupid coders , not thought of it. Now a lot of maps where using preloading broken because of bad stupid blizzard coders

how join to blizzard classic(wc3) coders? any can make better than they... Blizzard have very bad stupid bad coders!

 

[Dr Super Good]

how join to blizzard classic(wc3) coders?

Live in the USA and have a lot of previous experience in the video game industry. If you have the required experience you will also need to pass some form of English proficiency test I think, although honestly I am not sure about USA greencard applications.

 

[karaulov]

How to this stupid bad coders entered to Blizzard staff? ... Blizzard have 100% noobs stupid coders in classic war3 staff!


I do not have any experience in game video industry, i not programmer (,self-taught), do not live in USA, have bad english, but i can make better than they (blizzard) stupid coders ...

 

[Dr Super Good]

How to this stupid bad coders entered to Blizzard staff?

You are aware how many such mistakes are in big software projects? Just look at open source games like Simutrans, bugs and similar programming mistakes are constantly being fixed all the time and the core developers are all software professionals with probably decades of industry experience. And Simutrans is a lot simpler than Warcraft III!

but i can make better than they (blizzard) stupid coders

I doubt it. Large scale software is not that easy to modify, especially if you were not involved in its creation. Finding how WC3 does something alone might take days of reading. Then there is the assumption that WC3 was properly written to start with, and not a mess of C++ and inline assembly. Finally they may have other priorities, such as large scale projects like integration into BattleNet 2.0 (Blizzard application).

I thought about applying as I am a programmer and have devoted 10 years to the game. However they only wanted experienced professionals with several years experience in the video game industry and being freshly graduated in a non gaming related software engineering degree in the UK would almost certainly mean I had as good as 0 chance to get in compared with some currently unemployed game developer living in the USA with 3-5 years experience on other games.

 

[karaulov]

LOL!!!!
I and many other anyone, without source code can modify Warcraft III better that they bad stupid blizzard coders with source code...

There are many projects from lot of people for Warcraft which proved it!

In order to improve even warcraft sources are not needed. But stupid bad coders of Blizzard even with source code can not do anything good! They only can changing some constants , or something else... Very bad stupid war3 coders

 

[DracoL1ch]

rofl both at "blizz have high standards" and "stupid coders"

 

[Radicool]

It would be awesome if they added multiplayer support for campaigns. Then we could make real RPG's without worrying about tileset restrictions. We can only use like 16 tiles and 2 cliffs at the moment on a given map?

Or I suppose they could remove these limitations and add better support for minimap camera bounds. If you restrict camera bounds, the minimap display plays up a bit.

Replace all Warcraft models with their remastered editions and we're getting a really fresh experience!

 

[DracoL1ch]

those can't even clear they're very own forum from spam, not to speak about failish wc3 updates. and yet you guys keep believing things gonna be better.

 

[Radicool]

those can't even clear they're very own forum from spam, not to speak about failish wc3 updates. and yet you guys keep believing things gonna be better.

Aww, don't be like that. We can dream can't we? Just sit back and enjoy the efforts Blizzard has made for us for what they are

 

[DracoL1ch]

the efforts

well, so far their opening movie (from march, IIRC) been the best effort of all changes/acts

 

[pyf]

Well, according to IMDb, Blizzard Entertainment is credited as one of the production companies behind the movie. Credit is also given for providing the original idea. And... that's all afaik:
Warcraft: The Beginning (2016) - Company credits - IMDb

Hybride, a Ubisoft Division since July 2008, created some of the film's VFX. Talk about irony...

 

[DracoL1ch]

actually I meant another clip
GOD ITS SO COOL CANT WAIT

wait, actually whole his speech been one big lie


Especially love those words about new matchmaking, looking at all those maphack threads around.

 

[chusrubi2]

DracoL1ch's words speak hard but true, sadly.

 

[Dr Super Good]

I and many other anyone, without source code can modify Warcraft III better that they bad stupid blizzard coders with source code...

Then you would have no problem making WC3 load dds image files on top of tga and blp. I would like to see an example of your fine programming skills so why not that?

We can only use like 16 tiles and 2 cliffs at the moment on a given map?

Technically you can use 16 cliffs as well, but the meshes and textures for the first 2 will load with the rest being quite glitchy. Each cliff also has to load a tileset so 16 cliff types uses up all 16 tile types.

Or I suppose they could remove these limitations and add better support for minimap camera bounds. If you restrict camera bounds, the minimap display plays up a bit.

The overlay projection is updated for the new bounds but the minimap image is not resized. StarCraft II does this correctly resizing both overlay and minimap when changing the camera bounds.

Replace all Warcraft models with their remastered editions and we're getting a really fresh experience!

There is no money to remaster all models for a dated game engine. Far better they bring remastered models to StarCraft II where the graphic engine is pretty good.

those can't even clear they're very own forum from spam

The legacy programmers have nothing to do with the community moderators who are responsible for removing forum spam. No/little moderating occurs during the weekends as Blizzard is a western company so respects a working week.

Well, according to IMDb, Blizzard Entertainment is credited as one of the production companies behind the movie.

Yes however the main reason the movie was produced was likely because concepts and ideas were set in motion a long time ago. There was meant to be a Warcraft movie a long time ago back when Vevendi owned Blizzard and Sierra was Blizzard's publisher.

Also the film was the most successful video game movie ever...

 

[DracoL1ch]

Then you would have no problem making WC3 load dds image files on top of tga and blp. I would like to see an example of your fine programming skills so why not that?

> talking 'bout real things - bugs, glitches, lack of API
> requests useless lib (which is surely already exists) to include inside wc3
do you even think bro? we didnt even asked for that. can we simply update things we actually need, release 1.28, and then go fuck yourself patching win10 and Macs as long as you wish. We dont need those "patches", we need real patches, that the point.

The legacy programmers have nothing to do with the community moderators who are responsible for removing forum spam. No/little moderating occurs during the weekends as Blizzard is a western company so respects a working week.

I saw all the same picture the day they released and few days later. respect fucking nothing. and btw, the fact they cant afford simple moders even from the community (means free) speaks a lot about company. and shame on you, it definitely were'not aggro towards programmers. thing is, if they would read those, they would fix it. so simple result - they dont.

Also the film was the most successful video game movie ever...

what a great achievment! wait, thats totally out of picture and irrelevant either for wc3, either for us

 

[karaulov]

Then you would have no problem making WC3 load dds image files on top of tga and blp. I would like to see an example of your fine programming skills so why not that?

LOL YES????
BUT WHAT IS IT??? :
[RenderEdge] Экспериментальная версия - RenderEdge - XGM: Gamedev & Modmaking

WITHOUT SOURCE CODE!!!


Blizzard just have bad stupid coders... With having source code can't improve Warcraft III ...

 

[DracoL1ch]

lel totaly forgot about that project.
so now what?