Warcraft III - Patch 1.28.5

[TriggerHappy]

Warcraft 3 Patch 1.28.5 is LIVE
Link to Patch 1.28.5 battle.net post

Additionally (not in the patch notes), the Preloader JASS native is working again.

Patching seems to be much faster as well, indicating that the launcher no longer re-downloads the entire game.

 

[StoPCampinGn00b]

Thanks for posting TriggerHappy.

 

[Dr Super Good]

Patching seems to be much faster as well, indicating that the launcher no longer re-downloads the entire game.

It only re-downloads files that have changed. If they only change the executables it will only re-download the executables. Only if they change the main data mpq archives should the be downloaded and they are the only really large files.

 

[Kyrbi0]

Woot, getting better.

 

[Chaosy]

Woot, getting better.

• World Editor properly imports custom assets again
• Switching between Reign of Chaos and The Frozen Throne no longer causes a crash

They are fixing things they broke in their previous updates.
Pretty sure TFT and ROC was made switchable in a recent patch though I may be wrong.

 

[Kaijyuu]

To be fair, they didn't specify which previous state it had gotten better from; from .4 it's certainly better At least until people find more bugs.

 

[Zwiebelchen]

Local File support bug that turns buff icons black is still not resolved. It makes the preload fix pretty much pointless. You still can't use local files without breaking buff icons.

 

[Kyrbi0]

To be fair, they didn't specify which previous state it had gotten better from; from .4 it's certainly better At least until people find more bugs.

Bingo bango bingo.

 

[Alethos]

I'm told whispering (/w) and friends-list issues still remain after the patch.

 

[Dr Super Good]

I'm told whispering (/w) and friends-list issues still remain after the patch.

I think people have attributed that to an overly aggressive spam filter? It is trigger happy to temporarily mute you.

 

[K.D.G]

Thanks for posting TriggerHappy

 

[Kyrbi0]

Lol, in a weird turn of events (realizing I actually have been keeping two separate installs of Wc3 for years now), I realized I can patch safely without losing my modding capabilities (v1.26). So I did.

And whaddayaknow, worked perfectly with barely a problem. I am proud to be an American. (Didn't actually play a game offline/on Battle.net, so no clue if that works or faster or whispering or what-have-you; but the switcher works, the game looks fine, Battle.net starts up & remembers my username...

Verah Noice, Blizzard.

 

[Spellbound]

@Kyrbi0 you did it, Harry. You're a real boy now \o/

 

[RoflingAtU]

Goddamit, it never felt so good to be @ 26. Keep it comming guys, blizz still wants ur tongues.

 

[Legal_Ease]

There is also an issue with host bots and stealth bots. Some builds are no longer able to stay active. Does anyone know if there was a recent unit rebalance? Maybe not this last patch but recently there were like 4 and I did not read all the notes.

 

[Chaosy]

Goddamit, it never felt so good to be @ 26. Keep it comming guys, blizz still wants ur tongues.

Content?
Blizzard:

 

[JimmyJoJameson]

Fixed my perpetual patch re-downloading bug at least.

 

[SubSub]

As with earlier bnet patches, this one disables some special effects created through the "create special effect at point"-trigger. Seems like they fixed it with a stealth patch the last time. Feel free to do so again, blizzard!

 

[Dr Super Good]

As with earlier bnet patches, this one disables some special effects created through the "create special effect at point"-trigger. Seems like they fixed it with a stealth patch the last time. Feel free to do so again, blizzard!

This is commonly attributed to a graphic driver bug. Try restarting your computer.

Note that for Windows 8 and 10 this means actually restarting it. Shutting it down and powering it on does not work because the same bugged driver state is restored.

 

[OnyxTheDark]

GG, can't connect on Bnet anymore
So what do we do ?
Is there a way to fix it or ?
Do we have to wait ?

 

[StoPCampinGn00b]

The patch came out a few days ago, but it'd good for people to know about it on the front page if they weren't aware. Promoted to portal.

GG, can't connect on Bnet anymore
So what do we do ?
Is there a way to fix it or ?
Do we have to wait ?

The recent followup patches seemed to have fixed most of these things. But if you're still having issues, the standard fix for 90% of these type of issues is:

Run the "Warcraft III Launcher" file as Administrator.

If that doesn't work:
1. Make sure you have the Blizzard Launcher App.
2. Reinstall the game via Blizzard's Battle.net web desktop app.
You can do by claiming your keys on the desktop app. Your keys post 1.28 should be under a w3k file. Once you claim your keys, you can reinstall the game from the desktop app anywhere and things should be fixed.

 

[OnyxTheDark]

Run as Admin won't change anything since run Wc3 isn't the prob
I have the battle.net files, the patch just crashed everyone as you can see here : MakeMeHost

I'll wait before reinstalling the game, I don't really wanna do this for each new patch ....

 

[aple]

What is "Files paths and user names think more globally in game and World Editor" suppose to mean? I have no idea.

Run as Admin won't change anything since run Wc3 isn't the prob
I have the battle.net files, the patch just crashed everyone as you can see here : MakeMeHost

I'll wait before reinstalling the game, I don't really wanna do this for each new patch ....

The patch "Crashes" things like MakeMeHost and ENTGaming because the bots have to update their hash files. The patch didn't break them anymore than any other patch would and it's a really simple and easy fix. (Though pretty time-consuming as they have to update every single bot individually and there's 100s)

EDIT: My first guess was that names that use text stylings, such as |n or |c or whatever are treated properly like other names now, meaning you could add and message them and receive information like stats or what game or channel they're in properly, and it appears that is correct. If you have say, |c0000FF00Orc as a name now, you can do all the things you can normally do with an account name with that now.

Still not sure how this would apply to World Editor, though.

 

[Dr Super Good]

GG, can't connect on Bnet anymore
So what do we do ?
Is there a way to fix it or ?
Do we have to wait ?

Might be down for maintenance. They usually do take it down around this time of week.

I tested under a day ago and Azeroth servers worked fine.

 

[Kaijyuu]

What is "Files paths and user names think more globally in game and World Editor" suppose to mean? I have no idea.

I'm *guessing* that the game understands unicode better now. "Globally" in this sense means not crashing horribly when coming across cyrillic characters and the like.

Alternatively they could be referring to global vs local paths (ie, "./data/blob.dat" vs "C://wc3/data/blob.dat"), but then the "user names" portion wouldn't make sense.

 

[aple]

It might have just been worded improperly. Maybe they meant to say usernames will be treated more globally, as in keeping the color code in mind and not automatically correcting it from something like |c0000FF00Orc to Orc before processing it, and that file paths are treated more globally in the Editor.

Maybe when you grab Usernames for triggers it's also treated more "globally" as well. I think "globally" is just not the right word here, though, and I think that's what's throwing me off because that seems like it's not exactly what they're trying to mean but they're also trying to keep it dumbed down so everybody else can still understand it. I dunno I'm just rambling at this point.

 

[OnyxTheDark]

Might be down for maintenance. They usually do take it down around this time of week.

I tested under a day ago and Azeroth servers worked fine.

Yea you're right tho,
And MMH bots always crash after a new patch anyway
I forgot to say it but later yesterday I could indeed go back on Bnet

 

[A Void]

What was the point of adding native resolution option if they're going to add widescreen support? Unless.. they don't plan on doing that. Honestly, I don't care for any of the changes they did right from 1.26, these patches keep messing up and fixing something that's not really there.

I'm glad I'm on 1.26, I'll probably wait a year or two until this bullshit is over.

 

[MindWorX]

What was the point of adding native resolution option if they're going to add widescreen support? Unless.. they don't plan on doing that. [...]

Widescreen support does mean people with widescreen get an advantage. It's possible they don't want to add it. Although at this point, I think it would be better to default to widescreen and then add letterboxing on non-widescreen displays rather than the current approach with pillarboxes on widescreen displays.

 

[A Void]

Widescreen support does mean people with widescreen get an advantage. It's possible they don't want to add it. Although at this point, I think it would be better to default to widescreen and then add letterboxing on non-widescreen displays rather than the current approach with pillarboxes on widescreen displays.

Widescreen support isn't the problem, they can make it work if they wanted to. The fact is that they are idiots who always use lame ass excuses to get more money. I'm sure they'll milk this game with overpriced remastered editions just to get the crucial changes and additional content. People who brought SC1 have to purchase SC1 Remastered again for an overpriced cost just to get what should have been part of the original game. I'm sure they'll pull the same marketing card for WC3 Remastered.

What's next? 60$ for a HD texture pack? Oh.. 20$ for a widescreen resolution?... Okaay.

 

[Frotty]

Local File support bug that turns buff icons black is still not resolved. It makes the preload fix pretty much pointless. You still can't use local files without breaking buff icons.

Thanks for clearing this up so I don't have to test it myself...

Meh.

 

[Kacpa2]

Widescreen support does mean people with widescreen get an advantage. It's possible they don't want to add it. Although at this point, I think it would be better to default to widescreen and then add letterboxing on non-widescreen displays rather than the current approach with pillarboxes on widescreen displays.

Gui isnt designed to even work on widescreen resolutions. Playing on this stretched mess on 1.26 is idiotic. It looks unnatural and ugly. I dont understand what exact issue people have with black sidebars.... i would rather have true ratio for which game was designed to work at than to forcefully make it widescreen increasing fov which may show graphical artifacts in some situations. Then on top of that Destroying 4:3 with letterbox for "fairness" is terrible idea.

 

[aple]

4:3 ratios actually have an advantage over 16:9 because every 16:9 ratio has a corresponding 4:3 that is the same width but is also taller and there are no exact corresponding 16:9 ratios that are exactly bigger than a 4:3 in this same way, hence actually seeing more than the widescreen ratio (For example: 1280 / 16 = 80 and 720 / 9 = 80 vs 1280 / 4 = 320 and 960 / 3 = 320. Proof there is no exact opposite: 960 / 9 = 106.666 ... Not physically possible). The advantage to 16:9 is that it is more visually appealing, as in literally not just artistically. 16:9 matches with your eyes better than a 4:3 resolution because it takes up more of your vision, but a 4:3 resolution will entirely fit in your vision anyway. So if anything, 4:3 actually has multiple competitive advantages over 16:9 (Fitting in your vision easier means you have to look around less, and it displays more than an equivalent 16:9 resolution). Plus, it's very easy to format 16:9 to fit roughly the same amount of view space in it as a 4:3 ratio.

 

[RoflingAtU]

why the fuck u ever discuss it? THATS why there are "settings" menu, u can use whatever u fucking want. What if there would be only 640x480? Tons of morons would defend that too, jsut because they "dont like modern monitors", "fairness" and other shit? Sure they will. But no sane person would ever argue with those. Let them die in vain.
Widescreen support is must have.

 

[Dr Super Good]

Widescreen support does mean people with widescreen get an advantage. It's possible they don't want to add it. Although at this point, I think it would be better to default to widescreen and then add letterboxing on non-widescreen displays rather than the current approach with pillarboxes on widescreen displays.

I am sure it is coming. Just it might require non trivial changes, especially with regard to UI art.

I think StarCraft (1) supports, or will support, wide screen. As such I see no reason for Warcraft III to not later down the road.

I'm sure they'll pull the same marketing card for WC3 Remastered.

I do not think they will be remastering WC3 in that way. Where as it is pretty common to remaster sprite based RTS games (look at Age of Empires 1/2), it is less so remastering 3D ones (Age of Mythology was just rereleased on steam with some improvements to compatibility). However unlike StarCraft which became free, Warcraft III will likely always need a licence.

Proof there is no exact opposite: 960 / 9 = 106.666 ... Not physically possible).

Vector graphics support fractions, hence the opposite not being an integer is not a problem.

The advantage of 16:9 is that it is more natural than 4:3. People see in an aspect ratio closer to 16:9 than 4:3. The only reason people have used 4:3 was because it was easier to make CRTs of that ratio.

 

[pyf]

Widescreen support does mean people with widescreen get an advantage.

@MindWorX : I do not think so.

4:3




Widescreen, the Blizzard way:




Widescreen, using @ZUKMAN's D3D8 dll (plus additional tweaks for portraits and cursor):

 

[aple]

Vector graphics support fractions, hence the opposite not being an integer is not a problem.

Well yeah. The models WC3 renders are vectors, but the final image itself that gets rendered to your screen is certainly not a vector-based image. It's not possible with a raster-based image, and certainly would have to be rasterized somewhere along the line to display to your monitor (Just like normal Vector-based graphics).

The advantage of 16:9 is that it is more natural than 4:3. People see in an aspect ratio closer to 16:9 than 4:3. The only reason people have used 4:3 was because it was easier to make CRTs of that ratio.

Ye that's pretty much what I said. 16:9 is more natural for your eyes, but at the same time 4:3 pretty much shows the same amount of image in less wide space so more of it is out of blind spots and the fuzzy edges of your vision.

(Age of Mythology was just rereleased on steam with some improvements to compatibility).

AoM also did get some *slightly* upgraded graphics, but nothing too serious.

 

[bill7907]

If they want to give us "real" 16 X 9 widescreen support, it should work as follow:

16 X 9 format: We are supposed to see more "horizontally" and less "vertically"
4 X 3: We are supposed to see more "vertically" and less "horizontally"

So in a certain way, yes giving true widescreen format capabilities could have an impact on the game play and on the "viewable" units at specific moments in time ; it is actually a major fundamental change to the way the game is played.

But up to now, it only seems like they are making the game more "compatible" with widescreen-capable monitors(16 X 9 monitors).

 

[Tasyen]

Is there a new Datatype in the editor?
Cause i got this after trying importing an spell:

Hidden

• Set FireCircle_SFX[0] = war3mapImported\s_RunningFlame Aura.mdx
• Set FireCircle_SFX[1] = Abilities\Spells\Other\ImmolationRed\ImmolationRedDamage.mdl

FireCircle_SFX was in the origin map String Array.
Wierd is that you can't choose/use it, neither in Variable Editor nor in functions.
Does that exist longer never realised that until now?


Edit:
seems to be just a bug/unfinshed feature:
the exported Map Script, from the target map, shows this

    player                  udg_Player                 = null
    real array              udg_FireCircle_AoE
    real array              udg_FireCircle_StructDamage
    real array              udg_FireCircle_Damage
    string array            udg_FireCircle_SFX

 

[Kacpa2]

@MindWorX : I do not think so.

4:3

Widescreen, the Blizzard way:

Widescreen, using @ZUKMAN's D3D8 dll (plus additional tweaks for portraits and cursor):

Why not use same vertical size resolution? 1024x768? Tho tweaked one looks ok. But it's not 16:9 and people are after this when it comes to wide screen. Not to slightly smaller black bars, some people nag about.

 

[Dr Super Good]

Well yeah. The models WC3 renders are vectors, but the final image itself that gets rendered to your screen is certainly not a vector-based image. It's not possible with a raster-based image, and certainly would have to be rasterized somewhere along the line to display to your monitor (Just like normal Vector-based graphics).

Except all 16:9 ratios have whole numbers of pixels, eg 1920*1080. The only difference is with how the sampling mesh is positioned over the projection

 

[Kaijyuu]

The reason I always heard for widescreen monitors catching on was that buyers and marketers compared them by the corner-to-corner screen length. Making bigger monitors with 4:3 ratio was prohibitively expensive (since that has more total area than a more rectangular screen), and stretching horizontally was more practical than stretching vertically for obvious reasons.

I know my widescreen monitor is much bigger than what I can actually see at once. Much of it is in my peripheral vision. Still nice to have all that screen space, though.

 

[Dr Super Good]

The reason I always heard for widescreen monitors catching on was that buyers and marketers compared them by the corner-to-corner screen length. Making bigger monitors with 4:3 ratio was prohibitively expensive (since that has more total area than a more rectangular screen), and stretching horizontally was

From Wikipedia...

4:3 (1.33:1) (generally read as "Four-Three", "Four-by-Three", or "Four-to-Three") for standard television has been in use since the invention of moving picture cameras and many computer monitors used to employ the same aspect ratio. 4:3 was the aspect ratio used for 35 mm films in the silent era. It is also very close to the 1.375:1 Academy ratio, defined by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as a standard after the advent of optical sound-on-film. By having TV match this aspect ratio, movies originally photographed on 35 mm film could be satisfactorily viewed on TV in the early days of the medium (i.e. the 1940s and the 1950s). When cinema attendance dropped, Hollywood created widescreen aspect ratios (such as the 1.85:1 ratio mentioned earlier) in order to differentiate the film industry from TV. However, since the start of the 21st century broadcasters worldwide are phasing out the 4:3 standard entirely, as manufacturers started to favor the 16:9/16:10 aspect ratio of all modern high-definition television sets, broadcast cameras and computer monitors.

After the original 16:9 Action Plan of the early 1990s, the European Union has instituted the 16:9 Action Plan,[4] just to accelerate the development of the advanced television services in 16:9 aspect ratio, both in PAL and also in HDTV. The Community fund for the 16:9 Action Plan amounted to €228 million.

In 2008 the computer industry started switching to 16:9 as the standard aspect ratio for monitors and laptops. A 2008 report by DisplaySearch cited a number of reasons for this shift, including the ability for PC and monitor manufacturers to expand their product ranges by offering products with wider screens and higher resolutions, helping consumers to more easily adopt such products and "stimulating the growth of the notebook PC and LCD monitor market".[5]

In 2011 Bennie Budler, product manager of IT products at Samsung South Africa, confirmed that monitors capable of 1920×1200 resolutions aren't being manufactured anymore. "It is all about reducing manufacturing costs. The new 16:9 aspect ratio panels are more cost effective to manufacture locally than the previous 16:10 panels".[6] Since computer displays are advertised by their diagonal measure, for monitors with the same display area, a wide screen monitor will have a larger diagonal measure, thus sounding more impressive. Within limits, the amount of information that can be displayed, and the cost of the monitor depend more on area than on diagonal measure.

In March 2011 the 16:9 resolution 1920×1080 became the most common used resolution among Steam's users. The earlier most common resolution was 1680×1050 (16:10).[

4:3 started because it was the ratio of original films. Due to the analogue nature of everything, the only way to broadcast them with reasonable quality was to make the entire television system 4:3. Not mentioned above is that making wide screen CRTs was technologically challenging early on due to the scan line length, so once again 4:3 fitted well. Computer monitors inherited from this, as they also had to use CRTs.

Wide screen was invented so that movies could stand out from television (people had a reason to go to the cinema). As time progressed there was a movement to back port this to television as either 16:10 or 16:9. Technology was also no longer a limiting factor as wide screen CRTs were possible, especially towards the end of CRT technology life. Standards were set up and switch timelines created for areas like the EU. All 4:3 broadcasts have slowly been phased out in favour of 16:9. Other competing wide screen formats such as 16:10 have been getting phased out, with many manufacturers only making 16:9 computer displays in order to cut costs (fewer panel types) while getting the most out of marketing as you mentioned.

In summary, in 2017... Most computer displays are being manufactured targeting 16:9. Most steam users (a good representation of the average gamer) use 16:9. Usage of 16:9 as a standard computer display is likely to rise.

 

[pyf]

Why not use same vertical size resolution? 1024x768? Tho tweaked one looks ok. But it's not 16:9 and people are after this when it comes to wide screen. Not to slightly smaller black bars, some people nag about.

@Kacpa2 : I wanted to demonstrate that widescreen resolutions do not necessarily give the player an unfair advantage by showing more terrain. In fact, if one looks closely, using the D3D8 dll by @ZUKMAN actually leads to showing *less* terrain. For the record, this also leads to minor visual annoyances when watching the campaigns' cutscenes / interludes, because the top and bottom of the display become slightly cropped. Therefore, the heads of some characters on some cinematics are half-chopped in the process.

The 4:3 screenshot is in 800x600, because it is the minimum resolution the game was playable at in 2002 on a CRT monitor. In 640x480 the text is simply not legible, because of one of the main fonts Blizzard chose to display text / dialogue. For the record, it is my belief that 800x600 is the resolution Blizzard had in mind when they were first developing the game in 1998.

I agree that 1280x768 is not 16:9; a resolution of 1280x720 is. But on my laptop, 1280x768 allows to make full use of the display. A true 16:9 resolution leaves very small black bars on top and bottom of my screen.

 

[Dr Super Good]

A true 16:9 resolution leaves very small black bars on top and bottom of my screen.

Your laptop display is probably an old 16:10.

 

[pyf]

For those interested, here is my Monitor Asset Manager report:

Spoiler

(note: the info comes from the device itself, and not from the registry)

Monitor
Manufacturer............. AUO
Plug and Play ID......... AUO1333
Data string.............. B140EW01 V3
Serial number............ n/a
Manufacture date......... 2005, ISO week 1
Filter driver............ None
-------------------------
EDID revision............ 1.3
Input signal type........ Digital
Color bit depth.......... Undefined
Display type............. RGB color
Screen size.............. 330 x 200 mm (15,2 in)
Power management......... Not supported
Extension blocs.......... None
-------------------------
DDC/CI................... Not supported

Color characteristics
Default color space...... Non-sRGB
Display gamma............ 2,20
Red chromaticity......... Rx 0,590 - Ry 0,340
Green chromaticity....... Gx 0,310 - Gy 0,560
Blue chromaticity........ Bx 0,149 - By 0,130
White point (default).... Wx 0,313 - Wy 0,328
Additional descriptors... None

Timing characteristics
Range limits............. Not available
GTF standard............. Not supported
Additional descriptors... None
Preferred timing......... Yes
Native/preferred timing.. 1280x768p at 60Hz (15:9)
Modeline............... "1280x768" 71,100 1280 1296 1408 1440 768 769 772 823 -hsync -vsync

Standard timings supported

Report information
Date generated........... 14/07/2017
Software revision........ 2.90.0.1020
Data source.............. Real-time 0x0021
Operating system......... 5.1.2600.2.Service Pack 3

Raw data
00,FF,FF,FF,FF,FF,FF,00,06,AF,33,13,00,00,00,00,01,0F,01,03,80,21,14,78,0A,05,50,97,57,4F,8F,26,
21,50,54,00,00,00,01,01,01,01,01,01,01,01,01,01,01,01,01,01,01,01,C6,1B,00,A0,50,00,37,30,10,70,
13,00,31,B7,10,00,00,18,00,00,00,0F,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,20,00,00,00,FE,00,41,
55,4F,0A,20,20,20,20,20,20,20,20,20,00,00,00,FE,00,42,31,34,30,45,57,30,31,20,56,33,20,0A,00,E8

Maximum resolution available is 1280x768 in 32bpp @60Hz. Unfortunately, neither the laptop's nor the display device's manufacturers provide any specific drivers / color profiles for it.

 

[Kacpa2]

@Kacpa2 : I wanted to demonstrate that widescreen resolutions do not necessarily give the player an unfair advantage by showing more terrain. In fact, if one looks closely, using the D3D8 dll by @ZUKMAN actually leads to showing *less* terrain. For the record, this also leads to minor visual annoyances when watching the campaigns' cutscenes / interludes, because the top and bottom of the display become slightly cropped. Therefore, the heads of some characters on some cinematics are half-chopped in the process.

The 4:3 screenshot is in 800x600, because it is the minimum resolution the game was playable at in 2002 on a CRT monitor. In 640x480 the text is simply not legible, because of one of the main fonts Blizzard chose to display text / dialogue. For the record, it is my belief that 800x600 is the resolution Blizzard had in mind when they were first developing the game in 1998.

I agree that 1280x768 is not 16:9; a resolution of 1280x720 is. But on my laptop, 1280x768 allows to make full use of the display. A true 16:9 resolution leaves very small black bars on top and bottom of my screen.

Well with resolution i meant that using same height 4:3 and 16:10/9 hence 768 for both in this case.

 

[Tasyen]

Blizzard made a, for hero based maps, significant change:

Cooldowns of Spels from items are now stored on the item and Unit, previously it was on the unit only -> no more handing over active items to use it multiple times.
The chooseable Game-Version option has no effect on this.
it affects melee and custom maps.
​

Old: Some maps like DotA did alot of stuff (code + Object Editor) to avioid this multiple usage, which is not needed anymore.
Edit: Some maps like DotA did alot of stuff (code + Object Editor) to avioid this multiple usage. This extra work would now not be needed anymore.

 

[Dr Super Good]

Ur point as invalid as 1.27

Are you saying the per item cooldown already existed in 1.27? Or that a new feature did not exist back in 1.27?

 

[Dr Super Good]

im saying that any patch past 26 (24 in fact but w/e) is waste of time and nothing else.

The new patches are required to run WC3 properly on Windows 10 and newer Mac OS versions.