What extensions/updates should I get for the world editor?

[Verdun]

In map development I very frequently arrive at the limits of what the basic WE can do.
To name the latest example, I wanted to implement the infamous third person camera for flying units, and of course, I had to find out it's not really doable with GUI, and the smoothest systems using these code library things don't work with the basic WE.

Now during my research I have discovered that people have come up with all sorts of things for modding purposes, like the newgens and that "Sharpcraft" thing.
Also something called a sausage...?
It's like a whole jungle of things that got created and updated over the years.

Either way, before I even start sorting through all this...

I kinda worry messing up the basic WE I have and which at least somehow works, and lose all my maps and projects? End up installing all sorts of risky custom programs that do not go well together?

So from your point of view, if anything, what would be "the minimum" modifications to the WE to make halfway original maps?
If any?

For my purposes I still try to work as much with GUI as possible, since I doubt I will ever be able to truly learn JASS, but I figure I might be able to at least in places implement solutions that others have discovered. Things like being able to make bigger maps or use more doodads would also be awesome of course.

 

[Verdun]

Oh yeah, and I didn't want to start an extra thread for this, but what WE patch should I use? I hear some versions are better than others, like just updating to the very latest one may not actually be a good idea?

Just realized I haven't done anything new to my Warcraft installation since 2011.

EDIT: says the latest patch I got was 1.26

 

[Civil]

So from your point of view, if anything, what would be "the minimum" modifications to the WE to make halfway original maps?

If you are just using GUI then the basic editor is fine. If you are using JASS then using either Jass New Gen or Sharpcraft is a must. They are editor packages that contain a bunch of different features. Most importantly, they extend the functionality of JASS in various ways along with providing useful stuff like syntax highlighting. If you are not using JASS then both still have a few useful features that make it worth it like being able to create your own ids in the object editor and extending limits on things like number of tiles and doodads.

I kinda worry messing up the basic WE I have and which at least somehow works, and lose all my maps and projects? End up installing all sorts of risky custom programs that do not go well together?

Jass New Gen or Sharpcraft are custom editors that include compilations of useful tools so you can trust that these tools are compatible with each other within the same package.

Jass New Gen was around for a long time on the 1.26 patch (that you have) and it's pretty reliable after being used for many years. Sharpcraft was made as a replacement after newgen stopped working on later patches. I believe they do mostly the same job at this point but I'm sure there are some differences that maybe someone more knowledgeable than me can explain, I think some features from newgen are missing (?) I will say that I've seen a bunch of people reporting issues with getting Sharpcraft to work. If you plan to just use 1.26 then Jass New Gen should be just fine for you.

If you want to play on the latest patch (Reforged) then some of the features have been implemented in the vanilla editor (like JassHelper compiler) but some are missing. I would recommend using TESH for JASS if you intend to use the Reforged editor which provides syntax highlighting. TESH is inbuilt into Jass Newgen and Sharpcraft so you only need to download it if you intend to use the Reforged editor.

TLDR:
On 1.26 patch, I recommend Jass NewGen

Jass NewGen Pack [Official]

The JassNewGen pack 1.5g This is the official Jass NewGen Pack, updated to version 1.5f. This distribution includes Grimoire (1.5), the JassHelper compiler (Vexorian), PJass (1.0k) and PitzerMike's Grim Extension pack 1.0b, TESH v0.7.0.3 and Risc's Colorizer FINAL all ready to run. The final...

www.hiveworkshop.com

On 1.28+ I would recommend Sharpcraft

SharpCraft World Editor Extended Bundle

SharpCraft WEX Bundle v0.1.3.1 World Editor Extended is the successor to the Jass NewGen Pack. It is updated to work with the newest editor and includes the main features that JNGP had. To use this, simply use the SharpCraft.Launcher and launch the "Warcraft III - World Editor (WEX)" profile or...

www.hiveworkshop.com

On Reforged I would recommend using TESH if you wish to use JASS

A new TESH Syntax Highlighter for Warcraft 3

TESH 2.0 - A new Trigger Editor Script Highlighter for Warcraft 3 by looking_for_help 1. Introduction It's been a long time since the first Trigger Editor Script Highlighter (TESH) was released by SFilip in 2007. His outstanding work was improved several times by others like Zoxc, Van Damm...

www.hiveworkshop.com

Oh yeah, and I didn't want to start an extra thread for this, but what WE patch should I use? I hear some versions are better than others, like just updating to the very latest one may not actually be a good idea?

Depends on your goal. If you are looking to play your map with other people, then using the Reforged editor would be your best bet. There are places where you can unofficially play online on other patches, but for custom maps (other than Dota) Reforged is easier to access and more active.

If you just want to mess around with creating a map in GUI and aren't looking to play it online, then 1.9.2 is a decent patch. Widescreen support and 24 players being the two main advantages over just using 1.26.

If you want to use the new JASS natives but don't care about playing online then 1.31.1 is the last patch before Reforged and has the new UI natives etc. Though this patch has some bugs that might be annoying (you can search on the forum for more info.)

And if all this sounds like a lot of hassle, just use 1.26. It's a stable patch that was played on for many years without issue.

 

[Uncle]

You probably already use Jass in your GUI triggers without even realizing it.

• Custom script: this is jass

The two go hand in hand, GUI is just Jass but in an easy to digest format.

Anyway, I think you'd want to at least use version 1.31 if you're interested in making powerful GUI triggers. It added many functions that enable you to do things that are simply not possible in older versions. The most recent version makes the most sense to me though, since you'll probably want to play on BNET.

Long story short, if you aren't writing code then in my opinion you don't need to use anything other than the standard editor. And even then, I code everything and I still use the standard editor. That being said, I do use Visual Studio as the one outside tool. It's necessary since I use WCSharp: Home · Orden4/WCSharp Wiki I'm coding my maps in C# which gets converted to Lua, which is an alternative to Jass that was added in 1.31. It's a much better language than Jass. But as a GUI user you're still inclined to use Jass over Lua due to the fact that you have to use one or the other and Jass has years and years of support/content backing it up. In other words, don't worry about Lua unless you want to get into coding, your map will be set to Jass by default anyway.

Oh and I'll probably ditch the old World Editor for this glorious project once it's more fleshed out: HiveWE - World Editor 0.6

 

[Retera]

Just realized I haven't done anything new to my Warcraft installation since 2011.

as a double check, you know about Reforged, right? i think you will want to be aware of its existence even if you do not use it.

I have been personally paranoid about a theory that I have about a possible bug in Reforged. The reforged team created patch 1.27, 1.28, 1.29, 1.30, 1.31, then wrecked/complexified a lot of what they created in order to serve their bosses/managers and created patch 1.32. Back when 1.28 was live latest patch, if you went on Battlenet and updated from 1.26 to 1.28 the game would move your custom maps from your game install (usually "C:\Program Files\Warcraft III\Maps") to instead be located in My Documents for windows. (Typically this ended up in "C:\Users\<name>\Documents\Warcraft III\Maps"). The move was forced, not optional, so for me when I had 20 GB of maps it caused the game to freeze with an extraordinary indefinitely long loading bar and eventually I took over from the game and moved my maps using Windows Explorer.

Because of this theory the developers had while creating the patch 1.32 Reforged download -- the theory that users were keeping up to date -- they believed that it was OK for the Reforged installer to delete your "C:\Program Files\Warcraft III\" directory and replace it with the Reforged compatible mega installation instead of the old one. And it does so without asking you. I have not ever tried this, but I have always dreaded the possible bug that might -- and I am not sure -- but might exist in the Reforged installation where maybe it would nuke your "C:\Program Files\Warcraft III\" directory without asking you even though that directory contained your old custom maps and such IF you went straight from 1.26 to 1.32, because the software devs who created the update process would have assumed you had been upgrading and that the game installation did not contain maps.

So, just in case you were a really old timer user who had no knowledge of Reforged, and you were trying the waters of the new patches today, please back up your old Warcraft III installation and/or "Maps" directory. That way you can make sure that the Reforged installer doesn't accidentally annihilate your old custom maps or other user files without asking you. And maybe it never does nuke the maps... I haven't ever tested one way or the other. But it definitely does nuke and delete your 1.31 installation without asking you if you only have one and only one copy of the patch 1.31. It's less painful since in theory the install directory doesn't have any custom data on 1.31, but it's worth remembering. I thought I was wise about all of this and I still opened the Battle.net Launcher one time on an old laptop that had Patch 1.31 -- and in 2021 or so a year after Reforged came out, in seconds the Battle.net Launcher automatically eradicated my Patch 1.31 installation from the old laptop but the laptop's hard drive was full and couldn't store the 1.32 reforged merged installation thing. So it deleted Warcraft III from that laptop, and I don't have any legitimate way to get it back except for digging up patch 1.31 from one my personal deep archives. I am paranoid, though. You can download the patch 1.31 from a third party site like here on hive VERY easily. I just preferred to always get my Warcraft III installations from Blizzard as a matter of personal preference.

Just my 2 cents. As far as features, Reforged world editor actually has features that the older world editors don't have, but they're obscure and mostly for very technical users who had already been modding war3 for a long time. Meanwhile, Reforged menu is not very good compared to the old Frozen Throne game menu. So it kind of lures in map developers but makes them stress out when it comes time to actually share their creations ingame in multiplayer, or something like that.

 

[Verdun]

as a double check, you know about Reforged, right? i think you will want to be aware of its existence even if you do not use it.

First of all, thanks for the heads up. I suspected it would be important to make solid backups for everything first.

The thing with Reforged is, I kinda heard bad things about it from people around me, and superficially from what I have seen I kinda don't really like how it looks, so my impulse is to stay below Reforged level.

(Also, I haven't really looked into what Reforged does to custom models, which is a big issue for me)

 

[Verdun]

Oh yeah, and I didn't want to start an extra thread for this, but what WE patch should I use? I hear some versions are better than others, like just updating to the very latest one may not actually be a good idea?

Just realized I haven't done anything new to my Warcraft installation since 2011.

EDIT: says the latest patch I got was 1.26

So according to this the 1.29 was supposed to bring 480x480 maps, but I have heard contradictory things about that so far.

Also, it was originally promised that 1.29 would dramatically increase the number of potential objects on a map, but the most up to date thread I found said the object limitations were still the same, just spread out over larger map sizes...

 

[Civil]

The thing with Reforged is, I kinda heard bad things about it from people around me, and superficially from what I have seen I kinda don't really like how it looks, so my impulse is to stay below Reforged level.

(Also, I haven't really looked into what Reforged does to custom models, which is a big issue for me)

You don't have to care about how Reforged looks though (beyond the menu UI which you are indeed stuck with) you can just develop your map for SD graphics. You don't have to support HD if you don't want to.

Custom models will load for both SD and HD players if they are SD.

 

[Retera]

my impulse is to stay below Reforged level

As someone whose name was on 1.30.3 patch notes credited for helping them continue to support a certain set of legacy custom models, and whose name was on 1.31 patch notes for helping them continue to support existing custom abilities, I kind of feel obligated to mention here that as long as you have your backups and can ensure that the automatic updates of Reforged target its own installation and not your backups, beyond that Reforged's engine is free to try with the legacy graphics as long as you enter your existing CD key. If you try it and decide you hate it, generally I think the only limiting factors when going back are

1. You have to delete a glitched registry key to open World Editor versions prior to Reforged after closing the Reforged World Editor. Upon exit, Reforged World Editor always writes to the key "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Blizzard Entertainment\WorldEdit\Tool Windows" with a value that is corrupt for prior editor versions. So some people think older game versions don't have a working editor, but it's actually after Reforged runs on that computer that older editor versions won't open until you delete this exact key. However, I delete it frequently and jump between the two frequently these days
2. Maps saved on Reforged editor cannot be opened in earlier version, although the Reforged editor opens earlier version maps fine generally, so if you decide to edit your map on Reforged then go back to an older version you should be keeping a backup of your map from before Reforged editor touched it in order to make that choice. Otherwise, it is so technologically time consuming to back-port the map that I honestly wouldn't bother unless you have put at least like 100+ hours into the development time of the map