What version/patch to play the Classic Story Campaign [Everything you need to know]

[Darkcranio]

I spent a week figure out which version is the best to play the story campaign on modern systems in >classic< graphics.
1.23-26(these patches are before 2010): Doesn't have native widescreen, the Hive widescreenmod makes the letters way too small on higher res to enjoy the campaign, also the "movieplayer" within the came aren't capable of playing the movies higher than 800x600 although I even ported pack the HD1080p movies from reforge, still plays with 800x600, you can imagine on a 4k screen that's not really a good experience.
1.27 to 1.29: Ambiance sounds missing(all of them yes, because of compability issues back then with Mac)
1.29 to 1.31: Above 2k resolution the fonts are smashed together in campaign text.
1.31: AI heroes can't learn spells, although this doesn't affect OG campaign, just custom campaigns and short matches.
1.36 Reforged(today): Buckle up.
-Model bugs: Malfurion had 3 different models in the OG game: On foot, brow cape stag, without stag browncape. Now the moment he comes out of his Den in the debu mission he is instantly on a stag, doesn't make sense. In reforged there is only 1 model the stag one.
-Sound bugs: The sound/music constantly plays in the next scene, for example a movie starts and you still hear the human/orc theme on top of the movie.
-Censored content: Furion in ROC became Malfurion, Thrall calls Grom "HELLSCREAM" all the time. Jokes from the dryad cut. As well as the dreadlord "druglord" joke.
-Just being lazy: They didn't redo the original 3D campaign backgrounds only shitty barely moving 2d ART. Also there is another Menu sound bug:
The mainmenu.flac plays once then it keeps playing all the other music in the menu in sequence from the game. Also the original menu music cut for some reason.
-There is no gamma slider which makes the whole classic campaign darker as it should be, not major but still.

TL : DR: If you want to play classic campaign, play the 1.31 version because it has native widescreen, just don't play it over 2k cause the texts are smashed together.
OR
If Reforged client but the bugs above still gives a shitty experience. As of now I prefer 1.31, but I'm on the way to improve reforge with my censore and main menu fixes, so Soon(tm).

 

[Ravager16829]

I wanted to point out a mistake you had when you mention 1.31.1. You said that it was the best version for playing the custom campaigns in proper Classic Warcraft 3 because of the native widescreen feature, but in my opinion, I would disagree. Some people suggest that they should stay away from 1.31.1 and even go straight to the latest patches of Reforged, which is 1.36, because there were a plethora amount of bugs that seemingly didn't happened if you are using the 1.36.

In addition to the said AI Heroes not learning their new skills as they level up (though, you may still fix this problem by using a custom map script from this thread), 1.31.1 suffers for two annoying bugs:
1.Saving the progress during the custom campaigns/maps and then try to load it will cause most of the unit event triggers to be disabled. Meaning that maps that require a unit event to happen before you can progress will not work and you won't be able to finish the mission. The only thing you can do this is by playing the whole chapter in one run without saving/loading, which is kinda embarrassing.
2.If you try to finish certain map by clicking on the "Continue" (or "Quit Game", if you earned a victory or resign during the skirmish game), it will brings up the score screen, where clicking on the "OK" will cause the game to be completely lock-up. The black screen will remain there without returning back to the main menu, which is also quite annoying. To make things even worse, there's no way to solve this problem, as killing the game process with Task Manager or by completely logging out your computer will seemingly remove this bug.

 

[Darkcranio]

"because there were a plethora amount of bugs that seemingly didn't happened if you are using the 1.36."
What I listed is true of today. So 1.36 the current version of Reforged is def. not it.
The sound leak to next scenes and movies and the obvious texture bugs on ledges are alone enough to majorly ruin the experience.

 

[Darkcranio]

Update: The above pictures does not reflect the reality, for some reason when I extracted the "replaceabletextures" folder from the CASC archive and DIDNT DO anything with it, 0 mods. Just alone made the bugs you see above, but you I leave this if anyone would counter this bug.
I deleted the folder from the retail folder and it it's good again now. I modify the main post based on this.
"You said that it was the best version for playing the custom campaigns"
I didn't say this, I didn't put custom word in it on purpose, I'm talking about the best way to play the story campaign. But I added to the title to make it more clear.

 

[tulee]

Having multiple versions of wc3 / using mods has been known to create issues with the latest patch of wc3. You encountered those issues above doesn't represent the experience for people who just use 1.36+. Yes, there are some sound issues etc, but for the most part 1.36+ is in my opinion the best experience, provided you dont have multiple versions of wc3 installed/ using mods/modified local files.

 

[Darkcranio]

Everything I posted except the texture one is legit and current. The sound bug/leak is present in a single install as well, I've seen several videos of playthroughs with this bug. Model bug, yet again, present Reforged client only uses 1 model of Malfurion even though several models in the game files just not used by the game. Censored content is again has nothing to do with several installs, it's valid cause the modification can be found in the file archive as well. Menu backgrounds and music as well, instead of 1 main music playing it keeps playing all music in sequence in the menu.
None of these issues are because multiple installs because before I even started to investigate I took notes of this when I had only Reforged installed. This was the whole reason I started to look into it.

 

[tulee]

Well, I guess we each have our own experiences with it. My own experiences were that latest patch of wc3 was being messed around by multiple installs of older versions, which is why I now only stick with the latest patch, nothing else.

 

[Retera]

The CD that we have in our basement has version 1.00 Reign of Chaos, and version 1.14 Frozen Throne. These would be the best versions to experience the original classics. Change monitor settings to 4:3 resolution or buy a 4:3 monitor. Then it's the best experience, because it is the original product with all systems fully intact in the manner that was intended to be shipped -- not some data steward's attempt at maintaining something after the fact.

 

[Darkcranio]

Well that's nice all, but I meant it on modern systems. True in terms of from an archiving perspective do that. I do have 4:3 CRT monitor to other reasons as well. But on a modern system, no it's not.
It's not just about the 4:3 the original movie player within the OG game only plays at 800x600 and with pretty ugly color banding which cannot be modded unless the game recoded. Personally I could just switch to my 4:3 monitor and call it a day, although the color banding would still be present even there.
But to say "go buy a CRT monitor" is not really a solution for most. Especially if you want to record, stream it whatever, it just gives extra hussle to the whole thing.