Warcraft 3 advancements

I don't know whether anyone is actually interested in hearing that before playing it, but there is still a few people working on improving WC3's capabilities.

One shining star of development is called Reinventing The Craft (RtC), constructed mainly by MindWorX and SFlip:

MindWorX wrote:RtC is a big pack of natives created by SFilip and me, in an attempt to create an enhanced experience when making and playing maps. RtC includes natives such as vectors for integer arrays with no limit, events for detecting keyboard presses and mouse position/presses that wasn't previously possible, natives that returns the time of the computer being used, binary comparisons, StringPos and StringReplace that doesn't leak strings, 64bit sized integers, and wrappers for Winsock which gives you full networking control. Also being worked on is natives to give you dynamic tooltips and object names, among other things. RtC is still in active development, and we're always listening to ideas.

Mouse control is probably the most astonishing part about this. There are already a few demo maps that use the new Mouse API:

Youtube.com

Youtube.com

The other potentially revolunionary thing is full networking control. If done right it could totally change the way you're connecting to a game. At the moment you have to join a game in the lobby, then it will start. With RtC it's technically possible to let players join and leave during the game - and not only that. There is basically no limit to the numbers of players. You could play with several dozen people (or more) at the same time.

The bad thing about RtC that it's basically a mod for WC3, that means it must be installed on every players' computer before you can play any map using it. Also, I don't know whether this modded version can still connect to battle.net.
Also this mod can not really extend WC3's capabilities. Things like joining/leaving in mid-game would require making very complicated game scripts that would handle that, making map development a pain in the ass.

In addition to that RtC is still in development. There are bugs, crashes and unfinished features. The developers said that they will release another, more advanced version once Blizzard has finished patching wc3 over and over.

So, all in all this would be great for single player maps or campaigns, but unsuitable for multiplayer games, since every player would need to have RtC installed.

There have also been a few creative minds who worked with what they got and achieved incredible results:

Youtube.com

Youtube.com

Now doesn't this look sweet?
Of course, there are also drawbacks with this kind of First Person View, as most of them use arrowkey commands and these are quite laggy when used through battle.net, which will make acurate aiming hard, especially if the host is from another country.



The future of Zombie killing:
You all know that DotD is progressing slowly. God knows whether I will ever finish it, but do not worry - there will be other maps.

Youtube.com

Youtube.com

Youtube.com

The first one actually pretty much looks like I wanted DotD to be after I started working on 6.0. At that time it was nothing more than a dream. Today I would say that I'm able to do so, if I had the time and patience.

I think, if these new, great looking maps will ever see the light of day, then it's time to gear up again and go hunt some zombies!

TL;dr


P.S: I kind of feel the urge to say this now.. Starcraft II will be HAWT! You will see stuff you didn't even dream of!

Excellent post s3rius.

I really liked a lot the FPS view of the 3rd video of zombies. That was amazing.

About the RtC. In games, its all a matter of time. Remember back there in 2004, what was playing Wc3 in bnet....or just think about 1 year ago. I stoped playing for an year, an when i came back i couldnt understand how those bot-hosting games could work xD

So its just a matter of time... ^^

And about DOTD, come on keep it up!. We are here to support u. I know we suck in the important aspects of the games, and we cant help u much there. But if theres anything we can do to make ur job easier, then start asking for it and we (or at least I) will try to do the best for it ^^

GL!

PiscisKnight wrote:
And about DOTD, come on keep it up!. We are here to support u. I know we suck in the important aspects of the games, and we cant help u much there. But if theres anything we can do to make ur job easier, then start asking for it and we (or at least I) will try to do the best for it ^^

I didn't mean to say that I stop developing it, but if everything works out well I'm soon not the only bastion of zombie killing maps anymore.

This ZAF map actually features a few things that I've initially planned for DotD, too (the extreme darkness - well, you know how it turned out in the end, and the vehicles to some extend). I'll try to contact the devs and have a little chat with them. Maybe they can make use of some of the systems I've wrote but never used.

As for support:
You could start by sending me money and other valuables

Those videos are brilliant! I can't find words to describe my awe and utter amazement at the work that must have gone into perfecting it to that point even!

But ZAF... I found it a little too colourful in effects, to be honest... Especially with bloodlust animation on zombies. -.-

But I'll try those maps, depending on which are actually available to play.

Thanks for sharing this, s3rius! Fantastic post.

GL/HF

yeah they are pretty cool... but if you need to hack WC3 to get them... then it's much more than a map that uses the potential of the game...

the wc3 map project looks fairly nice.... but i'm pretty confused about what parts are real gameplay in there... so much editing can make any crappy game look like the best thing since sliced bread...

The first person maps are all unedited. I've played two of them myself and it plays great even without opponents

Link to epicwar

That's one of them.

Regarding the ZAF trailer.. it's a lot of pre-scripted scenes, but at least those parts where you can see the players' chat should be real gameplay scenes.

Yea Great Finds S3r I'd be interested in this Modded version of Warcraft when it comes out