New Private WC3 Server | Preserve the Future of WC3

[Bond009]

I think we should make our own Private server realm. It will be better than just joining games through the LAN and staying on 1.30.1. Think about not being able to join bnet anymore.. no more clans, meeting new players to team with, no more friends lists. No more communities being made, no more bnet experience etc. I know as a game maker especially it would be a lot harder to work with people I know on WC3 to test new versions with etc.

I would much rather have a private server realm with 1.28.5 or 1.30.1 than just stay on this current version and join games from LAN from now on with WC3Connect. Also unless people backup a copy of the current 1.30.1 version, if someone isn't thinking and clicks bnet and updates they cant get back to 1.30.1 to join ENT bots anymore. Not a good idea really.
reference this post as well: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=135760&p=527617#p527617

This can be the major universal server realm as WC3 is now and live forever. It can have ENT's bots on there as well as anyone else's. It needs to be as open and free as WC3 was for the past decade. I have the resources to host this myself but with ENT backing me we could really make this great.

I see @uakf.b working on some stuff but he doesn't seem quite as active these days. Who is running the servers still or is he doing it still?
Also think how much cheaper it would be to run ENT bots not needing Keys or multi IP's anymore since they made that 2 bots per public IP address rule.. So many upsides to this.

Let me know what you guys think.

[Ziadoma]

Sounds interesting - looking forward to hear some input.

[uakf.b]

• PVPGN does not support 1.29+ yet. 1.28.5 does not support 24 player maps.
• CD keys for bots are irrelevant, we already bought plenty.
• We are letting anyone connect at least host bot to WC3Connect. Later we might support hosting games from LAN as well.
• Once eurobattle / other PVPGNs support 1.29+ we will switch to that patch and allow players to join from both

[Yarragon]

Ya know all of this talk about "splitting the community" and "Ensuring the community doesn't split" and not one person has answered me this:

What are you going to do when people like me update to the current patch with all our friends and ENT is forcing everyone that wants to use their services to play on a different patch?

Why not just continue to update to the current patch, and instead of being "moderators" that aren't even associated with Blizzard, become a real community? A place for people to gather and find similar players with similar interests. Set up privately hosted events if you're worried about the competitive aspect / ELO.

Wanna compete in LTD the same way as you do now? Cool, come to the ENT forum, create a game and post it here. Explain that it is a competitive game and stats will be recorded / posted for those in the game.

Sure it's not as easy as having the bot do it for you... But ya know, I really don't want anyone to use the argument of "preserving the community" when you're totally ignoring the fact that a lot / most players are going to update to the new patch, either because they aren't aware bots are being killed off or they are excited for it (like myself and some of my friends.)

[uakf.b]

@Yarragon latest WC3Connect version has a button to backup your current WC3 installation to your user directory in case you want to upgrade your main installation to 1.30.2.

You can also do this manually: simply copy C:\Program Files\Warcraft III to somewhere else.

Nobody has time to manually host games and set stats like that. An in-house league is feasible, but that would only appeal to a limited number of players. Autobans for leavers is really needed to get at least half-decent pub DotA, Legion TD, etc. games.

Have you tried the PTR? Gamelist UI and ping problems still have not been resolved (ping is now often worse than it was before, since now it is player2 -> Blizzard -> host instead of player2 -> host). The UI worked before but it could be so much better.

[Yarragon]

The ping issue is an easy fix though: simply host a game yourself. People connecting to you may have minor issues, but they are less likely to be as much of an issue as your own.

The quick "back up" is nice sure, but that also requires you to have the space available, doesn't it? Copying all of those game files to another directory isn't really a solution for some people.

Manually recording stats wouldn't be great, but obviously that wouldn't last forever, Blizzard has already stated they plan on eventually implementing a lot of the functionality of bots, but we'll see how that goes.

I believe you're the only one that has actually managed to produce an answer to those questions. I'm aware you're not going to please everyone with everything, but so many of the arguments against Blizzard have been well... Ilogical.

[uakf.b]

@Yarragon if they implement stats tracking and some kind of moderated game system where there is some level of protection against leavers (and also improve gamelist and mitigate ping issues), then platforms like ENT would most likely be unnecessary.

[Yarragon]

@Yarragon if they implement stats tracking and some kind of moderated game system where there is some level of protection against leavers (and also improve gamelist and mitigate ping issues), then platforms like ENT would probably become unnecessary.

Correct me if I'm wrong but... haven't they said this is exactly what they wanted to do, is add private ban lists?

As for stats... make an external bot that tracks games based on replay information or something if you don't want to record them manually. I don't use ghost++ or the like, but it can't be that hard to pull game stats.

[uakf.b]

@Yarragon private ban lists is not really the same. How do you go from a private banlist to a community-wide banlist? Sharing of banlists in WC3Banlist was only common in in-house communities (and that's assume Blizzard supports banlist sharing). These in-house communities are far less sustainable now that there are not as many players playing Warcraft III.

In a broader community, maybe you could have a website where players can go to get the current, say, DotA game. And it'll tell them to create one if there isn't one up yet. But in a larger community, how do you ensure everyone is on the same banlist? If kicking is allowed, how do you prevent the host from kicking arbitrarily? How do you decide who should host the game to have good ping? There might be some maintenance involved in choosing who is allowed to host games for the community, and removing players who have high ping or who kicked people from the whitelist; who performs this maintenance?

re replay checking: It's not clear how to verify the realm of the players in the replay (or if they were spoofing their names).

Anyway, no one wants to spend time building either the web-based hosting system or the replay-checking when Blizzard could just render it useless with the next patch. All Blizzard needs to do to fix this is make it possible to have host bots in the next patch; host bots could be hidden in the gamelist (have to type gamename to join). If Blizzard isn't going to do this, it doesn't make sense for communities to continue to depend on Blizzard to not change the game again in the future, and cause us to have to spend even more time to make up for it.

But I mean, if you want to spend the time to implement all of this, then go ahead. If you find clever solutions to problems like the shared banlist and deciding who should host games, and your system ends up working well, then players will switch and all will be good. But first you have to wait and hope that Blizzard actually implements what they say they're going to implement, and also fix things which they didn't reply about.

[uakf.b]

> The quick "back up" is nice sure, but that also requires you to have the space available, doesn't it? Copying all of those game files to another directory isn't really a solution for some people.

The quick backup is another great solution that we have come up with and implemented in our free time to try to preserve custom game communities in the future. We are doing this for the community; even before getting rid of ads/donations we were never making any money (any excess money went to tournaments).

Obviously none of these solutions are going to be perfect. We are just trying our best with the time and resources that we have.

If you want to continue pointing out these imperfections, feel free to continue, but I'm going to stop replying. If you want to implement some of the solutions that you described, then feel free to do that as well; if they work well, I'll use it too. But I'm not going to spend time on it because I don't think it'll work.

To respond to this particular point, people who don't have 2 GB free and can't find unneeded files elsewhere on their computers can decide between Battle.net and WC3Connect. Nothing we can do about it.

Again, there's an obvious solution that Blizzard could implement (hide host bot games from gamelist while continuing to support them), but they seem to be adamant on eliminating host bots.

[Yarragon]

Here's the thing though, community wide ban-lists aren't needed. It only harms the player base, when you have a single way to play the game you enjoy, and you're forced to play it the way someone else tells you to. There's a reason large scale games like Overwatch don't normally ban players for more than 30 minutes to an hour - you want to keep those players PLAYING. A private ban list will allow players to enforce that the game be played the way they want - either casually or competitively. Sure, you can get people "dodging" bans with different accounts - but it takes much less time to type !ban [Name] than it does to create a new account, and search through the game list for the game you're trolling.

Inhouse games aren't currently sustainable simply because the people that want to play competitively are less than those that want to play custom games the way they were intended - casual and relaxed. It's been proven by large scale studies and data reports from multiple companies that MANY more people use unranked game modes than ranked game modes when offered. Simply put, most people don't care about in game stats and just want to have fun.

As for the replay checking and the web-based hosting system - I meant that is something that could be looked into after the patch was released to the ease of recording stats and things.

Also, I don't want to be that guy - but host bots are very clearly against Blizzard's TOS / User Agreements. They are 100% justified in this decision. Don't even get me started on the security issues that come with bots, and how Blizzard isn't going to acknowledge that issue as part of their game just to keep a small portion of the player base happy.

We'll see how things plan out, I've voiced my thoughts more than enough and made my point. You're right though, whoever ends up making things the easiest is what players are going to use. It's always been that way. You posted again as I was typing this, but I feel I covered the other end of things.

[Sylvanas]

The ping issue is an easy fix though: simply host a game yourself. People connecting to you may have minor issues, but they are less likely to be as much of an issue as your own.

So if everyone wants to play without ping, they all just have to host themselves, and somehow play together?

The quick "back up" is nice sure, but that also requires you to have the space available, doesn't it? Copying all of those game files to another directory isn't really a solution for some people.

A 1 tb hd costs like 50$. It would be a nice investment if you're somehow finding yourself unable to get storage for like 1-2 gb of content. I think Blizzard and you both forgot we were no longer in 2003 and disk space and port forwarding are no longer things that are relevant.

Manually recording stats wouldn't be great, but obviously that wouldn't last forever, Blizzard has already stated they plan on eventually implementing a lot of the functionality of bots, but we'll see how that goes.

I'll tell you how it'll go; they'll do nothing. All that's left that Blizzard knows to do anymore is destroy.

I believe you're the only one that has actually managed to produce an answer to those questions. I'm aware you're not going to please everyone with everything, but so many of the arguments against Blizzard have been well... Ilogical.

Oh but it's so logical to make changes nobody were asking for in order to revert wc3 to how it originally was, except with today's remaining playbase.

[Yarragon]

So if everyone wants to play without ping, they all just have to host themselves, and somehow play together?


A 1 tb hd costs like 50$. It would be a nice investment if you're somehow finding yourself unable to get storage for like 1-2 gb of content. I think Blizzard and you both forgot we were no longer in 2003 and disk space and port forwarding are no longer things that are relevant.


I'll tell you how it'll go; they'll do nothing. All that's left that Blizzard knows to do anymore is destroy.


Oh but it's so logical to make changes nobody were asking for in order to revert wc3 to how it originally was, except with today's remaining playbase.

I'm not sure if you're just arguing for the sake of argument or what, but each one of those points was a separate issue and you took some things out of context here...

1. I said IF you have ping issues that are so bad, you can host yourself. Other players are less likely to have an issue. To quote you, "It's no longer 2003." and if you can't keep a stable connection you're either in a third world country, or playing on a computer from 2003. I personally can play on an asian server with a max of 240 ping as long as it's not the actual server fucking up.

2. I have 500 gigs of storage, and an external hard-drive. I'm still nearly out of space. I actually had to uninstall certain things when I downloaded Civ 5 recently. Sure I could go spend 50$ on another drive and swap them in and out, but I'm not doing that to maintain two versions of War3.

3. You sound like you're just whining for the sake of it here, "All Blizzard can do is destroy!" and yet they're still one of the larges gaming companies in the US, with a very high comparative satisfaction rate among players.

4. See response to Uakf.b in regards to host bots. They are against the TOS and pose a huge security threat, Blizzard is NEVER going to admit that bots are part of their game nor are they ever going to endorse the use of bots. This new patch is them saying, "We need to fix this issue." They are not reverting War3 to how it originally was, they are fixing the issues that caused the need for host bots in the first place.

[kopfzueng]

i have connect this but cant play dota.. can you make a youtupe video i am a pc idiot

[Sylvanas]

I'm not sure if you're just arguing for the sake of argument or what, but each one of those points was a separate issue and you took some things out of context here...

1. I said IF you have ping issues that are so bad, you can host yourself. Other players are less likely to have an issue. To quote you, "It's no longer 2003." and if you can't keep a stable connection you're either in a third world country, or playing on a computer from 2003. I personally can play on an asian server with a max of 240 ping as long as it's not the actual server fucking up.

If my ping is over 30, I just don't play and do something else. I mean, I could purposefully find ways to play games with higher than necessary ping and tell myself it's still fine, but why would I do that when I don't actually have to? Why would you replace good ping by worse ping for any reason, no matter what your personal tolerance may be?

2. I have 500 gigs of storage, and an external hard-drive. I'm still nearly out of space. I actually had to uninstall certain things when I downloaded Civ 5 recently. Sure I could go spend 50$ on another drive and swap them in and out, but I'm not doing that to maintain two versions of War3.

So the 1.5 gb it takes to maintain a second wc3 folder is where you draw the line. It's either the currently available storage and one folder or an extra drive and two folders, with no inbetween. There are no other possible arrangements and having to buy an extra drive should be blamed solely to the extra file size requirements of having two wc3 folders. If only they made 502 gb drives instead of 500, right? One can dream.

3. You sound like you're just whining for the sake of it here, "All Blizzard can do is destroy!" and yet they're still one of the larges gaming companies in the US, with a very high comparative satisfaction rate among players.

The satisfaction rate of overwatch and wow players has so much to do with how they arbitrarily and offhandedly mess with the original b.net games just for the hell of it whenever they get bored or something, right? What about the satisfaction rate of wc3 players about those out of touch developers who never played wc3? Must be sky high as well, yes? It sure looks like it.

Let's just blindly trust the people responsible for starcraft 2's highly successful arcade system for custom maps to completely remake wc3's b.net. They clearly know better.

4. See response to Uakf.b in regards to host bots. They are against the TOS and pose a huge security threat, Blizzard is NEVER going to admit that bots are part of their game nor are they ever going to endorse the use of bots. This new patch is them saying, "We need to fix this issue." They are not reverting War3 to how it originally was, they are fixing the issues that caused the need for host bots in the first place.

No one has denied that they can remove the bots, I'm not sure why people like you have to bring this up. Just because they can remove them doesn't mean they have to. The TOS' purpose isn't for them to force themselves to do anything in it, it just ensures that they have the freedom to do what they want should they decide to. It's a decision, a stupid fucking decision they made. The patch is them saying "I don't know what playing wc3 is like or what people want and I have no idea what I'm doing, but who cares. Hold my beer."

Even if you're holding a rose-tinted view of botless wc3, you should still realize how bad the depopulation and splitting of the playbase will be and you can't deny the pointless and arbitrary cause of it. You can't even say "people shouldn't make their own servers, it will only make things worse", because it was inevitably going to happen when they decided to make that move and we all know it. Anything done for wc3's sake that will piss off half of the players is automatically a horrible idea, even if you agree with the changes themselves. At this point, the best thing that could happen would be for ENT to take as much of b.net with them as possible and safeguard what's left from blizzard's idiocy.