Warcraft 3 has a PTR now
@liopleurodonic
We cover PTRs pretty frequently. Junkrat buffs, Garrosh coming to the Nexus, yadda yadda. We see noteworthy stuff there all the time, but it’s usually just from Overwatch, World of Warcraft, or Heroes of the Storm right now. However, right now there’s a brand new PTR for a game we haven’t seen new stuff pushed out since–well, the Blizzard representative who posted it says ever.
Warcraft 3 has a new PTR. A glance at the notes suggests they’re smoothing out the playing experience, mostly. They’ve also apparently added tons of new maps to every map type, from 1 vs 1 to 4 vs 4, plus the popular Free For All mode.
So why on Azeroth would Warcraft 3 need a new PTR? While we can’t say for sure, the remastered StarCraft did make a huge splash in the community. There are no public financial numbers available yet, but it stands to reason the popularity of the revamp made the developers see the appeal of dusting off some of the other titles in their classic catalog. With Gamescom coming up in just under a week, now seems like the perfect time to get some mechanical balancing issues settled before they add some extra pizzazz to the classic title, if they’re going the revamp route. It’s really impossible to tell. I’m just saying, if you’re a fan of the old RTS maybe keep an eye on Cologne.
Make note: if you want to participate in the PTR you have to own Warcraft 3. It’s $9.99 USD right now, so it’s less than a WoW token. The PTR download links for both mac and PC are available in the full patch notes post.
Hail Warchiefs,
Warcraft III’s first official PTR lives. Join us on the field of battle as we test the new Map Pools for 1’s, 2’s, 3’s, 4’s and Free-for-All.
General Improvements & Gameplay Objectives
- Balanced creep camp difficulty progression from early to late game
- Balanced creep drop tables for better item progression from early game to late game
- Item diversity: Varied Level 1 though 6 charged items and Level 1 through 6 permanent items
- Balanced all start locations: total amount and starting distance from lumber, equal amount of spacing, equal size choke points, et cetera
- Balanced expansion distance from start locations
- Decluttered points of interest to reduce visual competition during gameplay
- Retextured map surfaces for better visual clarity – both on screen and mini-map
- Minimized the size of trees and doodads that obstructed player view of points of interest
- Added cliff lines or deep water to edges of the map – removing hard edges (aesthetic choice for immersion)
- Properly placed trees and doodads on the pathing grid: full-cell Medium Grid to half-cell Medium Grid alternate
- Removed the rolling shoreline waves from rolling hills to remove the noise the waves created – remains for cliff shores
List of 1 v 1 maps
List of 2 v 2 maps
List of 3 v 3 maps
List of 4 v 4 maps
List of FFA maps
Known Issues
- We are aware Warcraft III matchmaking is a bit long in the tusk; we will be improving matchmaker logic for a future patch
- Automated Tournaments and Ladder Board are not functional for PTR
- Latency was improved with 1.28, but still needs work to meet modern standards
Cheers,
Classic Games
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