Mini Warcraft 3?

[RagnarokAngel]

First I'll point you to what I'm basing the idea off of which is Mini Starcraft. Mini starcraft basically stripped the heck out of what installed for starcraft. It has no campaigns, no background music, no backgrounds (though monikon's has backgrounds). However it preserves what starcraft was most used for; multiplayer. Monikon's mini starcraft is available still, and he has managed to make it install to version 1.15. I loved the idea because it fits snugly on my flash drive taking up under 100 megs of space even though I have downloaded maps (Monikon's only came with Lost Temple). I'm not exactly sure if a link is appropriate as it does allow you to play the game without a CD - but there aren't any Campaigns so I don't think it will hurt. Alas, I'm not allowed to post links yet. Anyone can PM me if they want to take a look at it I guess.

I think it would be possible to do basically the same thing for warcraft 3 and the Frozen Throne (Since Monikon got it to install broodwar) but I'm not really sure how to go about doing this. I'm sure I could start by hack and slashing through the mpq but Wc3 may require the backgrounds or need to be circumvented in some way. If anyone else is interested please post and talk about the idea. I'd just love to put my Blizzard games on my flash so I can take them with me.

(By the way, Monikon's site isn't in English but it's pretty straightforward anyway.)

I started to go though the mpq for just the expansion and remove stuff and it looks like there really is a lot that can be stripped out if the campaign doesn't want to be played at all. However I don't know right now if I want to strip out unit responses (though I guess that the pissed ones can go as they are just aesthetics and taking up space). Anyone who wants to go through the spell animations and tell me which ones aren't used in the normal game would be greatly appreciated also as I'm not sure of how to go about doing this.

I'm sorry if this should be in the mod discussion but I thought that this could be appropriate for it also since it isn't actually a mod.

 

[ChrisH36]

Don't worry bout it. I actually like the idea of a Mini-warcraft 3. But you would need coniserable amount of space so you can not only have TFT and Roc togehter, but any custom matches you wish.

 

[Emperor Pan I]

that's a bloody good idea.

I mean all things considered, you won't get the same sort of space achievement that SC gave you, because WCIII is still far more sophisticated, but I think just in terms of multiplayer that is quite easy to strip down.

 

[Hitsua]

It's true...shittiest story line ever.

 

[RagnarokAngel]

The thing about having custom matches still enabled generally means no stripping because so many custom maps utilize models that weren't even present in the game let alone things that only cameo for a short while. I guess it would still be possible to do leaving things that are used in the custom maps that are very popular but I'm not a custom gamer so I don't know what models are present in DoTA or footies for example. I'm going to keep stripping down the expansion MPQ by taking out mostly campaign stuff then tell how much smaller it is once I've started more headway on it.

Now I'm not really big into MPQ editing or just exactly how Warcraft III goes to read the MPQs but I was wondering if it is possible to combine it all into one MPQ? Would putting all of the data that would be needed in the Expansion MPQ make it read from that instead of the RoC one?

 

[dArKmIsChIeF]

[color=#fffff][glow=black] this is a great idea! but i dont really know what to strip down, other than the campaign, unit voices, computer AI (??), the whole Naga race, music, cinematics, WorldEdit, and all the other maps that aren't used (non-ladder maps)... [/color][/glow]

 

[x42bn6]

Both CDs will give you about 1.2 Gb of space. The campaigns are effectively maps which will be about 300 kb each, and since there are about 60 of them that is only 1.8 Mb. You could strip out the units only appearing in the campaign, but nearly all of the units and doodads are used in the melee maps too.

What might be possible is if all the melee maps were made boring and reduced to one tileset, then the doodad restrictions are enforced. That way, there would be no Lordaeron Winter tilesets, for example, just Lordaeron Summer. Then all the maps would be generic, and just about all the remaining tilesets and associated creeps and doodads removed. That would save about 1/3 of the space. That is about 800 Mb which is workable. Then it would be easy to throw out the triggering engine and replace Melee Initialisation (the only trigger in a melee map) with a generic procedure call in C++. Also, we could toss out the World Editor as well. Lastly, war3.mpq could then be condensed so it isn't standalone (why do you think we have war3x.mpq?). All this could potentially reduce the size down to a single CD, which you can use to play purely multiplayer. Unfortunately, due to the fact you have less tilesets, you wouldn't be able to play most games.

I don't feel that you can get it down to CD-size just by cutting out unnecessary sounds. There aren't a lot of massive sound files in the MPQ, You could cut out the music, too, and spell animations, if cut out, could give you an advantage (no Flamestrike effect = knowing exactly what is behind it).*

 

[RagnarokAngel]

The Problem

It seems to me that I can't pull off too much because, unlike starcraft, there are a lot of models and other stuff that just doesn't get used in all the maps. One of these is creeps. I still want to try pulling out all the things unnecessary for ladder play and see what I'm left with but it does look like it's still going to be pretty big. I was wondering if there is a way to find a list of all the units that are absolutely necessary for creeps?

Is there a way to redirect the program to a generic (Lordaeron summer) tileset when tileset information is not found? If this is possible (which I'm not entirely sure of) then it would reopen all of the maps back for ladder play. I'm sure this would create some irregularities such as doodads and creeps not matching the tileset and possibly some down right ugly spots on maps but I'm looking more for it being playable and small than being absolutely gorgeous.

It does seem like sounds are a small thing but each unit has 4 or 5 responses, 4 or 5 pissed responses, 2 or 3 attack responses, 2 or 3 move responses and they just seem to add up. Oh and they also had to record all of the dialog which is said throughout the entire campaign which is obviously scrappable.

About spell animations being removed, it seems like it would help and still be technically playable but not practically playable in all cases. Also most of the unnecessary animations i.e. heal seem like they would be too small to matter at all. I'm not really sure then if this is part is doable.

What about removing things that (at least to my untrained eye) seem put into both mpqs? I was going through the expansion mpq and it has a model for the ancient of war, ancient of wind, tree of life, altar of elders, gryphon aviary, human townhall and I'm sure there are a lot I haven't mentioned. Does anyone know why they have these? I'm assuming they fixed/edited the models in some way which would make the ones from the RoC mpq obsolete. If anyone knows that there is another reason for these files please let me know.

I'm going to finish going through the expansion mpq and removing the unneccesaries and see how much the mpq size goes down.

 

[RagnarokAngel]

My War3x mpq is now sitting at a byte size of 345,251 currently containing no sounds, I think I got all of the campaign only models and other stuff, and no cinematic specific stuff. I'm hesitant to say that I'm finished with slashing from the mpq though. I can't seem to find the campaign maps though I could just be stupid. Any point in the right direction about these?

 

[MGCImtR]

PPl have better PCs for which moving GBytes is nothing, I don't mind their size. If my cell phone could read exe files, and dll and mpq or they all could be turnt into .jar (java) then your idea would be perfect. There is one CS jar with 1 map but the graphics are the real CS I think. It's just one small map with few weapons. And that game is only ~300KB. Then a 20 MB would have to be a killer game.If you can do it - I'll give you a candy. Btw from removing so many things you will get a meal with sugar and salt with war3. Error Number XYZ or 100010101010

 

[Hitsua]

Windows Mobile ftw.

 

[MGCImtR]

Throwing my current cell phone into the garbage and buying a pocket pc first FTW.

Seriously will it hurt your DUCK that something in the pocket is a little larger than the compact portable cell phones? Besides, you can lose your sexual potency anyway - the phones can cause that if you keep them too much near your DUCK, but does it matter when you can lose it from staying too much at the pc anyway? -_-

 

[Hitsua]

Uhhh, well, I HAVE a Q.

http://www.motorola.com/mdirect/q/

 

[MGCImtR]

Cell phones are old, I'd better buy smth like that fast. In one step with technology.

 

[ChrisH36]

The only reason I would get a super-cell phone is so I can run Linux on it.

 

[Hitsua]

Uhh why? I mean I know people try to act cool and run Linux on everything they can, but really, how would you benefit by running Linux on a phone...?

 

[x42bn6]

My War3x mpq is now sitting at a byte size of 345,251 currently containing no sounds, I think I got all of the campaign only models and other stuff, and no cinematic specific stuff. I'm hesitant to say that I'm finished with slashing from the mpq though. I can't seem to find the campaign maps though I could just be stupid. Any point in the right direction about these?

I think the campaign maps are bundled either into the .exe or the .mpq itself. Probably the .mpq.*

 

[hmichaelkim]

hold on... i just tried deleting some things from the mpq, and the mpq got bigger..?!? wtf, is my computer just screwed up?

 

[x42bn6]

If you zip a file enough times, its size will actually increase (before decreasing again, I guess). So compression isn't always useful.*