Warcraft 3 gets its own public test realm

By Sherif Saed

Warcraft 3 now has its first ever public test realm.

Available for Windows, and Mac, the Warcraft 3 PTR aims to test changes to the map pools for 1s, 2s, 3s, 4s and free-for-all.

If it sounds weird that Blizzard is patching a 15-year-old game now, it shouldn’t be. Blizzard actually released Warcraft 3 patches as recently as last year. We’re not sure what the developer has planned for the game, outside of extending support for a classic.

There’s also a host of balance changes to the core game, and you can see the full thing below. For a complete list of maps in all sizes, check the link.

warcraft 3 logo

General improvements and 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

There’s also a list of issues Blizzard is tracking:

  • We are aware Warcraft 3 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

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