For people who want to play the classic WC3

General Discussion
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Edit 4 (yes a lot of edits): GiantAxe has an even better post over here: https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/warcraft3/t/for-those-who-want-to-play-classic-warcraft-3/15598/2 Make sure to check it out! They even detail how to play with LAN over the internet using Hamachi etc.

I posted about this in another thread called “Reforged is a forced downgrade for classic users” by Bakker, and that post is bound to be buried fast.
So, to reiterate and add:

For those who are infuriated that they’ve been redirected to download Reforged when downloading either the TFT or RoC client, here’s the legit way to get back to Classic in the latest patch. Please keep in mind that if you don’t have CD keys, you’ll need to have your copy of Reforged on hand so that you can play the classic version.

If you download Warcraft 3 Public Test instead of TFT client (haven’t tried RoC client), you will download the classic version. You will be asked for a RoC CD key, and once you input that, you’ll be good to go.

I tested LAN with the Public Test version and my mate who has Reforged and it didn’t work. If you have a friend who also has the Public Test version, try using LAN and let me know whether it works or not.
Battle net in this version is also a ghost town - servers have been taken down in favour of Reforged it seems.

There might be slightly less legal ways to get around not having multiplayer and/or LAN, but those will be things you’ll need to find on your own. If you know a way, please do not post it below for relatively obvious reasons.

Hope this helps :slight_smile:

edit: Please make sure to spread the word so that your mates won’t be so stressed out and angered that they can’t play their old game again! Even if this post gets deleted, this info needs to be out there - and if Public Test is removed… RIP Blizzard

edit 2: Forgot to include (again lmao) that if you’ve purchased Reforged and don’t have old CD keys, don’t get a refund! You can use your copy of Reforged to validate your access to Classic WC3.

edit 3: I’m mega potato, just found an older thread that basically has this but more in-depth and allows you to go to older patches. Ignore me lol

Edit 7: (From the user MajorFoley) For those of you who want to still play their classic saves, go to the folder in question and copy the saves located in the warcraft 3 folder into the warcraft 3 Public test realm folder. This is for classic to PTR so you can continue playing your classic saves, as far as i know reforged doesn’t work with em at all:

“…create a profile i think then copy the contents from warcraft 3 into warcraft 3 public test from this location
C:\users\user\saved games\warcraft 3 and c:\users\user\warcraft 3 public test. Just copy the contents from the former into the latter and you should be good to go. It should work if you pre do it too but its easier this way because it creates the folder.”

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Thanks guy

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Hey. I can confirm that PTR build 1.30.1 doesn’t let you play over LAN. We could see each other’s games, but couldn’t connect. I don’t believe LAN would work on the other PTR builds, but its worth a try. If anyone would like to try and get back to us, that would be great as the PTR builds are convenient.

That being said, I made a thread over here: For those who want to play Classic Warcraft 3 - #2 by wc3tutor-1926

This thread details what you need to play the classic client.

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Thanks my guy! I legit only just found your thread oof, sorry about this >_> big potato moments
Thank you for the info though!! Super appreciated :smiley:

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Where’s the other thread?

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GiantAxe put a link to their thread in their reply just a few posts up

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No worries my guy. It breaks my heart to see Reforged butcher Warcraft but it warms my soul to see the community still going strong. You’re 100% correct that this info needs to be out there.

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use netease platform ，you can play 1.31 wothout upgrade

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Seems to be all in Chinese, although definitely worth to check out. I will update the other thread with this info. Thanks!

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don’t combine a netease guide with your “classic tft” guide… netease wont stay on 1.31 they will eventually update to work on 1.32 they are just always a little behind official updates since they work separately from blizzard, but they are where the esports scene is strongest after all

netease is good for competitive multiplayer but its not really for custom maps, and having an older version of TFT is more for casual/offline play… so they don’t really have the same purpose, especially if somebody is trying to play an older version of the game

setting up netease can also be a lot more work than just setting up an older offline version of TFT, since netease is in another language, plus theres already guides out there for netease anyway (just think, some of us have 3 versions of the game installed on our PCs… 1 for reforged, 1 for classic/1.27, and 1 for netease lol) but netease will be the same as reforged once they update it, the only difference is they are for china

so you should just focus on version 1.27b (don’t try to get people using 1.30 since that’s technically reforged") what we need is to make 1.27b the “definitive” classic version for people to play without any of the reforged features

the more people using 1.27b as a “backup” of the original game, the easier it will be to maintain 2 communities (one for reforged, and one for older/original stuff) because hopefully at some point, a private server (like W3Arena) will revive the actual classic game on 1.27b, and maybe possibly add their own unique updates separate from reforged

I hope that makes sense :slight_smile:

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you can change chinese to english through regedit easily.