Hi Blizzard employees,
I am part of a team that creates a multiracial set of maps with costume models, and i am strangling with the 256mb barrier. For Warcraft 3 classic i think it’s ok but with reforged models we struggle to insert all of our factions and assets, so, please, can you lift that limitation?
3 Likes
As a work around you can reduce the texture resolution of some of the larger textures down a mipmap level. This should reduce the storage requirements by over 50%.
Well, we already did that, although we lost a bit in quality but we have almost 17 factions yet the map can’t handle them… I mean the limitation for big project such as ours is painful…
spoiler
www_hiveworkshop_com/media/draenei.132495/
replace_ with. because the forum doesn’t allow me to use links…
The limitation exists for security reasons and to protect people with data caps from downloading large chunks of maps that would empty their internet.
And to maintain a rule on the size that maps should be in. lifting limitation to be infinite. or even 1GB is dangerous and also the game was never intended to be this way in the first place.
What War3 evolved to be before 1.32 and throughout the years of Blizzards abandonment of the game. was a light wight game with resources and a map system being built for it that did not need to become heafty downloadable “mods” like the ones you download from Moddb but instead something you can fetch and play on the fly.
Not only did Blizzard not realize this. the models they ordered Lemonsky to produce for the game were functionally counter-productive and ignored what the game had evolved to be before they came.
HD models would still increase the size, and make it so replicating them for custom models would still be harder then doing it for SD models, but the extent in which Reforged models pushed this to the extreme is where the issue arises.
And i’m also a fellow custom melee (melee refers to the default game) developer with my own ideas for custom factions and alternate ideas. Reforged as a whole was basically the biggest backstab to the “Altered melee” subset of the community.
2 Likes
It made perfectly sense back then, but let’s see what happens now…
The current stupid dual standard:
If you make a map, a player which is, let’s remind it, INTERESTED in playing that map, cannot enjoy it if it is larger than 256 mb.
Let’s also remember that according to many on this forum, 256 mb is “nothing” for “modern computers”.
But
26gb of useless files is totally ok to download.
26gb is about 100 times 256mb.
My guess is, when you host a game, isn’t the map uploaded on blizzards servers too?
Isn’t that maybe because they don’t want their server to be spammed by useful stuff while spamming your computer with useless ****? (my doubt…)
What is actually “hosted” on their servers? The full map or just the logic part?
5 Likes
Well i already exceeded the 300mb to play-test my map for obvious reasons and although it works from the editor, in-game it’s unplayable so yeah, it’s not game-engine problem, it’s server capacity which we don’t need to begin with, as we can download the maps through external sites. We are not at 2004, it’s 2021 and clearly their engine can manage it especially if other game companies have already succeed on that aspect…
2 Likes
on release it was 512mb Idk why they reduced it to 256mb
2 Likes
That would have been good if it has remained as such…
There was rumors the limit was 512, i would be fine with this. but i’m not sure what happened with that.
Lycan points that out, i’m not sure if it was 512 or not so i’ll take his word for it.
Also WinterDryad is right, if you can get a 300+mb custom melee with 17 factions workable on multiplayer then the Reforged gods must favor you.
1 Like
I already did, yet i want more if possible, if with 256mb i can have 16 factions, with 512 that will be easily 32 by adding various human kingdoms and orcish/troll clans etc. And i can upscale the quality a little bit
Well i wish you luck then, 512 is still respective of all the bounderies discussed previously. so i see it as completely fine.
Thanks, although for people that claim 17 factions are enough, i will point that if i can give an option to a player, to choose between humans of Lordaeron, Gilneas or better between humans of Gilneas or worgen then i want to be able to give this through our project… Right now i am forced to put all the trolls together as ‘‘The Empire of Zul’’ and yeah… that’s a bit tragic
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There is a hard limit on map size of 2 GB. They would need to upgrade Warcraft III to use MPQ version 4 to support larger.
The main issue allowing larger is data bloat. Say a map is 512 MB. Then every version of that map is 512 MB of data. Have 8 versions of it? That is 4 GB of data. Imagine if the map was even larger!
To get around this there should be a mod system similar to StarCraft II, where asset packs can be maintained in a mod file separate from the maps. Additionally old versions of maps or asset pack mods should auto delete to prevent wasting the player’s storage.
2 Likes
The way i would personally Warcraftify this sort to speak is allow players to just drag and drop assets in there too for better authority on what’s being used. so they have a more direct control over the space. occupied.
It all depends on how faction balance ends up being, and how many factions have unit composition that are samey and repetitive, as long as you are able to pull that off you’re good.
Me personally ? i don’t think i can pull off having more then 8 factions. i heavily focus on gameplay uniqueness and choose factions not because “they look cool” but how much their lore background allows me to produce a faction that plays very differently then others.
First of all you should consider that we live in 2021 and it’s unthinkable to limit the size to mb because their servers cannot handle them. Second, you have to consider (if you know about modding wc3 models), that the size of in game models in terms of mbs is huge (because of their lods). Third, even if you delete their lods they easily exceed over 5 mbs if you modificate them(especially if you make custom animations and textures). Lastly you cannot approach this matter by your side of view because you can consider that this limit its ok, but other modders have to limit their imagination so that it can fit in a mb limit that has no logic whatsoever.
1 Like
5 bucks says you’re an Alt account.
“Its 2021 lol”
read similar answers about 5 trillion times already.
Unfortunately to grasp my point of view requires extensive background knowledge of all the details i already mentioned, and a little respect/understanding of some of the overall values i advocate for preserving.
If “No logical sense” is something you are so proudly assured of you can call me 500 years later if they ever increase map upload limit size above 512mb-1GB. because there is a lot of logic behind what i say, the issue here is that the damage is already done. the damage, is the models.
So i don’t disagree with your argument on peoples imagination being limited, your solution is that mapsize limit should be infinite, i on the other hand have no solution actually, why ? because my “solution”. was to release a more faithful and humble set of models, with handpainted textures, preferably also created inhouse or under direct influence of Samwise Didier and produced something that is objectively more fitting considering:
- Pre existing maps transitioning properly without having to deal with extremely huge changes to how the art-design of the models are.
- Models perform functionally better for an RTS game.
- Models despite being HD still try to retain traditional Blizzard methods of model creation so reproducing them for custom games is easier.
- More fitting size results for maps.
Under this a lot of things would be easier, and a lot of things would be working better. but for the most ambitious of projects size will still be an issue.
Singleplayer maps/Custom Campaigns probably do not have this limitation (i think) but as for multiplayer, i would simply just mention what DrSuperGood suggested.
5 bucks says you are a blizzard employee.
Ok, so now we are coming to the problem of the community, people that are narrowminded. So you are suggesting to go 10 years back in the aspect of model making than change the game to fit this kind of models. Yeah we live in 2021 and you surely don’t understand that, obviously. Take a look at the community of ''Mount & Blade" especially the previous title “Warband”, go there and see their mods or you can go in other titles like Attila total war (1212 mod). They could have made the game more modable that’s what I’m suggesting.
1 Like
5 Bucks says you’re a spirit panda.
I’m not suggesting we should go back 10 years, Heros of the Storm is actually a great example of how to keep all the markers i mentioned but move forward into the future, World of Warcraft is also doing the same thing.
Although when it comes to an RTS like War3 further things i pointed out need to be taken into consideration.
Even though there is some hard core limitations we have to deal with, like the fact that dabbling with too much spell ideas connected to knocking units back is a dangerous thing in War3. given it is done a lot, but especially for a custom melee map series it does not feel natural.
While in other games knockback as a feature can be used with ease because the game engine and the models largely support it.
5 bucks says that neither of you are what you accuse each another.
DrSuperGood gave a good solution. I can suggest that if the limit is 2 gb with the current codding then it’s easier to just set the limit to 512mb for our maps. If that takes huge junk on the server then they can even let us create our own. We can still do that with hamaichi through Lan connection without using the server library yet they set the limit even in the single player mode and the lan connection… As stormknight suggested we can lift it there and it will make our lives easier. As for the models, yes you can’t create current day models with the art style of reforge with them being just 500kb. Sadly as Panagiwths implied, If you want quality then you need more freedom in the mb section of the map creation… The thing is, we can point in the problems all we want but the reality is plain simple, that we are better to find solutions or suggest alternatives…
Absence of faith in Blizzard is why i made the remark that you can call me 500 years later if they ever do this. their current online servers are junk, they already show that they lack respect for what the community does, like with W3Champions.
Why ? because even though we replaced what they didnt do, they STILL plan to create their own ladder/playerprofiles and ranking, so instead of providing something we already didn’t come up with a solution with, they’re just as stubborn as ever. if you think Blizzard now is the people to give us the ability to do our own thing then you certainly have more faith then i do.
This whole bloody project of W3 was ideally suppose to be Blizzard simply expanding our ability to do more stuff, but instead they decided they knew better.