Blizzard Patching Warcraft III and Diablo 2 For Modern Operating Systems

In the video above Robert Bridenbecker head of the classic games division of Blizzard has recently talked about an upcoming Warcraft III patch 1.27 coming March 15th. If it's anything like the recent Diablo 2 patch it should update the game for modern operating systems and fix some bugs and popular cheat programs.

"It’s been a long time coming, but today we’re releasing 1.14a for Diablo II.

This update focuses on system glitches introduced by modern operating systems. In related news, you can finally retire those old Mac PowerPCs. Included with the update is a shiny new installer for OSX.

We’ve also begun working to improve our cheat-detection and hack-prevention capabilities. There’s still work to be done, but we’re making improvements every day."

Really great to see Blizzard patch these older games and this seems to be the fruit of Blizzard hiring to patch up these older titles Travis mentioned November of 2015. Warcraft III is one of my most favorite Blizzard titles so an update will be welcomed and i'd love to see it optimized for modern Widescreen monitors!

http://us.battle.net/en/forum/topic/20742864181
http://cheerfulghost.com/Travis/posts/2690/blizzard-is-restoring-their-classic-games-to-glory

Travis Admin wrote on 03/14/2016 at 03:01am

I'm downloading D2 for modern Macs right now, and I can't wait to try out W3.

Travis Admin wrote on 03/14/2016 at 03:04am

As a sidenote, I was unable to find the new mac client on the game page for the individual games, I had to go here:

https://us.battle.net/account/management/download/?show=classic

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 03/14/2016 at 04:16am

Good to hear the d2 Mac client is now available. It wasn't yesterday.

Will_Ball Game Mod Super Member wrote on 03/14/2016 at 03:37pm

Awesome news!

Travis Admin wrote on 03/14/2016 at 07:19pm

It works really well on Mac, so far. I powered through to level 3 and it was smooth.

I don't know how to make it run windowed, though. The option isn't in there where you'd expect it to be. They haven't patched resolutions so you're still limited to 640x480 and 800x600 so in fullscreen it's skewed on widescreen monitors.

Travis Admin wrote on 03/14/2016 at 07:27pm

OK so, you can run in windowed mode by pressing cmd+m

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 03/14/2016 at 08:09pm

Nice thanks for letting me know. It should be easier to do the widescreen thing with War 3 than D2 as I believe the enemy patting and affronts keyed off what you see.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 03/14/2016 at 08:09pm

Or keyed to what you should see within a 800x600 field of view. Maybe they can change that?

Hopefully.

Travis Admin wrote on 03/14/2016 at 08:53pm

As of the last War 3 patch you can play it widescreen at least semi-natively with registry settings, so really it's just a matter of Blizz adding the menu options.

Travis Admin wrote on 03/14/2016 at 08:56pm

Ah, never mind. As of the latest patch, the widescreen resolutions are present in the menu already, so this upcoming patch won't have to worry about that.

Travis Admin wrote on 03/14/2016 at 09:01pm

Yup, confirmed. Even without this upcoming patch you can play in glorious 1080p.

Travis Admin wrote on 03/14/2016 at 10:07pm

OK reading more about it, it may still be stretching the image. I'm reading conflicting things about that. If so it doesn't look as bad as it does on Diablo II, perhaps because of the different way the isometric camera works.

Also, I wonder if Starcraft 1 will get this same treatment. I imagine they still have demand for it.

Travis Admin wrote on 03/14/2016 at 10:13pm

Oh! Yes, they will be updating Starcraft, according to what I reported on back in November. I had just forgotten :D

http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/careers/posting.html?id=1600060

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 03/14/2016 at 11:49pm

Yeah, you can stretch the image but 4x3 preserves the original aspect ratio, at least in the older version. I'll check this one.

It kind of bugs me to have the image stretched a bit so I keep it to 4x3.

Travis Admin wrote on 03/15/2016 at 05:17pm

OK so, trying out War 3 on Mac. Oddly, if you're in fullscreen it's going to stretch regardless, but if you're windowed you can't set the resolution. :/

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 03/15/2016 at 06:35pm

Having War 3 on Mac means I am going to play this more. I had an old save from the holidays, now I can keep going! I am currently in the Undead missions, which are super fun.

If you want to join this conversation you need to sign in.