Warcraft 3 gets its own public test realm

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.

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