hidden campaign stuff, how to make replays of the campaign (!!!) and some other stuff

Hello everybody,

I'm from Germany (So my English wouldn't be perfect ;).) and you could call me Eff X. I found out some things about WarCraft 3 you should know, I think. Basically it is all about messing around with the World Editor and the campaign, and it could help you a little bit, I hope. But before you try anything from the things below, beat the game first, it's worth it :) !!! (I also played the game first, although I never won the last mission, yet ;).)

There are two files in the profiles subdirectories of the save directory.
campaigns.w3v - cache for saving some campaign data, which is used in the next mission
campaigns.w3p - file for saving campaign data for your profile; is changeable with a text editor; good for changing your name, so you could use your campaign data with the World Editor, just change the name to WorldEdit, load a mission into the World Editor and test it, so you could see the credits map again in hard, for example.

To change the campaign maps, you have to extract them first from the war3.mpq by using one of these mpq-programs. The maps are in maps\campaign. (I used mpqview 1.1beta with a listfile for WarCraft 3 and it worked fine.) There are all the maps from the campaign and a "BonusCredits.w3m", this is the map you see, when you have beaten the mame. Beat the last mission in hard again, and you will see some extra (StarCraft) stuff ! But there is also another credits map, which isn't shown in the game, and it isn't complete. This map is called "WarCraftIIICredits.w3m" and it is also in maps\campaign in the war3.mpq. There are some triggers, that are never running if you test the map. So you need to change the map a little bit. Just add "Trigger - Run Victory <gen> (ignoring conditions)" and "Trigger - Run VictoryHard <gen> (ignoring conditions)" to the trigger "CinematicStart". And add maybe in "VictroyHard" or elsewhere "Trigger - Run HydraRush <gen> (ignoring conditions)". (You better change the spawning times of the hydralisks too, because they are to short, so the units often fight on the right side, and you don't see anything. I changed them all to 8 seconds.) Watch it, if you have beaten the game in normal, and then watch it again in hard.

Another thing is, that WarCraft 3 automatically saves a replay if you test your map. This file is called "lastreplay.w3g" and it is in the main directory of WarCraft 3. But not with the campaign maps, there you have to change these maps a little bit. Just remove/deaktivate "Game - Set campaign to ... " under "Initialization", and in the last map of a campaign you have to remove/deaktivate "Game - Enable the ... campaign", and check if "Game - Victory Player .. (skip/show dialogs, skip/show scores)" is set to "show scores". (Both normally in a trigger called "End" or "Victory".) Now you have the possibility to chose save replay in the score screen! But WarCraft 3 wouldn't use your changed maps, if you put them into a subdirectory called "campaign" of your maps directory, or even if you put them in one of the mpqs, then you see a hint, that your map is either corrupt or missing. (It seems that the original and unchanged maps have a watermark or something like this, so WarCraft knows, that this aren't the original maps. You see this in the map selection screen in multiplayer, every map from Blizzard has the Blizzard logo over the white scroll, which other maps don't have.) You have to load them from the World Editor, or it wouldn't work. But you could also change "Game - Set the next level to ...", so you could play without loading every map into the World Editor, and without loading WarCraft 3 and the maps again and again. (But remember to put maps\ in front of the map name, if you put the maps into the map directory !!!) So if anybody wants he could make replays of the complete campaign. (I would like to have a replay of the last mission (Night Elf, Chapter 7), because I haven't won it without cheats, yet ;).) Although this would be a nice version for making a walktrough ... . On the other hand this means, if you put "Game - Set campaign to ... " into your map, you could prevent players from making replays on your map. But how usefull is this ? And this means that you get back to the campaign screen corresponding to the campaign you specified after playing the map ;).

I also took a quick look on the maps and found some easter eggs and well hidden treasures. (Also interesting: Every map has a cheat code support, without it Instant Defeat/Victory wouldn't work :). ) There seams to be a lot of specials in the Night Elf and Undead Chapters, but nearly nothing in the other ;).

Night Elf Chapter 2: Near the upper right corner of the map, you could get a hydralisk as support !!! When you get the Ballistas, just use them to get through the Trees, in upper right direction there you will find the hydralisk.

Night Elf Chapter 3: Use a Ballista to get in the lower left corner of the map, there you have to defeat a Wraith and two Ghosts. As reward you get a Scroll of Resurrection, which is very usefull!

Night Elf Chapter 4: Use a Ballista to get through the Trees in the lower left corner of the haunted forest, there you have to defeat an Ancient Storm Wyrm and two Lightning Lizards. As reward you get a Sobi Mask.

Night Elf Chapter 5: This one is full of hidden things! In the North of the Defiled Fountain of Life there is an area with large mushrooms and some bones in front of it, use Furions "Force of Nature" to get past them. Behind you will see a short video, then defeat "The largest Panda ever" and you will get the Necklace of Spell Immunity, one of the best Items, I think. Above the area with the Ghosts there is a seal called "Jimmy the Seal" trapped behind mushrooms, he drops a Manual of Health. When you are alone with Furion, before he calls the bridge, you can go to the north and to the south. In the south you have to make your way through mushrooms two times, there you see a circle of power, it brings you to an Ice Revenant, that drops a Robe of the Magi +6. In the north you also have to make your way trough mushrooms, until you see some on the other side of the river, cast Force of Nature on them. On the other side you will find some Furbolgs, which you can rescue. In the second part, where you are alone with Tyrande, there is a libary in the lower right. In the upper left corner of it is a hidden gate, behind it is the Book of Summoning Pedestral, destroy it and you get a Tome of Knowledge. Behind the trees next to the Fountain of Life is a chest with Gauntlets of Ogre Strength +3. When you go on there, before you go north, there are some trees on the left side, behind them is a teleport to a place, where you find a Mantle of Intelligence +3. But I have no idea how to get past them, maybe with these goblin landmines you find a little bit in the south. If somebody gives proof to this, he should tell me. There is also a disabled Trigger, that spawned a "Jimmy the Seal" there, and when it was killed you got a seal, that fights for you :) !!! In this map are some other unused Triggers too, and some Units with the comment TEST, but I didn't check out what they do, yet.

Night Elf Interlude (after Chapter 6): Nothing special here, but this map should be very interesting for mapmakers, because it shows very good, how to combine the tilesets in a good way :) !!!

Orc Chapter 7: Some things you could easyly miss. In the room with the Arcolyte like guys (2 Heretics and 2 Falen Priests) is a gate in the south, that leads to two Sludge Minions and a Sludge Monstrosity with a Ring of Regeneration. After the bridge and the Death Revenant there are two gates, one in the north with a Crown of Kings +5, you need the Blood Key for this Gate, and one in the south with the Blood Key. When you get with Cairne to the Hungry Hungry Lizard, wait until he has eaten enough to let you pass to The Lion Horn of Stormwind. And this map has some unused Triggers too.

Orc Chapter 8: An unused trigger called Magic Vault Randomizer, which gives you something random from a magic vault :). There is also a comment for this trigger: "This was the handy-dandy Magic Box item/unit bonus randomizer that never found a place in the game. Hopefully, someone will stumble across this and resurrect it for a casino area on one of their RPG maps. One can only hope..." So everybody, who is making a RPG map, can do the author a favor, and make a casior area with his trigger! (..., because somebody is stumbled across this :) !!!)

Undead Chapter 2: On the way to the Rogue Wizard above your base, you will see some skulls on sticks. Use the Meat Wagons to crush the trees between them, and follow the way, at the end you will find two sasquatches. A little bit below is the Pandaren relaxation area, make your way there from the teal base. When you have beaten Uther, go on without picking up the urn. In the lower right you will find Kenshin, one of his sheeps drops a Goblin Night Scope!

Undead Chapter 3: If you always crush the trees next to runes, you won't miss anything.

Undead Chapter 4: Right above your starting point is the secret of this map.

Undead Interlude (after Chapter 5): Another good example for combining tilesets. There are also just some visual effects disabled. (Desolving of the Dreadlords and some animations of the Skeletons)

Undead Chapter 6: Follow the path below your base, at the end of the screen there will be some trees on the left, behind them are a Ice Troll Warlord with a Sobi Mask and two Murloc Nightcrawler.

Undead Chapter 7: Not really something hidden, but take your time to free the creatures in the cages, they will help you a lot, because they are not affected by the shields.

Undead Chapter 8: If you don't need every unit you have to defend your base, you could walk across the map and find some interesting things. In the middle of the map is an isle with an Archmage (drops a Ring of Protection +5 !!!) and a tent with a Tome of Strength +2 in it. If you reach the upper right corner of the map, you will find a Magic Vault with a Scepter of Mastery and a Medallion of Courage (!!!).

And for all the mapmakers out there, which want to use the special units (marine,zergling, ...), there is a way to create them without using some extra stuff. Use the the Trigger "Unit - Create Units facing ...". When you chose the unit-type, use "Function" and then "Conversion - Convert String to Unit-Type", and there use as value the name of the unit you want. (Zergling - zergling; Marine - marine; Hydralisk - hydralisk; Space Orc - chaosspaceorc; ? - sammycube; ? - theshoveler)
And you could also change the color of a unit without changing their owner. There is a Trigger called "Unit - Change color". So you see, you doesn't need the Enhanced WarCraft 3 World Editor from BlacKDicK (Great Work, I like it!) for everything, the guys from Blizzard didn't use it too :), but it makes a lot of work easier!

If somebody knows, how to make maps with sizes the World Editor doesn't allow, he should tell me. (Does WarCraft 3 crash, because it is to much to load ???)

I wish you a lot of fun, watching replays from other players, maybe they won the mission in a better way ... . And send me a replay of the last Night Elf mission to [email protected] !!!

Lok-Tar Ogar!
Eff X

I just looked through the readme of Cookies WorldEditor Advanced v.1.1c, when I realized, that I missed the juggernaut as special unit ;). For the juggernaut you have to use "orcjuggernaut".