Multiple maps in an MPQ?

DarKNeSS~87 and MartinezTG gave me the idea of putting multiple maps in one big MPQ... but I'm not sure how to implement it.

What would you do with the MPQ, how will warcraft read it? Do you have to tell the game to open the MPQ somehow? When you go to play a single player custom game, will the MPQ show up as a map? Or do you need some kind of a lead-in map that links to the MPQ?

I would deeply appreciate any help from anyone... Any hints or tips?

Nobody knows anything about this?

Im not completely sure if your idea will wonk. I tried this myself about 6-7 months ago, but had some problems when trying to load an "imported" map.

In theory, you first need to create a map, and this will be the map that is loaded up when the user starts the map. Next you need subfolders, one for each "imported" map (ex "MyMap.w3m/Mission2/"). Then just copy all the files from the map you want to import into the correct subfolder (MyMap.w3m/Mission2/war3map.j).

The one major problem with this is that the MPQ will become HUGE!! So this idea should only be used on single player scenarios/campaigns.

Remember I have no idea if this will even work, let alone how to load "submaps".

Why not creating a campaign ?
In a campaign all your maps are in one file that can be easily downloaded and played without bother with backuping war3patch.mpq.

I'm planning to pack my campaign in a .w3n (or whatever the extension was) when I finish my campaign but before that I put my skins and all stuff into the War3Patch.mpq but my maps are under the maps directory. I ain't gonna put them all the time in the w3n and test them there.

When I'll see that my campaign is finished and beta-tested and working all right then I'll just put everything that I've put into the War3patch.mpq into the w3n (by importing it -> I think that there is such an option to import the files to the w3n and not into every single map in the campaign) and all the maps of the campaign under the same path as I've always had them in my Wc3 directory.

Martinez

To switch between levels in a campaign, do you need to know the full path from the Warcraft III root or can you just reference them as their path in the campaign file?

You can write the map's campaign-file path.

Martinez

Almost forgot to thank you guys; I got sidetracked by figuring out the campaign editor. Thanks a lot; this helps immensely.

Please be patient with me;
I haven't understanded how to do to create a campaign. In a MPQ.
Can someone explain it to me simply?

I'm afraid it may not be possible... Even though I was able to import other maps into my main map, I couldn't link to them and I have no reason to believe you could...
There is the possibility of changing the "War3Patch.mpq" file to contain your maps. Unfortunately, this file would be unnecessarily large and annoying to install.
I think the best way to do it really is to use the Campaign Editor, which I was trying to avoid when starting this post because I didn't understand it at all (I hadn't discovered the tabs!).