Comments on: Utilities, modifications and conversions This section does not cite any references or sources. Please improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed. (February 2008) Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness was an unusual game for the time because a large number of third-party utilities were written for it. Among the first things, Daniel Lemberg reverse-engineered the Warcraft II map file (*.pud) format and created the first third-party map editor, War2xEd, which could do numerous things the bundled map editor could not do, such as editing unit attributes. Although Lemberg did not make the source code for War2xEd public, he did publish the complete Warcraft II map file format, which led to a wealth of new tools, including a Macintosh version of the tool called PudMaster. More importantly, Blizzard began to use War2xEd internally, and it influenced them to bundle a feature-rich editor with their immensely popular game StarCraft. the next important breakthrough came when Alexander Cech and Lemberg broke the encryption used in the base game data files. Cech went on to create a program called Wardraft, which allowed users to browse and modify the contents of the game data files, allowing comprehensive modifications. the spawn of extensive alterations became known as “Total Conversions”, and a great many projects were in motion for a good long while. Some of the more prominent were “DeathCraft: Twilight of Demons” by Dirk “The Guardian” by Richartz, “War of the Ring” by Gurthaur, “Editor’s Total Conversion” by Fronzel Neekburn and the whole of the Warclan, “Elfcraft” by Ace Calhoon, and the noteworthy “Rituals of Rebirth” spearheaded by Kalindor, Kosmous, and Commoner. [edit]Special features Humorous unit quotes are a feature of Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness, following the tradition of the original Warcraft: Orcs & Humans. If a single unit is clicked on several times in a row, his or her voice samples change from regular to longer, emotional ones. He or she may start getting angry at the player, or quote lines in reference to movies or games. For example, a footman would say, “don’t you have a kingdom to run?” or “are you still touching me?” These phrases differed in the game’s demo for the Footman and Grunt units, and were mostly indignations to purchase the full version. Clicking on a non-playable critter such as a sheep enough times causes it to blow up. If the disk for Beyond the Dark Portal is inserted into a CD player, the orchestrated music from the game can be played. In addition, there is a bonus 13th track called “I’m a Medieval Man” which features remixed sound bites from the first game. the track is also available in-game by typing “disco” as a cheat. this however gives you the status cheater when you finish that mission. “Medieval Man” is also a cheat code in StarCraft to obtain all unit upgrades for free or in Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness to play the song as background music. Also, in StarCraft, if one clicks on an observer while playing as the Protoss, a clip of the song will be played. the song is also a reference to the Command & Conquer song “Mechanical Man”.[citation needed] the script that was used in the book positioned in the background screen while the player was informed about mission objectives is Serbian Cyrillic alphabet, but the language in which it is written is English. the text contains a small section of a game story text, mentioning how the Orcish hordes entered the forests of Lordaeron. Warcraft II’s soundtrack has been released in MP3 format by Blizzard[2] [edit]Online play Screen shot of game play.Although the Battle.net Edition wasn’t released until 1999, online play was widespread from the game’s release using IPX Emulators such as Kali. Warcraft II (along with Command & Conquer) was one of the first Real-time strategy games to be played widely online, and spawned several leagues, including the International Warcraft League (IWL) and singles and teams ladders on Case’s Ladder. the Mac release allowed multiplayer games over TCP/IP. the IRC channel MacWarCraft served as a gathering place for online play, before Battle.net was created. There was also a popular league created by the Macintosh community, that provided a ranking system and helped players find opponents, called MaG League (short for Macintosh Gaming League). When the Battle.net edition was released, a new meter of play speeds was added, including a turbo-like speed called “Fastest” that became popular with some players, while traditional players gamed on “Even Faster” speed. Despite the old age of the game, play continues on Battle.net today, along with a significant community on server.war2.ru servers. For LAN (home) multi play, tools such as DOSBox can be used to emulate IPX or direct serial connections over TCP/IP. [edit]Ports Tides of Darkness and Beyond the Dark Portal were released together for Sega Saturn and PlayStation under the title Warcraft II: the Dark Saga in 1997 by Electronic Arts. There was also a reverse engineered free software game engine called Freecraft, which allowed users to import the actual game data from Warcraft II and play the game on different platforms and with additional features like queuing unit production, finding idle workers, an improved AI and network connectivity for up to 16 players. In addition to being compatible with Warcraft II, it could also be used with a set of artwork and scenarios made by the Freecraft Media Project (FcMP). Although the actual Freecraft program and FcMP used no art or code from Warcraft II, the project received a threatening cease-and-desist letter from Blizzard, apparently due to similarity to the Warcraft trademarks. Not willing to fight Blizzard, the maintainers canceled the whole project, later rekindling it under the name of Stratagus. By using this game engine through Wargus, the game is also playable on BSD, Linux and Mac OS X.

Comments on: Utilities, modifications and conversions This section does not cite any references or sources. Please improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed. (February 2008) Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness was an unusual game for the time because a large number of third-party utilities were written for it. Among the first things, Daniel Lemberg reverse-engineered the Warcraft II map file (*.pud) format and created the first third-party map editor, War2xEd, which could do numerous things the bundled map editor could not do, such as editing unit attributes. Although Lemberg did not make the source code for War2xEd public, he did publish the complete Warcraft II map file format, which led to a wealth of new tools, including a Macintosh version of the tool called PudMaster. More importantly, Blizzard began to use War2xEd internally, and it influenced them to bundle a feature-rich editor with their immensely popular game StarCraft. the next important breakthrough came when Alexander Cech and Lemberg broke the encryption used in the base game data files. Cech went on to create a program called Wardraft, which allowed users to browse and modify the contents of the game data files, allowing comprehensive modifications. the spawn of extensive alterations became known as “Total Conversions”, and a great many projects were in motion for a good long while. Some of the more prominent were “DeathCraft: Twilight of Demons” by Dirk “The Guardian” by Richartz, “War of the Ring” by Gurthaur, “Editor’s Total Conversion” by Fronzel Neekburn and the whole of the Warclan, “Elfcraft” by Ace Calhoon, and the noteworthy “Rituals of Rebirth” spearheaded by Kalindor, Kosmous, and Commoner. [edit]Special features Humorous unit quotes are a feature of Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness, following the tradition of the original Warcraft: Orcs & Humans. If a single unit is clicked on several times in a row, his or her voice samples change from regular to longer, emotional ones. He or she may start getting angry at the player, or quote lines in reference to movies or games. For example, a footman would say, “don’t you have a kingdom to run?” or “are you still touching me?” These phrases differed in the game’s demo for the Footman and Grunt units, and were mostly indignations to purchase the full version. Clicking on a non-playable critter such as a sheep enough times causes it to blow up. If the disk for Beyond the Dark Portal is inserted into a CD player, the orchestrated music from the game can be played. In addition, there is a bonus 13th track called “I’m a Medieval Man” which features remixed sound bites from the first game. the track is also available in-game by typing “disco” as a cheat. this however gives you the status cheater when you finish that mission. “Medieval Man” is also a cheat code in StarCraft to obtain all unit upgrades for free or in Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness to play the song as background music. Also, in StarCraft, if one clicks on an observer while playing as the Protoss, a clip of the song will be played. the song is also a reference to the Command & Conquer song “Mechanical Man”.[citation needed] the script that was used in the book positioned in the background screen while the player was informed about mission objectives is Serbian Cyrillic alphabet, but the language in which it is written is English. the text contains a small section of a game story text, mentioning how the Orcish hordes entered the forests of Lordaeron. Warcraft II’s soundtrack has been released in MP3 format by Blizzard[2] [edit]Online play Screen shot of game play.Although the Battle.net Edition wasn’t released until 1999, online play was widespread from the game’s release using IPX Emulators such as Kali. Warcraft II (along with Command & Conquer) was one of the first Real-time strategy games to be played widely online, and spawned several leagues, including the International Warcraft League (IWL) and singles and teams ladders on Case’s Ladder. the Mac release allowed multiplayer games over TCP/IP. the IRC channel MacWarCraft served as a gathering place for online play, before Battle.net was created. There was also a popular league created by the Macintosh community, that provided a ranking system and helped players find opponents, called MaG League (short for Macintosh Gaming League). When the Battle.net edition was released, a new meter of play speeds was added, including a turbo-like speed called “Fastest” that became popular with some players, while traditional players gamed on “Even Faster” speed. Despite the old age of the game, play continues on Battle.net today, along with a significant community on server.war2.ru servers. For LAN (home) multi play, tools such as DOSBox can be used to emulate IPX or direct serial connections over TCP/IP. [edit]Ports Tides of Darkness and Beyond the Dark Portal were released together for Sega Saturn and PlayStation under the title Warcraft II: the Dark Saga in 1997 by Electronic Arts. There was also a reverse engineered free software game engine called Freecraft, which allowed users to import the actual game data from Warcraft II and play the game on different platforms and with additional features like queuing unit production, finding idle workers, an improved AI and network connectivity for up to 16 players. In addition to being compatible with Warcraft II, it could also be used with a set of artwork and scenarios made by the Freecraft Media Project (FcMP). Although the actual Freecraft program and FcMP used no art or code from Warcraft II, the project received a threatening cease-and-desist letter from Blizzard, apparently due to similarity to the Warcraft trademarks. Not willing to fight Blizzard, the maintainers canceled the whole project, later rekindling it under the name of Stratagus. By using this game engine through Wargus, the game is also playable on BSD, Linux and Mac OS X. http://nkoy454.howmuchcanyoutalk.com/2008/04/24/utilities-modifications-and-conversions-this-section-does-not-cite-any-references-or-sources-please-improve-this-section-by-adding-citations-to-reliable-sources-unverifiable-material-may-be-challe-3/ Just another HowMuchCanYouTalk.com weblog Fri, 05 Sep 2008 21:32:48 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=wordpress-mu-1.2.4