Non-Reforged Install
So maybe you’ve come here because you’re just like me, wanting to finally beat this masterpiece of a game, or just do another replay. I’ve thought „man, how great would it be to play it on my Steam Deck OLED”. Guess what - it’s not even easy to play it on Windows, as Blizzard effectively blocks access to their games from times when they were actually good, and I didn’t want to spend any money on this hot piece of garbage, talking of course about Warcraft III Reforged.
Thankfully there are people on this earth that are willing to use some hardcore-shit reverse engineering techniques to dig up the original installer that doesn’t require connecting to Battle.net and with a little bit of additional tweaking by trial and error it’s fully playable on the Steam Deck in every available, fully voice acted language. And yes - even the low res cinematics work.
Here’s what you have to do:
1. Go into desktop mode on your Steam Deck
2. Download the archive installer from [https://www.hiveworkshop.com/threads/download-archive-warcraft-iii-1-30-widescreen-multi-language.352274/](https://www.hiveworkshop.com/threads/download-archive-warcraft-iii-1-30-widescreen-multi-language.352274/) and lay a huge thank to the **Mashiirow** guy with everyone involved in digging this up
3. Read the included readme, it contains some useful info, especially if you run Windows
4. Unpack the archive to a folder with your games, as it contains an already installed game
5. Download Proton-GE (you can find multiple instructions how to do that on the web) - it’s required for cinematics to work as it has required codecs, in contrary to regular Proton. I used version 8-25
6. Add Warcraft III.exe as a non Steam game, then right-click on it and select properties
7. Force the Steam Play compatibility to use just downloaded Proton-GE
8. Launch the game through Steam
9. Wait for the installer window to appear (it can take quite some time for the first time)
10. Choose the left option that allows you to install the original game without - the window cursor can’t be controlled with the Steam Deck trackpad, you have to use the touch screen
11. Enter your game keys - on-screen keyboard won’t work here either, you have to use an external keyobard
12. The game will launch, but the cinematics won’t work. The menu will have 4:3 aspect ratio and when you go into the graphics options you’ll notice the resolution section is grayed out. Quit the game
13. Go back to game launch options and enter the following command in the game launch options: `-nativefullscr`. Launch the game again
14. Go into graphics settings - you’ll notice the resolution section is now availabale, this is thanks to the command that forced the game to launch in native fullscreen.
15. Select desired resolution, for Steam Deck this is 1280x800x32
16. Quit the game and remove command from the game launch options in the Steam game properties. The game will use the selected resolution even without the command from now on
17. Go back to game mode
18. If you launch the game in game mode, you’ll notice it runs in English, even though in desktop mode it ran in the system language, if you use other than English. It seems that the game mode runs an English version of SteamOS underneath
19. To force the game to use your language of choice, you have to modify the LANG system variable. To do that, go back to game launch options and enter command:`LANG=pl\_PL.UTF-8 %command%`. I’m Polish, so for me the locale is `pl-PL`. The list of all available languages is in the readme on the website from step 1.
20. The game now runs perfectly in your language of choice, with all the cinematics and in-game cutscenes
21. Have fun!
Mashiirow
Jan 12, 2024
Download Archive Warcraft III 1.30 (widescreen) (Multi-Language)
Hello Everyone !
I won't subject you to the affront of explaining all the manipulations and reverse engineering it took to achieve this result, but I've (no joke) just "saved" the legacy of Warcraft 3 (ROC & TFT) in its almost final version (v1.30) before the major update to the rather disappointing remake, Reforged (v1.32), **especially preserving the original texts and voiceovers for all languages that had localization in the game.**
Beyond the rebalancing, the main reason I wanted to keep this version is that since February 2018 (v1.29), the game received an update supporting widescreen 16:9 display. Trying it out, it looks much better on the screen, and you get a broader view. Also the framerate has been unlocked so the game looks much smoother now.
This result I have here wouldn't have been possible without you all (whether if it s on HiveWorkshop or Reddit) which individually left me some files and clues here and there across the Internet so it felt natural for me to add one's two cents by uploading the result I have.
Here is the link to download it (1.8GB):
[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rO-DEV_BE6BdNY4PiPWa9JodcbZDg_x2/view?usp=sharing](http://Google Drive Link)
Below is the readme file I wrote joined to the game.
`----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | README | _______________________________________________________________________________________ |Reverse Engineering, Data collection and repacking by Mashiro | | | |Discord: https://discord.com/invite/nqcnrWwF35 | |Youtube (main): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCshPTJuIwm_Ld8GhIg_rbjg | |Youtube (secondary): https://www.youtube.com/@MashMash/videos | |Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nrg_mash/ | |TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@_mashiro | | | |I hate medias getting lost and this took me few full days of work to complete. | |Thanks to evey user online on HiveWorkshop and Reddit which conserved and shared files | |and misc cool informations whithout which this repack wouldn't have been possible. ♥ ♥ | | | |Enjoy your game, I hope this will help preserving this masterpiece of a game's legacy | |which like so many others suffered from a lack of love and respect from their creators.| | | | https://open.spotify.com/track/6g1hzwYqp5kmWkzMcowmUP?si=ce344df3e46543b9 | | | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Description: This repack contains a pre-Reforeged build of Warcraft III v1.30.4.11274 ROC & TFT. The local network games and campaigns for the original ROC game and its extension. Counting the v1.29 patch, the game had a widescreen support so you can play on your native resolution now and aspect ratio (no more 4:3 stretched). The framerate is also no longer capped at 60fps as it used to be in pre v1.29 versions. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- How to run Warcraft III: Click "Warcraft III.exe". The other executable ("DO NOT CLICK THIS - Warcraft III Launcher.exe") is a MadeInBlizzard trap that launches BattleNet and which can lead you to update the game by mistake if you're logged in. I kept it here for normalization purposes to have a folder as close as how it used to be but you can do whatever you want with this executable, it's not a mandatory one. When launching "Warcraft III.exe" for the first time, you might get a black window. You might have to wait for the UI to appear (it can take about a 60s). You will have two options. Choose the one that makes you use the old Installer and which asks for your serial keys. You can find them in "./_SERIAL_KEYS.txt". ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- How to change the Language: List of Languages I have found and their respective codes: Language | Code -------------|----- English (US) | enUS English (EU) | enGB Deutsch | deDE Español (EU) | esES Français | frFR Italiano | itIT Русский | ruRU Polski | plPL 한국어 | koKR 繁體中文 | zhTW 简体中文 | zhCN In the registery, set the language code of your choice in the following variable: "COMPUTER\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Blizzard Entertainment\Classic Launcher\w3\Locale" In case you don't know how to open the registery it's "WIN+R" then you type "regedit". You then should be able to play Warcraft 3. In case your language is still not functioning you can try to write the same code also inside "./Launcher.db" (hidden file in the War3 folder) Make sure to save and close the file before restarting the game. The maps found in the v1.30 build ara avaiable in English (ingame title and desc) but I wanted them in french aswell. To do so I dumped the french ones from a v1.27b build of the game that had them. Both english and french ones are avaiable alongside as follows: ./Warcraft IIIs ./Maps ./ENGLISH v1.30 (default) ./FRANCAIS v1.27b Note that the map are the same but just it happened in previous patch notes to see a rebalancing of the enemies damage, AI, and itemps dropped on the map hence why I'm specifying the versions. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Replays, Screenshots & Customkeys: You can find your replays in: "C:\Users\YOUR_USERNAME\Documents\Warcraft III\Replay". You can take screenshots with the PrintScreen key and have them as .png fieles in: "C:\Users\YOUR_USERNAME\Documents\Warcraft III\Screenshots" (yay it's finally no longer a .tga file) For more details about the CustomKeys, please refer to the "./CustomKeyInfo.txt" file in the Warcraft III folder. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Documentation: There is one doc to change the language of the game which is from a Hiveworkshop forum and which I kept here as a link as within the Warcraft III folder in case the link gets downed. Path to the file: "./_localization_post.pdf" Link to the post: https://www.hiveworkshop.com/threads/how-to-change-game-and-world-editor-language.316323/ Link within the post: https://ss64.com/locale.html ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Note: Keep the Warcraft III folder in read only to avoid any conflict where Battlenet chooses to UPDATE the game. As an owner of Reforged, I have seen Battlenet modifying the content of my folders.`