There are any number of things you might have been doing in 2002. For instance, you may have been playing the hot new game from Blizzard, Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos. People have mostly moved on to other things since then, and so has the developer, but this week it released a new patch for the old classic and announced it is has set up a PTR (public test realm).

According to developer Pete Stilwell, who made the announcement, the PTR will allow the company to test “new Map Pools for 1’s, 2’s, 3’s, 4’s and Free-for-All.”

The installer, which is available for Windows and Mac, also includes the following 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 through 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

Remember that to play Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos and enjoy the enhancements, you will need to have a legitimate copy of the game installed. Blizzard’s post offers links to discussion related to the map pools, and also makes note of a few known issues that remain even after the update:

• We are aware Warcraft III 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

Despite its age, Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos remains a topic of discussion among fans and even some within the company. Are you interested in spending more time with the game, especially given the ongoing support?