In Warcraft 3: Reforged, players no longer have to forgo a ladder. What the developers couldn’t accomplish, fans have simply taken into their own hands.
The rough release of Warcraft 3: Reforged is still fresh in the minds of many fans of Blizzard’s strategy hit. After all, not only were there numerous bugs and crashes, but many features that had been available in Warcraft 3 were also missing. Foremost among them was a functioning ladder, which is a ranking system that allows players to view their ratings and statistics.
Even after 2 major patches of WC3: Reforged, there is no official ladder – that is why fans have now created a tool and taken matters into their own hands.
What is the problem? Warcraft 3 thrived on its small but very active community, which mainly competed in ranked games. Thanks to a visible ladder and a profile page, every player could see their statistics and clearly recognize at any time how they compared to other players.
This is currently not possible in Warcraft 3. Although there are matches that use internal matchmaking, statistics and profiles cannot be viewed.
What has been done? The tool W3Champions has been released. This installs directly into the game files of Warcraft 3: Reforged and adds a new button to the “Versus” mode to search for matches. You primarily compete against players who also use this ladder and can thus build a proper ranking. The results of the players are recorded on profile pages with accurate statistics.
Currently, the tool only supports the “1 versus 1” ladder, but it is expected to be further developed in the coming weeks.
Is this tool legal? Basically, Blizzard does not like it when other programs access and modify the games. We quote from the FAQ of the W3Champions site:
Will I get banned by Blizzard if I use the W3Champions ladder?
The short answer is probably not. The long answer is that we currently consider it very unlikely that you will be banned for using W3Champions, but we can never completely rule that out.
W3Champions FAQ
Therefore, installation and use are at your own risk. Since more and more players are now using this tool, it is rather unlikely that Blizzard will punish all these players – after all, the tool does not allow cheating and only creates a feature that was previously a core component of Warcraft 3.
Anyone who wants to try the tool can download it from the W3Champions.com page.
What was included in the official patches? The officially released patches of Warcraft 3: Reforged have been heavily criticized so far. Many players believe that Blizzard is currently wasting time on trivial matters and skimping on important features. It would indeed be shocking that a hobby programmer can create a ladder feature in just a few hours, while Blizzard’s employees have not managed to do this in almost 2 months (since the release).
However, from the announcement of the latest patch, it appears that Blizzard is currently working on a better ranking system with profiles – how far this is from completion, however, can only be guessed.
Are you still playing Warcraft 3: Reforged? Or did you set the game aside after the campaign?
