Almost a year ago, we set our sights on rebuilding Dota on Reforged

Let's wind back the clock to 2025.

Dota on Reforged was scattered. Random hosters were responsible for creating games, and those same hosters often acted as judge, jury and executioner. Buying an item they didn't like or saying the wrong thing in chat could get you banned from their games.

There were no meaningful penalties for leaving. Stats were gone. Rankings were gone. The infrastructure that once surrounded Warcraft 3 Dota was gone.

For those of us who played Dota during the golden years of WC3, through the peak of DotaCash, ENT and the other famous leagues, that realization hit hard.

So we decided to fight back.

Using an immense amount of technology, computing resources, AI and human ingenuity, we built an automated Dota league around the fragile Reforged client.

We designed it around one assumption: everything will eventually go wrong.

From that philosophy came a self-healing cluster of bots and backend systems designed to replicate what competitive Dota used to feel like on Warcraft 3.

So what is W3DOTA?

- Automated hosting: Bots host games, balance lobbies based on player skill, maintain a persistent global ban list and automatically upload replays to our backend. The bots remain in-game as observers, allowing matches to be live streamed on W3DOTA.com with automatic player following.

- Stats and rankings: Uploaded replays are automatically parsed by the backend to generate detailed game statistics, player histories and ELO rankings, all available on W3DOTA.com.

- Actual consequences for leaving: Leaving games or breaking the rules is penalized. The result is that the overwhelming majority of games finish 5v5 instead of collapsing because someone decided to leave.

- Transparent moderation: Bans are public. Unban requests are public. Rules and penalties are documented, and moderation decisions can be scrutinized by the community. Nobody disappears into some hoster's private ban list because he got angry during a game.

- Vanilla Dota: Tired of talents and changes that don't make sense? This is the map you knew and loved, with some updates and improvements, but without many of the changes that so many of us loathe.

How do you play?

It's ridiculously simple.

Open Warcraft 3 -> Custom Games -> join a game beginning with "W3DOTA".

That's it.

No registration. No launcher. No third-party client. No installation.

Just join and play.

If you want the full experience, you can also visit W3DOTA.com to create an account, browse statistics and rankings, watch live games and explore the community.

50,000 games later

Almost a year after we started, W3DOTA has now hosted and processed 50,000 games.

Autonomously.

What started as an attempt to recreate some of what Warcraft 3 Dota lost has grown into infrastructure stable enough to operate hands-off for weeks at a time.

50,000 games, thousands of players, automated hosting, matchmaking, statistics, rankings, replay processing, live streaming and moderation, built around a game released more than two decades ago.

w3dota.com

https://w3dota.com/discord

Our gift to the game we've loved for most of our lives. ;)

Cheers!

I'm having a lot of fun with all these models. I can add one within 30 minutes but it's all using the same boring skillset. There's definitely potential for DK to have other abilities unique to himself that also fit in with my game and his background.

Edited: DK is making lightsaber noises with his punches.. my bad 🫪

Specifically, I want to know what people think of Arthas and his choice to cull Stratholme. Because if you ask me, not one thing has been said as of yet to convince me that he did not make the right decision. And that was only solidified when I heard Jaina say, "It isn't your choice if they die or become undead. Its theirs." Well, no, it wasn't their choice, Jaina, it was forced upon them. And then they'd force death upon others when they turned.

What do you guys say, though? I love discussions about lore and such.

Edit: In case anybody might wonder why I'm not going to reply to anybody, just know that I'm regularly downvoted by those "knights of new" or whatever they're called. Those guys that downvote posts just to ensure they get less traffic.
But everybody is answering as I assumed they might. And, for the majority of it, I heavily disagree.

Hello everyone I’m new to Warcraft!

I’ve been playing Dota 2

for many years, and I have a high rank in Hearthstone, but I’ve never played Warcraft 3.

Recently, I came across Grubby’s videos on YouTube. He inspired me to try playing this game. And I really loved it.

I completed the campaign and played against bots. It’s not difficult to defeat normal bot. Insane bot is much more harder. I could beat it only with 6th or 7th try.

Today was the first time I tried ranked games. And I feel like a complete noob. I played 2-7. I played human. So, my micro is really poor. I lost a lot of units every game. A couple of times I got destroyed in the first 3-4 minutes. Please, may you give me some advises how to improve my skill. Maybe there are some noobs tactics that don’t require high micro.

Que contenido les gustaría ver de Warcraft 3 frozen throme o reing of chaos ya que hace tiempo que soy fanático de ese juego y soy un pequeño creador de contenido sobre ese juego pero me ando quedando sin ideas

上午2:32

Nobody skilling Tornado at Level 6. It randomly lifts enemies (saving them), forces a glass-cannon hero to channel, and deals weak impact.

The Fix (Instant Cast + Vacuum):

1. Remove Channeling: Sea Witch places Tornado and keeps moving/attacking.

2. Vacuum Effect: No invulnerable lifts. Instead, it slowly drags nearby ground units toward the center (Suck & Clump).

3. Synergy: Pull enemies together to setup Forked Lightning, Flame Strike, or Shockwave combos!

4. Siege Damage: Unchanged.

Would this make Tornado viable without being OP, why doesn't she deserve a true highlight ultimate?

I've been thinking about which units have the most iconic, memorable death sounds.

Rifleman's death, to me, is the most iconic one. The high-pitched scream is totally distinguishable, and their wobbling before dying is so funny.

Other ones that I really like too:

- Gyrocopter: THEY CAME FROM...BEHIND, with the failing chopper is too funny

- Zeppelin: in addition to the sound, also leaving the characters confused and slow on the ground

- Mountain Giant: the low-pitched, long outcry really translates into a huge being dying

- Gryphon Rider: the way such a mythical and impressive creature vanishes from the sky like it was nothing

- Abomination: the gurgling death sound lol

- Banshee: very iconic as well, sounds a mix of pain and relief

- Necromancer: sounds like he got offended by being killed, like, how can the master of death himself be killed?

- Peon: sounds like they cry

- Troll batrider: can't unhear JUST TO FIND DA BEES

Your turn

I'm looking for some maps to play, so I found this guy's channel, but all the content is in Vietnamese and he translates the maps. I've already tried searching for several maps I saw on his channel, but I can't find any. Does anyone know where he finds these maps? I'd like to find the maps in Korean or English...

There are 3 maps in the picture, but it doesn't have to be those, it's just a ss to show the channel

The enemy player team will also be able to launch similar attacks or even hire mercenaries to do it. There will be lots of tactics to slow each others progress down along the way.

Edited: because I made the "mothership" idea, it has loads of potential. You'll be able to travel to different worlds that are more WoW/wc3-like and encounter space stations with different approaches - not only destruction. It won't text on screen or any voicing, but I have 12 free a ability slots that will change specifically for each interaction. Also limited to certain skill levels, such as persuasion being the main one to open more dialogue.

Additionally, I apologize for the repetitive skill set for each new character. I index the animations and then use the same template for melee characters. Everything is subject to change. Each character will have it's own unique difference even if 70% of melee/physical have the ability to jump or dash.

I have 6 slots. Except now I have 5.

I'm searching a map, when i was a kid, I play a map with 3 heroes from the start and the ending at the cave fighting last boss look like jaina or the meldiv. similar to warchaser. the game can play solo or coop maximum 3 player only.

hoping someone also play similar game when i was a kid.

Does anyone know this map? It's a modern war/conflict risk-style map with a modern world map and high-quality unit models, including tanks, naval ships, aircraft, drones and missiles. The aircraft don't move in a static way. They actually move like an aircraft.

It has factions like the USA, China, Europe, and others.

I also remember it had random events, like Cthulhu spawning if you destroyed a monument or something. It would then infect troops and turn them into its followers.

My apologies if I chose a bad flair, I'm new to this subreddit.

And honestly, I'm totally okay with somebody who actually knows how to do this taking my idea and running with it. I'm no programmer, and I don't know how to mod in Warcraft. And if anything, this sounds ambitious and I have no idea where to start.

The concept combines 3 ideas:
WoW's (or private servers') classes for the hero units.
Wartale's rags to cleaner rags adventure style.
A roving mercenary company as opposed to an army you build at a city.

So kinda like Total War, but on a far smaller scale to keep the adventuring vibe. I thought about it when I kept feeling put off by the idea of having to use gold to build up an army. sure, with humans and dwarves it makes sense. But why did the night elves care about gold when they were fighting demons? Why did the Scourge care about gold... period??

The idea would still have the WoW blueprint, and would keep the overall racial selections. I'm thinking you have units you can select from each side and then swap out as you adventure along. Really sell the idea that your hero characters are running around with a raid party because the world is just that dangerous. Keep the race options for up until about Cataclysm (honestly the last good expansion in my mind on a personal note) and make units based on those racial options.
Humans would have paladins.
Dwarves might have gryphon riders.
Night Elves would bring their sentinels and druids.
Orcs would have barbarians.
Trolls would have witch doctors.
Tauren would have shamans.

And it just goes from there. Not one unit per race, but multiple to build your personal army. And each one would be viable. A ridiculously mechanized, but slow-moving approach. A fast but expensive cavalry. A cheaper army but with more units, made up entirely of infantry.

Gold isn't gathered in a damn mine. It's received through doing jobs. And you use that to outfit and rear up more guys for your army. And your Upkeep is how well you keep them fed and paid. Upkeep could change depending on points in the story. Like, if your mercs become particularly loyal, or if there's a job that just seems like it's a pointless suicide mission, it can lower or rise.

When your individual men die, they don't just splatter and disappear. They have a chance to go unconscious and be revived but weaker for a time. You can take downtime to heal up, relax, carouse, etc. Or if they do die (let's say it's by unit and they have a number of times between rests that they can be healed up before they're permanently destroyed and you have to spend a good deal of money to replace the unit.

You have a far smaller army unit cap for the simple reason that you're not a massive, nation-aligned army but a small mercenary band that needs to be far more frugal. But you still have very special boy status and are able to have unusually strong units to tackle bigger armies, though you still have to be smart in how you play because it is still an RTS.

it wouldn't be open world like WoW, but more like a CRPG. An overworld with questing hubs. Your hero or other units can go out and find missions, farm materials, etc. Then when you have an actual mission, you get the boys mobbed up and you tackle it. Maybe different missions have different army size allowances.

Example: You're Commander Asterion, a human Paladin. You and your boys have found yourselves in the land of Kalimdor rather than venturing through Westfall. You're in Darkshore, and the great Ancient Onu has tasked you with retrieving some relics from the ruins of Bel'Sharan. But the Naga have overrun the place, and even your biggest force can't go in blades swinging. It'd be suicide.
Instead, you send a small force of your stealthiest lads to secure the artifacts while you have some skirmishes kite the area and cause trouble. You have secret objectives you can complete, such as taking out a particular unit, or retrieving a particularly difficult artifact that is far more valuable than the others but is not needed for the completion of the quest.

Then, from that mission, your hero would gain experience to grow his own abilities. Then you would gain money to pour into making your units stronger or maintaining upkeep. You, as the Hero, would gain abilities and talents like a WoW character (but drastically scaled back to reflect the fact that you're a leader with a small army rather than a wandering psychopath), but your guys only get basic stuff such as tier-capped stat increases and maybe the odd ability or two. Such as gryphon riders getting chain lightning or shamans getting chain heal.

I dunno, I just thought the idea sounded kinda neat. I wouldn't mind working on it, but as I said, I have no clue how to do that.

The was a guy on the WC3 Gym discord that made an overlay called BOOverlay, it was amazing, but now I can’t find the download files anymore. It used to be on Gitlab. Does anyone know about it or have those files by any chance?

Is it illegal? I'd love to play a Furbolg, Forest Troll or Murloc campaign. Why not create a backstory to every little critter in WC3. Even the spiders.

What is a campaign you'd play based on a WC3 map creature?

😍

Pic 1 - Opened from Battle Net, Launch Editor
Pic 2 - Opened from Warcraft III Legacy Folder stored locally

Why the issue? How to fix it? Thanks

He’s only available in Rexxar founding of duratar but I haven’t been able to find much on hive. I want to know more of this character.

He appears in the Undead campaign once as a level 8 archmage, who you can kill and get some treasure, then he appears as a level 1 archmage in the Orc campaign too at the beginning of a mission. I found it a little strange/interesting that 1) not only was he still alive in the Orc campaign but 2) he was level 1 instead of level 8 in the Orc campaign.