A new Warcraft 3 patch (version 1.29) has landed, and it’s a big one which does something impressive on the visual front, updating the veteran game with support for widescreen monitors.
So yes, we now have native support for widescreen displays. Previously you could force the game into 16:9 ratio (widescreen), but the image would be stretched (from 4:3), whereas now you get a true widescreen picture which is crisp and undistorted, plus it allows you to see far more of the battlefield.
Note that Blizzard has made some tweaks to the UI to make it fit with the widescreen view, including introducing black pillars in the menus, and bookends for the in-game interface.
Another interesting move is the expansion of game lobbies to support up to 24 players, with the addition of 12 new team colors.
Competitive play
Alongside this move, the ladder standings have been reset, with automated tournaments starting again next week, not to mention a raft of balance changes for the game’s various heroes, and the expected usual bug fixes.
Interestingly, Blizzard also clarifies that this will be the last version of the game to support Windows XP, which suggests that more (hopefully) major updates (further versions) are in the pipeline.
For the full list of tweaks and adjustments to Warcraft 3, check out the official list here.
If you’re interested in StarCraft, don’t forget that last year, Blizzard made this classic RTS a free download, along with the excellent sequel, StarCraft II.
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