外文翻译：魔兽争霸3社区是如何重铸这个经典RTS游戏的

sisirukou

（本文搬运自外网，内容为介绍W3Champions团队）

One year on from Warcraft 3's rocky launch, a third-party addon is delivering on the promise of Blizzard's problematic remaster

自从魔兽争霸3重置版的充满争议的发售到今天已经一年多了，一个第三方插件却给玩家带来了暴雪所承诺却没做到的重置版



Warcraft 3: Reforged’s players have been in limbo since its release back in January 2020. Promises of multiplayer fixes and features have gone largely unfulfilled in that time, with developer updates halting in August 2020 and the original Reforged team being dismantled around the same time. It seems unlikely that Warcraft 3’s multiplayer community will ever get the game they hoped Reforged would be.

自从2020年一月魔兽重置版发售以后，它的玩家就一直处在困境之中。之前所承诺的在线对战的功能当时基本没有实现，开发者的更新日志在8月份就停更了，甚至本来开发重置版的队伍也在差不多同一时间被解散。似乎，魔兽争霸3的玩家们永远也不会得到他们之前希望的魔兽争霸3重置版了。

Devoted players of the classic RTS weren’t fond of the revival, which fell short of the version promised at BlizzCon in November 2018. The massively improved cinematic cutscenes were quietly done away with on the lead up to launch, leading to widespread backlash. But Reforged also retroactively removed features from the original game when Blizzard merged the two clients. This included player profiles, match history, ranked ladders for all five multiplayer modes, automated tournaments, clan support, and offline play.

热爱这个经典RTS游戏的玩家们对这个重置版非常不满意，对比于在2018年11月暴雪嘉年华上暴雪所承诺的版本，这个差别实在太大。之前所承诺的效果大为提升的过场动画，在发布之前就被悄悄的取消了，引起了玩家的普遍不满。而且由于暴雪合并了新旧两个版本的游戏，导致了老版本游戏中的功能被删除了。比如像玩家资料，对战历史，5种不同线上对战模式的天梯，自动联赛系统，战队系统，离线游戏模式，都被删除了。



But a group of passionate fans is taking it upon themselves to revitalize the RTS game’s competitive scene by building their own ranked ladder that’s hosting thousands of matches every day.

但一群热衷于这个游戏的粉丝们不愿意放弃，建立了他们自己的一个每天都有几千场游戏对战的天梯系统，重振了这个RTS游戏的职业对战环境。

“A few weeks before Reforged launched there was a PTR build, and that’s when it became very clear to long-term Warcraft 3 players that many of the staple multiplayer features were not going to be shipped on launch,” CepheidUK, a member of the W3Champions (W3C) team, tells us.

“在重置版正式发布的几周前，曾经有一个PTR版本，就在那时，我们这些魔兽争霸3老粉丝就已经很清楚，之前很多经典的多人在线对战的功能，在发布的时候是不会有了。”

CepheidUK，W3Champions（W3C）开发组的一个成员，告诉我们。

In March 16, 2020, a developer known as Pad released the first iteration of W3C with a ranked 1v1 mode. “Pad has created a few things for Warcraft 3, which he refers to as the Warcraft 3 ABC,” CepheidUK explains. This includes W3Booster, the Reforged profile viewer, and W3Arena, which “was an emulated Battle.net server that was very popular with the EU community in the early 2010s.”

在2020年3月15号，一个被大家成为Pad的程序员发布了W3C的第一个版本，里面包括了一个1v1的天梯系统。“Pad之前为魔兽争霸3开发过一些东西，他管那些东西叫做‘魔兽争霸3ABC’”，CepheidUK解释道。其中包括了W3Booster，重置版的玩家资料页面，和W3Arena，一个Battle.net战网的私服，在2010年代前期的欧洲社区里面非常流行。

THESE VOLUNTEERS TREAT THEIR SERVER LIKE BLIZZARD SHOULD'VE TREATED THE COMMUNITY.

这些志愿者们对待这个服务器的态度，就像暴雪应该如何对待这个社区的玩家一样



When W3C first appeared it was as an update for W3Arena, but the foundations were more modern. Instead of entirely emulating the old Battle.net server, Pad found a way to implement HTML elements directly into the Warcraft 3 Reforged UI. “It’s effectively built with the same tech as Chromium. From there he could create matches using Blizzard’s interface, and as a result was able to build a platform for matchmaking,” CepheidUK says.

W3C一开始的时候其实是W3Arena的一个更新版本，但是背后开发的代码更加现代化。与之前完全模拟老Battle.net服务器不同的是，Pad找到了一个直接把HTML元素写入魔兽争霸3重置版界面的办法。“基本上就是用谷歌Chromium，所以他就可以用暴雪的界面建立游戏，使得他最后可以建成一个对战的平台，”CepheidUK 说。

A free-for-all mode released on May 30 and Pad left the project shortly after on June 15, but it didn’t take long for a core team to form around W3C. One of them, floss2xdaily, was brought on as a community manager. Another volunteer, Modmoto, was in charge of building the backbone of the website and improving the launcher. Gab and Abeninski focused on in-game improvements like matchmaking and new game modes. Toxi (who’s also a semi-pro Warcraft 3 player) and Helpstone aided as data scientists for the matchmaking system. CepheidUK handled community management alongside floss2xdaily, but also website development and project management.

在5月30号，一个完全免费的版本发布了。而Pad在6月15号离开了这个项目，但是很快，一个围绕着W3C的核心小组就建立了起来。其中的一位成员，floss2xdaily，成为了社区管理员。另外一位志愿者，Modmoto，负责建立网站的后台和开发游戏的启动程序。Gab和Abeninski则负责专注于游戏内的改进，比如对战和其他游戏模式。Toxi（他同时也是一个半职业魔兽争霸3选手）和Helpstone负责做对战系统的大数据分析。CepheadUK目前和floss2xdaily一起负责做社区管理员，但他同时也负责网站的部分开发和项目管理。

At a similar time software developer Fluxxu began reverse-engineering Warcraft 3 server software, allowing players to host LAN matches. Fluxxu’s software, Flo, also improved latency for cross-region play and for regions without dedicated servers, like South America and Oceania – no more 250ms ping games.

与此同时，一个叫Fluxxu的程序员开始了对魔兽争霸3服务器的反编译项目，使得玩家可以建立局域网游戏。Fluxxu的项目，Flo，成功地让不同地域的玩家在没有专用服务器的情况下对战，比如说，南美洲可以和大洋洲的玩家对战，而延迟不会超过250ms ping。





Since October, the W3C team has been adding Flo to servers around the globe, with the hope of creating a worldwide matchmaking system. “Right now, we’re nearing the end of the development phase for Flo, and we hope to roll it out officially as part of the W3Champions platform in March, which is when we start the 6th season of [the competitive] ladder,” CepheidUK says.

自从去年十月份，W3C团队就一直为Flo在全球各地寻找服务器，致力于建立一个全球化的对战系统。“现在我们已经接近Flo开发进度的尾声了，我们希望能在3月份把它作为W3Champions的正式版的一部分发布，这也是我们将会开始第6个赛季的时候”，CepheidUK说。

The project’s community has grown rapidly with almost 6,000 members in the W3C Discord, but the most impressive stat is the number of matches played through W3C. In January alone the number of matches played per day varied between 4,000 and 6,400. Almost all five competitive seasons involved regional tournaments for EU and NA servers, and a new tournament is expected to run at the start of March, too. Along with a badge in their player profile, winners are also paid thanks to a crowdfunded prize pool – at the time of writing, the prize pool for the March event is sitting at $3,500.

这个项目的社区在快速发展中，在W3C的Discord群里已经有差不多6000个成员了，但最让人印象深刻还是在W3C每天的对战数量。就只算今年一月份，在该平台上每天进行的游戏数目就保持在4000到6400这个范围内。基本上之前的5个赛季都有欧洲和北美的区域性联赛，而在三月份初另一场新的联赛就将开幕。除了能在他们玩家资料页面里面得到一个徽章，赢得联赛的玩家也将会从众筹的奖金池里得到奖金，在写这篇文章的时候这个三月份的奖金池是3500美金。



The team of volunteers does have a Patreon, but all funds go toward server costs and reimbursement for other related expenses. In addition, a broadcaster team called Back2Warcraft has been following the project closely since the beginning, helping spread the word around the community and sponsoring the Flo servers as well.

这个项目有一个Patreon（译者注：Patreon是欧美常用的一个资助，众筹主播，up主的平台），里面的所有资金都被用于服务器的维护费和相关的其他开销。除此之外，一个名为Back2Warcraft的直播团队，从一开始就非常关心这个项目，为W3C做宣传并资助了Flo服务器。

“Pad seemed very open to the idea of working with a group of developers,” caster Jannes ‘Neo’ Tjarks says, “so we helped find coders to get W3Champions off the ground. The server grew fast but steadily, as did the features it provided. After a few weeks, we managed to fix the flaws, and even introduced ladder leagues like Starcraft 2 has, from bronze to grandmaster. Even when Pad left the project, the team stuck together, set themselves even higher goals, and has now built the best WC3 server ever. Worldwide.”

“Pad似乎非常乐意和一群别的程序员合作”，主播Jannes Tjarks ‘Neo’说道，“所以我们帮W3Champions寻找开发者，整个服务器在有条不紊并快速的成长着，并为玩家提供着越来越多的新功能。仅仅在几周的时间内，我们就成功地修复了很多小问题，并引进了类似星际争霸2的天梯排名系统，从青铜等级到宗师等级。哪怕在Pad离开了这个项目之后，整个团队都团结在一起，给他们自己定下了更远大的目标，现在建立了全球对战最好的服务器。”

ABENINSKI GOT MARRIED AND PUT OUT A NEW FEATURE THE SAME DAY

AbenINski在他结婚的同一天仍然为W3C发布了一个新功能

Tjarks emphasises the care the W3C team takes to handle community feedback, claiming that every suggestion and technical difficulty gets a response in the Discord server. The project is so popular that W3C regularly hosts a section of the season finals’ broadcast, showcasing future plans and what’s in development like you would expect from a triple-A studio.

Neo一直强调，W3C团队对玩家们的反馈非常重视，他表示，每一条玩家的建议和技术问题在Discord群里都能得到回答。这个项目实在太受欢迎了，以至于每个赛季总决赛的直播里面，W3C的开发者都会出来展示未来的计划和目前开发的新功能，简直就像一个3A大作游戏工作室一样。

“The team is very flexible, so instead of one big patch every three months, there’s constant development,” Tjarks says, “if a feature is finished, they put it out for the people.” The output is backed by the core team, but the majority of W3C is open source, so there are helping hands everywhere. “You’d be amazed at the hours people put in,” floss2xdaily says, “Abeninski got married and put out a new feature the same day”. The team takes on priorities as they appear, but there are times where some members might go weeks without touching anything. The loose schedule is essential considering that in the admin team “six of them are married, and four have children under the age of four.”

“这个团队非常灵活，他们并不拘泥于每3个月发布一个大补丁，而是一直在发布新内容”，Neo说，“如果一个新功能完成了，他们就马上发布”。主要的内容是由这个核心小组完成的，但是W3C这个项目是开源的，所以来自世界各国的程序员都经常提高帮忙。“你会惊讶大家给这个项目付出了多少个小时”，floss2xdaily说，“Abeninski甚至在他结婚的那一天都还给W3C发布了一个新功能”。只要有需求，小组成员们就会快速开始工作，但也有时候有些成员几周都不会参与开发。这个松动的计划对于这个小组是非常重要的，因为“6个成员已经结了婚，而其中4个还有一个4岁以下的小孩子”。

Despite the success and notoriety, there’s a concern that Blizzard could pull the plug at any given moment. The W3C site’s FAQ addresses some of these worries, such as what will happen when Blizzard actually launches an official ladder system: “We shall leave this to the community to decide. If you prefer the official ladder, we can use the technology for other projects like automated tournaments.” We reached out to Blizzard for comment about its plans for Warcraft 3: Reforged, but we have yet to hear back by the time of publication.

尽管付出了这么多，暴雪还是可能随时终止这个项目。W3C网站上的问答栏目就解答过这些疑虑，比如如果暴雪真的发布了一个官方天梯系统的时候怎么办，“我们会让社区玩家们自己选择，如果你喜欢官方的天梯系统，我们就用我们现有的技术来做别的项目，比如自动联赛等等”，我们联系了暴雪官方来评论对魔兽争霸3重置版的未来计划，但是截至发稿的时候我们仍然没有得到回复。



Despite uncertainty over the future of the project, W3Champions continues to set itself new goals and make bigger appearances, including at the IEM Katowice as part of the ESL Pro Tour for Warcraft 3: Reforged. “A lot of time went into the Flo servers and now we can do basically anything with them,” Tjarks says. “A lot of restrictions are lifted thanks to this infrastructure. I don’t think there’s a limit to what the team can do. This group of volunteers treats their server like Blizzard should’ve treated the community from the very start.”

尽管项目的未来充满不确定性，W3Champions仍然继续给自己定新的目标和在玩家群体中得到更大的影响力，比如在IEM Katowice的魔兽争霸3重置版ESL Pro Tour。“我们为Flo服务器付出了很多时间，现在我们已经几乎可以用它来做任何事情了”，Neo说，“以前很多的限制因为这个新的技术都被消除了，我觉得这个小组的潜力是无限的。这群志愿者们对待他们的服务器的态度就像暴雪一开始应该怎么对待这个社区的态度一样。”
作者：魔坛情报局
https://www.bilibili.com/read/cv10099934?from=search
出处： bilibili