Will It Be Online? news - WarCraft III: World of WarCraft mod for Warcraft III: Frozen Throne

WarSoc also requires us to recreate 75-95% of the stuff we've already made, except for terrain, models, and textures - supposedly.

Before we decide to begin reworking everything to fit the online version of the mod, we want to first finish the first Open BETA of Wc3:WoW, which will be single-player. WarSoc is constantly being worked on but there are a lot of flaws and stuff to be added to the program itself. When MindWorX feels that the program is ready and stable to be distributed, Wc3:WoW will be among one of the first projects to test the project. How long will it take for the online version of Wc3:WoW to be completed? Not sure. Our coders will need to get themselves acquainted with the WarSoc program, how it's used, and how they have to do things to get them done. Once everyone's familiar with the program, we can really begin moving foward with the online production process of Wc3:WoW. My guess is that it won't take us as long to make it multiplayer as it did for single-player since we have a very good idea on what we'll be adding first and how we did it. It won't be as simple as Copy And Paste, but our JASS coders can reference back to the current triggers to see how they worked and were used.

Will it take less than a year for the online version? I seriously doubt it. If all goes according to plan, and no one bails from the team and the process of development continues almost flawlessly, the online version can be expected probably a year and a couple months after we decide to start the online mod's development.

In short, the 'upcoming' version of Wc3:WoW will be single player, no matter what. We've come too far to drop it all.

After the first publicly released version, that's when you may expect an online version next... though, chances are that we'll be making a lot of fixed and modifications to the single-player one regardless - some people prefer to play Wc3:WoW alone anyway and we must respect their wishes to make the wait for Wc3:WoW more worth while.

Now, to answer the top most asked question: "When will the first public release be?"
Even now, it is difficult to say. There are still many bugs not fixed and a few features still underway, including terrain for areas such as Orgrimmar and The Barrens. We might actually not be adding the Humans in the initial release either since we'd like to get the demo out as fast as possible, at this point. I personally believe that we've forced you all to wait FAR too long and it's about time we start making desperate decisions to ensure you can play the BETA you've all longed for. Once the bugs are fixed and two or three new features are added, I'll try my very best to create a deadline that we can realistically meet. Delays, delays, delays. Making uncertain predictions served us poorly in the past, hence why I would like to wait until we have a bright side to the development of the project.

And finally, the third big question: "Will Wc3:WoW die when StarCraft II is released?"
I am confident that we can last another year or more as long as we can maintain a workforce of dedicated and well-committed developers. Our plans after the Online and Single-Player version of Wc3:WoW are released do not end upon release. After the releases, we plan to continue upgrading and expanding the features in the mod, and add all that we can. The filesize will be large (100mb+) but that's more than ten times smaller than the actual file size of World of WarCraft. Therefore, you get a great benefit out of Wc3:WoW either way... it's free AND smaller than the actual game, but of course, the graphical content as well as the size of the world and the amount of features will not match the actual game's.