Imagine if all custom Doom WADs would no longer work unless manually updated. I have to believe Blizzard isn't just gonna leave behind all that content like that. Or the game is gonna have an alternate unofficial server that runs 1.31 until further notice, kinda like pirated MMOs would have their own servers. Except they probably wouldn't work, because the creators (the ones still around) will likely update the ones worth updating, leaving behind alternative versions, betas or whatnot that shouldn't come around according to the authors or they're not worth wasting time on.

while I'm not even sure I have those files somewhere at this point (I probably do, but I'd need to check some really old HDDs hidden who knows where), I could download them from one of the many sites hosting them. I must have had like 50 different sheep tag maps, 20 different variations of my favourite tower defense (Cube TD) between official releases and fan variations. I mean, I haven't played WC3 decently in over a decade, but I remember having tons of versions of the same maps, sometimes with minor differences that, still, made a lot of sense to preserve either way. But at this moment, that's where we seem to be with Reforged. Now, there are a variety of reasons for this, but all of them are problematic because no update of a classic game should ever ruin the original. The most egregious part of WC3R's launch that I've read about, however, is that it retroactively (and maybe irreversibly) breaks a huge proportion of custom games that have been working just fine on the pre-Reforged client for decades.

Blizzard gives their Classic Games Team insane deadlines with too few resources with which they could ever hope to meet them, and then they have no problem pushing these remasters of their all-time classics with little fanfare and in a sorry state. When I saw that Warcraft 3: Reforged launched with a ton of cutbacks, missing features, and bugs, I wasn't surprised.

I can't stress how enough how much the legacy of custom maps scene in Starcraft means to me and how intertwined it is with my entire gaming history. In fact, in all of those 20 years I've almost exclusively played custom maps (Use Map Settings or UMS, as we call them in SC), barely ever having even touched the singleplayer campaigns or having delved into traditional competitive online play.

I have been playing Starcraft/Brood War on/off for over 20 years now, and that is 100% due to its custom maps scene. The recent botched release of Warcraft 3: Reforged has re-awakened my preservationist instincts with regard to custom games/maps for these classic RTS's and other games that had thriving mapping/modding scenes.

Starcraft ums map pack