xREL.v3

[ P r e s e n t s ]                   AB!DF2^SAC

WARCRAFT 2: BATTLE.NET EDITION (C) BLIZZARD

Protection : CD Checks/MPQ/ReRoute/ReIndex : Released   : October 19th, 1999
Game Type  : Real-Time Strategy            : # of Disks : 38 * 2.88mb

P60, 32MB RAM, 225M HDD, Direct X 6.x, Win 95/98

[ G a m e   N o t e s ]
Warcraft II Battle.net Edition is the continuation of the ruthless clash
between the armies of the noble Humans and the brutish Orcs. From the initial,
unexpected invasion of the Orcish Horde to the quest of the Great Alliance to
forever seal the Dark Portal that links their two worlds, you will experience
the epic saga of the mighty battle to gain dominance over the kingdom of
Azeroth. Along the way you'll need to carefully manage your limited resources
to successfully construct and rule your medieval empire while engaging in
real-time tactical warfare over land, sea and air.
This definitive version of the classic real-time strategy game combines the
original Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness and the Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark
Portal expansion set. It includes Support for Win95/98/NT, Over 70 missions
across 4 campaigns, Over 100 Blizzard signed and approved maps, newly built
or redesigned and balanced for multi-player games.
Features:

-Now for Windows 95/98/NT with 70 missions across 4 campaigns.
-100 new or redesigned multiplayer maps.
-Shared Vision in multi-player games
-Ability to /Whisper in and out of games
-Improved game set-up, game options, dropping of players.
-Setting of game speed before the game starts that cannot be switched back
and forth during game play.
-Incorporation of the 3 Pauses per player / per game rule
-Assigning and selection of Groups through # keys
-Ability to choose Random starting race, resources and tileset.
-Ability to set Latency Tolerance within games
-Attack Move command will now function correctly
-Patrol command now sends units to the selected location rather than stopping
after any contact
-Set maps and game parameters for Ladder Games
-Scroll Speed fixed on faster computers
-Town Hall / Great Hall is required as the first building in your technology
tree
-Ctrl+click or double-click will select closest 9 units of that type
currently on the screen
-Space bar centers the map on last 8 transmissions (sequential)
-Current food displayed along with gold/oil/lumber
-Maintained compatibility with the DOS version of Warcraft II via local area
network or modem
-Unit limit raised from 600 to 1200 for Enhanced games
-Added upper limit of 200 food for each player, like Starcraft
-Mining out an oil rig completely no longer returns a small amount of lumber
and gold to the player.
-Flying Machines, Goblin Zeppelins, Goblin Sappers, Dwarven Demolition Teams
now have a Patrol option.
-Canceling Foundries no longer uses all of the oil you spent to build it.
-Allies can see friendly invisible units now.
-Allies' towers and flying units will now reveal enemy subs.
-Partially-built towers can no longer see submarines.
-Death Coil will no longer damage allies.
-New sounds have been added for Skeletons, Runes, Eye of Killrogg, and for
completed upgrades.
-Death & Decay and Death Coil now have the proper icons
-First Town Hall / Great Hall now build at the speed of a Farm. All other
Town Halls / Great Halls build at the normal rate.
-2 new game speeds (slowest and fastest)
Mini-FAQ

We know this release will cause a lot of controversy and people will be asking
some questions about this release. We decided to answer some of the questions
now.
Q) Can I play this release over Battle.net?
A) NO! There is no way possible with this release to play over battle.net. The
reason is because when you install this game, you're asked to enter a
key when you install. Blizzard uses server-side protection in the game and
you can only join Battle.net with a Unique ID which is almost completely
impossible to fully crack. You do have the ability to play this release
using Direct Connect, Modem & IPX (and does work on Kali).
Q) How about a keygen? Will anything out there work so it has the ability to
play over Battle.net?
A) For the ISO, maybe. Unfortunately, not for this release. This was also the
same problem with the Starcraft rip as you needed a unique ID #. We
suggest that if you want to play over Battle.net, that you purchase this
game.
Q) So why release this game if you can't play battle.net?
A) This game does have enough updates to substantiate a legitimate release.
This includes updating to Windows 95/98/NT (original version runs too
fast for most people), over 100 redesigned or updated maps, and a slew
of bugs fixed to the game.
Q) So why it take so long to release this game? What is so special about
this release?
A) We wanted to release the most complete rip of Warcraft 2 ever put out.
We've included all speech from the original & addon pack, plus some (but
not all) music, and the cutscenes from the game, most which wasn't released
before to the rip scene. We took our time to ensure the quality of the
release.
MANY MANY thanks to Power of RA! for putting a lot of hard time into this
game. The most amazing part is that he was never given a copy of the ISO
nor had access to original CD. The only thing used to grab the game was
enough essential files downloaded with his 33.6 to crack it.
To better describe what was done, here are some words direct from Power of
Since I was asked to explain what did I do with the game I will do it here.
(it is 3am here again so don't expect too much)

First of all, to unpack all files from MPQ you must make a full list of
filenames used by the game. If you miss any of it might cause the game to
exit later on. After you got all the files unpacked you will notice the
game is trying to load files first from the HD then from MPQ, but
unfortunately this rule is broken fast. In previous Blizzard games, the
cracker, rebuilded a new MPQ after ripping out the parts he wanted. I did not
have the ISO so I was checking a different way to get the game loading all
files local first than MPQ.
I've found the way for it and game was loading. The last problem was to get
music working, as Blizzard used a different algo to load music files than
any standard game file. First I was trying to recode the loader for music
cause the only way it wanted to work was if it got loaded from the MPQ.
Since the loader was way far different from the standard file loader I gave
up on it and decided to rebuild the MPQ of music wavs. After this point the
last goal was to get the rebuilded MPQ working and check if music files are
getting loaded and played (now I know atleast why are there FF lines in
hashtable) ;)

Special greetings to:  Blizzard for this awesome game and for the challange,
Beowulf (I wish you luck for life and for the baby)
DaJackal, G-Rom, Grudge, Lgb, Miramax, Suntzu, Yazz
and little Zip

- The Power of RA

[  R i p p i n g   I n f o r m a t i o n  ]

Intro/Outro Movies, Some Music, Previews & Editor all had to go. Unsure on
doing any addons.

[ I n s t a l l   N o t e s ]
Unzip, unace or run our installer. If done manually, run REGSETUP.EXE.
After it's unpacked, run SETUP.BAT for to decompress the speech. Then run
WARCRAFT II BNE.EXE to play. Cheat Codes are also in the release.
Be sure to check out the intro, type CLASS.EXE to see it.

[ C o n t a c t i n g   C L A S S ]
Use the Force!
Remember, if you enjoy this game, buy it!

"I Don't See Anything"