Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne 1.22 Patch: No More CD

My PC got a virus from Angel's flash disk (which she used in their school's lab) that I had to format the drive and start clean. It's always cool to have a clean drive but it definitely is not cool to loose files. Good thing I have my most important files stored in a cd, but still I lost my bookmarks in Firefox and some pictures I recently took that I haven't burned yet.

I now use Avira antivirus (goodbye Nod32). Avira is free (Nod32 only offers trial periods), and Avira detects more viruses than Nod32. Plus, the umbrella icon is cool =)

One of the first things I installed was Warcraft. And even if I own an original CD from Blizzard, I always use a crack file. Inserting CD's in the drive everytime I want to play is irritating. So a no-CD crack is the way to go. Avira, though, reads my crack files as virus so I went searching in the net for another crack. I found some on GamerBurnWorld but Avira still read them as viruses.

Until I came across this blog that says the latest update (1.22a) makes the game "no-cd." I immediately connected to Battlenet and lo and behold! Warcraft now runs without the CD. They should actually have done that long ago. CDs are not immortal. They get damaged. Does it mean you have to buy a new orig cd again if your cd got damaged? But still, it's good that they have thought of that even this late.

Battlenet is the easiest way to patch your game but for those who want to download and install the patch manually, click this.

Warcraft III v1.22 Patch Notes

FEATURES

- There is now a replay auto-save feature in the options menu. Replays are automatically saved to the "replay" folder.
- The game is now automatically saved in the event of a potential disconnect. These saved games are placed in the "save" folder.
- Player color selection can now be limited by the number of players in the game using an option in the "Advanced Options" screen during game
creation.
- Added an option to always show unit and building health bars.
- You can now enable and disable the display of minimap signals from players and other observers using chat commands:
/showminimapsignals and /hideminimapsignals.
- Added a new in-game cheat "maxfps" to limit the maximum frame rate to the given number. Example: "maxfps 30" will set the maximum frame rate to 30 FPS.

BALANCE CHANGES

HUMAN
- Scout Tower repair rate changed from 12 to 20.
- Knight damage increased: Attack cooldown changed from 1.50 to 1.40 and base damage increased from 25 to 28 (Average damage is 34).

UNDEAD
- Increased Ziggurat base armor from 1 to 5.
- Reduced the build time of the Necropolis from 120 to 100.

NIGHT ELF
- Reduce the Orb of venom poison duration from 10 seconds to 8 seconds.
- Increase the experience gain from Dryads from Level 2 (40xp) to Level 3 (60 xp).

FIXES

- The cooldown on unlimited usable items (example: the staff of preservation) now persists after the item is dropped or traded.
- A cooldown exploit with potions has been fixed.
- When you unburrow a Crypt Fiend, its auto-cast will no longer be toggled off.
- An exploit bug in which items could lose their cooldowns when transferred between heroes has been fixed.
- Fixed DotA-specific sound effects on Intel Macs.
- Fixed sound falloff on Intel Macs. Distant sounds should now still be
audible.

MAPS

- New maps from contest winners:
- (2)MeltingValley
- (2)RoadToStratholme
- (4)CentaurGrove
- (4)TidewaterGlades
I forgot the blog url where I read it from. But then it made me realize the importance of blogging, and the importance of spreading what you know.