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. I have been playing Starcraft/Brood War on/off for over 20 years now, and that is 100% due to its custom maps scene. 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 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.
When I saw that Warcraft 3: Reforged launched with a ton of cutbacks, missing features, and bugs, I wasn't surprised. 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. 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. 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. Period. But at this moment, that's where we seem to be with Reforged.
The official WC3R site makes special mention of custom games despite so many of them having been broken by the new client.
I don't know what the future holds for custom games in WC3, but in the meantime I just want to do my part to help keep the legacy of these old custom maps/games alive as best I can. I'll start by re-posting an up-to-date list of online repositories of SC1 UMS Maps. I recently posted this on Reddit as well, but I figure the more places this list ends up the greater the likelihood of people rediscovering maps that they thought had been lost to time or just getting back into custom games in general. Thankfully, Starcraft: Remastered was developed with enough care that 99% of all custom maps still work properly with it, so we don't have anything resembling the Reforged fiasco to worry about here.
Updated Links to the Best SC1 UMS Map Repositories for 2020
Created and hosted by Reddit user u/wzfa1, this site hosts 18,000 maps that can either be downloaded individually or as an entire collection via one 1.7GB 7Zip file. The site's layout is simple, but effective, and downloads are fast and easy.
Curated and hosted by SEN's prolific mapmaker Pr0nogo, this archive contains all of the custom campaigns that used to be hosted on Campaign Creations long ago. Look no further if you're a fan of Brood War custom campaigns. (Note: Some might not work on SCR if they involve mods).
The Architect RPG - best RPG map ever made for BW. This might only be a link to a single map, but I feel the need to include it because it's one of the most impressive examples of SC1 UMS you're likely to ever encounter.
Long-running map hosting site. 15,929 maps and counting. You can upload your own maps here too.
The StarEdit Network (SEN) is the most active community of UMS mapmakers, and you can browse their database of published maps via the link above. Also check out their SC1 Production and SC1 Showcase forums.
Amazing 7500-map collection with cleaned-up filenames and split up by category/genre. Also includes a curated list of recommended maps with pictures and descriptions.
Formerly hosted on scmaps.net. ~20k maps in this archive. Searchable.
When I saw that Warcraft 3: Reforged launched with a ton of cutbacks, missing features, and bugs, I wasn't surprised. 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. 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. 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. Period. But at this moment, that's where we seem to be with Reforged.
The official WC3R site makes special mention of custom games despite so many of them having been broken by the new client.
I don't know what the future holds for custom games in WC3, but in the meantime I just want to do my part to help keep the legacy of these old custom maps/games alive as best I can. I'll start by re-posting an up-to-date list of online repositories of SC1 UMS Maps. I recently posted this on Reddit as well, but I figure the more places this list ends up the greater the likelihood of people rediscovering maps that they thought had been lost to time or just getting back into custom games in general. Thankfully, Starcraft: Remastered was developed with enough care that 99% of all custom maps still work properly with it, so we don't have anything resembling the Reforged fiasco to worry about here.
Updated Links to the Best SC1 UMS Map Repositories for 2020
Created and hosted by Reddit user u/wzfa1, this site hosts 18,000 maps that can either be downloaded individually or as an entire collection via one 1.7GB 7Zip file. The site's layout is simple, but effective, and downloads are fast and easy.
Curated and hosted by SEN's prolific mapmaker Pr0nogo, this archive contains all of the custom campaigns that used to be hosted on Campaign Creations long ago. Look no further if you're a fan of Brood War custom campaigns. (Note: Some might not work on SCR if they involve mods).
The Architect RPG - best RPG map ever made for BW. This might only be a link to a single map, but I feel the need to include it because it's one of the most impressive examples of SC1 UMS you're likely to ever encounter.
Long-running map hosting site. 15,929 maps and counting. You can upload your own maps here too.
The StarEdit Network (SEN) is the most active community of UMS mapmakers, and you can browse their database of published maps via the link above. Also check out their SC1 Production and SC1 Showcase forums.
Amazing 7500-map collection with cleaned-up filenames and split up by category/genre. Also includes a curated list of recommended maps with pictures and descriptions.
Formerly hosted on scmaps.net. ~20k maps in this archive. Searchable.
