

But the 2003 team realized that a large number of historic. Maps under active development are easily fixed. This affected any custom map with a hero with custom unit abilities, for that matter, such as a custom hero who had the Shadowmeld skill but didn’t originally have it. This affected my custom maps at the time, since my heroes lost their inventories in that 2003 prepatch. This meant that after you patched to the Frozen Throne and played those missions out of the Frozen Throne client, heroes would lose their inventory. So, when her ability list gained Inventory (Hero) in The Frozen Throne pre-patch in 2003 to make up for the fact that now “all heroes have an inventory” was no longer a rule, the custom mission’s data files said “overwrite her ability list with an empty list”. But, this saves to Tyrande in the data files that “her ability list is now empty” rather than “her ability list has Shadowmeld removed.”

When the 2002 developer wanted to say, “Tyrande does not have Shadowmeld in this mission”, he would click on the “Abilities” list in the editor, click on Shadowmeld, push “Delete Item”, and then press “OK”.

I have not confirmed this is the case, I’m just suggesting it as a possible example.

For example, maybe the developers on Mission 2 decided to remove Shadowmeld from Tyrande in 2002 while the mission was being developed. And, the changed ability list is saved as a list and not as a list of changes. Unfortunately, this change meant that any Reign of Chaos custom map where a hero’s non-Hero “normal” ability list had been modified now had stored to that unit an altered list that did not include the Inventory (Hero) ability – because when those units were made, that ability didn’t exist and wasn’t necessary. This allowed them to add the Backpack upgrade into the game. You can also give this ability to a non-Hero unit, and then the unit will have inventory. Instead, they added an ability called “Inventory (Hero)” to provide heroes with inventory. So, “all heroes have an inventory” was removed. Now, when the Frozen Throne expansion was released, they wanted the World Editor to have more flexibility. In the Reign of Chaos, “all heroes have an inventory” was a hard-coded element of the game. This is because the modern Classic Games Team opened and saved the old campaign missions.
