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Warcraft III Campaign Progress

Retail persistence split

Warcraft III keeps campaign-menu progression separate from the JASS gamecache used to carry Heroes, variables, and items between maps.

Classic/profile-era installs store both files in the active Warcraft III profile save directory. Later classic installs commonly use a path such as:

%USERPROFILE%\Saved Games\Warcraft III\Profile1\Campaigns.w3p
%USERPROFILE%\Saved Games\Warcraft III\Profile1\Campaigns.w3v

Reforged uses the Battle.net campaign directory under Documents and separates Classic/Reforged progression, for example:

Documents\Warcraft III\BattleNet\<account>\Campaigns\Classic\Classic.w3p
Documents\Warcraft III\BattleNet\<account>\Campaigns\Reforged\Reforged.w3p

The .w3p file is the frontend campaign-progress record: unlocked campaigns and mission progression. The .w3v file is the game-cache container used by map scripts for state carried between campaign maps. See campaign-game-cache.md for OpenRealm's .w3v-equivalent runtime and Hero persistence.

OpenRealm does not claim binary compatibility with retail .w3p or .w3v files. Both are represented by private, versioned sidecars.

OpenRealm ownership and file

Campaign/menu availability is persisted in:

campaign-progress.orcp

The filename is resolved through the engine-owned FS_UserPath() policy. The game receives that boundary as game_import.UserPath; the menu receives the same resolver as menuImport_t.UserPath. This follows the same ownership rule as campaign game-cache persistence: DLLs request a writable per-game path, but do not know the platform-specific user-data directory themselves.

The common serializer lives in:

  • games/warcraft-3/common/campaign_progress.c
  • games/warcraft-3/common/campaign_progress.h

Game-side native integration lives in:

  • games/warcraft-3/game/g_campaign_progress.c
  • games/warcraft-3/game/api/api_misc.h

The campaign selector consumes the same file in:

  • games/warcraft-3/menu/screens/single_player.c

The private file uses the FOURCC ORCP magic and version 2. Its integer header is explicit little-endian and the payload stores bounded known/value bits for:

  • tutorial-cleared state;
  • campaign availability;
  • mission availability;
  • mission completion (mission_completed);
  • highest completed difficulty (mission_best_difficulty, 0 Easy, 1 Normal, 2 Hard, 3 Insane).

Version-1 progress files are read using the original six arrays; completion data starts empty because unlocked missions are not necessarily completed. The next successful write upgrades to version 2. Invalid/truncated/trailing data or invalid completion bits/difficulty values is rejected before installing the loaded state. This migration is intentionally different from versioned in-game saves, which are not migrated.

The separate known bits matter because authored false writes must override DefaultOpen; an explicit lock is not the same state as a fresh profile with no saved value.

Writes go to a temporary file and are renamed into place after a complete write. The previous file is preserved as a temporary backup during replacement so a failed install does not silently leave a partially written progress record.

Campaign indices

The native indices are the values Blizzard.j ultimately passes to SetCampaignAvailable / SetMissionAvailable, not always the public BJ campaign constants.

Reign of Chaos uses:

Native campaign Campaign key
0 Tutorial
1 Human
2 Undead
3 Orc
4 NightElf

The Frozen Throne wrappers convert the expansion BJ constants to offsets before calling the natives:

Native campaign Campaign key
0 NightElf
1 Human
2 Undead
3 Orc

RoC and TFT progress are therefore stored as separate editions inside the same OpenRealm sidecar.

JASS update boundary

These natives immediately update and commit the campaign-progress sidecar:

SetTutorialCleared(cleared)
SetCampaignAvailable(campaignNumber, available)
SetMissionAvailable(campaignNumber, missionNumber, available)

This is intentionally different from JASS gamecache, where Store*() remains handle-local until an explicit SaveGameCache() call. Campaign availability is frontend/profile state authored directly by these availability natives.

The Prologue02 ending is the concrete compatibility case that established this contract. Its Trig_NextLevelPrep_Actions calls Blizzard's wrappers to make the Human campaign and Human mission 0 available. Those wrappers reach:

SetCampaignAvailable(1, true)
SetMissionAvailable(1, 0, true)

before the long ending cinematic finishes. OpenRealm writes both unlocks at that point. ForceCampaignSelectScreen() only selects the destination for the later EndGame, so the cinematic can continue while the newly unlocked state is already durable.

The campaign difficulty preference is a separate archived cvar, not part of campaign-progress.orcp; see Game difficulty.

Campaign selector visibility

The game-owned archived CVar is initialized in games/warcraft-3/share/config.cfg:

wc3_campaign_visibility all
wc3_campaign_visibility unlocked

Default: all.

all keeps the developer-friendly behavior of showing every parsed campaign and map-backed mission regardless of profile progress.

unlocked uses authored/persisted availability:

  • an explicit SetCampaignAvailable value wins when one has been written;
  • otherwise a campaign with DefaultOpen=1 is shown;
  • an explicit SetMissionAvailable value wins when one has been written;
  • otherwise mission 0 is shown when its campaign is available.

DefaultOpen is parsed from the active CampaignStrings data rather than being hard-coded by race. Campaign and mission rows are rebuilt/reloaded when entering the campaign selector, so progress written by the preceding map is visible after the session returns to the frontend.

Selector rows

Patched clients build both selector columns at runtime from CampaignStrings (Warsmash's CampaignMenuUI does the same); the static TutorialFrame … NightElfFrame and Mission0Frame … Mission13Frame rows authored by the 1.00 CampaignMenu.fdf are always hidden. Each row clones CampaignArrowButtonTemplate (maps, campaigns) or CampaignCameraButtonTemplate (movies), StandardSmallTextTemplate for the gold header and StandardTitleTextTemplate (grey 0.764) for the name, laid out like the 1.00 rows.

Rows occupy fixed 0.0315625 slots. The campaign box has ten slots (the height of TFT CampaignListBox.fdf's scroll bar, 0.315625), the mission box sixteen; both are centred 0.2852 below CampaignMenu's top-right with their left edge at -0.287 (the campaign box's top-left is (-0.287, -0.1274)). Retail 1.2x shows the whole Human column (14 rows, 0.032 apart) without scrolling, so a ten-slot mission box was wrong: the row pitch and text already match retail, only the slot count differed. Every campaign is followed by a blank slot, and an Introduction cinematic by one blank slot. A column that fits is centred in the box; a longer one starts at the top and scrolls with the mouse wheel (the screen's scroll hook). These constants were fitted to retail 1.2x captures: two campaigns centre at 0.236/0.301 below the top edge, and the Prologue mission column (Intro, blank, Opening, two chapters) centres at 0.285 with 0.032 spacing, both within about a pixel. The earlier static-row layout sat ~0.03 higher because the 1.00 FDF rows are not what patched clients draw. The WarCraftIIILogo sprite's FDF offset leaves it off-screen, so the menu loads MainMenuLogo and anchors it at TOPRIGHT (-0.13, -0.08), mirroring the main menu (and Warsmash).

Choosing a campaign swaps the backdrop to that campaign's scene and plays its Birth camera move; Back from the mission column restores the selector's default-campaign scene with the same move.

The 1.00 War3.mpq CampaignStrings.txt also predates the later schema: it has no [Index], Background, Cursor, or DefaultOpen, splits missions into TitleN/MissionN/FileN, and names cinematics only by title (InCinematic/OpCinematic/EdCinematic, headers in [Label]). The parser maps those to <Key>In/Op/Ed movies and the <Key>Backdrop skin, printing a console warning for each campaign that falls back. Without DefaultOpen, unlocked visibility shows nothing until progress exists; the default all shows every campaign.

The older wc3_campaign_mission_visibility=played and wc3_campaign_played_<campaign>_<mission> frontend bridge is removed. Merely launching a map is not campaign progression; authored JASS availability natives are authoritative.

Comparing full retail mission columns

The retail RoC references show Human's 14 rows, Undead's 11, Orc's 11, and Night Elf's 9 without scrolling, including opening/ending movie rows. The old ten-slot mission box truncated Human and the other longer columns; PR #581 provides sixteen mission slots while retaining ten campaign slots, the row pitch, and the shared column centre. This is a box-capacity issue, not an icon-position or text-size issue.

For framebuffer comparison, initialize Single Player before choosing a campaign. menu_single_player_campaign opens the campaign selector; the named shortcut opens its mission list. Skip the authored entrance animation to capture the settled backdrop, and use a temporary profile so diagnostics do not change normal user settings:

make openwarcraft3 FFMPEG=1
XDG_DATA_HOME=/tmp/wc3-campaign-check build/bin/openwarcraft3 -data 'data/Warcraft III' -vid_hidden 1 \
  +vid_native 0 +vid_mode 3 +ui_skip_transitions 1 +scr_showfps 0 \
  +menu_game +menu_single_player_campaign_human +screenshot 120 +com_frame_limit 135

Repeat with undead, orc, and night_elf in the shortcut suffix; add -tft to check the expansion overrides. Read the newly written screenshots/shotNNNN.jpg. A sandbox without macOS display access can exit successfully with Drawable size: 0x0 and no screenshot; the command must have graphics access for framebuffer verification. FFMPEG=1 requires the five pkg-config packages listed in games/warcraft-3/game.mk. A build without it deliberately omits movie rows, so its shorter column cannot establish parity with references containing those rows. For exact row counts, also inspect the active archive's UI/CampaignStrings.txt; installed 1.00 RoC data uses TitleN/MissionN and the legacy OpCinematic/EdCinematic schema.

make test-menu covers both RoC/TFT selector geometry, named console commands, re-entry, and wheel scrolling. Run it in both movie-enabled and default builds when reviewing changes to the complete mission column. These tests verify layout and input contracts; framebuffer inspection covers the authored fonts, icon artwork, and backdrop.

The Orc campaign sky's authored static GEOA RGB is approximately (0.968628, 0.462745, 0.0588235) on geoset 10. The former static-color evaluator reversed red and blue, making this orange sky blue and Night Elf's cool light beams warm. Static base colors now pass through as RGB; animated KGAC keys retain their BGR-to-RGB conversion. Warsmash's constructor swap is cancelled by its shader's .bgra read, so reproducing only the constructor was incorrect. See MDX color conventions.

renderer_model.static_geoset_colors_preserve_rgb_from_mdx reads the stock-shaped sky record and a non-stock blue record through ReadGeosetAnim before evaluating the tint. Existing animated-color tests protect KGAC and DNC behavior. The stock and non-stock static cases both failed before the fix. The framebuffer comparison must use the final campaign scene to verify the archive's textured sky/beam appearance; unit tests cover the color contract. Bounded movie-enabled captures confirmed the orange RoC Orc sky, cool-blue RoC Night Elf beams/arrow, and the TFT Night Elf override after this correction. Full mission columns remain visible in those scenes.

Verification

Regression coverage verifies:

  • the JASS availability natives create/update the progress file;
  • the persisted RoC Human campaign/mission bits survive a file reload;
  • RoC/TFT campaign string keys map to Blizzard's native campaign indices;
  • the menu defaults to showing all campaign content;
  • unlocked mode shows DefaultOpen content plus campaigns/missions present in the progress sidecar;
  • selecting a mission no longer creates a synthetic played CVar.

Retail evidence used for this implementation

The retail file/path conclusions above are version-specific rather than a claim that every Warcraft III release used one directory:

Difficulty-specific mission completion

A successful RemovePlayer(whichPlayer, PLAYER_GAME_RESULT_VICTORY) executed by map JASS records the active difficulty only if the result was accepted for a connected human player and the active map resolves to a playable campaign mission. The developer win command uses the lower-level result helper and does not award completion. The record is saved immediately using the same atomic replacement mechanism as authored availability updates.

The resolver uses the active CampaignFile skin entry, or the edition's stock UI\CampaignStrings[_exp].txt fallback, to map the full level.map_path to edition/native campaign/mission indices. The older FileN schema constructs Maps\Campaign\<basename>.w3m; the newer MissionN third quoted field supplies a full map path. Comparisons ignore case and separator style. Cinematics, unknown maps, and maps not present in the active campaign metadata never award completion. This avoids deriving mission indices from map basenames.

wc3_campaign_progress_complete_mission() does not change availability fields. If a mission is completed at higher difficulty after a lower run, the best record rises; replaying at Easy never lowers Hard. mission_completed is independent of the difficulty byte because Easy is numeric zero. ROC and TFT records do not share indices. The completed run's current difficulty at the accepted JASS victory event is recorded, before a subsequent Blizzard.j continuation may restore GetDefaultDifficulty(). Retail handling of maps that change their own difficulty during play still requires direct confirmation.

In the campaign mission list, a completed mission displays its localized best difficulty beside its original name, for example Blackrock & Roll (Hard). No custom FDF is introduced. The selector still uses the authored mission name, button mapping, and visibility rules; a cinematic is never given a completion suffix. OpenRealm does not attempt to import retail .w3p completion flags.

Regression coverage: wc3_api.campaign_progress_completion_keeps_highest_difficulty, wc3_api.campaign_progress_migrates_v1_without_inventing_completion, wc3_api.campaign_progress_rejects_invalid_completion_payload, wc3_api.campaign_progress_map_resolution_follows_campaign_strings, wc3_api.campaign_progress_accepted_scripted_victory_records_playable_map, and the existing menu_fdf.single_player_screen_loads_*_campaigns fixtures.