Are you one of those people who would almost like to switch over to Ubuntu but just couldn’t because you don’t quite like great open source games such as Glest, Sauerbraten and Tremulous? In today’s post, here’s one more reason for you to do so: Now you can play Warcraft III, Frozen Throne, and also Defense of the Ancients, or more commonly known as DOTA! Ok, so that’s 3 reasons…but since DOTA is just a custom map for Frozen Throne maybe 2 and a half…anyway…let’s get started.
Update: As of this writing, all the official Wine versions since 0.9.46 ~ 1.0.0 has a regression bug that will prevent you from connecting/hosting Local Area Network games or Battle.net games. I will be updating this if an official Wine version that fixes this comes out. In the meantime, there is an alternative patched version of Wine that we can use.
Setting Wine Repository (Patched Wine repository, LAN-ready!)
- Go to System > Administration > Software Sources
- Click on Third-Party Software and click on “Add…”
- Enter the following:
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/starfall87/ubuntu hardy main
Note: Replace “hardy” with “gutsy” if you’re using Gutsy Gibbon - Click Ok.
After that, it will tell you that the information about available software is out of date, since we added a new repository. Click on reload and it will update the repository lists. From here, you can install Wine the normal way (see Installing Wine).
Note: If you also have the Wine repository added to your Third-Party Software, there are 2 ways to force install the patched Wine version.
- Disable the Wine repository by unticking its checkbox.
- In Synaptics Package Manager after selecting Wine, go to Package > Force Version… then select the patched Wine version (wine – 1.0.0~hardy~starfall87~ppa1)
Note2: Special thanks goes to Shae Smittle for this patch
Installing Wine
First off, you’ll need to install Wine, our magic sauce that’ll start us cooking.
Note to the uninitiated: You DO NOT need to find the Wine website, nor download Wine from there, and you most definitely do not need to double-click on an installer. That is just so last century.
Simply go to Add/Remove, check Wine Windows Emulator, and click Apply!
Installing Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos
Next, insert your Warcraft 3 CD in your drive. A Nautilus (GNOME) or Konqueror (KDE) window should appear, displaying the contents of your CD. Notice that with Wine installed, you can now double-click those .exes in Linux. Go on and double-click Install.exe. The old familiar Warcraft 3 Installation menu should appear. If you have never tried installing Warcraft, just follow the on-screen instructions, like below:
After you finish the installation, you should now be able to play Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos. That is if you’ve installed the patch as well since WC would look for the game CD and for some reason it can’t find it under Wine (in this version at least). But that’s OK for now, since we still have to install Frozen Throne. If you don’t have the Frozen Throne expansion, you can skip the next step and go over to the Blizzard website and download the patch, or you can click here to go straight to the patches page.
Installing The Frozen Throne
This is basically the same as Installing Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos. But for those with short term memory, double-click install.exe, follow the on-screen instructions, and that’s about it.
Patching Your Warcraft III Installation
In this step, we’re going to patch your game copy to 1.21b. This is essential so that Warcraft would no longer look for the CD in your drive. Head over to the Blizzard website and download the patch for Frozen Throne (or for Reign of Chaos, if you skipped the Frozen Throne installation for whatever reason) from their patches page. After downloading, double-click on that file, and after a few moments, the patch will finish patching up your game. At this point, you can now go ahead and play Warcraft’s and Frozen Throne’s campaigns. Haven’t tested Battle.net yet.
Installing DOTA
If you have a copy of The Frozen Throne, installed and patched, you can download the latest DOTA map from http://www.getdota.com. Save it into [Warcraft directory]/maps/download. That’s it! Now to play it, you fire up Frozen Throne and choose Single Player. From there, choose Custom Map and select the DOTA map.
Limitations
Although you will be able to play pretty much everything this game has to offer, aside from the aforementioned prerequisite of installing the NoCD patch because Wine can’t find your game disc, you will also not be able to view the videos in-game. Previously, you had to rename or delete the Movies folder or else Wine will crash when loading the movies, but in recent Wine versions, it just skips the movies. You can still play the movies outside the game, though. Just double-click on the movie files in the Movies folder and it should start playing in Totem or whatever player you have installed.
We’re Done!
You should now have a launcher on your Applications menu and/or desktop. At this point, you’re actually quite done. But there are a few options you may want to consider for a happier Warcraft experience.
A Few Tricks
Depending on your machine, running your Warcraft to use OpenGL instead of Direct3D may result in better performance. After installation, you should have a few new launchers in Applications > Wine > Programs. You now need to right click on your Frozen Throne launcher and click “Add this launcher to desktop” Once you have the launcher in your desktop, right-click on it, select Properties, then click on the Launcher tab. All you need to do is add the -opengl switch at the end.
Example:
wine /home/jeff/.wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/Warcraft\ III/Frozen\ Throne.exe -opengl
You also have the option to run Warcraft in a window instead of the default full-screen. You do this by adding the -window switch.
Example:
wine /home/jeff/.wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/Warcraft\ III/Frozen\ Throne.exe -window
You can combine the two switches as well:
wine /home/jeff/.wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/Warcraft\ III/Frozen\ Throne.exe -opengl -window
Under Wine 0.9.59, the launcher will look a little different, but it basically functions the same way:
env WINEPREFIX="/home/jeff/.wine" wine "C:\Program Files\Warcraft III\Warcraft III.exe" -opengl -window
The important thing here is to keep the switches outside the quotes.
So there you have it. One more reason (albeit, non-open source reason) to kick that old Windows out of the…um, window. If you have any Windows games or applications that you would like me to figure out how to get running under Wine, just post it in the comments section and I’ll try to make another tutorial if I can.
Test specs:
Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron
Wine 1.0.0-starfall-ppa
Wine 0.9.59
DOTA 6.48b
Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon
Wine 0.9.46
DOTA 6.48b
Reference:
Wine AppDB – Warcraft III
[...] Playing Warcraft III and DOTA in Linux Go on and double-click Install.exe. The old familiar Warcraft 3 Installation menu should appear. If you have never tried installing Warcraft, just follow the on-screen instructions, like below:. After you finish the installation, … [...]
[...] geekmadness.wordpress.com [...]
[...] These are just parts of contentses that intercept the article, look into more please click the URL in article.Again thank for your reading. Playing Warcraft III and DOTA in Linux [...]
grabe.. ubuntu addict ka talaga..
sige i will give another challenge on you eheheheheh
nice you are a pro!but can i ask you something?
can i just find the frozen throne.exe on my windows C: drive and press left clink and run it with wine?should it play?
Aristot3lis, I believe that should work. I haven’t tried it myself though, but from what I’ve read that’s how a lot of people do it. In fact, for a lot of games in Wine, the installer doesn’t work e.g. Longbow2 and therefore you really have no choice but to copy or run the game directory from a Windows installation.
Lemme know how it goes so I can note that in the howto.:)
areman, I’m just as an Ubuntu addict as you are a Windows addict. Now you wouldn’t want me to call you that, now would you?
)
Hi,
Great post. It’s very helpful.
I would like to add something to the process. To update to the latest War3 TFT patch and play Dota online on battleNet, you can follow the instructions on the following website:
http://www.engamers.com/2008/07/01/download-patch-warcraft-3-the-frozen-throne-122/
You can skip step 1 (as it won’t work), then proceed from step 2 onwards of the installation. Make sure you copy the files into Wine’s C:\ when you do the patching.
Hope this helps. Happy playing on Battle.Net on Ubuntu!
ey man, very educational. by any chance do you know how to make dreamweaver work in ubuntu?
tnx bro
I haven’t tried it yet, but according to http://appdb.winehq.org it’s supposed to work under Wine. I am using Geany right now for html and php (it’s in the repositories) but you could also try Bluefish, Screem, or other Linux html/php editors.
/.wine is not owned by you.
i just try to running DOTA, how can i solve this wine problem
Seems like a permission problem. If you had installed Wine via the repositories or via a .deb package as a normal unprivileged user (which you should have been using), you should be able to run it just fine. You could ad ’sudo’ before wine, but I’d rather you reinstall wine as a normal user, for safety.
I just installed wine. Copied Warcraft game folder from Windows updated drivers for Ati and everything works. I can plaz single player or dota against bots. However I cant play lan games since my frozen throne dont see my friends. We have the same version.
Wine version is 1.0.14 running on Mandriva 2009.
Any suggestions how to fix it.
actualy my wine is version 1.1.14
Sorry for not being able to reply sooner, this got buried under all the stuff I’ve been doing lately.
For Wine version 1.0.14 and 1.1.14, I’ll have to give it another go. Maybe I’ll try to test DOTA again on the latest Ubuntu and Wine to see what works and what doesn’t. Stay tuned!
how about ran online and Dekaron SEA… can it also be played on Linux?
yehey! salamat poh… just installed mandriva kde ^^ peu panu po kung hindi from cd then copy paste lng…. lam mu naman mga pinoy ^^ kinuha ko lng sa i.net ung warcraft ko
I don’t condone pirating games. If you can afford to buy a computer/PS2/PS3/Wii/PSP/DS, there’s no reason you can’t afford to buy an original game, especially one that you really enjoy playing.
That said, I’ve been there before so I know how you feel. Best bet is still to download an image of the CD, then burn or mount the CD image. Aside from that, I’m not really sure if your copy will work. Try creating a launcher or running the .exe from terminal to see if it works.
woah ^_^ “linux” seem`s interesting ^_^ by the way newbie lang po me sa linux i want to learn more about this software..Im planning to move to linux, i feel boring already using windows GG
@reyjacob Interesting talaga linux. Just give it a go, download from ubuntu.com or fedora. Be sure to read the rest of the posts in this blog, and if you need anything, just post a comment anywhere here.:)
ANYONE HAVE THE LINK TO DOWNLOAD INSTALL FILES FROM ROC AND TFT?
i have problem,my WR3 is working but i cant se dota maps
I have Problem with WC3,i cant sea dota maps