Blizzard Opens Public Test Realm for... Warcraft 3

We've mentioned in the past that Overwatch developer and world's biggest Blizzard fans Blizzard Entertainment have had long-standing plans to reboot and remake some of their older classics for a while now, starting with Starcraft, the game that launched a thousand e-Sport careers. But while that might be their most famous RTS, it's far from their only one: you might be interested to learn that before it was a MMORPG, Warcraft was also a RTS, the best of which being Warcraft 3, which followed the events of the eventual rise of the Lich King.
 
Well. We're still a long ways away until that Starcraft reboot comes to our PC's, but that doesn't mean Blizzard is ignoring the other games in it's reboot list. Which is why over the weekend they announced they were opening up a Public Test Realm for their 15-year-old game, Warcraft 3, allowing players to try out new 1v1, 2v2, 3v3 ,and 4v4 matches with a host of new changes and alterations to the game's decade-old patch notes.
 
And they aren't just quick patches for balance or stability. These are enough to give old-time players a bit of a shake-up:

• Balanced creep camp difficulty progression from early to late game
•     Balanced creep drop tables for better item progression from early game to late game
•     Item diversity: Varied Level 1 though 6 charged items and Level 1 through 6 permanent items
•     Balanced all start locations: total amount and starting distance from lumber, equal amount of spacing, equal size choke points, et cetera
•     Balanced expansion distance from start locations
•     Decluttered points of interest to reduce visual competition during gameplay
•     Retextured map surfaces for better visual clarity - both on screen and mini-map
•     Minimized the size of trees and doodads that obstructed player view of points of interest
•     Added cliff lines or deep water to edges of the map - removing hard edges (aesthetic choice for immersion)
•     Properly placed trees and doodads on the pathing grid: full-cell Medium Grid to half-cell Medium Grid alternate
•     Removed the rolling shoreline waves from rolling hills to remove the noise the waves created - remains for cliff shores

It's reasonable to expect they're doing these tests, as I suggested, in preparation for their inevitable HD re-release of the classic game, but they haven't officially stated as much. Their only official statement is that these are the first of many new changes that will be coming to the game. Apparently, Blizzard is just back in the driver's seat for this one.
 
Maybe this also means a Warcraft 4 could be coming soon?
 
Haha, not likely, but a boy can dream.