Displaced Grid

Displaced Grid is a hotkey layout designed for ergonomics and speed.

Warcraft 3 is one of the GODFATHERS of not only the RTS genre but competitive gaming in general.

It comes as no surprise that it's one of the most hotkey-intensive games.

At 200 Actions-Per-Minute and an average game length floating at around 15 minutes...

We are looking at 3000+ actions PER GAME!

Now, think of how many games an active player might have in one day? In a week? Over the years?..

Why use a hotkey layout designed for ergonomics...of 2001?

The goal was to reduce the gap between what we WANT to do in-game...

and what we can physically do in-game :)

Truth is: the worse the interface - the bigger the gap between our intention and our execution.

And the 'slower' player suffers the most from this gap.

So instead of fighting the game, Displaced Grid is designed to fight the opponent.

A better interface enables us to better execute on our decisions.

Which means our play is more efficient and faster.

And without hand fatigue at all!

The package comes with 8 extra modules.

All modules are extras. Optional to use.

Modules follow the same logic of 'bridging the gap' explained earlier.

But...

Please understand: using modules in a 'real' game is technically cheating, because it's such a massive improvement.

RTS games gathered a massive following because of their multilayered complexity.

They're fun.

And not only they are difficult cognitively and mentally, but also physically - it is hard to control everything well.

Some players don't see the dexterity check as a part of the experience.

And some... don't "enjoy sweating out 200 APM".

The intelligence that attracts players to strategy games also makes us very aware of our errors.

Which is a big source of stress.

The gap between our intent and our execution might be too painful to tolerate.

Whether it's a good thing or a bad thing is up for debate, because with no physical component, we end up with memorization and libraries of flowcharts, as seen in chess and card games.

Think about it: when we reduce the gap between the intent and the execution, we bring forward tactical knowledge and strategic decisions.

And vice versa.

RTS games have a relatively inactive player base compared to their audience.

People do enjoy a good game, but because they don't like their own play or find the experience too difficult or too stressful, they prefer to watch only.

Which means, to create an RTS with an active PLAYER base, we need - among other things - to design around accessibility.

And therefore, we need to design a great interface first.

Displaced Grid is my attempt to do exactly that.

p.s. the code might not look pretty for some of you senior level software engineers: I made it all from scratch over 6 months of learning autohotkey.

I am aware that it may not meet enterprise-level standards. All code is available on GitHub. I'm available on Discord.

Please note, this only works for Abilities.

Step 1. Select 'GRID' as your input keys.

Step 2. Go to your %USERNAME%/Documents/Warcraft III folder

Step 3. Open War3Preferences.txt

Step 4. Change every QuickCast=0 to QuickCast=1 (CTRL + H)

Step 5. Enjoy!

Download Autohotkey v1.1 (not v2!): https://www.autohotkey.com/

Download Displaced GRID from Github: Click to Download now

Run "_Displaced GRID.ahk" with Autohotkey v1.1

"Displaced GRID" will appear in your Tray menu

Right click on this icon to get access to Tray Menu:

You must switch to GRID in game options.

The layout will work out of the box.

The tray icon indicates whether it is On or Off

The layout is active ONLY when the Warcraft III window is active.

When Warcraft III is not active (i.e., when you're tabbed out), your normal hotkeys will be in effect.

Please note when the layout is active, you will struggle to type in chats because your keys are remapped.

You can toggle the layout On or Off using a hotkey or double-clicking the icon in tray.

The default key is ScrollLock.

You can change the hotkey in 'UserSettings.ahk' (open it with Notepad).

Disabled modules are grayed out in the tray menu.

You can enable (or disable) modules in 'UserSettings.ahk' (open in Notepad).

Set "True" to enable a module.

Set "False" to disable a module.

Massive amount of work has been done to make modules work out of the box.

Early adopters remember.

Now everything is very simple.

In the Settings you will find a few extra options.