Article 5 - Local IDs for MPQ files

At first I give you an overview of Local IDs that have been used by Blizzard in their games up to Warcraft III:

Language	Language ID decimal	Language ID hexadecimal
Language Neutral	0	0x000
Spanish	1024	0x400
Chinese (Traditional)	1028	0x404
Czech	1029	0x405
German	1031	0x407
English (US)	1033	0x409
Spanish	1034	0x40A
French	1036	0x40C
Italian	1040	0x410
Japanese	1041	0x411
Korean	1042	0x412
Polish	1045	0x415
Portuguese (Brazilian)	1046	0x416
Russian	1049	0x419
Thai	1054	0x41E
Turkish	1055	0x41F
Chinese (Simplified)	2052	0x804
English (UK)	2057	0x809
Portuguese (Portugal)	2070	0x816

Now comes the question "Why do we need Local IDs?". The answer is simple. Local IDs are used to keep different language versions of a file in the same directory inside a MPQ file. According to the value set in config.txt (which can be found inside war3.mpq) Warcraft III will use the appropriate language. Therefore Warcraft III will use the files with the same language ID as set in config.txt with higher priority than language neutral files (ID = 0). Anyway, Warcraft III looks for a file it needs only with neutral ID (0) and with the ID set in config.txt.

Concrete example: Let's take one of the ID dependent files (see list below). I will take UI\war3skins.txt. If there is a war3skins.txt with ID 1031 and ID 0 in War3Patch.mpq and the current language ID is set to 1031, Warcraft III will use the file with ID 1031 and ignore the file with ID 0 (and any other IDs). If there is a war3skins.txt with ID 0 and none with ID 1031 and 1031 is the current ID, Warcraft III will use the file with ID 0 and ignore any other IDs. If the current ID is 1031 and neither a war3skins.txt with ID 1031 nor with ID 0 is in War3Patch.mpq Warcraft III will find none, even if there is a war3skins.txt with ID 1033 (for example). In this case Warcraft III will find a file war3skins.txt, because in war3.mpq there is also a war3skins.txt with ID 0 (in version 1.0 Warcraft III doesn't use language IDs for files as all files in war3.mpq are ID 0). Otherwise Warcraft III would find no file and would maybe hang.

Local ID dependent files:

Filename	Used IDs	Game	Version
UI\FrameDef\GlobalStrings.fdf	0, 1028,1029, 1031, 1034,1036, 1040, 1041, 1042, 1045, 1049	Warcraft III	1.04b
UI\FrameDef\Glue\BattleNetChatPanel.fdf	0, 1028,1029, 1031, 1034,1036, 1040, 1041, 1042, 1045, 1049	Warcraft III	1.04b
UI\FrameDef\NetworkStrings.fdf	0, 1028,1029, 1031, 1034,1036, 1040, 1041, 1042, 1045, 1049	Warcraft III	1.04b
UI\FrameDef\UI\EscMenuOptionsPanel.fdf	0, 1028,1029, 1031, 1034,1036, 1040, 1041, 1042, 1045, 1049	Warcraft III	1.04b
UI\MacHelpStrings.txt	0, 1031, 1036	Warcraft III	1.04b
UI\MacStrings.txt	0, 1031, 1036	Warcraft III	1.04b
UI\war3skins.txt	0, 1028,1029, 1031, 1034,1036, 1040, 1041, 1042, 1045, 1049	Warcraft III	1.04b
UI\WorldEditLayout.txt	1031, 1036	Warcraft III	1.04b
UI\WorldEditStrings.txt	0, 1028,1029, 1031, 1034,1036, 1040, 1041, 1042, 1045, 1049	Warcraft III	1.04b
Units\CommandStrings.txt	0, 1028,1029, 1031, 1034,1036, 1040, 1041, 1042, 1045, 1049	Warcraft III	1.04b
Units\HumanAbilityStrings.txt	0, 1028,1029, 1031, 1034,1036, 1040, 1041, 1042, 1045, 1049	Warcraft III	1.04b
Units\HumanUnitStrings.txt	0, 1028,1029, 1031, 1034,1036, 1040, 1041, 1042, 1045, 1049	Warcraft III	1.04b
Units\ItemStrings.txt	0, 1028,1029, 1031, 1034,1036, 1040, 1041, 1042, 1045, 1049	Warcraft III	1.04b
Units\NeutralAbilityStrings.txt	0, 1028,1029, 1031, 1034,1036, 1040, 1041, 1042, 1045, 1049	Warcraft III	1.04b
Units\NeutralUnitStrings.txt	0, 1028,1029, 1031, 1034,1036, 1040, 1041, 1042, 1045, 1049	Warcraft III	1.04b
Units\NightElfAbilityStrings.txt	0, 1028,1029, 1031, 1034,1036, 1040, 1041, 1042, 1045, 1049	Warcraft III	1.04b
Units\OrcAbilityStrings.txt	0, 1028,1029, 1031, 1034,1036, 1040, 1041, 1042, 1045, 1049	Warcraft III	1.04b
Units\UndeadAbilityStrings.txt	0, 1028,1029, 1031, 1034,1036, 1040, 1041, 1042, 1045, 1049	Warcraft III	1.04b

Note: The column "Used IDs" is based on the german version of Warcraft III (which is the only one I have). In other versions there may be other IDs used. If you want to, you can inform me about which IDs are used in other language versions of Warcraft III.

This article corresponds to Warcraft III since 1.04b.

Any question/suggestion/comment regarding this article should be sent to scfreak045@hotmail.com or posted into my forum.