Best way to play Defense of the Ancients (Warcraft 3) on a Mac?

Question

I own a Macbook Pro. I want to play a PC game called WarCraft 3 - Defense of the Ancients. I have googled and done some research on how to play DotA on a Mac.

Most of resources I found recommended I buy Warcraft 3 for Mac version (yes, there is warcraft 3 for mac). However, I already own the PC version, and I don't want to waste another $60++ bucks to buy a Mac version (it's an old game as you guys already know).

I also came across some forums suggesting using a virtual machine or using Bootcamp to install Windows and play.

Using bootcamp and installing Windows sounded good for me, but after I did more research, I found that since I don't have experience with using Bootcamp, I might crash or need to reformat my Mac(when partitioning). Apple also recommends doing backups for your Mac when using Bootcamp. I do not want to go through all this troublesome things, thus I will not choose this method.

My last option is to install virtual machine. I used VirtualBox and already installed Windows XP. It runs and works perfectly fine. Now, I am wondering, if I install Warcraft into this virtual machine, and play the game, approximately 5 hours a day, will it crash my Mac?

Okay, to give a summary, following are my questions about running Wacraft 3 on VM Windows XP on MacBook Pro:

1) Will the game lag, the video render okay, etc? 2) Most importantly, will it damage my Mac?

If you have others methods of playing DotA on a Mac other than what I mentioned above, those are welcome too.

Answer

Firs, you should reconsider not buying it. You can have i for 20 USD, available for download at Blizzard site. Furthermore, IIRC you can register you activation key on the new Battle.net site and download the mac version for free.

As for you questions about the VM machine:

• First, it should not damage you mac in any way, that's the point of a virtual machine. It's software computer, using a software hard drive. If it damage your machine, there is something really wrong with the program.

• Warcraft 3 could run on it, but if it require graphic acceleration, don't expect too much. Some VMs have implemented graphics acceleration, but it is mostly experimental. Although, I think it should be OK for Warcraft3.

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