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The Black Company Beta v1.5

Beta version.
A campaign being made by BadThrall based on the book called "The Black Company" by Glen Cook. Story intro:
Croaker spoke to assembled Company:
In olden times the outfit consisted entirely of black soldiers. Thus the name. Its slow drift northward has seen not only its diminustion but a shift in its makeup. One-Eye is the only black man with us today.
We are the last of the Twelve True Companies. We have out-endured the others by more than a century, but I fear we're into our twilight days. I fear this may be the Company's final commission. A page of history is about to turn. Once it does, the great warrior brotherhoods will be gone and forgotten.
But Croaker was wrong...Some feel the Lady, newly risen from centuries in thrall, stands between humankind and evil. Some feel she is evil itself. The hardbitten men of the Black Company take their pay and do what they must buring their doubts with their dead.
Until the prophecy: The White Rose has been reborn, somewhere, to embody good once more.
There must be a way for the Black Company to find her...
If you want to read more into it, here are some excerpts from the book, thanks to Amazon.com:http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0812521390/ref=sib_fs_top/104-7561460-5415931?%5Fencoding=UTF8&p=S009&checkSum=v R1%2BEfW %20oVph3jcZ5oF4H8kRD0jM57G82Du04dLHMQF8%3D#
Other downloads here: http://mods.moddb.com/5566/the-black-company/downloads/
Contents

The Black Company Beta v1.5 (Campaign)

Reviews
Craka_J: A pretty well made Campaign. Approved.
Level 1
Joined
Sep 24, 2007
Messages
1
Truly Magnificent! Just finished the Beta, and I'm stunned. I think this is even better than the regular campaign! I just want more, more and more! Don't drop this shit!
 
Level 2
Joined
Jul 28, 2004
Messages
21
If you want more, read the books by Glen Cook... This campaign only covers some of the events during the first book. After that, there are actually an additional 9 books in the series.
 
Level 1
Joined
Sep 2, 2008
Messages
1
The description from a fan of the map:
An interesting and involving story with lots of cutscenes,likeable characters,drama,comedy....
A very new system overall-the battles are incredibly hard and challenging and feature the old paper/rock/scissors system with a twist....
The gold system is absolutely new and...imo the best in any w3 map,even better than the original campaign.
The campaign was never finished and only lasts half the 1st book(of 9-10),but even at that it took me quite a few hours,because as i said the battles are fun and challenging.I strongly recommend wasting some hours of your life on this :p
PS:to the author,if you read this please,please,please finish it and i'll worship you 4ever.Kthxbye
 
Level 3
Joined
Nov 20, 2008
Messages
66
This capaign's almost perfect, though you should definitely change two things:

1) Please, please, PLEASE, add the option to skip the cinematics. Especially towards the end, I mean, I like cinematics, provided that they don't last over 30 MINUTES!

2) You should lower the difficult level of a few missions, particularly the last ones. They are impossible and using cheats ruins all the fun.

That said, you did a great job. With a few improvements, your campaign will be just perfect.
4/5
 
Level 1
Joined
Jun 30, 2009
Messages
1
amzaing campaign, awesome story, and incredibly hard at times (a couple times i sat there going "how the hell?") Really wish the campaign would get finished but i guess that cant be changed. I think i will look into the series and read the rest of it.
 
Level 2
Joined
Jan 14, 2010
Messages
20
I have come to believe,that this was the best campaign ever made in all the ages of Warcraft. I salute the maker of this series, and it is indeed commendable.
 
Level 2
Joined
Aug 29, 2009
Messages
10
Ya think, if i had enough time to read all books and knew how to create campaign, would have tried to create my own.I don't think I would have done even nearly as good as this.
Only problem are the LONG and unscippable cinematics.Otherwise 5/5
 
Level 1
Joined
Nov 15, 2008
Messages
1
I think the story was from a novel ..."the black company" by Glenn Cook and it took me about 3 days to actually realize that this was from something I've read

anyway Its a pretty well done map...it explains why the cinematics are always so long because everything that happens in the novel(i think) was placed there..the soundtracks were good...the only problem is I can't really skip the very very very long cinematics
 
Level 2
Joined
Sep 7, 2011
Messages
12
A very good campaign, but I would give a 4/5 because of the cinematics.... like everyone else is saying, TOO LONG! I lose interest of playing because the cinematics are too long and too many of them, more playing, less watching.
 
Level 2
Joined
Aug 25, 2009
Messages
19
Instead of my suffering of the deciphering the language used, i had a great time watching this campaign. I would love to see more.
 
Level 2
Joined
Mar 8, 2011
Messages
16
This is the best campaign on hive workshop - The creator has really placed his spirit and the spirit of the books into this campaign.

But i must say i am very dissapointed when i realised there was no ending : / i would have loved to see the final slaughter of the rebels
 
Level 7
Joined
Mar 1, 2012
Messages
189
Loved it, outstanding story, memorable characters, difficult but intense gameplay. I agree the interludes are big (30 minutes at some points) but interesting. Sadly it came to an abrupt end so I had to look for the novels to see what happened after =X. I really really really hope that someday someone might want to pick this up and finish this outstanding project ..one of the best I've ever played. And I wish more war3 campaign players would pay their attention to this marvel. It surely deserves it. 5/5.
 

Kasrkin

Hosted Project: LoA
Level 26
Joined
Apr 6, 2014
Messages
802
It may be old but it's still good as gold. This campaign was just amazing from my first time playing it years ago and then with various other playthroughs through the years. With all the forgotten campaigns throughout the net and all the ones on the hive this is still my favorite. Heh, I just wish it was finished.
 

deepstrasz

Map Reviewer
Level 68
Joined
Jun 4, 2009
Messages
18,706
Definitely an interesting campaign both in gameplay and story. I have not read the books. They must be better on the telling portion but the real experience is this game.
From what I remember, the campaign isn't finished but with so many chapters, does it even matter?
 
Level 1
Joined
Nov 24, 2015
Messages
1
I'm not sure if my comment is of interest to anyone, as the campaign seems to be a discontinued project.
Anyway, I have mixed feelings about The Black Company. From the point of view of design and creation, the campaign is superb. You really have to challenge yourself to get through some missions. The units are varied and interesting, I like the concept of fighters having critical strike, for example - this way the basic unit does not become obsolete, like in many games. It appears that the campaign was really thought through and a lot of work was put in it.
However, despite the strong points, I must admit that the campaign is a disappointment. I got to mission eleven and I'm not sure if I will continue. The difficulty level is killing me. I wonder if the campaign makers actually played the whole thing a couple of times just to test it. Mission eleven and the one before it (when you have to rescue 6 camps from the rebels) seem completely out of this world. In mission eleven, each elf attack leaves my army decimated and half of my guard towers destroyed, and it takes only a couple of minutes for the AI to muster a whole new raiding party and make matters worse. Before I even managed to get to the elf base I was overrun by an assault wave leaving it. It's ridiculous, with the elven warriors having superior spellcaster, unlimited resources, etc... The heroes are weak to the point of being more fragile than some infantry units. It's especially evident when you fight against rebel armies whose troops have over 1000hp on average and loads of armor (and much more powerful attack!), while your units have around 700-800 hundred, standard armor and standard attack rate. This is not supposed to be this way! Difficulty should not lie in the lack of equality between races. In the original Blizzard campaigns you managed to boost your heroes and gather some items by the 6th or 7th map. Here, you have nothing or almost nothing at all and to make it worse, you get a different hero with each map. It makes it all the more confusing as you can't get used to playing any character, really.
The cinematics are way too long, as a number of reviewers have pointed out. I stopped watching them after the first map. It is really easy to implement the 'esc' option in Warcraft editor to skip cinematics, I'm not sure why the author hasn't done that.
Overall, the campaign remains a solid effort, I really appreciate all the work done, but I'm afraid the it needs serious improvement to become an enjoyable experience and not an insurmountable challenge which ends up with the player resorting to cheats. I think not enough testing has been done here...
 
Level 2
Joined
Sep 19, 2014
Messages
22
I love the whole 30 chapters ov the campaign. The story was REALLY interesting. :as: I even put my whole being into the story when reading what people were sayin, especially when Croaker was speak frm his diary entry on a 1st person perspective. I enjoyed every single chapter & I wish u good luck on makin more ov this sorta thing. :thumbs_up: 5\5
 
Level 1
Joined
Mar 27, 2020
Messages
1
hmm Not good.
- so long cinematics, cant skip......
-heroes vs normall units die...WTF, hero cant do nothing
-normall mode is harder than hard mode, LOL
- You should lower the difficult, impossible sometimes
-terrible skins
Not funny campaign for that.
 
Level 5
Joined
Nov 29, 2017
Messages
82
I really took my time with this one, the campaign, the music, the skins, the cinematics, everything is really good, I understand why there are so many cutscenes, even cutscene after cutscene, the way BadThrall did the campaign, shows so much respect to the book, I understand why he would abandon the project, even for me playing the campaign felt overwhelming with the amount of triggers, bugs, typing errors.

The gold system is unique and very good, every single unit can level up and you can train half heroes, that are full of auras, the campaign is demanding with micromanagement of units, once you understand how your race goes, is very fun.

Except for the part of lack of healers, everything is excelent, it really woke up my interest for the books, definitily I'm going to buy the books.
 
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