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Rise of the Old Races

Rise of the Old Races

by Oraien aka Apipek

Gameplay
Rise of the Old Races is a campaign in which the player takes control of a young apperentice called Anna.

A long time has passed since the battle for the mount Hyjal and Frozen Throne. Races have disappeared. Orcs, Nagas, Undead and Elves have all been gone for too long. That changes with a plague...

This plague causes its victims to transform into undead. The first city to deal with it is Zetherit. Their healers failed and old books know nothing. Except for one...

The story begins with an archmage Amondeas summoning his apperentice Anna, telling her about cure for the plague and sends her on mission to bring the cure back to them.

In this chapter, you will learn about your new enemy and recieve basic abilities for Anna. Upon reaching your destination (the Great Portal), you will be teleported away.
The teleportation won't be successful however. You will end up in forest Naizoy in which you will encounter a spirit that will follow you and help you on your way. After defeating a troll warlord, you may proceed to the next level.
Now that you reached here, your true identity will be revealed. You will learn new abilites (elf-based) and will meet with previously mentioned spirit - Prya. She will teleport you back to the Great Portal to save your city.
Back to your homeland, you find it devastated by the undead. You have to figth your way through them to reach back into the library and meet Amondeas, which will lead to
battle between you two, killing him in the process.
There will be a portal opened, leading to a new place, hidden in the next chapter.


Features
  • Story line
  • Large amount of simple but creative abilities
  • References to the original Warcraft storyline
  • Environment variability

Credits
  • Hexus (Stone and Wooden Bridge, Stone Arc, Elven Bed and Bench, Fountain Statue, Platform, Lantern)
  • BLazeKraze (Cenarius Hand, Healing Leaf)
  • Korija2029 (Black Garden)
  • Sin'dorei300 and Uncle Fester (BloodElfSorceress)

Changelog

  • Released


  • Ingrain's spawn lasts untill killed (rather than untill expires)
  • Wizzard's attack damage slightly increased
  • Added a code (
    RotOR
    ) to automaticly win the current mission


  • Reduced difficulty for third chapter
  • Improved priorities of units for third chapter


  • Added background music to some cinematics
  • Found mistakes were corrected


  • Remade Anna character
  • Enviroment improved
  • Imporved abilities
  • Fixed bugs
Note: There are problems with transmiting data between maps, that will be hopefuly solved later on.


  • Fixed final cinematic (and if it doesn't work then is your Warcraft broken)
  • New map added (Into Unknown)
  • Tear of the Goddess included in Into Unknown
  • Infinite shine mana cost lowered
  • Maditation heal increased and damage decreased
  • Mana Thirst timing improved and mana decreased
  • Environment improved
  • Items improved


Keywords:
Anna, Campaign, Night Elf, Rise of the Old Races, The Great Portal, Forest Naizoy, Sacret Path
Contents

Rise of the Old Races (Campaign)

Reviews
Well, this is approvable with its current rating of 2/5. As long as it follows all rules and has some quality, I have no reasons to keep this as needs fix. 21:10, 26th May 2015 Shadow Fury: Campaign set to needs fix, see my review. EDIT: This...

Moderator

M

Moderator

Well, this is approvable with its current rating of 2/5. As long as it follows all rules and has some quality, I have no reasons to keep this as needs fix.

21:10, 26th May 2015
Shadow Fury: Campaign set to needs fix, see my review.

EDIT: This is taking longer than I expected. For that reason, it is reset to needs fix until further updates.
Also, fix the preview image, it is bad not to have one.
 
Level 7
Joined
Feb 10, 2011
Messages
133
Not bad, it was short and hard. Had to replay last boss fight thrice in order to get the hang of it :p

Will there be a sequel?

Thrice? o_O When I tested it, all you need to do is
wait for the spirits to come and kill them quickly, while healing with meditate
Anyways, yes. There is a sequel already in progress. If there will be interest, I'll upload it into this campaign with a code to skip the first 4 chapters (for those who have finished it).
 
Level 4
Joined
Nov 14, 2005
Messages
64
Thrice? o_O When I tested it, all you need to do is
wait for the spirits to come and kill them quickly, while healing with meditate
Anyways, yes. There is a sequel already in progress. If there will be interest, I'll upload it into this campaign with a code to skip the first 4 chapters (for those who have finished it).

The main problem
were the spirits. I had to run away after the fight started so I could deal with them without the boss attacking me, our hero is pretty weak.

Also had big problems
keeping the hero alive before gaining the rejuvenation ability. Not sure if enemies hit hard or she's too weak :D

Good to know about the sequel, thanks for the info ;)
 
Level 7
Joined
Feb 10, 2011
Messages
133
The main problem
were the spirits. I had to run away after the fight started so I could deal with them without the boss attacking me, our hero is pretty weak.

Also had big problems
keeping the hero alive before gaining the rejuvenation ability. Not sure if enemies hit hard or she's too weak :D

Good to know about the sequel, thanks for the info ;)


Well that is a way too, but one
Starfall and Elven Spirits are enough to deal with the first 3, the fourth needs an Energy Surge and is done too
And about the third misison,
there is a hidden help, if you go in the waters with murlocs to the left, there is a hidden ancient that will help you more than the other two alone
If there will be still problems with dificulty, I might make it easier by changing the spells for a bit, maybe making
Ingrain permanent
.

Thank YOU for playing it and for the feedback :)
 
Level 4
Joined
Nov 14, 2005
Messages
64
Well that is a way too, but one
Starfall and Elven Spirits are enough to deal with the first 3, the fourth needs an Energy Surge and is done too
And about the third misison,
there is a hidden help, if you go in the waters with murlocs to the left, there is a hidden ancient that will help you more than the other two alone
If there will be still problems with dificulty, I might make it easier by changing the spells for a bit, maybe making
Ingrain permanent
.

Thank YOU for playing it and for the feedback :)

I used the
ancient and still had problems haha! Cuz the enemies have target priority over the hero. Im not sure if its posible w/o it
 
Level 21
Joined
Nov 4, 2013
Messages
2,017
TERRAIN

The terrain was generally mediocre in all 4 chapters. In the first chapter, the tile variation was good enough but the terrain itself was pretty flat. Some signs of raisings and lowerings are visible but they were not enough. Additionally, extra environmental doodads would be much better, especially around the shores (the area around the Lighthouse) because they are empty. As for the second chapter, more natural doodads are needed because you didn't really convey the feeling of a true forest in an ancient land. Besides, you really need to add some rough dirt on the areas of dirt for a better tile variation. Heading to the third chapter, you should really add some trashy doodads in the Undead zones (remains scorched, skulls, trash and such stuff) to give a real feeling of dreadful places owned by the deads. The watery parts and the shores (once again) need more watery doodads (cattails, river rushes etc...). Even here some rough dirt on the dirt areas wouldn't ruin. However, I must say that the tiles were not used completely efficiently. That grass trim you've added for the tiny village looks awful since it doesn't really fit with the rest of the atmosphere. The fourth chapter was just a remake of the first one so basically the shape of the terrain was the same. The only thing I can say about it is to add the trashy doodads I mentioned above in the areas of blight to give the feeling of a destroyed place and of dead people.

GAMEPLAY

No dude, just no. As the initial cinematic of the first chapter finished, I encountered the first huge delusion. The main character is a unit, not a hero!!! What the... this is a campaign, a hero is mandatory as the main character. Campaigns are based on the fact that every chapter gets harder so I need to acquire stronger items and level up my skills to tackle more powerful monsters and complete harder quests. Where are such cool features in your campaign? Anyway, casting this issue aside, I'll tell you the various other problems I found. One, for instance, is the spells. They are just clear copy pastes of default ones with nothing truly original or innovative. This is not good because if a campaign is to prosper in these days, plenty of new and unique features are required. The items sadly didn't escape this merciless fate. I didn't see a single item (neither default nor custom) which would boost my character. That returns back to the fact that the character is a unit so items which increase attributes are useless. Talking about the game itself, I didn't find it really entertaining. Since the spells are tedious, even fighting creeps was not enjoyable. All in all the gameplay wasn't that funny thus it crucially needs to be improved.

OTHER ISSUES

Apart from the multiple grammar mistakes in the tooltips, I'd like to mention some of the issues I encountered throughout the campaign. In the second chapter, it was quite bothersome to hear the same speech of Cenarius twice, why not changing it or even cancelling it? Repetition is usually not wanted by players. In addition, the treants need to be teleported in front of the gate when I break it and the cinematic begins. Otherwise, if my treants were left back, the cinematic will be pretty weird. Anna asks "Where are you going?" and there's nobody in front of her, kind of ridiculous. Furthermore, the camera needs greater efforts in all cinematics because sometimes it doesn't point precisely where it should point (e.g chapter 4 when Anna reaches Amondeus, the camera points too down when she walks). Concerning the boss fight, it was pretty lame. It was just attacking and using spells, something already seen a million times. What made it worse was the fact that I could deceive Amondeus' minions by going to the part where there are the runes and magical lanterns. By doing so, the minions are unable to reach me because they are blocked by Amondeus, making it easier for me to wait for the cooldown of Meditation to finish and eventually heal myself. The final issue was exactly after I killed Amondeus. What's the problem? It's that nothing happens... I slaughtered him, he said something and nothing more. That left me very disappointed; it's a serious bug which needs to be fixed straighaway.

OVERALL RESULT

To conclude, the campaign definitely requires much more efforts and radical changes to thrive. For now, I will give it 1.5/5 and vote for rejection.
 
Level 7
Joined
Feb 10, 2011
Messages
133
TERRAIN

The terrain was generally mediocre in all 4 chapters. In the first chapter, the tile variation was good enough but the terrain itself was pretty flat. Some signs of raisings and lowerings are visible but they were not enough. Additionally, extra environmental doodads would be much better, especially around the shores (the area around the Lighthouse) because they are empty. As for the second chapter, more natural doodads are needed because you didn't really convey the feeling of a true forest in an ancient land. Besides, you really need to add some rough dirt on the areas of dirt for a better tile variation. Heading to the third chapter, you should really add some trashy doodads in the Undead zones (remains scorched, skulls, trash and such stuff) to give a real feeling of dreadful places owned by the deads. The watery parts and the shores (once again) need more watery doodads (cattails, river rushes etc...). Even here some rough dirt on the dirt areas wouldn't ruin. However, I must say that the tiles were not used completely efficiently. That grass trim you've added for the tiny village looks awful since it doesn't really fit with the rest of the atmosphere. The fourth chapter was just a remake of the first one so basically the shape of the terrain was the same. The only thing I can say about it is to add the trashy doodads I mentioned above in the areas of blight to give the feeling of a destroyed place and of dead people.

Well, I suck at creating environment and I never feel what is natural enough for it to look good and when it's too much. I am too hesitant to change the visuals of first (
thus forth
) and second map becouse
I've used them again in next chapters, so if I change one map and not the others the exact same way, there would be differences.
I'll try to work on it, on the third chapter mainly and I'll try to see what can I do.

GAMEPLAY

No dude, just no. As the initial cinematic of the first chapter finished, I encountered the first huge delusion. The main character is a unit, not a hero!!! What the... this is a campaign, a hero is mandatory as the main character. Campaigns are based on the fact that every chapter gets harder so I need to acquire stronger items and level up my skills to tackle more powerful monsters and complete harder quests. Where are such cool features in your campaign? Anyway, casting this issue aside, I'll tell you the various other problems I found. One, for instance, is the spells. They are just clear copy pastes of default ones with nothing truly original or innovative. This is not good because if a campaign is to prosper in these days, plenty of new and unique features are required. The items sadly didn't escape this merciless fate. I didn't see a single item (neither default nor custom) which would boost my character. That returns back to the fact that the character is a unit so items which increase attributes are useless. Talking about the game itself, I didn't find it really entertaining. Since the spells are tedious, even fighting creeps was not enjoyable. All in all the gameplay wasn't that funny thus it crucially needs to be improved.

Well, I didn't make Anna a hero becouse of the skill variation she recieves throughout the maps so making her a hero with constant spells would be difficult. I'm currently working on addational chapters (5-8 are ready, 9 is almost ready and 10 is going to be soon) and release them all at once and after that, if it will be requested, I might do a sequel where would be Anna a hero, but for now, i'd rather keep her a unit. Items? Well I can add some then.
I don't really know what you imagine under "original, non-copy-paste and innovative spells". If they are clear copy pastes then tell me what spell exactly did I use to make them all, and when you're in it, tell me what "original, non-copy-paste and innovative" spells are.

OTHER ISSUES

Apart from the multiple grammar mistakes in the tooltips, I'd like to mention some of the issues I encountered throughout the campaign. In the second chapter, it was quite bothersome to hear the same speech of Cenarius twice, why not changing it or even cancelling it? Repetition is usually not wanted by players. In addition, the treants need to be teleported in front of the gate when I break it and the cinematic begins. Otherwise, if my treants were left back, the cinematic will be pretty weird. Anna asks "Where are you going?" and there's nobody in front of her, kind of ridiculous. Furthermore, the camera needs greater efforts in all cinematics because sometimes it doesn't point precisely where it should point (e.g chapter 4 when Anna reaches Amondeus, the camera points too down when she walks). Concerning the boss fight, it was pretty lame. It was just attacking and using spells, something already seen a million times. What made it worse was the fact that I could deceive Amondeus' minions by going to the part where there are the runes and magical lanterns. By doing so, the minions are unable to reach me because they are blocked by Amondeus, making it easier for me to wait for the cooldown of Meditation to finish and eventually heal myself. The final issue was exactly after I killed Amondeus. What's the problem? It's that nothing happens... I slaughtered him, he said something and nothing more. That left me very disappointed; it's a serious bug which needs to be fixed straighaway.

Grammar mistakes will be corrected the moment I notice them, Cenarius will be silenced, treants will be taken care of. About the camera, the editor and gameplay have strange interaction. I had to redo them so many times becouse it was still wrong, I'll try to take another look at those and correct them. About the boss fight, there is an issue, the enemies refuse to use spells (I gave them some) but since Anna is solo without anyone else, they just don't use them and neither would Amondeas if I gave him any, so I tried to sweep it under the rag this way. About the pathing, I'll try to do something with it.
About the final bug, I have no idea how you managed to proc it. If Amondeas was killed, then the triggers should revive him and play the cinematic how it should be anyways. I have really no idea how you managed to do it, but I'll try to look at it.

OVERALL RESULT

To conclude, the campaign definitely requires much more efforts and radical changes to thrive. For now, I will give it 1.5/5 and vote for rejection.


Well, if it is so, then it shall be it. I work on addational chapters and plan to release them once I have them finished but becouse of all the stuff that needs to be done to the current chapters, I'll delay it. For now, I'll try to see how much I can do.

Thank you for the rating and pointing out the mistakes.


PS: Just a small note, the exact same map - The Great Portal - was uploaded and approved some time ago. Back then, there were bugs and the map itself was really poor made. Interesting that after my work it got worse rating than before...
 
PS: Just a small note, the exact same map - The Great Portal - was uploaded and approved some time ago. Back then, there were bugs and the map itself was really poor made. Interesting that after my work it got worse rating than before...
There has been standard rising (decent rising) in the past few months, unless the said map is approved around April-May 2015, then it's most likely has lower standards.
 
Level 21
Joined
Nov 4, 2013
Messages
2,017
The standard long ago was very low and any map poor map was approved. Now, because of these maps, the standard is quite higher. I get disappointed when I see maps approved with "No description" as a map description but that was the past.

For original skills I mean don't just do an ability which deals damage, simply slows down or just stuns + damage. You need things that were not already seen before. Take DotA as an example, it doesn't have simple skills which seem clear copies from old ones. That's what I want from you.
As long as the main character is a unit, the campaign will never thrive. The reasons for this are mentioned above. You can always vary the spells throughout the chapters but you can always keep a few constant ones. Also bear in mind that with a hero, you can create skills which damage according to her attributes (strength, agility and intelligence) and that's what I highly recommend to do as skill.
 
Level 21
Joined
Nov 4, 2013
Messages
2,017
DotA? So I might as well give Anna 4 Thunder Claps and do 46815564768 triggers. I hate when I see spells that are made purely with trigger bullshit and you can't understand what actually happened unless you're Bill Nye. I will do some changes, but I will sure keep to my theme

Not all triggered spells are hard to execute. Some require very few triggering, less than you can imagine. I never told you to change the theme, just make the character more enjoyable to play.

With this I'd like to end this conversation. Good luck with your campaign.
 
Level 7
Joined
Feb 10, 2011
Messages
133
couldn't you just set to Needs fix, so people like me, who didnt download it yet would actually get a chance? Apparently it wasnt so bad that you needed eye bleach, or a knife to forget this experience, so it for sure could've stayed up

Well, I work on redoing it, so that it would be better, if someone were to play it and I updated it after that, it could kinda spoil the new expirience by the old one
 
Level 21
Joined
Nov 4, 2013
Messages
2,017
Very good job! I see Anna is now a hero and that she can upgrade her skills. I also noticed you improved the terrain. Regarding skills, they are quite enjoyable now that I can level them up at my preference. However, that passive skill which increases mana is buggy. Even if I don't land the attack, I still get the mana. You should use a DDS (Damage Detection System) for such ability. In addition, nothing still happens after the boss fight. What's happening dude? This is the second time it happens to me, it can't be a coincidence.

Eventually, I'll leave the campaign pending. When you'll fix that bug of the boss fight, I'll approve your campaign right away. I hope you find the solution soon.
 
Level 7
Joined
Feb 10, 2011
Messages
133
Very good job! I see Anna is now a hero and that she can upgrade her skills. I also noticed you improved the terrain. Regarding skills, they are quite enjoyable now that I can level them up at my preference. However, that passive skill which increases mana is buggy. Even if I don't land the attack, I still get the mana. You should use a DDS (Damage Detection System) for such ability. In addition, nothing still happens after the boss fight. What's happening dude? This is the second time it happens to me, it can't be a coincidence.

Eventually, I'll leave the campaign pending. When you'll fix that bug of the boss fight, I'll approve your campaign right away. I hope you find the solution soon.

Thank you so much :)
About the mana skill, I'll fix that, I didn't think that someone would cancel attacks
Amondeas still doesn't finish as he should? o_O I made several triggers just to execute the ending and made it to work and it triggered to me o_O well... more triggers to go... :D




A campaign with 4 chapters? Isn't that too short to be considered a full campaign?

. . .

I think even if you have 2 maps to tell a story, it is better to put them into campaign, because its always easier to download 1 campaign then to locate N maps inside database

Well I will add addational maps with the upcoming updates, I released the campaign in this state to see if the theme is desired and enjoyable, so that I wouldn't have to do big changes later on, there will be 3 addational chapters soon and more to come :)
 

Ardenian

A

Ardenian

I released the campaign in this state to see if the theme is desired and enjoyable, so that I wouldn't have to do big changes later on
There exist the map development section for this.
Uploading a map here means that its concept and execution is completed and you 'finished' the map, except bugs, glitches, improvements, new features and so on of course.
But for basic feedback, as you want to receive, it would have been recommended to post it in the map development section.
 
Level 7
Joined
Feb 10, 2011
Messages
133
There exist the map development section for this.
Uploading a map here means that its concept and execution is completed and you 'finished' the map, except bugs, glitches, improvements, new features and so on of course.
But for basic feedback, as you want to receive, it would have been recommended to post it in the map development section.

I originally intended to upload first 4 champters to see the feedback and if it were good then I would add the rest, but becouse I had to make huge changes to the main character and spells (and a bit of triggers) it caused me to slow down (a lot) and thus I can't upload all of them
 

deepstrasz

Map Reviewer
Level 68
Joined
Jun 4, 2009
Messages
18,706
Not much to do there:
-skip cinematic events needed
-levels are linear, there is not much diversity in gameplay
-regeneration takes a lot of time
-spell descriptions should be more explicit (100/200/300; that should have an explanation that it's for higher levels and that it doesn't mean or)
-there's a bug with the cinematic event where Prya the Owl talks to Anna. It has some double effect on camera pans and some text if more than one unit goes to the end of the road

-books appear too slowly after their pedestals are destroyed
 
Level 3
Joined
Apr 16, 2016
Messages
29
You give spoils on the chapters, instead of screenshots.
No screenshots.
Would still give it a shot but after reading the others l will give a 1/5
 
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