[Campaign] Aduriantor's Secret... again, old thread is locked

[Boron1112]

Aduriantor is an alternative fantasy world (with quite a few similarities to the world we usually know Warcraft to take place in - for asset reasons if nothing else). Aduriantor's secret is a campaign that - while still remaining an RTS - expands the RPG-ish hero system slightly and brings the decision making into the story telling in the like of Mass Effect or Baldur's Gate.

The story deals with a character - you can choose their Gender, Class, Ethnicity and eventually their origin (and you'll be able to elaborate on that further as you go) - a Scholar, "Effas" of an ancient long gone civilisation discovers something new and suddenly the dead are rising, the second most state of Aduriantor 'Torga' is keen on war with the land your in, and apparently the final leader of said ancient civilisation has come back and doesn't much like the world the way it is now. Good luck navigating that

I first posted this way back in 2018 - and believe it or not despite very few updates I was working on it for most of the time between now and then - just without much updates. While there are substantial tweaks to the earlier levels there's only one new map - Upino.

The idea behind Upino was that for this map, we reverse the core focus of the campaign - that is most of it is the gameplay as normal with the conversation system being the 'secondary' game system. Upino is the other way around with dialogue being extremely heavy and diverse throughout. I'm not actually sure if many will like it, I can see it being a little frustrating at times, and there are writting and design choices that I wouldn't have made if I started it today - but I'm still pretty proud of how it turned out - so I wanted it to be out there at least.

I sat on it for ages after finishing (about the end of 2022) because the surrounding context wasn't done - but well, now here it is. If you do decide to play it I hope you like it,

The campaign was made on version 1.31.12164 - won't work on earlier versions. I don't know how well it will fair on Reforged, but I suggest you use the old graphics for that if that's the route you take.
You can get an old version of the game here: WC3 Download Archive (1.00 - 1.31.1 + BETA & DEMO) if you need to - and put it in a non-standard folder (say C:/w3Old) so that reforged doesn't override it. You'll still need CD keys.

Show casing dialogue - I hope you're at least some what impressed with how many options I tried to work in

Blood Stains by Anvil (2012)
Avaliable: Environment Blood

Music used:
"Nerves" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported — CC BY 3.0

The rest of the non-standard music are original compositions using Musescore4

 

[Boron1112]

Just checking in - if anyone has any feedback that'll be great.

 

[Meek0h]

So from playing it, I do like the unique character creator and the rpg style of game with companions and the approval system. There were a couple things that felt off to me though.

Starting off, maybe bring the long title screen duration down, i genuinely felt the game bugged out when i was waiting for it to end.

I do believe the campaign would benefit from custom spells, especially for the bard class as an aura bot doesn't really feel rewarding to play.
mages have a pretty good spell lineup but healing spray and divine shield don't feel like they fit for the class. giving Kyla a healing skill may make more sense as she's a ranger and they're more likely to have survival healing abilities.
Cleric would benefit from a single damaging spell, Holy Light works for undead but that's about it. Frost Armour doesn't quite fit but it's mostly due to aesthetic and class fantasy than anything else. Siphon Mana would benefit the mage, but then you risk the mage class being too close to the classic Blood Mage Hero. which is why I believe custom spells would flesh out the classes a lot more.
Haven't really played archer, rogue or warrior. but personally i would say multiple toggle abilities would also feel quite boring.

It would be nice to see what the companions social abilities are as the only one mentioned is Jo'Grad. Approval changes could also be more evident during camp (like Upino shows a menu to approval and such) as the only way you can tell if it's good or bad is from the floating hearts/broken hearts which can be a tad annoying to look for.

When it came to the RTS part of the game, I felt it took away from the RPG element of it. But that could also just be because i enjoy RPGs far more than RTS style maps. I would say maybe having the base building/army be handled through AI while you use your heroes to bolster or explore (or both if you split them up). It gives freedom to manage your heroes better without overwhelming the player, especially since the Heroes don't really feel like they get very strong over the first few maps. Upgrading via the hub can still be handled by the player and it'll bolster your forces when the AI takes over. But that's just my take because it started out as an RPG and then it was only RTS maps until Upino.

 

[Boron1112]

So from playing it, I do like the unique character creator and the rpg style of game with companions and the approval system. There were a couple things that felt off to me though.

Starting off, maybe bring the long title screen duration down, i genuinely felt the game bugged out when i was waiting for it to end.

I do believe the campaign would benefit from custom spells, especially for the bard class as an aura bot doesn't really feel rewarding to play.
mages have a pretty good spell lineup but healing spray and divine shield don't feel like they fit for the class. giving Kyla a healing skill may make more sense as she's a ranger and they're more likely to have survival healing abilities.
Cleric would benefit from a single damaging spell, Holy Light works for undead but that's about it. Frost Armour doesn't quite fit but it's mostly due to aesthetic and class fantasy than anything else. Siphon Mana would benefit the mage, but then you risk the mage class being too close to the classic Blood Mage Hero. which is why I believe custom spells would flesh out the classes a lot more.
Haven't really played archer, rogue or warrior. but personally i would say multiple toggle abilities would also feel quite boring.

It would be nice to see what the companions social abilities are as the only one mentioned is Jo'Grad. Approval changes could also be more evident during camp (like Upino shows a menu to approval and such) as the only way you can tell if it's good or bad is from the floating hearts/broken hearts which can be a tad annoying to look for.

When it came to the RTS part of the game, I felt it took away from the RPG element of it. But that could also just be because i enjoy RPGs far more than RTS style maps. I would say maybe having the base building/army be handled through AI while you use your heroes to bolster or explore (or both if you split them up). It gives freedom to manage your heroes better without overwhelming the player, especially since the Heroes don't really feel like they get very strong over the first few maps. Upgrading via the hub can still be handled by the player and it'll bolster your forces when the AI takes over. But that's just my take because it started out as an RPG and then it was only RTS maps until Upino.

Heya, thanks for the response.

There is a point there about more unique abilities. I've perhaps been a bit too married to some of the hero designs and allowing them to branch out from their niche and be a little more actively used is probably a good idea. With a mage, I'm thinking if I take away healing some sort of dispel effect would make more sense - keeps them versatile - maybe the same for clerics too and just give them one healing spell. Bards can be made a bit more roguish and rely on buffs that you choose when to apply rather than aura's too.

I could also make approval clearer too, my initial thought was that you should intuite it from how they treat you but... yeah that doesn't really come across as easily as I had hoped. Might remove the hearts all together and do some sort of generic notification - or no notification and just show you the results in camp so you can check it if you wish but the campaign isn't constantly reminding you of the mechanics and hopefully immersing you in the moment more.

But that last thing I don't think I'm happy with, I get why you would prefer an RPG campaign, but having the AI control your army doesn't sound compelling to me. I mean, I can see how some people would like that but it's not something I'm interested in making. The idea of managing multiple problems at once and deciding what requires your attention the most is exactly why I like RTS. I always found Warcraft 3's base mechanics pretty amazing, a mix of my 2 favourite genres - I wasn't really aiming to change that just bring the 'rpg' side a bit more into the story as well.

It might still mean though that I'm giving the wrong idea of what this campaign actually is though. :S - It might also be a sign that I need to be clearer about exactly what this campaign is, but hopefully easy mode will be more welcoming to those who want to focus on the Heroes more.

Still, glad you liked what you did, and I'll see what I can do about the rest - thanks again