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Avatar of Ice
- Author(s)
- Sage Chow
- Tags
- Campaign, Medieval / Warcraft
- Size
- 11.97 MB
- Rating
- Downloads
- 31434
- Created
- Jun 9, 2010
- Updated
- Sep 5, 2010
- Resources
- 1
- State
Approved
This bundle is marked as high quality. It exceeds standards and is highly desirable.
Avatar of Ice v1.04B
All maps in this campaign are completed and after several updates the campaign is slowly beginning to crawl it's way out of beta. Due to the complexity of the many custom spells there may still be bugs left though.
Don't hesitate to post comments, criticism or random thoughts below. I love to hear about your experience playing this campaign and it will greatly improve my skills as a map maker. I will continue updating this campaign as more bugs and suggestions are reported. I feel that with this update, most maps have taken on their final shape and I will direct my energy towards a new project: Avatar of Forest.
This campaign is unprotected: Remember that when you mess things up in the editor the maps might crash and all that jass.. Skipping the story might leave you more confused than John Locke after watching the Orientation video.. If you plan on using large chunks of the map then please have the courtisy of making a very cool map and allowing me to play it
and so on..
Aided by a band of local Icetrolls, Dagar begins to realize that his destiny is irreversably connected to the fate of Boreas, and as the adventure evolves, he learns that there might be more at stake than initially assumed.
Demon camps are minimal, with a gate connecting to the demon world and one to the twisted nether. A sacrificial pit can be used to recycle units or summon storms.
As you may notice: the campaign buttons are now hidden. You can solve this problem by typing the cheat RevealAllCampaignButtons in the Melee Bonus Map or in Chapter one. The gamecache will then enable you to play all levels with your previously stored heroes, although some items may be changed.
- Fixed 1001 small things not worth mentioning.
- Added comments and pings to make the quests clearer.
- Removed the most annoying soundclips (but decided to keep some in)
- Brushed up some of the Dialog. There are still some typo's left for those who are really into that..
- Added "hardmode" cheat to Chapter 2/4 and 6 to increase the AI diffculty to insane.
- First attempt of balancing the AI a bit more.
- A small tooltip revision was done as requested.
- The melee bonus map got a little make over and some easter eggs.
- Countered critical bugs in Warclub and Endure.
- Redone Rage and Tribalism to counter a strange slowing of units.
- Added Snowcloak ability for Ogre of Ice
- The Chieftain can now cast Bladestorm in a group of 8 trolls.
- Added new easter eggs such as Robe of Boreas, Ancient Turtle, IceBolt etc
- Skinned the campaign screen (Although a bit ugly..)
- Fixed errors in cinematic skips
- Fixed native troll race and techtree
- Added a unique cheat in chapter 6 enabling a secret hero and an alternate story.
- Improved the icebolt system a bit
- I tried to balance the AI a bit better
- Added a new puzzle in chapter 6
- Added custom cheats, available as easter eggs or in the final map.
- Countered critical bugs, allthough the mass freezing of units in chapter 6, II may still cause errors.. If this occurs, please type "debug" after Boreas morphs into the avatar, as it should help.
- Optimized the triggers a bit more.
- -------------------------------------
- Version 1.03b fixes critical bugs in chapters 4 and 5. I disabled the wrong triggers.. D'OH!
- Minor fixes as I was working anyways.
- Enabled variable difficulties for each level.
- Lowered the Tribalism treshholds to promote the quest levels.
- Added several hints and comments based on reports by new players.
- Fixed the Icebolt upgrades in Chapters 3, 7 and 8.
- Fixed a bug in the melee map dialog.
- Redid the AI in Chapters 4, 6 and 7 to variable timed attack waves.
- The AI is now compatible with variable difficulties.
- Improved Chapter 8 terrain to a more epic oasis.
- Added optional quests to Chapter 8.
- Fixed the bug that prevented Alvar from appearing this chapter.
- Improved the Chapter 7 terrain to promote the chapters strategy of expansion and make the map feel more structured.
- Replaced this chapters third quest by a series of spawning events.
- Added some structure to the 2nd chapter terrain.
-----------------------------------------------------------
- Replaced Chain- to Forked- Lightning, removing a faulty trigger.
- Made the Tuskarr AI in Chapter 1 attack less frequently
- Fixed minor bugs mentioned below.
Chapter one: The food limit and available resources are limited; try to keep your units alive by adding items, buying upgrades or buying mounts from the beastiary. The tuskarr can be recruited as an ally after completing that quest. The demon forces will not launch an attack on your base before you enter their base in the far Northwest corner of the map.
Chapter two: Scavenge the woods for usefull items. If you engage in combat an alarm will sound attracting guards. The generators require a specific strategy to take down. You may lure the guards away, disable them with Freeze or Bash or deal secondary damage to the Generators using specific items. Be creative. In the second part: Try to abuse the Tribalism ability by clustering your troops. Use the "hardmode" cheat for a greater challenge.
Chapter three: Have Dagar enter a cave to move up or down in the dungeon. There are several extra's to be found in the optional quests/puzzles. If you can find 5 of the seven coins Knobbs the Merchant will appear near the fountain in the upper mountains. You can get the Robe of Boreas near the Shadow Demon in the Ruins.
Chapter four: Try to push an early attack with both heroes. When you've researched enough you can have Dagar cast a spell at the well in exchange for more time and the highest upgrade tier. At certain locations Dagar has a special frostbullet ability, you can use it to flip switches across water. These bullets can be controlled as in the Chapter 1 Minigame.
Chapter five: This is were you get creative, the circles of power represent mini puzzles that you can solve by casting a Hero/Unit ór Item ability in the circle, in few cases you might even place an item directly into the circle. These special puzzles are not limited to the circles and secondary effects occur at other places as well. If you can think of something so creative that it doesn't work, but you think it should, please PM me an I might put it in!! Blue Fire needs a buff, Magic things need to be de-magiced, switches need pressure and certain lakes can be targeted (look for the obvious). More explicit hint can be found somewhere in the blabla of the comments.
Chapter six: Use part I to obtain the proper items/hero for part II. Note that you don't need to destroy the camps directly, use diversions to sneak into the catacombs, or certain items (there are shops in both parts). If you had completed the natives quest in part I, you will gain a powerfull ally in part II. On replay there will be a special easter egg in part one that enables you to clear the fire. Also a series of cheats is available in the part II treasure room that enable a secret hero.
Chapter seven: Again, you may opt for stealth and early raids to provide fast results. You can let the demons do the dirty work while you set up camp. If Brutus enters a circle of power you will have two minutes to kill him before you lose the game. Try to fortify the second gold-mine and the one east of the basecamp in the beginning to avoid expanding during the second part.
Chapter eight: You can take items from previous quests to kill the bosses, or look around in this map. Defrost and kill the undead heroes to gain extra time. There is a hidden laboratory to provide you with extra sappers halfway. To deal with the distance you can upgrade your troops with items or go back in the beginning. Destroy the iceblocks to kill undead on the spot, so you don't have to deal with them later on and get some easy gold to buy units in the beginning.
Note that Ragnar, Tricksah and Torga may ferry items to the next level if you manage to keep them alive.
[/list]
MODELS: WillTheAlmighty, Gottfrei, Amigurumi, Pyritie, DonDustin, Hawking, DanvanOlhus, Mc!, Illidan(evil)X,Kitabatake, Chillakilla, MeteORA, Calahan, Happy Tauren, Hellblazer-14, Happy Cockroach, Skizzik, Weep, Sellenisko. And YAY for the UTM
ICONS: Mr. Goblin, Army-of-Pandas, Crazy Russian (Many)
Juan_Ann, Lieutang, cedi, Kershbob, Sundance, FrIky, alfred_totn, NmSAM66, The_Avenger's_Return, LiOneSS, BlackDoom, THe Silent, Tonic, VaLkYrOn, Stanakin Skywalker, Paladon, Kitabatake, NFWar, WoW.
SKINS:
MountainGiant - FrIky
Herobloodelf - Hueter
Skullsplinter - Juice_F/Norinrad
Warlock - Afroknight_76
CRITICAL FEEDBACK & MAPTESTING:
Cleavinghammer, Worstcase, Turnro, Supertoinkz, Forsaken_Ranger and many more.
The campaign was suffering from random crashes on latest patches. The issue has been fixed. See this post for information plus the newly saved and attached file (patch 1.30.4).
Keywords:
Troll, Icetroll, Dagar, Northrend, Avatar, Avatar of Ice, Zulzujas, Ice, Cold, Campaign, Arctic, IcyMapMaker
Long Bla-Bla part:
This campaign was initially intended to be a classical blizzard-type campaign, where you controll a custom race of Ice-Trolls. I decided to experiment a little with each level, and i redid a large part of the campaign as I got better at map making. As a result the levels range from base-constructing-strategy to multi-level dungeons to more quest like levels with mini games and puzzles. Most maps should be rather easy, as long as you stick to the proper strategy.All maps in this campaign are completed and after several updates the campaign is slowly beginning to crawl it's way out of beta. Due to the complexity of the many custom spells there may still be bugs left though.
Don't hesitate to post comments, criticism or random thoughts below. I love to hear about your experience playing this campaign and it will greatly improve my skills as a map maker. I will continue updating this campaign as more bugs and suggestions are reported. I feel that with this update, most maps have taken on their final shape and I will direct my energy towards a new project: Avatar of Forest.
This campaign is unprotected: Remember that when you mess things up in the editor the maps might crash and all that jass.. Skipping the story might leave you more confused than John Locke after watching the Orientation video.. If you plan on using large chunks of the map then please have the courtisy of making a very cool map and allowing me to play it
and so on..Short
This is a beta-version. Be sure to check for updates.Story
Dagar, an Ice Mage of Dalaran, follows a vision to the icy continent of Northrend; entering in the footsteps of an ancient demon called Boreas. Tuskarr legends state that this demon sealed a tremendous power in a hidden Oasis. Unfortunately Dagar is not the only one interested in this Boreas as a mysterious army of demons appears through the long forgotten waygates..Aided by a band of local Icetrolls, Dagar begins to realize that his destiny is irreversably connected to the fate of Boreas, and as the adventure evolves, he learns that there might be more at stake than initially assumed.
Icetroll Race
The Ice Trolls perform better in the company of other tribe members, wards or the comfort of their camp, using their signature ability: Tribalism. The trolls can be upgraded with mounts or special items that enable secondary abilities such as lifesteal or ensnare. More heavy units can use Hibernate to regain Hp, Endure strong hits and boost their attack at low hp. During the campaign you will visit a variety of their icy settlements, from the icetroll fortress to freezing your own goldmine and camp.Demon Army
The demons can boost their power by possession of souls; the demoness beeing the main agent of soul stealing. A soul boosts attack and enhances certain soul based abilities.Demon camps are minimal, with a gate connecting to the demon world and one to the twisted nether. A sacrificial pit can be used to recycle units or summon storms.
Screens:
What's new?
The campaign has undergone dramatic changes since it's initial release. Where the second release had updated tooltips, dialog and cinematic skips and the third had revisions of the middle chapters and easter eggs, this lastest update is primarily focussed on improving the AI and the final two chapters. I have tried to reshape them into a more worthy end of the campaign and I hope I archieved that. I have also enabled variable difficulty levels. Note that hard will enable a better AI and will be significantly harder than easy in some levels.As you may notice: the campaign buttons are now hidden. You can solve this problem by typing the cheat RevealAllCampaignButtons in the Melee Bonus Map or in Chapter one. The gamecache will then enable you to play all levels with your previously stored heroes, although some items may be changed.
Chapters 7 and 8 have been improved significantly this update! Please update if you have an older version.
- Fixed 1001 small things not worth mentioning.
- Added comments and pings to make the quests clearer.
- Removed the most annoying soundclips (but decided to keep some in)
- Brushed up some of the Dialog. There are still some typo's left for those who are really into that..
- Added "hardmode" cheat to Chapter 2/4 and 6 to increase the AI diffculty to insane.
- First attempt of balancing the AI a bit more.
- A small tooltip revision was done as requested.
- The melee bonus map got a little make over and some easter eggs.
- Countered critical bugs in Warclub and Endure.
- Redone Rage and Tribalism to counter a strange slowing of units.
- Added Snowcloak ability for Ogre of Ice
- The Chieftain can now cast Bladestorm in a group of 8 trolls.
- Added new easter eggs such as Robe of Boreas, Ancient Turtle, IceBolt etc
- Skinned the campaign screen
(Although a bit ugly..)- Fixed errors in cinematic skips
- Fixed native troll race and techtree
- Added a unique cheat in chapter 6 enabling a secret hero and an alternate story.
- Improved the icebolt system a bit
- I tried to balance the AI a bit better
- Added a new puzzle in chapter 6
- Added custom cheats, available as easter eggs or in the final map.
- Countered critical bugs, allthough the mass freezing of units in chapter 6, II may still cause errors.. If this occurs, please type "debug" after Boreas morphs into the avatar, as it should help.
- Optimized the triggers a bit more.
- -------------------------------------
- Version 1.03b fixes critical bugs in chapters 4 and 5. I disabled the wrong triggers.. D'OH!
- Minor fixes as I was working anyways.
- Enabled variable difficulties for each level.
- Lowered the Tribalism treshholds to promote the quest levels.
- Added several hints and comments based on reports by new players.
- Fixed the Icebolt upgrades in Chapters 3, 7 and 8.
- Fixed a bug in the melee map dialog.
- Redid the AI in Chapters 4, 6 and 7 to variable timed attack waves.
- The AI is now compatible with variable difficulties.
- Improved Chapter 8 terrain to a more epic oasis.
- Added optional quests to Chapter 8.
- Fixed the bug that prevented Alvar from appearing this chapter.
- Improved the Chapter 7 terrain to promote the chapters strategy of expansion and make the map feel more structured.
- Replaced this chapters third quest by a series of spawning events.
- Added some structure to the 2nd chapter terrain.
-----------------------------------------------------------
- Replaced Chain- to Forked- Lightning, removing a faulty trigger.
- Made the Tuskarr AI in Chapter 1 attack less frequently
- Fixed minor bugs mentioned below.
Hints:
This section contains some hints regarding the strategy for each level, small spoilers ahead..Chapter one: The food limit and available resources are limited; try to keep your units alive by adding items, buying upgrades or buying mounts from the beastiary. The tuskarr can be recruited as an ally after completing that quest. The demon forces will not launch an attack on your base before you enter their base in the far Northwest corner of the map.
Chapter two: Scavenge the woods for usefull items. If you engage in combat an alarm will sound attracting guards. The generators require a specific strategy to take down. You may lure the guards away, disable them with Freeze or Bash or deal secondary damage to the Generators using specific items. Be creative. In the second part: Try to abuse the Tribalism ability by clustering your troops. Use the "hardmode" cheat for a greater challenge.
Chapter three: Have Dagar enter a cave to move up or down in the dungeon. There are several extra's to be found in the optional quests/puzzles. If you can find 5 of the seven coins Knobbs the Merchant will appear near the fountain in the upper mountains. You can get the Robe of Boreas near the Shadow Demon in the Ruins.
Chapter four: Try to push an early attack with both heroes. When you've researched enough you can have Dagar cast a spell at the well in exchange for more time and the highest upgrade tier. At certain locations Dagar has a special frostbullet ability, you can use it to flip switches across water. These bullets can be controlled as in the Chapter 1 Minigame.
Chapter five: This is were you get creative, the circles of power represent mini puzzles that you can solve by casting a Hero/Unit ór Item ability in the circle, in few cases you might even place an item directly into the circle. These special puzzles are not limited to the circles and secondary effects occur at other places as well. If you can think of something so creative that it doesn't work, but you think it should, please PM me an I might put it in!! Blue Fire needs a buff, Magic things need to be de-magiced, switches need pressure and certain lakes can be targeted (look for the obvious). More explicit hint can be found somewhere in the blabla of the comments.
Chapter six: Use part I to obtain the proper items/hero for part II. Note that you don't need to destroy the camps directly, use diversions to sneak into the catacombs, or certain items (there are shops in both parts). If you had completed the natives quest in part I, you will gain a powerfull ally in part II. On replay there will be a special easter egg in part one that enables you to clear the fire. Also a series of cheats is available in the part II treasure room that enable a secret hero.
Chapter seven: Again, you may opt for stealth and early raids to provide fast results. You can let the demons do the dirty work while you set up camp. If Brutus enters a circle of power you will have two minutes to kill him before you lose the game. Try to fortify the second gold-mine and the one east of the basecamp in the beginning to avoid expanding during the second part.
Chapter eight: You can take items from previous quests to kill the bosses, or look around in this map. Defrost and kill the undead heroes to gain extra time. There is a hidden laboratory to provide you with extra sappers halfway. To deal with the distance you can upgrade your troops with items or go back in the beginning. Destroy the iceblocks to kill undead on the spot, so you don't have to deal with them later on and get some easy gold to buy units in the beginning.
Note that Ragnar, Tricksah and Torga may ferry items to the next level if you manage to keep them alive.
[/list]
Credits:
MODELS: WillTheAlmighty, Gottfrei, Amigurumi, Pyritie, DonDustin, Hawking, DanvanOlhus, Mc!, Illidan(evil)X,Kitabatake, Chillakilla, MeteORA, Calahan, Happy Tauren, Hellblazer-14, Happy Cockroach, Skizzik, Weep, Sellenisko. And YAY for the UTM
ICONS: Mr. Goblin, Army-of-Pandas, Crazy Russian (Many)
Juan_Ann, Lieutang, cedi, Kershbob, Sundance, FrIky, alfred_totn, NmSAM66, The_Avenger's_Return, LiOneSS, BlackDoom, THe Silent, Tonic, VaLkYrOn, Stanakin Skywalker, Paladon, Kitabatake, NFWar, WoW.
SKINS:
MountainGiant - FrIky
Herobloodelf - Hueter
Skullsplinter - Juice_F/Norinrad
Warlock - Afroknight_76
CRITICAL FEEDBACK & MAPTESTING:
Cleavinghammer, Worstcase, Turnro, Supertoinkz, Forsaken_Ranger and many more.
NOTICE
The campaign was suffering from random crashes on latest patches. The issue has been fixed. See this post for information plus the newly saved and attached file (patch 1.30.4).
Keywords:
Troll, Icetroll, Dagar, Northrend, Avatar, Avatar of Ice, Zulzujas, Ice, Cold, Campaign, Arctic, IcyMapMaker
Reviews
- Joined
- Apr 6, 2010
- Messages
- 3,218
This looks promising, will try it soon...
- Joined
- Oct 10, 2009
- Messages
- 1,426
there are three chapter three?
- Joined
- Jun 15, 2008
- Messages
- 677
14 Maps oO !
Very promising, +rather good description... i'll give look tommorow!
^Maybe chapter 3 lasts 3 maps
Very promising, +rather good description... i'll give look tommorow!
^Maybe chapter 3 lasts 3 maps
- Joined
- Jan 22, 2010
- Messages
- 115
Hey everybody! What a quick responses.. I was still getting those damn tags in place and i haven't even put the screenshots up yet! I hope you'll all like it.
@Cweener, Yes there are three maps for chapter three, I guess i got carried away
@Cweener, Yes there are three maps for chapter three, I guess i got carried away
- Joined
- Dec 8, 2009
- Messages
- 1,359
I haven't seen many campaigns with 14 chapters before. Good effort!
- Joined
- Oct 10, 2009
- Messages
- 1,426
My review
Well mate, Good effort indeed.
I'm a map reviewer and I'll stick by that.
I'm right now trying to write a campaign review, because a normal map review wouldn't give it justice. Give me a day or so, and I'll have this reviewed
I have decided to review each map one by one and will edit my review every time.
EDIT: {Currently contains review for Prologue and Chapter 1 Only}
Well mate, Good effort indeed.
I'm a map reviewer and I'll stick by that.
I'm right now trying to write a campaign review, because a normal map review wouldn't give it justice. Give me a day or so, and I'll have this reviewed
I have decided to review each map one by one and will edit my review every time.
EDIT: {Currently contains review for Prologue and Chapter 1 Only}
Campaign Review #1
I will not judge anything outside of what we see in warcraft. so no triggers will be judged.
Likes and Dislikes
LikesWell, I really like the backstory.
There were good camera angles for the most part, but at one point the camera went through a character (Dares(Or something like that))
It had a followable and sensible story line.
Dislikes{Please don't be offended if you are form another country}
Your grammar is sub-par for a cinematic, which is one of the main points in most cinematics. I have a few screenshots of incorrect sentences, here
The *s around letters or words means that's what should be changed. I did not go and find all of your mistakes, but hopefully pointing out a few helps.
If I was just completely wrong somewhere, feel free to let me know.
Only other complaint is that there's no fog, a gray fog at certain points, and a green at others would look wonderful.
Overall rating
On a scale of 1 to 200 (based on how I'd normally review a cinematic of this type)
187
That's a great score. I liked this cinematic, but the grammar was overwhelmingly annoying. You could easily get a 197 with grammar fixes.
Likes and Dislikes
LikesOpening cinematic was nice.
The terrain wasn't flat.
Dislikes
The cinematic with the felguard got me killed, it should pause all units other than the felguard, because I was going to attack a furblog then cinematic popped up.
What was the purpose of the voodoo lounge...?
Lots of grammar mistakes... again. I suggest going here
For the record, trolls don't say " man " they say " 'mon "
No place to heal or regain health...so if the creeps don't drop runes of healing, then you're screwed like I was.
In the secret potion tooltip it says "...renders unit undetectable unless detected..." 1) if it's undetectable then how would it be detected? 2) that's just common sense...
Overall rating
On a scale of 1 to 200 (based on how I'd normally review a map of this type)
169
This map seems like it was quickly thrown together outside of the terraining and cinematics. Needs some serious improvements. Quality over Quantity my friend.
I could not even finish this map because the problems were too much for me, I got probably half way, but I feel safe to assume it was only downhill from there.
Last edited:
- Joined
- Jul 7, 2009
- Messages
- 1,030
Wow. Great job on 14 maps on one campaign.
Well, I only tried the first 3 or 4 maps so I can't really give that much, but here's my opinion.
It's not such a bad map, just that some parts of the map are a bit sucky.
I really liked your description, got me really curious and interested about your map. Very creative gameplay and very original.
Overall, I'd give it a 3/5 but since I haven't completed the campaign I can't really be sure.
Well, Good job and Nice effort!
Well, I only tried the first 3 or 4 maps so I can't really give that much, but here's my opinion.
It's not such a bad map, just that some parts of the map are a bit sucky.
I really liked your description, got me really curious and interested about your map. Very creative gameplay and very original.
Overall, I'd give it a 3/5 but since I haven't completed the campaign I can't really be sure.
Well, Good job and Nice effort!
- Joined
- Jul 2, 2009
- Messages
- 2,951
Looks interesting.
Are those other chapter three maps like that thing where you go into something and you go too a different place?
Are those other chapter three maps like that thing where you go into something and you go too a different place?
- Joined
- Dec 29, 2008
- Messages
- 3,361
Nice.
That's all for now, didn't finished the first chapter though, bugs D:
- Why are there green plants and terrain in Outland?
- You messed up with form and from especially in the Prologue.
- You used wc3 bookshelf in Dagar's house, use xXm0rpH3usXx Church and Library doodad pack for it.
- The boat is too small to be realistic D:, make it big, BIG!
- You used the same model with the Lich eredar (forgot the name) and Boreas, I suggest change Boreas' model to:
- How the heck Ice Trolls use modern/human fishing poles? 0.o
- The Polar Furbolg (in Chapter one's opening cinematic) killed the seal right? I would suggest make him look like he's eating it.
- The Penguin got Finger of Pain! D:
- The Frost Bullet got a shadow.
- The Voodoo Lounge is too small compared to other doodads/buildings in the troll village.
- I can't escape cinematics D: (not the first cinematic of Chapter One, I mean ingame ones like the conversation with the Souther Tribe Chieftain)
- I was killing furbolgs when the Secret Ingredient shows, then I talked to the medicine man, I get and finish a quest the same time q:
- I was killing furbolgs (again) when the Ancient Book quest becomes completed, wtf.
- Furbolg Champions? Where can I find them?
That's all for now, didn't finished the first chapter though, bugs D:
- Joined
- Mar 29, 2004
- Messages
- 1,998
Holy shit, a campaign that is actually finished. Downloading!
- Joined
- Apr 6, 2010
- Messages
- 3,218
I'll do this one chapter at a time, starting with the prologue:
* Way, way, waaaay too many spelling and grammar mistakes, it distracts from the story.
* Since this is the Warcraft universe, don't use "the earth", just say Azeroth.
* Make Azulas bigger, and put some special effects on him, so he actually looks like royzlty...
* During the cutscene where the demon gets transformed and walks away, he is still visible when the camera starts turning, so it looks like he's sitting there for no reason.
** Maybe find a different model/skin for it that actually looks like his skin is falling off... (and also so we don't confuse him with Boreas, who looks fine).
* The part where Dagar is introduced has the camera going through him.
* With that out of the way, the story is intriguing, and I will definitely continue.
And Chapter one:
* Grammar, spelling, methinks this one'll show up often...
* Control the fishing troll's animation in the beginning cutscene, the backflipping with a fishing rod just looks stupid.
** Same with the Tuskarr village cutscene, if Dagar says he can't move, Ragnar should not be jumping in the air.
* I'm not sure about using the unit quotes in the dialogue... It works for the trolls, but not for Dagar, who ends up sounding like Uther and a priest.
* Put some kind of marker on the quest-giving priest (like an exclamation point or something) so you know who to talk to.
* There are holes in the north and west watchtowers (that is, the unit disappears under the platform until you tell it to move somewhere else).
* The unit using items only seems to work once for some reason, Ragnar drank the first healing potion I gave him, but couldn't use the second one.
* Not all units are accounted for in cutscenes; for example, the troll you can recruit from the watchtower doesn't come along in the village, so he ends up half slaughtered by the guards once they turn on you.
* There should be a counter to remind you of the number of furbolgs you've killed.
* Problem with the village cutscene: If you skip it, your units continue their actions instead of ending up outside the village (as happens when you go threough the cutscene).
* The goddamn demon teams are way too persistent and go far too close to the troll bestiary, I lost half my units there because they kept showing up (and the neutral trolls kept getting in the way).
** Okay, forget that: THE BASTARDS KNOW EXACTLY WHERE YOU ARE. Get rid of that, it makes the map impossible. Trying to get into the Tuskarr base while they come at you from any direction is NOT fun.
* Once you get a base, it seems the limit is at 35 food... Why?
* Once the Tuskarr Chieftain is dead, have the Tuskarr stop attacking, especially if they're attacking Dagar.
Sidequests:
* What the prize is for beating the target minigame I don't know, since he didn't give me anything after I beat it.
* I killed every single Furbolg and Trapper on the map, but I never did find that secret ingredient...
MAJOR BUG: If you choose the left cave, the game remains stuck in cutscene mode (haven't tried the others yet).
* Could you maybe add more music? Just a single loop gets boring very quickly.
Chapter Two:
* Set the Chieftain's ability hotkey to something other than S, it's going to cause problems.
* Also, you should use the other Avatar spell sound: a troll yelling "For Khaz Modan!!" is quite jarring.
By the way, I assure you I find this campaign very enjoyable and challenging so far (okay, some parts aren't challenging so much as COMPUTER HATES PLAYER, but...), it's just all these things drag it down. Fix them and this campaign will surely become one of the better ones out there!
* Way, way, waaaay too many spelling and grammar mistakes, it distracts from the story.
* Since this is the Warcraft universe, don't use "the earth", just say Azeroth.
* Make Azulas bigger, and put some special effects on him, so he actually looks like royzlty...
* During the cutscene where the demon gets transformed and walks away, he is still visible when the camera starts turning, so it looks like he's sitting there for no reason.
** Maybe find a different model/skin for it that actually looks like his skin is falling off... (and also so we don't confuse him with Boreas, who looks fine).
* The part where Dagar is introduced has the camera going through him.
* With that out of the way, the story is intriguing, and I will definitely continue.
And Chapter one:
* Grammar, spelling, methinks this one'll show up often...
* Control the fishing troll's animation in the beginning cutscene, the backflipping with a fishing rod just looks stupid.
** Same with the Tuskarr village cutscene, if Dagar says he can't move, Ragnar should not be jumping in the air.
* I'm not sure about using the unit quotes in the dialogue... It works for the trolls, but not for Dagar, who ends up sounding like Uther and a priest.
* Put some kind of marker on the quest-giving priest (like an exclamation point or something) so you know who to talk to.
* There are holes in the north and west watchtowers (that is, the unit disappears under the platform until you tell it to move somewhere else).
* The unit using items only seems to work once for some reason, Ragnar drank the first healing potion I gave him, but couldn't use the second one.
* Not all units are accounted for in cutscenes; for example, the troll you can recruit from the watchtower doesn't come along in the village, so he ends up half slaughtered by the guards once they turn on you.
* There should be a counter to remind you of the number of furbolgs you've killed.
* Problem with the village cutscene: If you skip it, your units continue their actions instead of ending up outside the village (as happens when you go threough the cutscene).
* The goddamn demon teams are way too persistent and go far too close to the troll bestiary, I lost half my units there because they kept showing up (and the neutral trolls kept getting in the way).
** Okay, forget that: THE BASTARDS KNOW EXACTLY WHERE YOU ARE. Get rid of that, it makes the map impossible. Trying to get into the Tuskarr base while they come at you from any direction is NOT fun.
* Once you get a base, it seems the limit is at 35 food... Why?
* Once the Tuskarr Chieftain is dead, have the Tuskarr stop attacking, especially if they're attacking Dagar.
Sidequests:
* What the prize is for beating the target minigame I don't know, since he didn't give me anything after I beat it.
* I killed every single Furbolg and Trapper on the map, but I never did find that secret ingredient...
MAJOR BUG: If you choose the left cave, the game remains stuck in cutscene mode (haven't tried the others yet).
* Could you maybe add more music? Just a single loop gets boring very quickly.
Chapter Two:
* Set the Chieftain's ability hotkey to something other than S, it's going to cause problems.
* Also, you should use the other Avatar spell sound: a troll yelling "For Khaz Modan!!" is quite jarring.
By the way, I assure you I find this campaign very enjoyable and challenging so far (okay, some parts aren't challenging so much as COMPUTER HATES PLAYER, but...), it's just all these things drag it down. Fix them and this campaign will surely become one of the better ones out there!
Last edited:
- Joined
- Jan 22, 2010
- Messages
- 115
Hey everybody! Thanks for all the constructive criticism so far. Its been really helpfull. I'm currently doing a major update of the first chapter, trying to give it some shape. Most of the annoying bugs are removed, and the quest/story should be clearer when I'm done. As much as the tuskarr cinematic is lacking i haven't found the energy to fix it, as it was such a pain when i made it.
Please don't feel offended if i don't respond to your comments immediately. I prefer to tackle them all at once. I plan to have the first chapter updated somewhere tomorrow.
Please don't feel offended if i don't respond to your comments immediately. I prefer to tackle them all at once. I plan to have the first chapter updated somewhere tomorrow.
- Why are there green plants and terrain in Outland?
Dreanor was not destroyed yet? No?
[*]You messed up with form and from especially in the Prologue.
[*]You used wc3 bookshelf in Dagar's house, use xXm0rpH3usXx Church and Library doodad pack for it.
[*]The boat is too small to be realistic D:, make it big, BIG!
Agreed!
[*]You used the same model with the Lich eredar (forgot the name) and Boreas, I suggest change Boreas' model to:
I considered these when making the unit, but didn't like them. I may change the Lich-Eredar though.
[*]How the heck Ice Trolls use modern/human fishing poles? 0.o
[*]The Polar Furbolg (in Chapter one's opening cinematic) killed the seal right? I would suggest make him look like he's eating it.
I actually tried to get him to perform a stupid dance after eating (triggering the penguin to kill him) but furbolg animations suck.. I may change the model, but the cinematic is not that important to me
[*]The Penguin got Finger of Pain! D:
[*]The Frost Bullet got a shadow.
[*]The Voodoo Lounge is too small compared to other doodads/buildings in the troll village.
[*]I can't escape cinematics D: (not the first cinematic of Chapter One, I mean ingame ones like the conversation with the Souther Tribe Chieftain)
I made a new system for these mini-cinematic that allows you to abort them, its in the next update
[*]I was killing furbolgs when the Secret Ingredient shows, then I talked to the medicine man, I get and finish a quest the same time q:
Changed
[*]I was killing furbolgs (again) when the Ancient Book quest becomes completed, wtf.
[*]Furbolg Champions? Where can I find them?
Valid point, improved a lot in the next version.
- Joined
- Apr 6, 2010
- Messages
- 3,218
Ah, good to see improvements are forthcoming.
* One I forgot to mention: The Voodoo Lounge shows up as belonging to the Tuskarr forces (and so is considered an enemy until the Chieftain goes down).
* And yes, definitely increase the food limit, I couldn't even get a full group together to attack. Also, have the foodcost of mammoths and wolves indicated somewhere...
* There are a few items the shop won't sell because it requires the Ice Age upgrade. However, even with it upgraded it only sells top-row items.
* Chapter two: Weird bug with making explosives: sometimes Torgo just randomly disappears from the game and then reappears later.
* Also, I'm not sure how it happened, but I ended up with two Trickstas after the siege.
* The siege timer remains after you complete that quest.
* One I forgot to mention: The Voodoo Lounge shows up as belonging to the Tuskarr forces (and so is considered an enemy until the Chieftain goes down).
* And yes, definitely increase the food limit, I couldn't even get a full group together to attack. Also, have the foodcost of mammoths and wolves indicated somewhere...
* There are a few items the shop won't sell because it requires the Ice Age upgrade. However, even with it upgraded it only sells top-row items.
* Chapter two: Weird bug with making explosives: sometimes Torgo just randomly disappears from the game and then reappears later.
* Also, I'm not sure how it happened, but I ended up with two Trickstas after the siege.
* The siege timer remains after you complete that quest.
Last edited:
- Joined
- Dec 29, 2008
- Messages
- 3,361
Well, Draenor was not red. It's like Earth/Azeroth.
- Joined
- Apr 6, 2010
- Messages
- 3,218
Onwards, to chapter 3, part 1!
MAJOR WEIRD-ASS BUG: I told Dagar to go in the spider's cave entrance, this froze up the game, then apparently restarted itself, now with the units where I had left them, plus the exact same group at the spider gate. And then the statue cutscene worked. Attempting to load before this happened results in going back to the save point... while keeping the second group of units. And restarting the map, saving under the same name and loading results in the same: the original group of units is still where you left them, but the clones are still at the spider gate. I tried deleting the saved game, and it would seem that reloading this level, under any save name, will always have the effect. Also, the game refuses to accept the Restart Mission from the menu.
** Okay, I restarted the level and went into the easternmost cave. That one loaded just fine, but the "loading causes clones" bug is still there.
** And exiting the other map (the one reached by the cave) causes the game to lock up and return you to the campaign menu.
* The "Find the chieftain" quest has no icon.
* When you pick up the gold, don't have it say "find the other gold hidden in the other three maps", maybe caves or something.
* The Nerubians belong to Nerubian Breeding Pods, shouldn't it be just Nerubians?
* About the warning for the traps: if there's no way of seeing where the traps are (and so either set them off early or avoid them), that message doesn't really have a point.
* The north ramp to cross the river is messed up; there are invisible obstacles that mess up the unit's movement.
* You should set the time to always be at night, not many caves have sunrises...
* Set counters for the gold and crystals as well.
* Shouldn't coming in sight of the statues deserve a cinematic, or at least a comment?
* Okay, I put Dagar on the circle in front of the statue and nothing happened.
* I got rid of the Abominations, so I looked for this treasure room in the southwest, but I can't find it.
** I don't know if there's an alternate animation that gets the Abomination off the table without sliding down the hole, but you should use that one if the table is attacked and the Abomination wakes up.
A few general things:
* Have the map description mirror that of the loading screen's, so it's easier to keep track of the maps.
* Also, this is just my opinion, but I think in a campaign the credits should all be posted at the end, rather than in each map.
* Priest Wolf Rider is rather unwieldy... Maybe Wolf Priest?
* Reduce the Frost Wave dummy unit's (is that the term?) vision, as it effectively allows you to see over walls (and in a cave level...)
More as I come across them.
MAJOR WEIRD-ASS BUG: I told Dagar to go in the spider's cave entrance, this froze up the game, then apparently restarted itself, now with the units where I had left them, plus the exact same group at the spider gate. And then the statue cutscene worked. Attempting to load before this happened results in going back to the save point... while keeping the second group of units. And restarting the map, saving under the same name and loading results in the same: the original group of units is still where you left them, but the clones are still at the spider gate. I tried deleting the saved game, and it would seem that reloading this level, under any save name, will always have the effect. Also, the game refuses to accept the Restart Mission from the menu.
** Okay, I restarted the level and went into the easternmost cave. That one loaded just fine, but the "loading causes clones" bug is still there.
** And exiting the other map (the one reached by the cave) causes the game to lock up and return you to the campaign menu.
* The "Find the chieftain" quest has no icon.
* When you pick up the gold, don't have it say "find the other gold hidden in the other three maps", maybe caves or something.
* The Nerubians belong to Nerubian Breeding Pods, shouldn't it be just Nerubians?
* About the warning for the traps: if there's no way of seeing where the traps are (and so either set them off early or avoid them), that message doesn't really have a point.
* The north ramp to cross the river is messed up; there are invisible obstacles that mess up the unit's movement.
* You should set the time to always be at night, not many caves have sunrises...
* Set counters for the gold and crystals as well.
* Shouldn't coming in sight of the statues deserve a cinematic, or at least a comment?
* Okay, I put Dagar on the circle in front of the statue and nothing happened.
* I got rid of the Abominations, so I looked for this treasure room in the southwest, but I can't find it.
** I don't know if there's an alternate animation that gets the Abomination off the table without sliding down the hole, but you should use that one if the table is attacked and the Abomination wakes up.
A few general things:
* Have the map description mirror that of the loading screen's, so it's easier to keep track of the maps.
* Also, this is just my opinion, but I think in a campaign the credits should all be posted at the end, rather than in each map.
* Priest Wolf Rider is rather unwieldy... Maybe Wolf Priest?
* Reduce the Frost Wave dummy unit's (is that the term?) vision, as it effectively allows you to see over walls (and in a cave level...)
More as I come across them.
Last edited:
- Joined
- Jan 22, 2010
- Messages
- 115
I got summoned to the bar while trying to complete my replies, as i result the updating was delayed by a day.. Anyways, where were we:
Well mate, Good effort indeed.
I'm a map reviewer and I'll stick by that.
I'm right now trying to write a campaign review, because a normal map review wouldn't give it justice. Give me a day or so, and I'll have this reviewed
I have decided to review each map one by one and will edit my review every time.
Well, I really like the backstory.
There were good camera angles for the most part, but at one point the camera went through a character (Dares(Or something like that))
It had a followable and sensible story line.[/box][/color]
Your grammar is sub-par for a cinematic, which is one of the main points in most cinematics. I have a few screenshots of incorrect sentences, here
The *s around letters or words means that's what should be changed. I did not go and find all of your mistakes, but hopefully pointing out a few helps.
If I was just completely wrong somewhere, feel free to let me know.
Only other complaint is that there's no fog, a gray fog at certain points, and a green at others would look wonderful.
[/color][/box][/box]
Onwards, to chapter 3, part 1!
MAJOR WEIRD-ASS BUG: I told Dagar to go in the spider's cave entrance, this froze up the game, then apparently restarted itself, now with the units where I had left them, plus the exact same group at the spider gate. And then the statue cutscene worked. Attempting to load before this happened results in going back to the save point... while keeping the second group of units. And restarting the map, saving under the same name and loading results in the same: the original group of units is still where you left them, but the clones are still at the spider gate. I tried deleting the saved game, and it would seem that reloading this level, under any save name, will always have the effect. Also, the game refuses to accept the Restart Mission from the menu.
** Okay, I restarted the level and went into the easternmost cave. That one loaded just fine, but the "loading causes clones" bug is still there.
** And exiting the other map (the one reached by the cave) causes the game to lock up and return you to the campaign menu.
Hmm, these are things that have always worked fine to me, so i'm not exactly sure what to do.. Entering the cave will create a gamecache storing a maximum of 12 units in a large region around the cave. Units that are too far away will be given to player 12, and you can rescue them later. Due to the mounting system, i order the mounts to unmount before storing.
The load-bug might be the result of the cave exit trigger event: "a player loads a game". In theory this would indead double your units because the trigger will load the units from the last stored location. I did use a "clear gamecache category" action to prevent this, maybe there is a bug there.
I might be able to fix the load by storing an additional location in the gamecache when you save a game. But i must check. I'm thinking that the save/load files are bugging as they are newly created, while in my profiles these files are pre-existing from previous testing. I will create a new profile to test this myself, as the systems appears to be running smoothly for me..
Damn, this is bugging me out.. I took a lot of time trying to make this system run smoothly and the bug really messes up the level. I will get to the bottom of this.
* The "Find the chieftain" quest has no icon. Done
* When you pick up the gold, don't have it say "find the other gold hidden in the other three maps", maybe caves or something. Done
* The Nerubians belong to Nerubian Breeding Pods, shouldn't it be just Nerubians?
I guessed nobody would look at that, as there are no victory screens xD, i put all sort of dumb names while making the maps, will change it now
* About the warning for the traps: if there's no way of seeing where the traps are (and so either set them off early or avoid them), that message doesn't really have a point. I will add some eye candy, possibly the bear-trap model
* The north ramp to cross the river is messed up; there are invisible obstacles that mess up the unit's movement.
* You should set the time to always be at night, not many caves have sunrises...
* Set counters for the gold and crystals as well. The crystals are counted in the quest screen and the comments to avoid spamming of screens. I will think about this.
* Shouldn't coming in sight of the statues deserve a cinematic, or at least a comment?I tried to avoid another "felguard-cinematic-incident". I shall add a comment
* Okay, I put Dagar on the circle in front of the statue and nothing happened. Again, this is something that I never observed.. I think this has something to do with that save/load bug..
* I got rid of the Abominations, so I looked for this treasure room in the southwest, but I can't find it. You need to unfreeze the ice-cube over the operation table, there is a series of four actions that you must do to get there. The treasure room is a big metal gate with barrels containing items and rock chunks containing secrets
** I don't know if there's an alternate animation that gets the Abomination off the table without sliding down the hole, but you should use that one if the table is attacked and the Abomination wakes up.
A few general things:
* Have the map description mirror that of the loading screen's, so it's easier to keep track of the maps. ahh yes, took me a while to figure out what you mean. You can you see the map description somehow? I never got it displayed (only the loading screen text)
* Also, this is just my opinion, but I think in a campaign the credits should all be posted at the end, rather than in each map. I agree, and changed that in later maps (i made the epilogue quite towards the end, and wasn't sure whether to incorporate it into the first version). I will delete them from the first maps as well
* Priest Wolf Rider is rather unwieldy... Maybe Wolf Priest?
Maybe "Mounted Priest", will try to change it, but the name appears all over the campaign; if i change it now i might miss half of the references, making it inconsistent and confusing. Might change this later
* Reduce the Frost Wave dummy unit's (is that the term?) vision, as it effectively allows you to see over walls (and in a cave level...). done
More as I come across them.
Well mate, Good effort indeed.
I'm a map reviewer and I'll stick by that.
I'm right now trying to write a campaign review, because a normal map review wouldn't give it justice. Give me a day or so, and I'll have this reviewed
I have decided to review each map one by one and will edit my review every time.
Well, I really like the backstory.
There were good camera angles for the most part, but at one point the camera went through a character (Dares(Or something like that))
It had a followable and sensible story line.[/box][/color]
Your grammar is sub-par for a cinematic, which is one of the main points in most cinematics. I have a few screenshots of incorrect sentences, here
The *s around letters or words means that's what should be changed. I did not go and find all of your mistakes, but hopefully pointing out a few helps.
If I was just completely wrong somewhere, feel free to let me know.
Only other complaint is that there's no fog, a gray fog at certain points, and a green at others would look wonderful.
[/color][/box][/box]
Overall rating
On a scale of 1 to 200 (based on how I'd normally review a cinematic of this type)
Changes were made, fog and the screens were quite helpfull. Will review the bulk of the text to fix some mistakes
187
That's a great score. I liked this cinematic, but the grammar was overwhelmingly annoying. You could easily get a 197 with grammar fixes.
Likes and Dislikes
LikesOpening cinematic was nice.
The terrain wasn't flat.
Dislikes
The cinematic with the felguard got me killed, it should pause all units other than the felguard, because I was going to attack a furblog then cinematic popped up.
You can now press escape in small cinematics, using a new system
What was the purpose of the voodoo lounge...?
Valid point, added more items, and a better bonus.
Lots of grammar mistakes... again. I suggest going here
For the record, trolls don't say " man " they say " 'mon "
I chose "man", because for me this sound would make more sense to me (mon means nothing..), but from an american english perspective I guess you're totally right. I consider changing it, but that would require changing all cinematics in the campaign which could be a real pain.. Might do that later
No place to heal or regain health...so if the creeps don't drop runes of healing, then you're screwed like I was.
Valid point, changes made
In the secret potion tooltip it says "...renders unit undetectable unless detected..." 1) if it's undetectable then how would it be detected? 2) that's just common sense...
This part is just from the blizzard tooltip, but it is strange. Changes made.
Overall rating
On a scale of 1 to 200 (based on how I'd normally review a map of this type)
169
This map seems like it was quickly thrown together outside of the terraining and cinematics. Needs some serious improvements. Quality over Quantity my friend.
I agree, i started this map with the terrain and then proceded with the rest, this has been a pain in all attempts to save it.. I am currently working on a major revision of the map, using some idea's from chapter 5. I think it will improve a lot, although the amount of triggers will be doubled. Thanks for the critical review, it got me motivated to make some big changes to this map.
I could not even finish this map because the problems were too much for me, I got probably half way, but I feel safe to assume it was only downhill from there.
Onwards, to chapter 3, part 1!
MAJOR WEIRD-ASS BUG: I told Dagar to go in the spider's cave entrance, this froze up the game, then apparently restarted itself, now with the units where I had left them, plus the exact same group at the spider gate. And then the statue cutscene worked. Attempting to load before this happened results in going back to the save point... while keeping the second group of units. And restarting the map, saving under the same name and loading results in the same: the original group of units is still where you left them, but the clones are still at the spider gate. I tried deleting the saved game, and it would seem that reloading this level, under any save name, will always have the effect. Also, the game refuses to accept the Restart Mission from the menu.
** Okay, I restarted the level and went into the easternmost cave. That one loaded just fine, but the "loading causes clones" bug is still there.
** And exiting the other map (the one reached by the cave) causes the game to lock up and return you to the campaign menu.
Hmm, these are things that have always worked fine to me, so i'm not exactly sure what to do.. Entering the cave will create a gamecache storing a maximum of 12 units in a large region around the cave. Units that are too far away will be given to player 12, and you can rescue them later. Due to the mounting system, i order the mounts to unmount before storing.
The load-bug might be the result of the cave exit trigger event: "a player loads a game". In theory this would indead double your units because the trigger will load the units from the last stored location. I did use a "clear gamecache category" action to prevent this, maybe there is a bug there.
I might be able to fix the load by storing an additional location in the gamecache when you save a game. But i must check. I'm thinking that the save/load files are bugging as they are newly created, while in my profiles these files are pre-existing from previous testing. I will create a new profile to test this myself, as the systems appears to be running smoothly for me..
Damn, this is bugging me out.. I took a lot of time trying to make this system run smoothly and the bug really messes up the level. I will get to the bottom of this.
* The "Find the chieftain" quest has no icon. Done
* When you pick up the gold, don't have it say "find the other gold hidden in the other three maps", maybe caves or something. Done
* The Nerubians belong to Nerubian Breeding Pods, shouldn't it be just Nerubians?
I guessed nobody would look at that, as there are no victory screens xD, i put all sort of dumb names while making the maps, will change it now
* About the warning for the traps: if there's no way of seeing where the traps are (and so either set them off early or avoid them), that message doesn't really have a point. I will add some eye candy, possibly the bear-trap model
* The north ramp to cross the river is messed up; there are invisible obstacles that mess up the unit's movement.
* You should set the time to always be at night, not many caves have sunrises...
* Set counters for the gold and crystals as well. The crystals are counted in the quest screen and the comments to avoid spamming of screens. I will think about this.
* Shouldn't coming in sight of the statues deserve a cinematic, or at least a comment?I tried to avoid another "felguard-cinematic-incident". I shall add a comment
* Okay, I put Dagar on the circle in front of the statue and nothing happened. Again, this is something that I never observed.. I think this has something to do with that save/load bug..
* I got rid of the Abominations, so I looked for this treasure room in the southwest, but I can't find it. You need to unfreeze the ice-cube over the operation table, there is a series of four actions that you must do to get there. The treasure room is a big metal gate with barrels containing items and rock chunks containing secrets
** I don't know if there's an alternate animation that gets the Abomination off the table without sliding down the hole, but you should use that one if the table is attacked and the Abomination wakes up.
A few general things:
* Have the map description mirror that of the loading screen's, so it's easier to keep track of the maps. ahh yes, took me a while to figure out what you mean. You can you see the map description somehow? I never got it displayed (only the loading screen text)
* Also, this is just my opinion, but I think in a campaign the credits should all be posted at the end, rather than in each map. I agree, and changed that in later maps (i made the epilogue quite towards the end, and wasn't sure whether to incorporate it into the first version). I will delete them from the first maps as well
* Priest Wolf Rider is rather unwieldy... Maybe Wolf Priest?
Maybe "Mounted Priest", will try to change it, but the name appears all over the campaign; if i change it now i might miss half of the references, making it inconsistent and confusing. Might change this later
* Reduce the Frost Wave dummy unit's (is that the term?) vision, as it effectively allows you to see over walls (and in a cave level...). done
More as I come across them.
- Joined
- Apr 6, 2010
- Messages
- 3,218
bout the
Yeah, please get the cave-switch fixed fast, as I want to finish the level...
* About the traps: the spikes are fine, it's just that if there's no way of finding out where they are... (For example, the trap to the left of the first gold coin.)
* Upon restarting the level, Dagar did start talking about the statues. No idea why it didn't do so the first time...
* Treasure room: The only big metal gate I can see on the map is the one closing the bottom entrance of the operating room, is that supposed to be it?
* For the counters: Can't you just have a reduceable window? I mean, yes, they're in the log but still...
* Would it be possible to modify the mounting system so you can right-click the mount to the rider or vice versa, à la Mount Hippogryph/Pick Up Archer?
* For the map description: Only when you load a game from the main menu (that is, not from in-game). For example, if your game was on the third map, it'll read Underground Ruins 1, description Nondescript.
* About the one part where the troll tells you mispelled items are traps: Not to put too fine a point on it, but given the amount of spelling mistakes... Hopefully you can run the texts through a spellchecker or something.
* Also, does the Tribalism item give a hero the tribalism bonuses?
That's all I have for now.
Yeah, please get the cave-switch fixed fast, as I want to finish the level...
* About the traps: the spikes are fine, it's just that if there's no way of finding out where they are... (For example, the trap to the left of the first gold coin.)
* Upon restarting the level, Dagar did start talking about the statues. No idea why it didn't do so the first time...
* Treasure room: The only big metal gate I can see on the map is the one closing the bottom entrance of the operating room, is that supposed to be it?
* For the counters: Can't you just have a reduceable window? I mean, yes, they're in the log but still...
* Would it be possible to modify the mounting system so you can right-click the mount to the rider or vice versa, à la Mount Hippogryph/Pick Up Archer?
* For the map description: Only when you load a game from the main menu (that is, not from in-game). For example, if your game was on the third map, it'll read Underground Ruins 1, description Nondescript.
* About the one part where the troll tells you mispelled items are traps: Not to put too fine a point on it, but given the amount of spelling mistakes... Hopefully you can run the texts through a spellchecker or something.
* Also, does the Tribalism item give a hero the tribalism bonuses?
That's all I have for now.
- Joined
- Jan 22, 2010
- Messages
- 115
Yeah, please get the cave-switch fixed fast, as I want to finish the level...
I will be working on the maps this weekend. I don't quite understand the problems in the cave-triggers yet, so I'll have to run some tests. I hope it will be finished soon.. *crosses fingers*
* About the traps: the spikes are fine, it's just that if there's no way of finding out where they are... (For example, the trap to the left of the first gold coin.)
* Upon restarting the level, Dagar did start talking about the statues. No idea why it didn't do so the first time... Hmm, strange i guess the region that triggers the comment is turned on/off based on the direction you're coming from..
* Treasure room: The only big metal gate I can see on the map is the one closing the bottom entrance of the operating room, is that supposed to be it?
Yup!, not so much treasury looking as would be suspected maybe..
* For the counters: Can't you just have a reduceable window? I mean, yes, they're in the log but still...
* Would it be possible to modify the mounting system so you can right-click the mount to the rider or vice versa, à la Mount Hippogryph/Pick Up Archer?
Wow, that's a good question, but will require some trigger-philosophy..
I made the mount system a (very) long time ago. Its just a floating unit, linked to the mount using a stack and enhanced with animation triggers. (the code is quite impressive, although now i would have tried to model instead)..
The dummy ability is used to get both units as casting and target unit in the trigger. I would need a "right click" event and then pick a random unit of type to make it happen, but there is no such event. I could use "selects a unit" but this may over-use the trigger (which would lag) and cause mounting all the time. I guess I could make an autocast or a pick units in range.. Idea's are welcome though.
* For the map description: Only when you load a game from the main menu (that is, not from in-game). For example, if your game was on the third map, it'll read Underground Ruins 1, description Nondescript.will change that
* About the one part where the troll tells you mispelled items are traps: Not to put too fine a point on it, but given the amount of spelling mistakes... Hopefully you can run the texts through a spellchecker or something. Yeah I thought about it myself while playing through the level, but decided to keep it in anyways. The troll dialog was intended to be incorrect at certain points though.
* Also, does the Tribalism item give a hero the tribalism bonuses?
Yes, it will give the normal unit bonus (not the hero bonus)
That's all I have for now.
I will be working on the maps this weekend. I don't quite understand the problems in the cave-triggers yet, so I'll have to run some tests. I hope it will be finished soon.. *crosses fingers*
* About the traps: the spikes are fine, it's just that if there's no way of finding out where they are... (For example, the trap to the left of the first gold coin.)
* Upon restarting the level, Dagar did start talking about the statues. No idea why it didn't do so the first time... Hmm, strange i guess the region that triggers the comment is turned on/off based on the direction you're coming from..
* Treasure room: The only big metal gate I can see on the map is the one closing the bottom entrance of the operating room, is that supposed to be it?
Yup!, not so much treasury looking as would be suspected maybe..
* For the counters: Can't you just have a reduceable window? I mean, yes, they're in the log but still...
* Would it be possible to modify the mounting system so you can right-click the mount to the rider or vice versa, à la Mount Hippogryph/Pick Up Archer?
Wow, that's a good question, but will require some trigger-philosophy..
I made the mount system a (very) long time ago. Its just a floating unit, linked to the mount using a stack and enhanced with animation triggers. (the code is quite impressive, although now i would have tried to model instead)..
The dummy ability is used to get both units as casting and target unit in the trigger. I would need a "right click" event and then pick a random unit of type to make it happen, but there is no such event. I could use "selects a unit" but this may over-use the trigger (which would lag) and cause mounting all the time. I guess I could make an autocast or a pick units in range.. Idea's are welcome though.
* For the map description: Only when you load a game from the main menu (that is, not from in-game). For example, if your game was on the third map, it'll read Underground Ruins 1, description Nondescript.will change that
* About the one part where the troll tells you mispelled items are traps: Not to put too fine a point on it, but given the amount of spelling mistakes... Hopefully you can run the texts through a spellchecker or something. Yeah I thought about it myself while playing through the level, but decided to keep it in anyways. The troll dialog was intended to be incorrect at certain points though.
* Also, does the Tribalism item give a hero the tribalism bonuses?
Yes, it will give the normal unit bonus (not the hero bonus)
That's all I have for now.
- Joined
- Apr 6, 2010
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- 3,218
* Statue: Direction...? I'm referring to the two giant statues standing at the entrance to the ruins, the one time Dagar made a comment it was along the lines of "These must be the ruins".
* Treasure room: But... The operation room and treasure room are one and the same then. And either of the doors can be destroyed. Or is setting off those four trapdoors required to operate the elevators leading to the treasure?
* Treasure room: But... The operation room and treasure room are one and the same then. And either of the doors can be destroyed. Or is setting off those four trapdoors required to operate the elevators leading to the treasure?
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- Jan 22, 2010
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- 115
- Joined
- Apr 6, 2010
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- 3,218
Ahhh... I understand now.
I think I'll try out the melee map for now, if there are ability/unit problems there they're bound to be the same in the actual campaign.
And indeed there are:
* Icetrolls have a movespeed of Very Slow for some reason, shouldn't it be Average (if using Ghouls as the base?)
* Frozen Gold mines, when destroyed, don't leave a regular Gold Mine behind.
* There are quite a few buildings with no pathing, so you can build far more of them than should be possible of one spot. Once built, units still need to go around them.
* You can apparently have more than one of each hero...
* The Granite Golem in the center must be on normal guard radius, as he joins the fight if you attack the bridge gnolls.
I think I'll try out the melee map for now, if there are ability/unit problems there they're bound to be the same in the actual campaign.
And indeed there are:
* Icetrolls have a movespeed of Very Slow for some reason, shouldn't it be Average (if using Ghouls as the base?)
* Frozen Gold mines, when destroyed, don't leave a regular Gold Mine behind.
* There are quite a few buildings with no pathing, so you can build far more of them than should be possible of one spot. Once built, units still need to go around them.
* You can apparently have more than one of each hero...
* The Granite Golem in the center must be on normal guard radius, as he joins the fight if you attack the bridge gnolls.
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- Jan 22, 2010
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- 115
I'm not sure whether the update worked.. The minimap looks like the old version. If there is not a big-ass ship in the cinematic then the update failed..
@cleavinghammer: I tried to see if I could get your spider-gate bug (freezing the game), but even with a new profile this worked just fine. I'm curious though how this bug could have occured.
@cleavinghammer: I tried to see if I could get your spider-gate bug (freezing the game), but even with a new profile this worked just fine. I'm curious though how this bug could have occured.
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- Apr 6, 2010
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- 3,218
Really? Well, I'll get the new version and see...
Well, the boat is bigger, and I'm on the first mission (where much has been improved).
* In the intro cinematic, Antonidas' horse's head goes through Dagar's.
* In the first mission, the potion of speed can't be reached.
* Also, during the "demon gate discovered" cinematic, your units keep moving to wherever you told them to go. In my case, it was pretty funny since they ended up going right in front of the then-sleeping furbolgs, so when I escaped and ensnared the demon, they started killing each other.
More later, I'll look at the third mission as well.
* Okay, while the loading problem seems fixed, there's still a (bigger) problem: when to try to go back to the first map, the game takes you back to the map selection menu.
Well, the boat is bigger, and I'm on the first mission (where much has been improved).
* In the intro cinematic, Antonidas' horse's head goes through Dagar's.
* In the first mission, the potion of speed can't be reached.
* Also, during the "demon gate discovered" cinematic, your units keep moving to wherever you told them to go. In my case, it was pretty funny since they ended up going right in front of the then-sleeping furbolgs, so when I escaped and ensnared the demon, they started killing each other.
More later, I'll look at the third mission as well.
* Okay, while the loading problem seems fixed, there's still a (bigger) problem: when to try to go back to the first map, the game takes you back to the map selection menu.
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- Jun 14, 2010
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Story/Cinematics
The story 'idea' is great, however several times throughout the cinematic parts I found myself thinking that the characters had a vocabulary and thinking of our age instead of a medieval time like it should be (particularly when Brutus wants Boreas to tell him where he obtained his power, Brutus acts like a CHILD!). I found it odd that instead of using a new sentence you simply extended that sentence (which is fine) but later on you switched over to one solid sentence, then back again right around the end. Voice clips were (imo) just terrible, not because they weren't right with the lines BUT because they were for the most part very small portions of a rather large sentence. Although you could probably play this without it, normal trolls have their own accents and grammar structure.
The story 'idea' is great, however several times throughout the cinematic parts I found myself thinking that the characters had a vocabulary and thinking of our age instead of a medieval time like it should be (particularly when Brutus wants Boreas to tell him where he obtained his power, Brutus acts like a CHILD!). I found it odd that instead of using a new sentence you simply extended that sentence (which is fine) but later on you switched over to one solid sentence, then back again right around the end. Voice clips were (imo) just terrible, not because they weren't right with the lines BUT because they were for the most part very small portions of a rather large sentence. Although you could probably play this without it, normal trolls have their own accents and grammar structure.
This is probably what made this campaign most interesting and unique. Particularly the Tribalism ability hands down. Tribalism is a simple ability that not only fits well with the whole troll idea, but at the same time creates an interesting playstyle for the army as a whole. However, I think the ability execution was kinda subpar, the bonuses gained from having a group I think could have used more thought. Increased armor and damage is fine, but a Bash effect? That means you'll have a army of 20+ units (most will be ranged), which basically makes your army a big stun lock on anyone you choose to attack which isn't very interesting. In any case, Tribal Icon was a very cool addition to an already cool ability, along with the Chieftain Tribalism for more added uniqueness.
Now, onto the bad. First and formost, Tooltips! This might just be a personal annoyance but I find undescriptive and/or poorly thought through tooltips you really decreases the professionalism of a map. Like with Tribalism, it only states you get a bonus if you are 5 man or bigger, that tells me almost NOTHING, what it should say is gives X armor and X attack in a 5-9 group, Y armor/attack in 10-14, and so on. When an ability deals damage, the tooltip should explain how much damage it deals, Dragon Storm explained all that it did in great depth, up until the damage part that is.
Hero abilities. This first one may not be a problem if you intended it to be like this but if it wasn't, really should fix it. The level intervals between leveling up abilities is not working as intended. Several abilities on Dagar for example can be leveled up repeatable level after level instead of having to wait from level 1 to 3 to get rank 2 of Frost Bullet (more indepth example). Many of your abilities are rather buggy on how they work, the Warlock's Ultimate has never once spawned a unit for me no matter how many times I've used it. Alvar's Snowball ability worked somewhat, the snowball would roll to your selected spot, and then continued to roll in place while the frost effect would continue moving forward. And many more...
This part is just a slight annoyance more then anything, but why did you use the Medivh icon for Dagar?!
Overall the work on the maps in terraining were pretty well done, good texture and doodad use made for a really nice looking map. I must compliment you on the iceberg affect during the Heat Generator mission (mission 2) where the ice would fall down and reveal waterfalls pouring.
HOWEVER. several times I found small holes in your map that really shouldn't exist. Mission two for example had a few of these, on your mountains throughout the map I found some areas on them that I could sneak Trickseh (he having the smallest collision size) up the mountain and be in an area where I normally shouldn't be. Map 7 was infamous for this. Several times with the Iceberg walls that hid the undead were really easy to bypass by just going around them, and I had a few bugs where the Icebergs didn't collapse, sealing off an area that should otherwise be open. On the final level, the hidden path on the water that is used by Dagar to walk across the water is there at all times so I was able to walk to the Circle at any given time (not to mention that the pathing there was rather quite choppy).
HOWEVER. several times I found small holes in your map that really shouldn't exist. Mission two for example had a few of these, on your mountains throughout the map I found some areas on them that I could sneak Trickseh (he having the smallest collision size) up the mountain and be in an area where I normally shouldn't be. Map 7 was infamous for this. Several times with the Iceberg walls that hid the undead were really easy to bypass by just going around them, and I had a few bugs where the Icebergs didn't collapse, sealing off an area that should otherwise be open. On the final level, the hidden path on the water that is used by Dagar to walk across the water is there at all times so I was able to walk to the Circle at any given time (not to mention that the pathing there was rather quite choppy).
I didn't go into your maps and look at the triggering myself, just so you know in advance. Anyways, a lot of the bugs I found were due to failed trigger events. Best example would be on level 5, a large chunk of the Circle of Power areas didn't do anything when I used any of Alvar's abilities, even after repeated, this was so bad that I couldn't physically complete the level due to this problem.
The frozen enemies on the final level worked somewhat. However, when I started the 20 minute countdown, I found that many of the undead that should be frozen in ice really weren't, instead they just sat in the ice but could move and attack like a normal unit, and could do this while still invulnerable.
In level 3, a really bad bug I found was that if I saved (I did the outside area), exited the map and came back. The map would be exactly as I left it BUT a copy of Dagar and the normal 4 trolls and 2 wolves would enter the map again, creating a duplicate of Dagar and his allies.
The frozen enemies on the final level worked somewhat. However, when I started the 20 minute countdown, I found that many of the undead that should be frozen in ice really weren't, instead they just sat in the ice but could move and attack like a normal unit, and could do this while still invulnerable.
In level 3, a really bad bug I found was that if I saved (I did the outside area), exited the map and came back. The map would be exactly as I left it BUT a copy of Dagar and the normal 4 trolls and 2 wolves would enter the map again, creating a duplicate of Dagar and his allies.
Some other problems:
-Spelling, it's been stated a billion times already but it needs to be said again
-Difficulty of map, several times I found it to be near impossible to beat some levels (level 1 was a biggy).
-Computer AI, this could really help improve your map if you add some and refine some. On the seventh level, you make the Trolls out to be a notable enemy, BUT they end up getting destroyed by the undead in like, 10 minutes.
There is a lot more I could add positive and negative wise, however I think I covered some of the bigger areas. I don't mean to sound like a complete jackass with all this negative walls of text, instead I hope you take what I say and improve your map with this knowledge. In any case, overall. This was an awesome map and when you've fixed and refined it all, it will be AMAZING.
Personal fav forever.
- Joined
- Nov 20, 2008
- Messages
- 66
Your work looks promising, good storyline and mission-planning, but it also requires some work:
1- PLEASE, fix the bugs. In addition to those mentioned above, when you go into the caves (any cave) with your character in the fourth mission, he ans his party simply disappear, never to be seen again in any part of the map. When you reload a saved game, you end up with 2 parties and 2 heroes and no way out regardless of the cave you choose.
Add: Sorry, I didn't read cleavinghammer's message. While you work on this issue, wouldn't be useful to give us some cheats, if you have any, to reload the mage?
2- My personal taste, It'd be nice to give the heroes a bit more punch and maybe change an ability or two. The heroes are cool, but they need proper powerful spells.
Keep up the good work.
1- PLEASE, fix the bugs. In addition to those mentioned above, when you go into the caves (any cave) with your character in the fourth mission, he ans his party simply disappear, never to be seen again in any part of the map. When you reload a saved game, you end up with 2 parties and 2 heroes and no way out regardless of the cave you choose.
Add: Sorry, I didn't read cleavinghammer's message. While you work on this issue, wouldn't be useful to give us some cheats, if you have any, to reload the mage?
2- My personal taste, It'd be nice to give the heroes a bit more punch and maybe change an ability or two. The heroes are cool, but they need proper powerful spells.
Keep up the good work.
- Joined
- Jul 16, 2007
- Messages
- 1,393
so far im at the fist chapter, but this is freakin' awesome i must say.
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- Apr 6, 2010
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- 3,218
First chapter problem: the troll who's supposed to take you across the bridge doesn't do anything, and the troops can't go on the bridge.
EDIT: Whoops, never mind, I thought you had to click on the troll to trigger it instead of standing Dagar in front of the bridge (you should change the quest that way).
Problem with the seamonster quest: the thing keeps running away, it doesn't even walk all the way to the lure when it's summoned. So it goes in the deep water where you can barely do any damage to it, and comes back after it's regenerated a lot of HP.
I suspect this is a bug in the Tribalism: soetimes a unit in the group's speed will be listed as Very Slow for no apparent reason (such as Ragnar), slowing the entire group down. And sometimes they're different despite being in the same area (for example, I had two trappers, one with Average, one with Slow movement speed).
There are quite a few upgrades that are made unobtainable (because you can't build the apprpriate building, etc.), though they still show up.
Also, the second armor upgrade for animals is unavailable, though the weapon upgrade is.
EDIT: Whoops, never mind, I thought you had to click on the troll to trigger it instead of standing Dagar in front of the bridge (you should change the quest that way).
Problem with the seamonster quest: the thing keeps running away, it doesn't even walk all the way to the lure when it's summoned. So it goes in the deep water where you can barely do any damage to it, and comes back after it's regenerated a lot of HP.
I suspect this is a bug in the Tribalism: soetimes a unit in the group's speed will be listed as Very Slow for no apparent reason (such as Ragnar), slowing the entire group down. And sometimes they're different despite being in the same area (for example, I had two trappers, one with Average, one with Slow movement speed).
There are quite a few upgrades that are made unobtainable (because you can't build the apprpriate building, etc.), though they still show up.
Also, the second armor upgrade for animals is unavailable, though the weapon upgrade is.
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- Jan 22, 2010
- Messages
- 115
I'm glad that you like it so far; in response to your comments:
1- The save/load bug should be fixed in this update (or does it still occur?)
2- Do you have any good suggestions? These spells are supposed to be complementary and serve a specific strategy, I find it hard to replace any.
@knight26: Thanks! That means alot.
@cleavinghammer:
I have tried to solve that Tribalism bug on several occasions but the problem seems to be random, like a decay of movespeed over time. (which would be a very cool feature if it was intended..) A similar thing happens to a lesser extent to the rage ability *insert epiphany here*
I hypothesize that this bug might have something to do with adding and removing abilities.. But I wouldn't really know how to fix it yet, except for not adding/removing but setting the level of an ability instead.. hmm ok, i might be able to fix this.
The seamonster is just another example of my eternal struggle with neutral units. 50% of the time they just behave randomly to my move orders.. (especially in cinematics). I give up and will move the monster closer to land.
As for the minor things: The techtree is available up to the 2nd tier only. The magic and beast armor span only two levels. Even though you're right to list it; the potion of speed cán actually be reached, albeit after a few clicks.. I can fix the goldmine bug, it's made a long time ago in a very blunt attempt
.A question to you: Does the Cave-thing still give you that weird bug or is it gone now?
- Joined
- Jun 14, 2010
- Messages
- 11
Just a quick suggestion on making revamping a bit of your Troll Chieftain. Switch out the Hero Ability Tribalism for a normal version of it, freeing up a spot for something else. Personally, I'm feeling that something like the normal melee game Troll Berserk ability would be good, works into the idea of a Spear Thrower, and synergizes well with Speardance. Just a thought.
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- Apr 6, 2010
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- 3,218
If by cave you mean the freezing up at the end of the first level, I haven't gotten that far yet.
And about the Tuskarr cinematic: why does the demon keep attacking that one Tuskarr?
How do I get to the last island? I tried random destination a few times, but nothing happened.
About the upgrades: I mean remove the ones you can't reach (for example, upgrading to Arctic Ancestry is impossible since you can't build a Beastiary).
The troll village lounge refuses to sell you items.
Other problem: The game takes longer and longer to save each time, the last time I played a map with that problem, it ended up crashing the game. Please fix as well.
And about the Tuskarr cinematic: why does the demon keep attacking that one Tuskarr?
How do I get to the last island? I tried random destination a few times, but nothing happened.
About the upgrades: I mean remove the ones you can't reach (for example, upgrading to Arctic Ancestry is impossible since you can't build a Beastiary).
The troll village lounge refuses to sell you items.
Other problem: The game takes longer and longer to save each time, the last time I played a map with that problem, it ended up crashing the game. Please fix as well.
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- Sep 5, 2009
- Messages
- 115
bugs/issues *may contain spoilers*
It's good to see someone actually uploading an entire campaign and not just one or two maps. There's a few things I ran into that were either bugs or confusing:
Chapter 1:
-When you are assigned the Furbolg quest, it pings an island that is to the southeast. However it is unreachable. I killed the Furbolg chieftains and turned in that portion of the quest but it said I still had to go to the island. I crossed an ice bridge that led to the Tuskarrs and it said that I should complete the Furbolg quest before going further. I'm really not sure what this meant seeing as how there is now way to get to that island. I ignored it and went southwest to the other troll encampment.
-When you defeat the Furbolg chieftain, are they supposed to become allies? If so, You might want to give them shared vision and fix some settings with their status with the demons. It looks as though they are allied with both the player and the demons. They send a party the follows my group and their spell caster was healing the demon units. This was very annoying as I kept having to kill the Tuskarr healers so they wouldn't do that. The other units they send just stand around, they don't attack the demons.
-Off the top of my head, that's all I can think of for this chapter.
Chapter 2:
-seems fine from what I went through it. I liked the siege idea.
Chapter 3:
-I cannot complete this chapter. Anytime you try to go back under the ground to the caves where you start out in the mission, it takes you either back the chapter selection screen in the campaign or the main menu of the game.
-I had started on the left entrance that I chose in chapter one, and worked my way all through the upper hills to the point where it would go back down to the part of the cave you could access if you chose the middle path. It went back to the main screen.
-I tried the same thing this time choosing the center path and working my way to the other side where you would access if you had chosen the left path. Again same thing. Trying to go back into the caves causes the game to go to the main screen.
-I'd like to give a review of the other chapters, but I can't access them. I don't want to select them in the main screen because none of the data would save like items, stats, abilities, etc. from the previous chapters.
-I do want to suggest that the chapters not all be accessible in the chapter selection screen before even playing the campaign. You might want to do it how Blizzard did it for their campaigns, only have new chapters showing once you've completed the previous ones.
I think that is all I can think of so far. Once the issue gets fixed with chapter 3, then I'll be able to continue a review. It looks like a promising campaign though.
It's good to see someone actually uploading an entire campaign and not just one or two maps. There's a few things I ran into that were either bugs or confusing:
Chapter 1:
-When you are assigned the Furbolg quest, it pings an island that is to the southeast. However it is unreachable. I killed the Furbolg chieftains and turned in that portion of the quest but it said I still had to go to the island. I crossed an ice bridge that led to the Tuskarrs and it said that I should complete the Furbolg quest before going further. I'm really not sure what this meant seeing as how there is now way to get to that island. I ignored it and went southwest to the other troll encampment.
-When you defeat the Furbolg chieftain, are they supposed to become allies? If so, You might want to give them shared vision and fix some settings with their status with the demons. It looks as though they are allied with both the player and the demons. They send a party the follows my group and their spell caster was healing the demon units. This was very annoying as I kept having to kill the Tuskarr healers so they wouldn't do that. The other units they send just stand around, they don't attack the demons.
-Off the top of my head, that's all I can think of for this chapter.
Chapter 2:
-seems fine from what I went through it. I liked the siege idea.
Chapter 3:
-I cannot complete this chapter. Anytime you try to go back under the ground to the caves where you start out in the mission, it takes you either back the chapter selection screen in the campaign or the main menu of the game.
-I had started on the left entrance that I chose in chapter one, and worked my way all through the upper hills to the point where it would go back down to the part of the cave you could access if you chose the middle path. It went back to the main screen.
-I tried the same thing this time choosing the center path and working my way to the other side where you would access if you had chosen the left path. Again same thing. Trying to go back into the caves causes the game to go to the main screen.
-I'd like to give a review of the other chapters, but I can't access them. I don't want to select them in the main screen because none of the data would save like items, stats, abilities, etc. from the previous chapters.
-I do want to suggest that the chapters not all be accessible in the chapter selection screen before even playing the campaign. You might want to do it how Blizzard did it for their campaigns, only have new chapters showing once you've completed the previous ones.
I think that is all I can think of so far. Once the issue gets fixed with chapter 3, then I'll be able to continue a review. It looks like a promising campaign though.
- Joined
- Jan 22, 2010
- Messages
- 115
Hi everybody! There seems to be a bug in the cave system even now.. Unfortunatly, I'm not a major Jass-wizz, i'm just another mapper struggling with GUI *insert sad face*. That being said I will do everything in my power to fix this bug quickly. In order to do this i will need to properly isolate the problem:
This problem didn't occur in my game, but i'm testing now if I could have done something after the update.. Else the problem could be related to:
- W3 version: I have 1.20d (I think), a slightly older version of TFT.
- Pre-existing save files: (I have played this level from the creation onwards, maybe copy-pasting these files may be a solution..)
- Computer Speed ?
@Forsaken Ranger: Hello! Thanks for posting your review. I've placed a reply below:
This problem didn't occur in my game, but i'm testing now if I could have done something after the update.. Else the problem could be related to:
- W3 version: I have 1.20d (I think), a slightly older version of TFT.
- Pre-existing save files: (I have played this level from the creation onwards, maybe copy-pasting these files may be a solution..)
- Computer Speed ?
@Forsaken Ranger: Hello! Thanks for posting your review. I've placed a reply below:
It's good to see someone actually uploading an entire campaign and not just one or two maps. There's a few things I ran into that were either bugs or confusing:
Chapter 1:
-When you are assigned the Furbolg quest, it pings an island that is to the southeast. However it is unreachable. I killed the Furbolg chieftains and turned in that portion of the quest but it said I still had to go to the island. I crossed an ice bridge that led to the Tuskarrs and it said that I should complete the Furbolg quest before going further. I'm really not sure what this meant seeing as how there is now way to get to that island. I ignored it and went southwest to the other troll encampment.
The furbolg pings are supposed to be on the first and second island only (the southeast is the minigame). Maybe I screwed up in the trigger somewhere or you already killed a furbolg champion (i'm afraid the trigger would not recognize the location of the unit if it's dead) I'll replace the locations by regions. Note that if you were able to cross the icy bridge you must have completed the furbolg quest requirement. I believe that the quest is fully completed once you build a Lodge.. I understand the confusion and will try to make it clearer.
-When you defeat the Furbolg chieftain, are they supposed to become allies? If so, You might want to give them shared vision and fix some settings with their status with the demons. It looks as though they are allied with both the player and the demons. They send a party the follows my group and their spell caster was healing the demon units. This was very annoying as I kept having to kill the Tuskarr healers so they wouldn't do that. The other units they send just stand around, they don't attack the demons.
-Off the top of my head, that's all I can think of for this chapter.
Chapter 2:
-seems fine from what I went through it. I liked the siege idea.
Chapter 3:
-I cannot complete this chapter. Anytime you try to go back under the ground to the caves where you start out in the mission, it takes you either back the chapter selection screen in the campaign or the main menu of the game.
-I had started on the left entrance that I chose in chapter one, and worked my way all through the upper hills to the point where it would go back down to the part of the cave you could access if you chose the middle path. It went back to the main screen.
-I tried the same thing this time choosing the center path and working my way to the other side where you would access if you had chosen the left path. Again same thing. Trying to go back into the caves causes the game to go to the main screen.
Aha, so some caves DID work? But once you tried to access the connection between the middle cave and the mountains the game froze? I'm still very much in the dark regarding this bug.. I will look into this now.
-I'd like to give a review of the other chapters, but I can't access them. I don't want to select them in the main screen because none of the data would save like items, stats, abilities, etc. from the previous chapters.
-I do want to suggest that the chapters not all be accessible in the chapter selection screen before even playing the campaign. You might want to do it how Blizzard did it for their campaigns, only have new chapters showing once you've completed the previous ones.
I've made the chapters accessible because I suspected some bugs would screw up the progress a little. I'm surprised that a lot of people are so patient and want to play all the maps in the right order (Kudo's!). The system like blizzard is already in place, I just need to tick the "invisible box" in the campaign editor and it's done. I will change it when the cave trick is working for everybody..
I think that is all I can think of so far. Once the issue gets fixed with chapter 3, then I'll be able to continue a review. It looks like a promising campaign though.
And about the Tuskarr cinematic: why does the demon keep attacking that one Tuskarr? He is brutalizing the Tuskarr to get them under controll
How do I get to the last island? I tried random destination a few times, but nothing happened. If you mean the NE island: You have a 25% chance to get there each try. There are no other secret locations (except for the switch which requires another method (it's also a bigger secret that doesn't need solving but is awesome if you do) You might get it after playing chapter 5..
About the upgrades: I mean remove the ones you can't reach (for example, upgrading to Arctic Ancestry is impossible since you can't build a Beastiary).
I guess you're right. Removing excess upgrades.
The troll village lounge refuses to sell you items.Is this after you complete the secret ingredient quest?
Other problem: The game takes longer and longer to save each time, the last time I played a map with that problem, it ended up crashing the game. Please fix as well. Whoa, I appreciate the trust, but I guess this might be beyond my skill.. Does this problem occur in every map, or just chapter one? I suspect this might be related to leaks left in the cinematic triggers (i stopped destroying sounds when i got bugs because of it, and at certain cinematics i'm too lazy to clean every group or location.) I'll take a look if i can find something.
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- Apr 6, 2010
- Messages
- 3,218
* Yes, just after giving him his special ingredient, I tried the shop, nothing works to get it to sell me items.
* Also, I'm now trying to get the captain to take me to the island by pressing Random Location, but it no longer responds (from the Tuskarr camp area).
** Ah wait, I just got it to work (from the center camp). I lost the Rune of Strength but I beat the seamonster.
* Okay, I tried the left cave and it worked, but went veeeery slowly (I suspect it's the same leaks from the saving).
** I have no idea how the triggers work on that part, but youreall should have the choice appear when you reach the end of the bridge (I had to put Dagar and Ragnar in all three caves before the cinematic started.
* How are you supposed to get the Orb? I ended up using the owl from the rune of intelligence, but it seems a pretty big waste...
* Something I remember from the second level: once you get to the siege part, the Chieftain's range doesn't increase like the other units.
* Also, I'm now trying to get the captain to take me to the island by pressing Random Location, but it no longer responds (from the Tuskarr camp area).
** Ah wait, I just got it to work (from the center camp). I lost the Rune of Strength but I beat the seamonster.
* Okay, I tried the left cave and it worked, but went veeeery slowly (I suspect it's the same leaks from the saving).
** I have no idea how the triggers work on that part, but youreall should have the choice appear when you reach the end of the bridge (I had to put Dagar and Ragnar in all three caves before the cinematic started.
* How are you supposed to get the Orb? I ended up using the owl from the rune of intelligence, but it seems a pretty big waste...
* Something I remember from the second level: once you get to the siege part, the Chieftain's range doesn't increase like the other units.
Last edited:
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- Jan 27, 2010
- Messages
- 93
General Stuff - Please add in an ability to skip cinematics at anytime instead of only just 3 seconds before it starts. Also you should cut down on how many times the trolls say "man"... you make them say it far too much...
Chapter 1 - Anyway, I got the same bug with the Furbolg quest, kept telling me to go to the southern island but there's no way to get there without crossing that bridge... which it tells you not to cross until you've setup a base on the southern island... and the ping was off, i used the iseedeadpeople cheat and could see that it pinged a place where it looks like there could/should have been a path to the southern island but there isnt. Also had the problem with the Tuskarr... they'd follow me into battle... but the fighters would just stand there and the healers would heal my trolls as well as the demons...
Chapter 2 - Errrrr... confusing... not entirely sure what strategy you're supposed to use to destroy the heat generators... what "voodoo" am I supposed to use to destroy them? Also I picked up a "Voodoo Doll" and it turned into a "Clockwork Penguin"... also why start them all near the first generator while the explosives are next to the 3rd generator on the opposite side of the map?... finally... the ambush at the bridge, really needs to be redone. They appeared completely surrounding my hero and killed him before I even had a chance to get my units to flee.
That's as far as I could get without cheating
Chapter 1 - Anyway, I got the same bug with the Furbolg quest, kept telling me to go to the southern island but there's no way to get there without crossing that bridge... which it tells you not to cross until you've setup a base on the southern island... and the ping was off, i used the iseedeadpeople cheat and could see that it pinged a place where it looks like there could/should have been a path to the southern island but there isnt. Also had the problem with the Tuskarr... they'd follow me into battle... but the fighters would just stand there and the healers would heal my trolls as well as the demons...
Chapter 2 - Errrrr... confusing... not entirely sure what strategy you're supposed to use to destroy the heat generators... what "voodoo" am I supposed to use to destroy them? Also I picked up a "Voodoo Doll" and it turned into a "Clockwork Penguin"... also why start them all near the first generator while the explosives are next to the 3rd generator on the opposite side of the map?... finally... the ambush at the bridge, really needs to be redone. They appeared completely surrounding my hero and killed him before I even had a chance to get my units to flee.
That's as far as I could get without cheating
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- Apr 6, 2010
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- 3,218
^ Yeah, the quest isn't really clear... You need to find a barrel of explosives near one of the demon gates (it's an item) and give it to Torga, he'll make exploding penguins with it.
Though I think the penguin's damage should be increased, three to take out a gate is too much. That or make both penguins stackable items, to avoid cluttering up your inventory.
Though I think the penguin's damage should be increased, three to take out a gate is too much. That or make both penguins stackable items, to avoid cluttering up your inventory.
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- Jan 22, 2010
- Messages
- 115
I'm working on an update today, but I will release it when I have sufficient changes done and preferably that cave-bug fixed (I played for 4 hours yesterday trying to get it myself but there must be an external cause). I'm also doing some fixes in advance on chapter 4 to make an "easy-mode" and fix the grammar a bit. I realize that some hints are necessary, and I will incorporate them in the dialog or make in game hints.
Please note, that all of your comments are taken into consideration and greatly help improving this beast of a campaign. Keep up the good work!
*fixed the shop
*If the captain does not respond at "random location" it means that he will choose the location you're already at. I added a comment to clarify this and lowered the chance a little.
*The choice for the cave IS at the end of the bridge (well almost), ahh.. there is wait between the activation of the trigger when you give Dagar the book. the left cave allows you to enter/exit the region aswell.. you must have ran like hell and beat the time of the wait, change made.
*Yes, you need the Owl to get the orb. You decide which is better. The owl is very usefull in the dungeon, but the orb can be used the entire campaign..
There may be an alternative to activate the switch though, making the owl worth the cost. (I need to check the distance to be sure).
*There's nothing wrong with the furbolg ping, but when you kill one the ping would be at the player1 start location. I made it so to only ping if the furbolg is alive. Now, I won't hear another word on those damn furbolgs
*The Chieftain didn't get the upgrade, I never noticed because I like to have him with lvl 3 tribalism at the left gate. Will put it in the next update.
"General Stuff - Please add in an ability to skip cinematics at anytime instead of only just 3 seconds before it starts. "
I saw this idea in Aeroblyctos' campaign. From a triggering point of view it makes a lot of sence when you're creating units mid-cinematic. If you were to skip, you may double the unit, forget to remove it and so on. This system is simple, i'm sure you can choose whether you want to see the cinematic or not within three seconds
"Also you should cut down on how many times the trolls say "man"... you make them say it far too much..."
Ah, you're referring to the chapter 2 opening, yes I changed that.
Chapter 1 - Furbolg quest, added another ping there. Should be clear now.
Tuskarr... changed that in the coming update.
Chapter 2 - Ok, so basically you have three generators that you need to destroy: The first one (with the Warlock), has these undead in iceblocks that are released in the cinematic and appear to be enemies of the demons. So, you can use Tricksah's windwalk to get behind the blocks and release the undead upon the demons. Now, to buy a little time you can freeze the Warlock to give the abominations the advantage (they may even destroy the generator) meanwhile you come in from the south with the chieftain and torga. (When attacking a felguard, the alarm sounds and another demon may spawn at the gate.)
The Middle one is the hardest, you can either freeze/ensnare the guards and make a very hard attempt to destroy it, or you can rig the penguins
with the explosives from the third generator (which can be taken out by shooting the barrels).
I understand the difficulty and confusion and I changed the dialog so this gets pointed out better, I also increased the damage of the "critter of Death", although the pig-trick is really awesome if you still find it. The "voodoo-doll" was there for the model, but i changed it now. I do keep the explosives where they are so you need to cover some ground. The goal of the level was to have a "stealth" level afterall.
I personally play this level by using tricksah or torga to get me some items and destroy the third generator. Then i proceed with the chieftain to get the second generator using the penguins or having Tricksah Freeze the guards if i'm too lazy to catch all the critters. Then i use the secret potion and Speardance to hurry to the NW bridge and take the circle path in the mountains to avoid guards (which sometimes fails and I end up using the last charge to make a run towards the fortress.)
I rarely enter the ambush, because i know its there.. I forgot how mean it was.. I changed the trigger to before you enter the bridge giving more time to escape. Maybe I'll even put in a little General Akbar when I'm bored.
Please note, that all of your comments are taken into consideration and greatly help improving this beast of a campaign. Keep up the good work!
*fixed the shop
*If the captain does not respond at "random location" it means that he will choose the location you're already at. I added a comment to clarify this and lowered the chance a little.
*The choice for the cave IS at the end of the bridge (well almost), ahh.. there is wait between the activation of the trigger when you give Dagar the book. the left cave allows you to enter/exit the region aswell.. you must have ran like hell and beat the time of the wait
, change made.*Yes, you need the Owl to get the orb. You decide which is better. The owl is very usefull in the dungeon, but the orb can be used the entire campaign..
There may be an alternative to activate the switch though, making the owl worth the cost. (I need to check the distance to be sure).
*There's nothing wrong with the furbolg ping, but when you kill one the ping would be at the player1 start location. I made it so to only ping if the furbolg is alive. Now, I won't hear another word on those damn furbolgs
*The Chieftain didn't get the upgrade, I never noticed because I like to have him with lvl 3 tribalism at the left gate. Will put it in the next update.
"General Stuff - Please add in an ability to skip cinematics at anytime instead of only just 3 seconds before it starts. "
I saw this idea in Aeroblyctos' campaign. From a triggering point of view it makes a lot of sence when you're creating units mid-cinematic. If you were to skip, you may double the unit, forget to remove it and so on. This system is simple, i'm sure you can choose whether you want to see the cinematic or not within three seconds
"Also you should cut down on how many times the trolls say "man"... you make them say it far too much..."
Ah, you're referring to the chapter 2 opening, yes I changed that.
Chapter 1 - Furbolg quest, added another ping there. Should be clear now.
Tuskarr... changed that in the coming update.
Chapter 2 - Ok, so basically you have three generators that you need to destroy: The first one (with the Warlock), has these undead in iceblocks that are released in the cinematic and appear to be enemies of the demons. So, you can use Tricksah's windwalk to get behind the blocks and release the undead upon the demons. Now, to buy a little time you can freeze the Warlock to give the abominations the advantage (they may even destroy the generator) meanwhile you come in from the south with the chieftain and torga. (When attacking a felguard, the alarm sounds and another demon may spawn at the gate.)
The Middle one is the hardest, you can either freeze/ensnare the guards and make a very hard attempt to destroy it, or you can rig the penguins
(and the pig from the cinematic!)
I understand the difficulty and confusion and I changed the dialog so this gets pointed out better, I also increased the damage of the "critter of Death", although the pig-trick is really awesome if you still find it. The "voodoo-doll" was there for the model, but i changed it now. I do keep the explosives where they are so you need to cover some ground. The goal of the level was to have a "stealth" level afterall.
I personally play this level by using tricksah or torga to get me some items and destroy the third generator. Then i proceed with the chieftain to get the second generator using the penguins or having Tricksah Freeze the guards if i'm too lazy to catch all the critters. Then i use the secret potion and Speardance to hurry to the NW bridge and take the circle path in the mountains to avoid guards (which sometimes fails and I end up using the last charge to make a run towards the fortress.)
I rarely enter the ambush, because i know its there.. I forgot how mean it was.. I changed the trigger to before you enter the bridge giving more time to escape. Maybe I'll even put in a little General Akbar when I'm bored.
- Joined
- Apr 6, 2010
- Messages
- 3,218
Still the first: Often a felguard keeps spawning at the gate's location even when the gate is dead.
Second: Could you please put more clockwork penguins and/orhave them do more damage on the map?
(Would you consider making polar bears ridable units? I don't know if there are other maps with a lot of water like the first one, but it'd be interesting...)
Second: Could you please put more clockwork penguins and/orhave them do more damage on the map?
(Would you consider making polar bears ridable units? I don't know if there are other maps with a lot of water like the first one, but it'd be interesting...)
- Joined
- Jan 22, 2010
- Messages
- 115
@ worstcase: I accidently overlooked your reply.. Sorry. I put a huge wall of text below in reply to your comments.
@cleaving hammer:
Yes, initially the polarbear was supposed to be the third beast. I was planning on making a naval battle map. But the mounting system I created was not compatible with the "walk-swim" animation (the troll would float in the air above the water).
First of all, i'm glad you liked the campaign so far. Your review covers some of the area's that I've been trying to fix over these last few days (and probably the days to come). I realize that I released this campaign a bit rough, but after a long path starting as a total newbie I'd nearly given up hope of releasing this at all. A lot of the things you mention below have resulted from me finding it extremely boring to redo work that i'd already done twice (The main goal is to have some fun making the campaign!). As a consequence, many of these older abilities were done with the best knowledge at hand at the time. I've redone a lót of the triggering and terraining, but I always had to pay the price for doodad-spamming, inefficient map layout, adding AI at the last minute, rushing a cinematic etc. So in a final run, I'm going to rewrite the majority of annoyances/bugs/abilities a last time and that will be it
I'm currently running through the cinematics, brushing up the dialog a little, fixing grammar and trying to improve the dialog a little. In retrospect I guess it's a good idea to plan the dialog/cinematic in a word file. (Hot tip for new campaigners!) I experimented with the cinematic boxes extending scentences a bit, the result is a bit messy, I agree. The voice clips were an experiment too, which failed and I abandoned it later. One of the most difficult things to do is admitting you were wrong and throwing all that garbage work in the wind.. I'm mildy reducing the most annoying parts.
I was planning on rewriting the tribalism trigger anyway, and i've come up with a far more refined way to do this. The bash ability was something I randomly put in early on. I kept it because it allows for a mass-trapper strategy, but I guess you're totally right. It's broken (the siege chapter may prove that). I may replace it with something else.
Ok, the tooltips can be better. I tried to solve this by adding comments in the maps, but I guess I forgot the most obvious. I'll do a sweep.
I noticed the Warlocks ability too, while testing something yesterday. I copied an old trigger-folder into the demon maps. The loop was never turned on, so yeah, then you can wait all you want. The snowball art is the result of an older version. I only redid the trigger to fit the initial idea.
Yes, the AI has been really hard to balance. In the coming update I redid the AI for the meltdown and Necropolis levels, (for some reason the defending AI would attack with everything anyways even though it wasn't supposed to). And these levels will feature an easy and a hard mode. The first level has been redone to be medium hard in this first update already.
The circles of power in Chapter 5 dó work, but maybe I wasn't really clear on that. I didn't make it as simple as: choose between Warcry or Snowball. You may also cast item abilities, Snowmaker abilities and other tricks, also at places without a circle. As a result the level is really easy if you complete all the mini-puzzles but very hard if you don't. I could send you some of the solutions, as i'm afraid they're too spoilerish to be placed here.
I may have added some events to the final level that may mess with the freeze/unfreeze trigger, i will redo that in the coming update. The save/load system in chapter three has now been fixed. I gather that the cave transistions did work for you aswell, so people reporting problems may have to look at an external cause..
All in all, you can expect a massive update of the campaign (probably will take me a while..) where i try to rid this campaign of it's 'roughness'.
I'm currently running through the cinematics, brushing up the dialog a little, fixing grammar and trying to improve the dialog a little. In retrospect I guess it's a good idea to plan the dialog/cinematic in a word file. (Hot tip for new campaigners!) I experimented with the cinematic boxes extending scentences a bit, the result is a bit messy, I agree. The voice clips were an experiment too, which failed and I abandoned it later. One of the most difficult things to do is admitting you were wrong and throwing all that garbage work in the wind.. I'm mildy reducing the most annoying parts.
I was planning on rewriting the tribalism trigger anyway, and i've come up with a far more refined way to do this. The bash ability was something I randomly put in early on. I kept it because it allows for a mass-trapper strategy, but I guess you're totally right. It's broken (the siege chapter may prove that). I may replace it with something else.
Ok, the tooltips can be better. I tried to solve this by adding comments in the maps, but I guess I forgot the most obvious. I'll do a sweep.
I noticed the Warlocks ability too, while testing something yesterday. I copied an old trigger-folder into the demon maps. The loop was never turned on, so yeah, then you can wait all you want
. The snowball art is the result of an older version. I only redid the trigger to fit the initial idea.Yes, the AI has been really hard to balance. In the coming update I redid the AI for the meltdown and Necropolis levels, (for some reason the defending AI would attack with everything anyways even though it wasn't supposed to). And these levels will feature an easy and a hard mode. The first level has been redone to be medium hard in this first update already.
The circles of power in Chapter 5 dó work, but maybe I wasn't really clear on that. I didn't make it as simple as: choose between Warcry or Snowball. You may also cast item abilities, Snowmaker abilities and other tricks, also at places without a circle. As a result the level is really easy if you complete all the mini-puzzles but very hard if you don't. I could send you some of the solutions, as i'm afraid they're too spoilerish to be placed here.
I may have added some events to the final level that may mess with the freeze/unfreeze trigger, i will redo that in the coming update. The save/load system in chapter three has now been fixed. I gather that the cave transistions did work for you aswell, so people reporting problems may have to look at an external cause..
All in all, you can expect a massive update of the campaign (probably will take me a while..) where i try to rid this campaign of it's 'roughness'.
@cleaving hammer:
Yes, initially the polarbear was supposed to be the third beast. I was planning on making a naval battle map. But the mounting system I created was not compatible with the "walk-swim" animation (the troll would float in the air above the water).
- Joined
- Jun 14, 2010
- Messages
- 11
@ worstcase: I accidently overlooked your reply.. Sorry. I put a huge wall of text below in reply to your comments.
First of all, i'm glad you liked the campaign so far. Your review covers some of the area's that I've been trying to fix over these last few days (and probably the days to come). I realize that I released this campaign a bit rough, but after a long path starting as a total newbie I'd nearly given up hope of releasing this at all. A lot of the things you mention below have resulted from me finding it extremely boring to redo work that i'd already done twice (The main goal is to have some fun making the campaign!). As a consequence, many of these older abilities were done with the best knowledge at hand at the time. I've redone a lót of the triggering and terraining, but I always had to pay the price for doodad-spamming, inefficient map layout, adding AI at the last minute, rushing a cinematic etc. So in a final run, I'm going to rewrite the majority of annoyances/bugs/abilities a last time and that will be it
I'm currently running through the cinematics, brushing up the dialog a little, fixing grammar and trying to improve the dialog a little. In retrospect I guess it's a good idea to plan the dialog/cinematic in a word file. (Hot tip for new campaigners!) I experimented with the cinematic boxes extending scentences a bit, the result is a bit messy, I agree. The voice clips were an experiment too, which failed and I abandoned it later. One of the most difficult things to do is admitting you were wrong and throwing all that garbage work in the wind.. I'm mildy reducing the most annoying parts.
I was planning on rewriting the tribalism trigger anyway, and i've come up with a far more refined way to do this. The bash ability was something I randomly put in early on. I kept it because it allows for a mass-trapper strategy, but I guess you're totally right. It's broken (the siege chapter may prove that). I may replace it with something else.
Ok, the tooltips can be better. I tried to solve this by adding comments in the maps, but I guess I forgot the most obvious. I'll do a sweep.
I noticed the Warlocks ability too, while testing something yesterday. I copied an old trigger-folder into the demon maps. The loop was never turned on, so yeah, then you can wait all you want
Yes, the AI has been really hard to balance. In the coming update I redid the AI for the meltdown and Necropolis levels, (for some reason the defending AI would attack with everything anyways even though it wasn't supposed to). And these levels will feature an easy and a hard mode. The first level has been redone to be medium hard in this first update already.
The circles of power in Chapter 5 dó work, but maybe I wasn't really clear on that. I didn't make it as simple as: choose between Warcry or Snowball. You may also cast item abilities, Snowmaker abilities and other tricks, also at places without a circle. As a result the level is really easy if you complete all the mini-puzzles but very hard if you don't. I could send you some of the solutions, as i'm afraid they're too spoilerish to be placed here.
I may have added some events to the final level that may mess with the freeze/unfreeze trigger, i will redo that in the coming update. The save/load system in chapter three has now been fixed. I gather that the cave transistions did work for you aswell, so people reporting problems may have to look at an external cause..
All in all, you can expect a massive update of the campaign (probably will take me a while..) where i try to rid this campaign of it's 'roughness'.
@cleaving hammer:
Yes, initially the polarbear was supposed to be the third beast. I was planning on making a naval battle map. But the mounting system I created was not compatible with the "walk-swim" animation (the troll would float in the air above the water).
Woot! Sounds to me like you got yourself a lot of work ahead of time, but it sounds like the end result will be quite amazing all the same. In any case, I think after reading this I will have to go back now and try out Map 5 again with many of these hints you've given me.
All in all, I wish you the best of luck with your update. I will wait eagerly till then.
- Joined
- Apr 24, 2010
- Messages
- 18
oh it well
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- Apr 24, 2010
- Messages
- 18
i like campaign map
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- Sep 5, 2009
- Messages
- 115
Other things
Another thing I was wondering is in chapter 2 during the siege when it says reinforcements and upgrades are available, did the upgrades happen automatically or do you have to research them? I can't remember because I deleted the campaign since I know you're going to post an updated version. If you do have to research them, where do you do that? Also now that I think of it, in chapter 3 if you've taken the central or right paths, there is one particular rock formation that when you destroy yields an emerald piece for the item the mage is going to craft. This is located at the bottom near the right side of the map. The problem is that the emerald spawns on a cliff above where the rock was that you cannot reach. I tried using the owl scout from the consumable intelligence rune to pick it up, but it said that it cannot. I know you probably did not mean for it to spawn up there, but it just needs fixed is all.
I also have an idea regarding those runes if your interested. I don't know how many runes there are exactly but I know I got two of them, the strength and the intelligence one. The idea is maybe having an option to combine all the runes into a craft-able reusable item that adds to all the attributes and maybe has a special ability added to it. There could even be a specialization in the item. For example, if it were forged by an NPC, you could have him/her give a choice as to which specialization the item will have: strength, agility, or intelligence.
Basically, here would be the effects of the item depending on the choice of specialization.
If You choose:
Strength
adds +3 intelligence
adds +3 agility
adds +5 strength
ability: summons the furbolg that the strength rune would summon if consumed, one furbolg at a time of course either permanent or for a duration whichever.
Agility
adds +3 intelligence
adds +5 agility
adds +3 strength
ability: either summons something similar to the strength rune or has an effect relating to agility. (I don't know if there is an agility rune so I'm just making that one up.)
Intelligence
adds +5 intelligence
adds +3 agility
adds +3 strength
ability: summons the owl scout or something else again either permanent or for duration like the furbolg, maybe has an attack or just some cast-able spells or abilities.
This is completely up to you of course, I just randomly thought of it as I was typing the above message and decided to write it down. Hope your progress for updating is going smooth.
Another thing I was wondering is in chapter 2 during the siege when it says reinforcements and upgrades are available, did the upgrades happen automatically or do you have to research them? I can't remember because I deleted the campaign since I know you're going to post an updated version. If you do have to research them, where do you do that? Also now that I think of it, in chapter 3 if you've taken the central or right paths, there is one particular rock formation that when you destroy yields an emerald piece for the item the mage is going to craft. This is located at the bottom near the right side of the map. The problem is that the emerald spawns on a cliff above where the rock was that you cannot reach. I tried using the owl scout from the consumable intelligence rune to pick it up, but it said that it cannot. I know you probably did not mean for it to spawn up there, but it just needs fixed is all.
I also have an idea regarding those runes if your interested. I don't know how many runes there are exactly but I know I got two of them, the strength and the intelligence one. The idea is maybe having an option to combine all the runes into a craft-able reusable item that adds to all the attributes and maybe has a special ability added to it. There could even be a specialization in the item. For example, if it were forged by an NPC, you could have him/her give a choice as to which specialization the item will have: strength, agility, or intelligence.
Basically, here would be the effects of the item depending on the choice of specialization.
If You choose:
Strength
adds +3 intelligence
adds +3 agility
adds +5 strength
ability: summons the furbolg that the strength rune would summon if consumed, one furbolg at a time of course either permanent or for a duration whichever.
Agility
adds +3 intelligence
adds +5 agility
adds +3 strength
ability: either summons something similar to the strength rune or has an effect relating to agility. (I don't know if there is an agility rune so I'm just making that one up.)
Intelligence
adds +5 intelligence
adds +3 agility
adds +3 strength
ability: summons the owl scout or something else again either permanent or for duration like the furbolg, maybe has an attack or just some cast-able spells or abilities.
This is completely up to you of course, I just randomly thought of it as I was typing the above message and decided to write it down. Hope your progress for updating is going smooth.
- Joined
- Jun 21, 2010
- Messages
- 2
I love your campaign so far.
Im currently on chapter 6 and though I have been having some issues with the previously mentioned bugs I just wanted to tell you that this is one of the most enjoyable campaigns I have played in years.
For those people playing this campaign now, if you can't get past the problems in chapter 3, skip to chapter 4 for now. I plan on going back to chapter 3 when it will work for me but I wanted to keep going ahead with your storyline that I jumped to chapter 4.
Once the bugs are worked out I think this will be one of my favorites. Very original additions to the game. You have added so many new features and options that it makes it refreshing to play W3 again but also you didnt over do it, making new things just make them.
I'm not going to list out the bugs or other things I've noted yet that havent been mentioned because I figure you are busy working on the stuff already mentioned. Maybe Ill note some stuff down and let you know after I finish the campaign. Or if you want let me know and I can let you know now.
Im currently on chapter 6 and though I have been having some issues with the previously mentioned bugs I just wanted to tell you that this is one of the most enjoyable campaigns I have played in years.
For those people playing this campaign now, if you can't get past the problems in chapter 3, skip to chapter 4 for now. I plan on going back to chapter 3 when it will work for me but I wanted to keep going ahead with your storyline that I jumped to chapter 4.
Once the bugs are worked out I think this will be one of my favorites. Very original additions to the game. You have added so many new features and options that it makes it refreshing to play W3 again but also you didnt over do it, making new things just make them.
I'm not going to list out the bugs or other things I've noted yet that havent been mentioned because I figure you are busy working on the stuff already mentioned. Maybe Ill note some stuff down and let you know after I finish the campaign. Or if you want let me know and I can let you know now.
- Joined
- Jan 22, 2010
- Messages
- 115
Dear all,
After some hard work I'm very close to releasing a new update but please be patient a little longer. There are still several stubborn bugs in the core that I need to fix, and a few unexpected new bugs that for some reason did work in the old version but not anymore. In the meanwhile: Don't use Warclub on non-blizzard trees or use Endure while getting smacked by Chain Lightning. The bug that slows icetrolls and yeti is caused by adding/removing abilities and will be fixed in 1.02. The coming update will feature:
- improved dialog (no more "man", more in character)
- less soundclips (But I only removed the most annoying parts)
- better tooltips
- updated abilities
- better quest descriptions and hints/pings telling you where to go
- More AI on the easy parts (Short boss scrips, events etc) but also a weaker AI in the base-construction levels. You will be able to play a better AI in these levels by typing the cheat "hardmode"
- a new snowcloak ability for the Ice Ogre, increasing defence in snow storms
- various new easter eggs, artifacts and other candy.
Conclusion: wait another week or so and there should be a much clearer campaign.
@ forsaken ranger: I also decided that bringing the runes together should result in something after that hard work I liked your suggestion, but ended up doing something else. The armor is researched automatically, maybe I should add a comment somewhere.
@ miyon: Thanks for the support! As you may have noticed I'm a big fan of simple unit abilities over the regular X times agility spells. I've tried to incorporate some other idea's as easter eggs in the next version.
After some hard work I'm very close to releasing a new update but please be patient a little longer. There are still several stubborn bugs in the core that I need to fix, and a few unexpected new bugs that for some reason did work in the old version but not anymore. In the meanwhile: Don't use Warclub on non-blizzard trees or use Endure while getting smacked by Chain Lightning
. The bug that slows icetrolls and yeti is caused by adding/removing abilities and will be fixed in 1.02. The coming update will feature:- improved dialog (no more "man", more in character)
- less soundclips (But I only removed the most annoying parts)
- better tooltips
- updated abilities
- better quest descriptions and hints/pings telling you where to go
- More AI on the easy parts (Short boss scrips, events etc) but also a weaker AI in the base-construction levels. You will be able to play a better AI in these levels by typing the cheat "hardmode"
- a new snowcloak ability for the Ice Ogre, increasing defence in snow storms
- various new easter eggs, artifacts and other candy.
Conclusion: wait another week or so and there should be a much clearer campaign.
@ forsaken ranger: I also decided that bringing the runes together should result in something after that hard work
I liked your suggestion, but ended up doing something else. The armor is researched automatically, maybe I should add a comment somewhere. @ miyon: Thanks for the support! As you may have noticed I'm a big fan of simple unit abilities over the regular X times agility spells. I've tried to incorporate some other idea's as easter eggs in the next version.
- Joined
- Apr 6, 2010
- Messages
- 3,218
Great, an update! Here's hoping the caves'll work...
Please fix the Battle stations ability as well, the trappers get in, but they don't get out...
Please fix the Battle stations ability as well, the trappers get in, but they don't get out...
- Joined
- Dec 8, 2009
- Messages
- 1,359
I have been playing your campaign, and I must say that your ideas are very original. An Icetroll race is something I would have never thought of, and you have done a good job with the Icetroll techtree and units. I also like it how Summoners can freeze goldmines and harvest gold.
However, from playing the start, I got the impression that this is your first campaign. There are quite a few bugs and unbalances, which affect the quality of the campaign. As a campaign maker, I can pick these things up easily, and can tell you things normal players would never consider. You can find out by reading the reviews I have written for the Prologue and Chapter 1.
So far, I have only played these maps, so not a lot can be said at this time. I was planning to play more of it, until I saw that you will be updating this campaign very shortly. I want to see the changes you have made, so more up to date feedback can be given.
If you have any questions or queries, feel free to contact me. I can't give you a rating at this point, because I haven't got far into your campaign yet.
However, from playing the start, I got the impression that this is your first campaign. There are quite a few bugs and unbalances, which affect the quality of the campaign. As a campaign maker, I can pick these things up easily, and can tell you things normal players would never consider. You can find out by reading the reviews I have written for the Prologue and Chapter 1.
Normally, Interludes don't have that many problems since there is no gameplay, but there are a couple of things I noticed.
- When moving the camera, it seems to go off-path. The camera would go through doodads and trees in some parts. You should have a look at it.
- You should check all of your maps for grammar and spelling mistakes. They tend to be common throughout the campaign.
What I found to be annoying was the cinematic speeches. The Narrator would say something like:
"A long time ago.."
The next line would be something like:
"A long time ago, a very long time ago..."
This may be a bad example, but what I am basically trying to say is that when characters would give a new transmission, they tended to say the whole sentence(s) they said in the previous transmission. Throughout the Prologue, I fell into the habit of reading the same sentence more then once, and I didn't have enough time to read what was new. If you want to have a sentence lead off another, use this instead:
"A long time ago.."
"... a very long time ago..."
You may have a different opinion about this, but your campaign is the only campaign I have seen to do this. You may choose to leave it, but keep in mind that you will confuse the player the first time they play the campaign.
- When moving the camera, it seems to go off-path. The camera would go through doodads and trees in some parts. You should have a look at it.
- You should check all of your maps for grammar and spelling mistakes. They tend to be common throughout the campaign.
What I found to be annoying was the cinematic speeches. The Narrator would say something like:
"A long time ago.."
The next line would be something like:
"A long time ago, a very long time ago..."
This may be a bad example, but what I am basically trying to say is that when characters would give a new transmission, they tended to say the whole sentence(s) they said in the previous transmission. Throughout the Prologue, I fell into the habit of reading the same sentence more then once, and I didn't have enough time to read what was new. If you want to have a sentence lead off another, use this instead:
"A long time ago.."
"... a very long time ago..."
You may have a different opinion about this, but your campaign is the only campaign I have seen to do this. You may choose to leave it, but keep in mind that you will confuse the player the first time they play the campaign.
I will firstly begin with bugs\errors I found. Some of these you will know already.
- During the first cinematic, a troll has a question mark, or a 'TalktoMe' special effect above his head.
- Troll ascents don't seem to be right. The biggest giveaway was that they said 'man' instead of 'mon'.
- The quest where you kill the Furbolgs works, but it doesn’t seem quite right. If you are only suppose to kill the Furbolg Champions, how come you are shown the amount of normal Furbolgs you have killed? Later on when I was able to reach the Tuskarr camp and crossed the bridge, a message appeared that said that it was advised to completed the Furbolg quest before I continue on. Don't you complete the quest when you return to the Icetroll Fisherman after killing the Furbolg Champions?
- It might be me, but the Icetroll Trapper units tend to wander randomly, even when you order them to stop. You should look into this, as player controlled units are not suppose to randomly wander unless for an intended purpose.
- There is a problem with the Frost bite ability with Dagar. The problem isn't turning units into snowmen, it's turning a snowman into a snowman! You should change Forst bite so that you cannot use it on units that are currently turned into a snowman.
- Units can walk through the mountains in the northern part of the map. I noticed this when I attacked the Tuskarr base and demons came out of nowhere!
- In the cinematic when the warlock talks to the Tuskarr Chieftain, the warlock randomly started to attack the Tuskarrs!
- You don't get enough gold in the starting goldmine. In fact, nearly all of the goldmines have hardly any gold in them. I had to spend-wise my because I had limited resources. You should look into it.
- There seemed to be a problem with the amount of units I could get. After building all of these Icetroll igloos, I could only get a food limit of between 40-50. However, I checked the upkeep and it said I could get 100 food. If you want to limit the user in food usage, it is advised that you don't use triggers. Use 'Gameplay Constants' instead.
- I haven't looked at the triggers through World Editor, but I got the impression that you used triggers to set the Icetroll Summoner's gold harvest animation. It was alright, until the gold from the goldmine was depleted. The Summoners still did their channelling animation, even when I ordered them to do something else. What you could do to fix this problem is to get into Warcraft 3 modelling. You don't have to know a great deal of it, but where modelling will come to use is with your Icetroll Summoners. You can apply harvest animations to them from other units. It saves from having triggers and completely eliminates the Summoners animation problems.
On a side note, Icetroll Trappers and Priests are the only units that you can get from the techtree in the first chapter. It would be alright, if you weren't required to assault enemy bases! You should be able to train more units. Although you can recruit Mammoths and Dire Wolfs from this random Icetroll place, you can easily miss it. I only found it by mistake.
Many of the problems with the first chapter are not to do with the bug\errors that I previously discussed. They are more to do with the triggers and gameplay. What people do before they release a game to the general public is that they test it for problems and unbalances. From what I read from the description, you had not tested the campaign when you uploaded it onto this site. This is bad! You need to check for bug\errors to make sure that it goes precisely how you want. Below are some parts of the game that are to be tested especially:
Cinematics - The main problems aren't necessarily to do during the cinematic. It is before and after. There is a lot to explain, but the idea is to get the game to start precisely where it ended before the cinematic played. An example is with the cinematic where you first confront the Tuskarrs. The cinematic began when I came across a couple of Tuskarr scouts, and all of my warriors were together. When the cinematic finished, however, my units were all over the place. I had Dager and Ragnar at the Tuskarr base and my Icetroll Trapper was by himself, next to the now hostile Tuskarr scouts. I really didn't want that trapper to die, but there was nothing I could do to save him. When playing cinematics during the gameplay of each map, take the following things into account:
- If you don't want certain units to appear during the cinematic, you can hide them so that they can't be seen. The only problem is that you have to remember to unhide them when the cinematic has ended.
- If you don't want units to do anything during a cinematic, you can pause them. It doesn’t stop them from moving altogether, though. It just stops them from moving from one place to another, attacking, harvesting, etc. Then once the cinematic has ended, you can unpause them. There is a step further in this, as there is a trigger which allows you to pause\unpause all units so you don't have to pause\unpause each individual unit.
- During the cinematic, I noticed that my units were still selected. Imagine, watching a cinematic being played and having a considerable amount of units with green circles around them. Before a cinematic starts, you are able to set a variable to the units that the player currently has selected, and then clear the player's selection of units just before the cinematic plays. When it has finished, all you need to do is set the selection of the player to the variable, which is the units that the player had selected before the cinematic played.
- The main thing you have to remember is to leave the units controlled by the player unless for an intended reason. If you want particular units to be in a cinematic (like Dagar or Ragnar), you can create 'fake' units, which is just creating a whole new unit. When the cinematic has finished, you will just have to remove the unit from the game. Keep in mind that for units that are created during the game, you need to set variables for them so you can order them to do things.
With the last suggestion, you probably intended to have Dagar and Rangar at the Tuskarr base when the cinematic finished. If that’s the case, you may have to move the Tuskarr scouts closer to their base, since it is a fair way to travel.
Also keep in mind that the beginning and end cinematics in each map do not need to be tested for these errors, since gamplay has either started or ended.
AI - This is pretty self explanatory. You need to check that the AI for the computer players is right in terms of what units they get, what buildings they build, the size of their attacks, how often the attack, etc. In Chapter 1, I had the enemy bases attack me quite frequently.
Finally, you said in the description of your campaign that you wanted your maps to be blizzard-like. The trick is to make the gameplay as close to the normal Warcraft 3 campaigns as possible. Here is some advise:
- When showing quest messages, have the layout of the text relatively the same as it appears in the normal Warcraft 3 campaigns.
- When approaching the trolls with a 'TalktoMe' special effect above their head, make the cinematic play when your units are in a certain range of the troll and not when you select him.
- Give the option to the player to skip cinematics when they want and not before the cinematic plays. Giving them 3 seconds before it plays is not a good idea, because what if they fail to skip it in time or they are halfway through the cinematic and randomly decide that they want to skip it? I suggested this to Aeroblyctos in his campaign 'The Chosen Ones', but he ignored me. If you are having difficulty, open up the Demo Campaign in World Editor and see what triggers and actions have been used.
- During the first cinematic, a troll has a question mark, or a 'TalktoMe' special effect above his head.
- Troll ascents don't seem to be right. The biggest giveaway was that they said 'man' instead of 'mon'.
- The quest where you kill the Furbolgs works, but it doesn’t seem quite right. If you are only suppose to kill the Furbolg Champions, how come you are shown the amount of normal Furbolgs you have killed? Later on when I was able to reach the Tuskarr camp and crossed the bridge, a message appeared that said that it was advised to completed the Furbolg quest before I continue on. Don't you complete the quest when you return to the Icetroll Fisherman after killing the Furbolg Champions?
- It might be me, but the Icetroll Trapper units tend to wander randomly, even when you order them to stop. You should look into this, as player controlled units are not suppose to randomly wander unless for an intended purpose.
- There is a problem with the Frost bite ability with Dagar. The problem isn't turning units into snowmen, it's turning a snowman into a snowman! You should change Forst bite so that you cannot use it on units that are currently turned into a snowman.
- Units can walk through the mountains in the northern part of the map. I noticed this when I attacked the Tuskarr base and demons came out of nowhere!
- In the cinematic when the warlock talks to the Tuskarr Chieftain, the warlock randomly started to attack the Tuskarrs!
- You don't get enough gold in the starting goldmine. In fact, nearly all of the goldmines have hardly any gold in them. I had to spend-wise my because I had limited resources. You should look into it.
- There seemed to be a problem with the amount of units I could get. After building all of these Icetroll igloos, I could only get a food limit of between 40-50. However, I checked the upkeep and it said I could get 100 food. If you want to limit the user in food usage, it is advised that you don't use triggers. Use 'Gameplay Constants' instead.
- I haven't looked at the triggers through World Editor, but I got the impression that you used triggers to set the Icetroll Summoner's gold harvest animation. It was alright, until the gold from the goldmine was depleted. The Summoners still did their channelling animation, even when I ordered them to do something else. What you could do to fix this problem is to get into Warcraft 3 modelling. You don't have to know a great deal of it, but where modelling will come to use is with your Icetroll Summoners. You can apply harvest animations to them from other units. It saves from having triggers and completely eliminates the Summoners animation problems.
On a side note, Icetroll Trappers and Priests are the only units that you can get from the techtree in the first chapter. It would be alright, if you weren't required to assault enemy bases! You should be able to train more units. Although you can recruit Mammoths and Dire Wolfs from this random Icetroll place, you can easily miss it. I only found it by mistake.
Many of the problems with the first chapter are not to do with the bug\errors that I previously discussed. They are more to do with the triggers and gameplay. What people do before they release a game to the general public is that they test it for problems and unbalances. From what I read from the description, you had not tested the campaign when you uploaded it onto this site. This is bad! You need to check for bug\errors to make sure that it goes precisely how you want. Below are some parts of the game that are to be tested especially:
Cinematics - The main problems aren't necessarily to do during the cinematic. It is before and after. There is a lot to explain, but the idea is to get the game to start precisely where it ended before the cinematic played. An example is with the cinematic where you first confront the Tuskarrs. The cinematic began when I came across a couple of Tuskarr scouts, and all of my warriors were together. When the cinematic finished, however, my units were all over the place. I had Dager and Ragnar at the Tuskarr base and my Icetroll Trapper was by himself, next to the now hostile Tuskarr scouts. I really didn't want that trapper to die, but there was nothing I could do to save him. When playing cinematics during the gameplay of each map, take the following things into account:
- If you don't want certain units to appear during the cinematic, you can hide them so that they can't be seen. The only problem is that you have to remember to unhide them when the cinematic has ended.
- If you don't want units to do anything during a cinematic, you can pause them. It doesn’t stop them from moving altogether, though. It just stops them from moving from one place to another, attacking, harvesting, etc. Then once the cinematic has ended, you can unpause them. There is a step further in this, as there is a trigger which allows you to pause\unpause all units so you don't have to pause\unpause each individual unit.
- During the cinematic, I noticed that my units were still selected. Imagine, watching a cinematic being played and having a considerable amount of units with green circles around them. Before a cinematic starts, you are able to set a variable to the units that the player currently has selected, and then clear the player's selection of units just before the cinematic plays. When it has finished, all you need to do is set the selection of the player to the variable, which is the units that the player had selected before the cinematic played.
- The main thing you have to remember is to leave the units controlled by the player unless for an intended reason. If you want particular units to be in a cinematic (like Dagar or Ragnar), you can create 'fake' units, which is just creating a whole new unit. When the cinematic has finished, you will just have to remove the unit from the game. Keep in mind that for units that are created during the game, you need to set variables for them so you can order them to do things.
With the last suggestion, you probably intended to have Dagar and Rangar at the Tuskarr base when the cinematic finished. If that’s the case, you may have to move the Tuskarr scouts closer to their base, since it is a fair way to travel.
Also keep in mind that the beginning and end cinematics in each map do not need to be tested for these errors, since gamplay has either started or ended.
AI - This is pretty self explanatory. You need to check that the AI for the computer players is right in terms of what units they get, what buildings they build, the size of their attacks, how often the attack, etc. In Chapter 1, I had the enemy bases attack me quite frequently.
Finally, you said in the description of your campaign that you wanted your maps to be blizzard-like. The trick is to make the gameplay as close to the normal Warcraft 3 campaigns as possible. Here is some advise:
- When showing quest messages, have the layout of the text relatively the same as it appears in the normal Warcraft 3 campaigns.
- When approaching the trolls with a 'TalktoMe' special effect above their head, make the cinematic play when your units are in a certain range of the troll and not when you select him.
- Give the option to the player to skip cinematics when they want and not before the cinematic plays. Giving them 3 seconds before it plays is not a good idea, because what if they fail to skip it in time or they are halfway through the cinematic and randomly decide that they want to skip it? I suggested this to Aeroblyctos in his campaign 'The Chosen Ones', but he ignored me. If you are having difficulty, open up the Demo Campaign in World Editor and see what triggers and actions have been used.
So far, I have only played these maps, so not a lot can be said at this time. I was planning to play more of it, until I saw that you will be updating this campaign very shortly. I want to see the changes you have made, so more up to date feedback can be given.
If you have any questions or queries, feel free to contact me. I can't give you a rating at this point, because I haven't got far into your campaign yet.
- Joined
- Apr 6, 2010
- Messages
- 3,218
* Weird bug on the fourth level: there's at least one place where Dagar's Frost Bullet changes from a targeted ability to "fire in the direction he's facing".
* And on the fifth, I've seen a grand total of three working circles of power: The two ice wall ones, and one where you get a snowmaker.
** Also, the second village I reached said it was the third, change the texts to read "another" and "final", or something like that.
* And on the fifth, I've seen a grand total of three working circles of power: The two ice wall ones, and one where you get a snowmaker.
** Also, the second village I reached said it was the third, change the texts to read "another" and "final", or something like that.
Last edited:
- Joined
- Jan 22, 2010
- Messages
- 115
Turnro,
Thanks for reviewing my campaign so far. I've played some of your maps aswell and it means a lot that you've taken the time to give me some tips. You're absolutely right in suspecting this is my first campaign. A lot of the things you've mentioned are probably the result of my beginner mistakes. There are a lot of good points in your reply that would have been usefull earlier on in the process. It might be an idea to add a tips section to the campaign tutorials. I made every mistake in the book, so i have quite a few of my own xD
Cinematics:
- The things mentioned for the prologue are these beginner mistakes. I should have planned the dialog in word and planned the camera movements. The rolling dialog was an attempt to create more action in the cinematic; like those old gameboy games. I won't change much of the cinematic anymore. It's a bit subpar but thats allright with me.
- I respectfully disagree that a cinematic should end where the game pauzed. If your characters move in the cinematic, why not move them in the game?
However: It does make for an easy cinematic skip sequence, especially hiding units and making dummy characters. I will definitely use this in new campaigns, as it makes the cinematics easier to controll.
- I did replace the 3 second skip by another method in the smaller cinematics later on. But because I create units and have camera movements I need to disable the skip when units are created to avoid double units.
So my question to you: How do you stop your cinematic trigger from running after you've skipped? The camera/transmission/create units actions still run on the background, this can be very annoying. I had to make an "if trigger is OFF then skip remaining actions" check to avoid this. But I would need to place a lot in long cinematic sequences, and even more complicated ones in the unit creation triggers.
I hope you understand why I can't change some of these triggers and why i made a choice to use aeroblyctos' method there. In later maps I did try to separate actions from cinematic by creating a "settings - cinematic - more settings" sequence allowing the cinematic to be skipped. I guess this is one of those tips that should be in a tutorial aswell..
- Actually: I do use 'pauze all units' in every cinematic, its just that this damned tuskarr cinematic is such a pain. I guess i'll use your hide units trick there and rewrite it a little.
- The selection of units is something I never thought off.. You're right, units should be deselected.
AI
The AI editor and I didn't get along well I made an elaborate condition and attack wave AI for chapter 6 Pt II, but the map was lagging for an inexplicable reason and i made the AI simple melee-typed.. Now I realize that using Warclub on non blizzard trees by AI units or the endure/chain lighning combo may have caused some crashes aswell.. (fixed in update)..
In this update they will be balanced to be beatable (around 50 food per AI and smaller attack waves). Having solved a lot of other bugs, i could try to incorporate the attack waves again. Is there a relation between lag an AI? Or can it be caused by the AI not understanding my custom spells? In a later map a mission is to permanently freeze (pauze) enemy units. This caused some major problems.
Chapter 1
"there was little gold in the goldmine, i had to spend wise", "I could only get trappers and priests and mounts at that random place"
Well that about sums it up, you build a small camp to familiarize yourself with the techtree. You may want to get the mounts to gain the upper hand. I chose the foodcap trigger because I didn't want to lose gold to upkeep. You need to keep your troops alive, by spending on upgrades and items, abuse tribalism etc. Note that you can get a troll sapper by doing the stupid dialog (to be changed). I could slightly increase the gold capacity, or give a gold bonus for completing quests.
The goldmine summoners are controlled by triggers, I made this system three years ago and was very proud that i could make it all work without modelling. Offcourse by now i realize that this is highly ineffecient xD. The reason the animations continues is the locust ability on the iceblock that prevents the removal of this dummy. I modified the trigger by a stack. I guess i'll just rename the spell animation of the witchdoctor..
Why would you snowman a snowman?? I'll add the ancient tag to the dummy..
Finally, your suggestion of opening up a standard campaign in WE was a revelation. I never knew this was possible. I do realize that the quest messages are slightly different from the regular ones. This is an advice i will take to a next campaign.
Cleavinghammer,
Thanks, Keep em comming!!
*Added stand down to the igloo's
*The change in frostbullet is not a bug. It's a secret ability allowing you to flip the switches across the water (like in the Ch 1 minigame). There's a spot near the water in the camp (i'll add a special effect on Dagar to mark it) where you can shoot the switch near the gate.
There is a secret area where you must shoot the switches to obtain items and an Ogre.
*The Circles in CH 5:? Do you mean you got only three to work? I'll send you some tips if you need them.. maybe the puzzles are too hard.. For instance you can bowl the ice-pillar past the first camp. I added cinematic skips and exclamations in the update.
**I'll change the dialog.
OK, lot's of work for me.. I'll try to modify some of the AI things before the release. Back soon!
Thanks for reviewing my campaign so far. I've played some of your maps aswell and it means a lot that you've taken the time to give me some tips. You're absolutely right in suspecting this is my first campaign. A lot of the things you've mentioned are probably the result of my beginner mistakes. There are a lot of good points in your reply that would have been usefull earlier on in the process. It might be an idea to add a tips section to the campaign tutorials. I made every mistake in the book, so i have quite a few of my own xD
Cinematics:
- The things mentioned for the prologue are these beginner mistakes. I should have planned the dialog in word and planned the camera movements. The rolling dialog was an attempt to create more action in the cinematic; like those old gameboy games. I won't change much of the cinematic anymore. It's a bit subpar but thats allright with me.
- I respectfully disagree that a cinematic should end where the game pauzed. If your characters move in the cinematic, why not move them in the game?
However: It does make for an easy cinematic skip sequence, especially hiding units and making dummy characters. I will definitely use this in new campaigns, as it makes the cinematics easier to controll.
- I did replace the 3 second skip by another method in the smaller cinematics later on. But because I create units and have camera movements I need to disable the skip when units are created to avoid double units.
So my question to you: How do you stop your cinematic trigger from running after you've skipped? The camera/transmission/create units actions still run on the background, this can be very annoying. I had to make an "if trigger is OFF then skip remaining actions" check to avoid this. But I would need to place a lot in long cinematic sequences, and even more complicated ones in the unit creation triggers.
I hope you understand why I can't change some of these triggers and why i made a choice to use aeroblyctos' method there. In later maps I did try to separate actions from cinematic by creating a "settings - cinematic - more settings" sequence allowing the cinematic to be skipped. I guess this is one of those tips that should be in a tutorial aswell..
- Actually: I do use 'pauze all units' in every cinematic, its just that this damned tuskarr cinematic is such a pain. I guess i'll use your hide units trick there and rewrite it a little.
- The selection of units is something I never thought off.. You're right, units should be deselected.
AI
The AI editor and I didn't get along well
I made an elaborate condition and attack wave AI for chapter 6 Pt II, but the map was lagging for an inexplicable reason and i made the AI simple melee-typed.. Now I realize that using Warclub on non blizzard trees by AI units or the endure/chain lighning combo may have caused some crashes aswell.. (fixed in update)..In this update they will be balanced to be beatable (around 50 food per AI and smaller attack waves). Having solved a lot of other bugs, i could try to incorporate the attack waves again. Is there a relation between lag an AI? Or can it be caused by the AI not understanding my custom spells? In a later map a mission is to permanently freeze (pauze) enemy units. This caused some major problems.
Chapter 1
"there was little gold in the goldmine, i had to spend wise", "I could only get trappers and priests and mounts at that random place"
Well that about sums it up, you build a small camp to familiarize yourself with the techtree. You may want to get the mounts to gain the upper hand. I chose the foodcap trigger because I didn't want to lose gold to upkeep. You need to keep your troops alive, by spending on upgrades and items, abuse tribalism etc. Note that you can get a troll sapper by doing the stupid dialog (to be changed). I could slightly increase the gold capacity, or give a gold bonus for completing quests.
The goldmine summoners are controlled by triggers, I made this system three years ago and was very proud that i could make it all work without modelling. Offcourse by now i realize that this is highly ineffecient xD. The reason the animations continues is the locust ability on the iceblock that prevents the removal of this dummy. I modified the trigger by a stack. I guess i'll just rename the spell animation of the witchdoctor..
Why would you snowman a snowman??
I'll add the ancient tag to the dummy.. Finally, your suggestion of opening up a standard campaign in WE was a revelation. I never knew this was possible. I do realize that the quest messages are slightly different from the regular ones. This is an advice i will take to a next campaign.
Cleavinghammer,
Thanks, Keep em comming!!
*Added stand down to the igloo's
*The change in frostbullet is not a bug. It's a secret ability allowing you to flip the switches across the water (like in the Ch 1 minigame). There's a spot near the water in the camp (i'll add a special effect on Dagar to mark it) where you can shoot the switch near the gate.
There is a secret area where you must shoot the switches to obtain items and an Ogre.
*The Circles in CH 5:? Do you mean you got only three to work? I'll send you some tips if you need them.. maybe the puzzles are too hard.. For instance you can bowl the ice-pillar past the first camp. I added cinematic skips and exclamations in the update.
**I'll change the dialog.
OK, lot's of work for me.. I'll try to modify some of the AI things before the release. Back soon!
