Campaign broken

[Denigo]

I made a very simple bare-bones campaign consisting of three maps: an opening cinematic and two quest-type maps.

It worked fine at first, and I continued to make adjustments to the maps from within the campaign editor.

Then, the second map quit loading. When the end of the opening cinematic is reached, instead of loading the next map, it returns to the selection screen.

I made all the map load buttons visible and tried to go directly to the map by clicking it's button, bypassing the cinematic. It still won't load. It returns to the campaign screen.

I exported the map and opened it as a custom game instead of from within the campaign... it works perfectly.

It seems the map quit loading from the campaign after I added some custom WAV files to it. But it works fine as a stand-alone (after I exported it from the campaign) and my custom wav's play perfectly, the triggers all function, etc. It just refuses to load as a campaign map.

This is driving me crazy. Any suggestions?

 

[Eleandor]

Are you sure you have set the next map in the trigger editor? (e.g. when the cinematic ends, do "game - set next level to mymap.w3x")

 

[Waldbaer]

Hm, I'd try to delete the map from the campaign, save and re-import it. This sounds as if the campaign thinks that the map is at another path than it actually is; maybe it also is not imported completely at all.

 

[Denigo]

Thank you for your suggestions. I took your advice and went through these steps to try to fix the problem:

I double-checked that the 'next level' trigger was correct. It was.

I removed the problem map, saved the campaign, reimported the map. Same problem persists.

I exported the problem map to a different name. (It still will play correctly as a stand-alone).

I opened it directly in the editor and did a 'save as' with yet a different name.

Then, I created a totally new campaign with an oversimplified first map to call the newly exported problem map. Problem map still will not load. I repeated this and imported the "save-as" map. Still will not load.

As each attempt failed, I went back and made it's button visible on the campaign screen and tried to load it that way, bypassing the call. It still consistently refuses to load and returns to the campaign screen no matter how it is called.

The only way it will work is as a custom game... and that way, it always works perfectly... but it continues to refuse to load as part of a campaign.

and btw - the third map of my original campaign loads and plays fine when it is called by a visible campaign button.

I would just scrap it and start over but for two things: the amount of work that has went into this map and the fact that it plays fine as a stand-alone custom game. I can't understand why it refuses to load in the campaign since it loads flawlessly as a custom game... and all my other campaign maps also work flawlessly.

Unless somebody has another idea, it looks like I'm going to have to scrap this project and start over. Bummer.


But I'd still like any thoughts or suggestions anyone may have as to the why of this. I sure don't relish the idea of another involved project being inexplicably trashed.

Thanks for any help, insight or thoughts about this and how to fix and/or avoid this problem.

 

[wd40bomber7]

I actually get this problem a lot. The source is: incorrect game files. Mainly the JASS file. Whenever I mess it up and I don't run some kind of a checker, when I click to play the map it just returns to the selection screen.

 

[Denigo]

Sounds like the problem I'm having. I am quite new to map editing and haven't ventured into any direct JASS manipulation (not intentionally anyway) other than through the GUI... nor have I used any 3rd party utilities. Is there a quick fix for the messed up file(s)... short of starting over?

 

[Waldbaer]

If you have errors in the JASS file, it won't load as single map, too, will it?
But Denigo's map does, if I understood him correctly, so I doubt that this is a JASS problem.

 

[Wraithwynd]

Check your suffix.

I have had map suffixes change when I have changed stuff in the map, added doodads, changed terrain.

Things like TESTMAP.w3m has changed to TESTMAP.w3x that one little letter change can be a real pain in the... neck .

If the map has changed into an expansion scenario due to the addition of tiles, doodads, what not the suffix changes.

 

[Denigo]

All the files in the campaign have been w3x expansion dependent files since the beginning and still are.

I am interested to know the answer to Waldbaer's question above about the JASS file, because, yes, the problem map will indeed load and play perfectly as a stand-alone 'custom' game.

But when I import it into a campaign it refuses to load... regardless of if it is called from a previous map in the campaign... or called via its campaign button... or is the first map of the campaign.

But if i export it, and load it as a custom game, it works beautifully.

As i said in the OP, the map stopped loading after I imported some custom WAV files and inserted them into my cinematics in that map... but these sounds play perfectly and all triggers function, etc, when i load this map up as a stand alone custom game.. which i find very mysterious.

**EDIT** I just realized my map size jumped to about 10 mb after importing the WAV's. I don't know if this is an unusually large map file or not (i'm new to the WE) but my guess is yes. I figure I should probably take steps to reduce the sizes of the sounds... do you suppose overweight sound files could be why the map won't load from a campaign?

 

[Waldbaer]

There is no real reason to use WAV-sounds as far as I know. Convert everything to MP3 and your map size should shrink notable.
Normal map sizes are only up to 4MB (Battle.net-Limit); maybe this is really a problem if you add the map to the campaign. You can import your files to the campaign instead of the single maps, so try that out. You don't have to change anything, campaign-imported files are accessible the same way as map-imported ones.