Chinese Paladin: Liu Su2

[tulee]

Just to remind you all: The author of this campaign is Vanspirit. The campaign is posted on hiveworkshop on her behalf with her express permission.
The campaign was originally posted here:

https://www.zhihu.com/people/tongyu-35-91

Permission From Author

This is a campaign from the Chinese warcraft 3 community. Hopefully we can "give back" in the sense that by sharing many campaigns from their community, it will inspire Hiveworkshop creators to make more campaigns, and then the chinese language community can play those campaigns when the Chinese translators bring Hive campaigns to their community (so in this way, they can benefit also).


Important:
Because the maps are all considered one map, make sure to save often because you cannot just restart a mission from the custom campaign menu as it is all considered 1 big connected map mission.

The author, Vanspirit, added in cheats to get through the missions quickly, so if you would rather just play for the story and not the gameplay, type "ilovevv" to activate cheat mode, then type "m" to move instantly to the end regions of the maps that are not towns/cities (i.e the ones with enemies).
Note: It is very important to fight at least 1 enemy unit before using this cheat, since many maps have cinematics right at the start, and if you Teleport to the end before starting them, it can/will bug the game. So, fight at least 1 enemy unit on each map before using it. This cheat does not work on the Zombie cave map, and the map with phoenixes.

On the first map of the campaign, do not click on F9 before you have started the first cinematic, since the campaign will crash as there is no quest in the f9 log yet.

Go close to NPCs and right click on them to talk to them.

There are some locations for quest objectives which are not clear.
The first is the location in the first city you need to reach for the message from Feng Shuang.
The second is the teleportation circle at the end of the zombie cave map which is not pointed out clearly.
The third, fourth and fifth are the locations in Luo Xingmen you need to go to in order to trigger the cutscenes. The last one (fifth) is almost impossible to find by yourself.

 

[cleavinghammer]

Music was good, though it often didn't play (probably a patch issue).

Combat was bland and repetitive, honestly just whosyourdaddy through them all and you won't lose much.

Story can be a bit confusing due to the language barrier (replace "fairy" with "Immortal" and it's a bit easier to understand), but engaging overall.

Terrain is usually pretty to look at, though the camera being stuck on the character means it's hard to focus on. Minimap is messed up though.

NPC lines really helped with the atmosphere and the RPG feel.

Good overall.

 

[tulee]

Fixed the translation/grammar/spelling issues pointed out by Cleavinghammer in his post below.

Thought I would add some notes I wrote down from when I played this campaign:

Hidden

Map1
Ok, so the red panda we met at the end of the previous campaign, along with 3 other pandas, could not beat Zhui Yu. This is one of the problems with allowing Zhui Yu to become involved in the storyline of the others--- as a powerful Demon, she is basically invincible. At least in the previous campaign, her storyline was separate from the other characters. But now mixing her with others, she seems invincible.
Edit: Never mind, that was just the cinematic. When we start using her in the first mission, she is just a normal hero.
What happened to the other villagers who were taken from Wu Qiu village? We never hear from them again.
The main quest does not tell us what part of the city to go to, so I needed to search everywhere for the location.

Map2
The terrain is made in a way that we do not have vision of where enemies are. Example: if crossing a bridge, we only see the other side right at the end, and then it is too late because the monster is right there. Also, Rui Wei is the best hero to control when moving, since he is the fastest (i think because of his aura and natural movement speed).

Assassins! Now we get a hint of a plot against the main characters. Interesting.

Map3
Good items at shops. Now I regret avoiding the fights in the previous map since I do not have enough gold.

Map4
Ok, the map design could be improved with teleporters on both the far left and right side to teleport the hero back to the middle. This map can basically be divided into 3 parts: left, middle, right. You need to finish the left + right side first before you can access the middle, but after you get to the end of the left and right side, you need to run all the way back to the middle.

Map5
The monsters here are a lot easier to fight. Also, Bingdian Bohe is a great healer. We do not need to worry about having low hit points in this.

Map6
Ok, now I really regret avoiding previous fights. Liu Su and Bingdian Bohe have almost no items, but it is not the player's fault since there are no shops down here, and we previously lost Rui Wei and Lan Wu in exchange for Liu Su/Bohe. I lost almost all my lives in this fight, the only way I won is because I saved the consumable item that deals 2000 damage. The boss has 8k HP total, so with the 2000 damage item he only has 6k hp, which make him beatable. But if anyone had already used the 2000 damage item, then I think this fight would be impossible.

Haha, of course, when we beat him, we find he is actually stronger than this, but then Zhui Yu uses her strength to defeat him (why didn't she use her powers earlier? Trying to hide her demon identity from Liu Su/ Bohe?)

Also, the introduction of the female character (his wife?) seemed very sudden, I had no idea what was going on. Maybe there could have been more scenes to explain that.

Map7
We arrive at a new town. Of course, there is a night scene when they stay at the "inn" / sleeping place. 1 thing I will say is, every time there is an "inn" scene where the characters must sleep, there is always a nighttime scene that elaborates on the love story between Liu Su and Jiang Xiaoxie. During these conversations, Liu Su is always an idiot and does not realize Xiaoxie likes him. Of course, XIaoxie herself never directly tells Liu Su her feelings for him. Communication is key to maintaining relationships, and without it, even though being indirect can be cute in a way, it will more often than not cause relationships to fail.

Also, I think there should have been a warning about how when we go to sleep in the inn, we won't have a chance later to buy items from the shops, because the Zombies are there (we need to wait until we finish the zombie story line until the zombies go away.)

Map08
Nothing much to say, just kill everything in your path. I have a confession to make: after I defeated the two powerful units guarding the cave, I just decided to cheat with "whosyourdaddy" until the end of the campaign. If there is anyone else like me who is not fond of the RPG gameplay of killing only the same unit type in entire maps, I suggest you don't give up on playing the campaign, but instead just "whosyourdaddy" to the end. I say this because the storyline/plot of Vanspirit's campaigns (this one and the previous Liu Su one and the others) have amazing storyline, so it is worth it to cheat on every map just to see the plot.

Map09
The camera constantly twisting makes it very hard to play. Turning corners is difficult because the camera is always swinging. Also, because of the way the battle/fighting system is designed, when a battle ends, the camera often tricks me into walking back the same direction I came from. Only by looking at the minimap do I realize this (otherwise I would never notice).

There is no explanation from the monk as to why the zombies are approaching the previous town. In theory, it says the monk only created them to help the imperial court fight battles or something. So why would the zombies go near the town?

Map10
I liked the terrain of the Luo Xingmen base. It was very well designed. I enjoyed the plot shown here greatly. I have a serious complaint though, and that is there is no way to know where to go for the quest that tells us to "go walk around outside". The location for this is almost impossible. Most people will never find the exact spot and might get stuck on this map forever because they don't know where to go.

Map11
There should have been some foreshadowing previously that Zhui Yu knew about Liu Su being the incarnation of the God General Fei Peng. Even though Bohe mentioned she sensed a desire to kill from Zhui Yu many times, there was still no way for players to know he was the incarnation of that person. It was very sudden. I had no idea about this at all.

Map12
Nothing much to say.

Map13
Ok, interesting final boss in the form of the Candle-Bearing Dragon.





General points
Saving my thoughts on the Liu Su series for my comment on part 3, since it is all connected.

 

[cleavinghammer]

For completeness' sake, here's everything I noted over the campaign:

Mission selection screen: Color code instead of color.

Cinematic: watching -> reading
Hui0 -> Huio? Hui?

If they're pandas, why are they called Ghouls? Or is it in the "generic term for supernatural monster" sense?


First level:

Yuan Yanglv item -> Yuan Yang?

Some NPCs (guards, monks) are named NPC-#, all other NPCs have names like Villager or Child.

A (quest?) message reading Feng Shuang and nothing else pops up, possibly untranslated.


Abilities:

Child's Trick: upper life limit -> maximum hit points

MC doesn't have enough mana to cast Demon Thought.


Quests

"Type off to cancel the vision lock" Turns off the spinning, but not the lock-to-character.

Skipping the Story -> Maybe rename "Press Esc To Continue" or similar.

Mail delivery quest doesn't show up in the log.


NPC dialogues: I'm assuming some of these are obvious to fans of cultivation novels. Also, isn't the character the daughter of Dong the NPCs are talking about?

"she is very biaozhi"
"a waterway in the Jiang river" -> ?
Tsaoism -> Taoism?
"he is without Huigen"
"task of Xungcheng"
Guard asking for money: dialog buttons are untranslated except for Y/N, and the mouse disappears when the buttons are up.
"obsessed with cults" -> Not cultivation?
"Is Zaoricongshan Guanjieliangyuan not a great boon?" -> ... Is it?


Potion shop:
Revival Incense tooltip is cut off.
One item tooltip is mostly untranslated (talks about revival charges) and has no name.

1st map:

The quest should trigger from any direction instead of just the south of the temple.

Cutscene: gold metal -> gold medal?

Custom music often doesn't play and/or overlaps with the standard W3 music.

Spells from the elemental items on all 3 heroes have no tooltips.

2nd map:

...It was because my foolish brother Zhao Yun, who recently asked the Emperor for permission to replace the veteran General Chen Qingzhi in leading the Northern Expedition. So, he blocked that area. -> First sentence is incomplete

Music changes to custom/default every time you go into/hit Esc/leave the battle area.

Burrow -> Burrower?


So should I just skip every mob battle or do they drop non-healing items after a while?

Camera resets to spinning every time you leave a battle.

Revival Incense tooltip is cut off.

Fishing Village map: Enemy faction (the treasure chest) is an ally.

Secret Passage:
There seems to be no custom music at all for the secret passage levels.

Rune of Revival model shouldn't be a Bundle of Lumber.

Reunion:
Ah Qi = Dong Waqui?
Also, why Lord if Feng Huang is a woman?

After the bossfight, the treasure chests are allied.

River town:

Making the NPCs allied is a good idea, much easier to see them on the map.

There should be an option to delay going to the inn, I thought it was just another NPC and missed a bunch of lines the first time.

After the inn scene, the "m" trigger doesn't work.

Chest should have a "teleport items in AOE to item area" ability.

Monk model (for NPCs) has hero glow.


Yuntai

Blood Spirit sleeps at night

Post-boss scene: a teenage -> a teenager

Yuntai Cave

Taoist Corpse & Skeleton sleep at night.

... Yeah, may I suggest changing the riddles for those of us who aren't well-versed in classical Chinese literature/history? At least with riddles you can try to work it out, but here having to look them up in the first place sort of defeats the point.

Fire Washing Clothes -> ? (also, made from asbestos?)

Is it me or is the success rate for fleeing much lower here? Not even for getting the riddles wrong (turns out you can flee those, that should be prevented), even most patrolling enemies can't be skipped.

Gate leading to the chest with the Jade Waist Bow has no riddle (actually I might be wrong on this one, there was a lot of backtracking involved and since the the corridors all look the same it might be one I'd already gone through).

OK, the music turned out to be my fault for setting it to "All" instead of just "Warcraft 3". However, while there is now custom music, it tends to not loop immediately, it cuts off everytime there's a scene change, and sometimes only the default music plays.

Boss intro: has is merciful -> is merciful

River town again: there's no quest marker at the south end of the map.

Just a suggestion, but some of the NPC lines could use full translations instead of just romanizations, sometimes it just isn't clear enough from context.

Like, OK, "The world of Jianghu is always filled with fighting and bloodshed; it is truly a Shura world.", Shura is presumably some kind of demon.

But according to Wikipedia "Wenxin Diaolong" and "Zhaoming Wenxuan" translate to The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons and Selections of Refined Literature respectively, which makes it easier to see they're meant to be books. And Google gave me the equivalent of a blank stare for whatever the zog "Zaoricongshan Guanjieliangyuan" is.


The "item duplicated" message should be clearer, "This item type is already equipped" or similar.


Channel Division

Uh... is the one NPC who talks about watching movies a joke, or...

One NPC (an archer standing near a bridge on the middle-left island has no line.

NPC on the middle-right island has a model-disappears-on-a-loaded-game bug.

First cutscene: has come about from -> has come from

Second cutscene: I am responsibility -> I am responsible
(also, maybe have her appear on the map, I had to move while hugging the north border to trigger the scene)

Third cutscene definitely needs a better hint, I looked at the screenshots like you said and would not have thought to look there.

Sister, I missed you a lot. Could you cook for me this evening? -> Who the hell says that what is wrong with this dumbass no wonder Wanqi is always feeling murderous talking to him


So there's never any text on the loading screens, is that intentional or are they untranslated? Some background info (similar to what the NPCs say) would be useful.


Fallen Flower Valley:

Items aren't auto-sent to the chest.

Minimap has big blotches of white that don't always correspond to the terrain.

Unpassable terrain should be better marked, the cliffs still look walkable.

Cutscene:

... Ooooooooooooooooooooooooookay.

Gui Mei walked towards Lan Wu's corpse and her skirt attached itself to his head. Either it's a bug, or since he's already a murderer and backstabber, him being a sexual deviant is just the cherry on top.

... That's a Vegeta.

reincarnation platform -> ?


Buzhou Mountain

I dunno, given how flat the terrain can be and you fight undead, it feels more like we're in the Ghost Realm already.

Hu Zhoubo

As offspring of the Jianghu region -> a native?

Jiang Shibo

I really hate the task of Xuncheng -> of guarding Xuncheng? Maybe?

-


Overseer |c00FF0000 Fengshuang|r -> Overseer Fengshuang, Lord Feng Shuang, Miss Feng Shuang... Too many titles!

-

Fishing village, first river passage, Yuntai mountain,: Just noticed the quest requirements are the same as the first level's. Can't check because of the level selection bug (might make the map non-eligible on Hive?).

-

Yuntai mountain:


...Are we, going in? -> ...Are we going in?

-

Channel division:

Even if the Gui Mei and I had joined forces -> So is Gui Mei his name or a title?

-

So is there any point to going to the other maps? New items, dialogues, bosses etc?

-

Buzhou mountain

Ah Qiand Sister Bohe -> Ah Qi and Sister Bohe

-

Items


Reviving Incense tooltip ends with "life" here, not in the game.

Retro Dream Sky Snake Staff, Holy Spirit Cloak, Menghua Serpent Crown, : Nv Wa clan -> Nu Wa?

Jiuque Staff: feathers of god beast Jiuque -> feathers of the god beast Jiuque?

Hanmei: cold airs comes -> cold air comes

Pine Wind Woyun: The sound of the edge rings like pine wind. -> ?

Chinese terms left untranslated:

Qingling Cangjiao Blade：The spirit of the abnormal beast is absorbed inside, turning into Wenrun Qingmang.
Tianhui Beidou: It is as bright as the morning star and can absorb the Qi of Beidou.
Feiwen Huanri: When brandished, it is like changhong accumulated.
Ziqing Yu Ronggao: It has the mysterious effect of baigu shengji
True Yuan Cloak: It has an enhanced true yuan ability. It is said to be able to fuse together with the zhenqi of the wearer.
Ruiri Lintian Crown: It contains wandao ruiqi.
Baicao Shoes：Shoes that are woven together with Baicao.
Phantom Combat Shoes：An ultimate treasure for those who study qinggong
Luohan Buddhist Beads: 108 Buddhist beads that are engraved with 108 Luohans.
Jingang Bracer: The wearer will have the power of Jingang.
Yarn Dress: Made from Cansi
Fengtou Silk Shoes：There are silk Fengtou decorations
Wish Match Hair Band: There are many varieties of jiefaling
Tricolour Metal Strip Band：A ribbon woven together with Zijin, Chijin and Huangjin gold strips.
Nine-Fold Dress: The dress for Tian Hou.
Tianlu Evil-Repelling Jade: Ancient jade carved into the shape of Tianlu.

Swallow Golden Dart: Its form is that of a swallow's golden dart -> Birds have darts?

Red Ring Armour：Linked together into a ring with wire. Linked into soft armour ring by ring. -> Linked together into soft armour with wire ring by ring.

Ghost Pin Zhou：Bronze teng armour covered with hangnails. -> hangnail? Hangnails are bits of skin from when you bite your fingernails.

Taiji Top Crown: accelerating the condensation of calligraphy -> ... how, exactly, is calligraphy condensated?

Overcast Shoes -> Overcast?

Zhenwu Combat Shoes: There is a layer of steel made from scales -> scales made from steel/steel scales?

Bronze Goggles：A bronze breastplate. -> Bronze Breastplate (but if goggles and breastplate share the same ideogram I want to know who decided it should be so)

Thick Scale Shoes: processing the skin of thick fish -> processing thick fish skins

White Python Shoes：previous -> precious?

(a vamp is a shoe part and suet white jade is a thing, man I'm learning today)

Nine-Fold Dress: It has the qualities of both royalty and celestial. -> "and divinity" maybe?

Wind Source, Fire Lodging, Earth Veiled -> ? Water Mirror makes some sense, but what physical objects are the rest supposed to be? (also, no elemental spells had tooltips)

Spells:

Untranslated Chinese terms: Replace jing with mana.
Jing and Shen are full.
Shen is full.
Hero has full Jing.
Not enough Shen to absorb.
Not enough Shen.
Spirit Power has not recovered.
That unit is in a state of Jie.

Star Magical Combat: side trick -> ?

Heavenly Evil Wind: Bit of a contradiction there.

Sky Matrix -> ?

Weakness Break:
turning to her the mind -> ?
causing the enemy's weaknesses become apparent -> causing the enemy's weaknesses to become apparent?

Child's Trick: Description makes sense, but why Trick?

Star Battle: Your unit, attack boost. -> ?

 

[deepstrasz]

Approved based on @cleavinghammer's super review.

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