Chronicles of the Second War: Tides of Darkness

[ZodiackTV]

Hello. I have been enjoying this campaign I have been waiting for years, and it's super good, you all did an amazing job with cinematics, gameplay and all the secrets!

Although, I have to report a bug: in Chapter 9, after loading a save (I specifically reloaded a quicksave), after saving Maim's base, the Oil Tankers won't go from the Oil Platform to the Shipyard to deliver the oil, and the Deliver/Gather oil buttons don't work properly. I don't know what's causing it, but it can be a nuisance for people who want to perfect the mission but don't want any cargos to leave the map.

EDIT: upon further testing, the Tanker actually works, but only after I built the Oil Refinery. For some reason, it probably does not consider the Shipyard a valid patrol spot for the oil delivery path thingy, I don't know how to explain it

EDIT 2: After another reload, the Oil Refinery still works perfectly fine for Tankers, and Shipyard is still wonky

 

[ZodiackTV]

Hello! It's me again, I found another weird bug: in Mission 11, after I upgraded my Ogres to Ogre Magi, the new ogres are still just Ogres. I put in queue Ogres while researching Ogre Magi training, maybe that's what messed with it?

I sent these Ogre Magi to help Zul'jin (same Ogres that you get at the beginning of the map)

and these are the ones at my base, built after those Ogre Magi.

EDIT: apparently it's just for queued production units that this bug occurs, 'cause after these screenshots I tried and managed to build more Magi.

 

[ZodiackTV]

I finally finished the campaign! It took me a lot of time actually, like 10 days, between work and friends, but I can say this was worth the wait. I purposely waited some months before playing the campaign because I hoped to experience it the best I could, with as many bug fixes and all. I won't go in details for every chapter (even though I'd love to), but I'll gladly give a round of applause to:

1: The great map building, which was super true to the original but managed to transfer perfectly well to the WC3 engine and nature, and the terrain was superb, a work of art in every shot!

2: The voiceacting, which was fantastic. I really liked Orgrim specifically, I got shivers with the Act 3 cutscene after he discovers Gul'dan betrayal, he feels genuine and real.

3: The game design with Heroes (specifically Zuluhed), which rewards creativity and exploration, is something that I dare to say was almost missing from base WCIII, using the Thunderbolt to light up a firecamp and using Heal chain to heal wounded Grunts to make them able to fight again is genius, smart and simple all at the same time, and rewards you if you realize you can do it and it works.

4: The cinematography, most of the time, is astonishing with the focus on the right subjects and camera position, I think it could be improved on some cutscenes, especially when shots take too much time to change due to long dialogues. I can imagine how hard it can be on the editor, not being a map maker myself, but if I were to give some "actual criticism" it would go there.

5: The writing of the dialogues feels real MOST of the time, especially when they take it slow before battles. Some dialogues are too short or too "barebones", I take for example the one at the beginning of the final mission, it feels "okay" for the moment, but it really stands out when you have scenes like the dialogue between Utok and Rend at the beginning of Mission 4, but these are minimal and rare. I really liked all the little interactions between the characters, like Maim and Zuluhed in mission 13, aswell as Rend and Maim in mission 10. A lot of care was put into these and, honestly, I'm gonna miss these characters in the future, when I'll think back to the funny bits and cool moments they all had, they really grew on me in a very positive way. Another note that I think could use some work (but it would require so much effort) would be to give the Epilogue the "epilogue" feel, which was given mainly to just Utok and Orgrim. I would have loved to see all the others also go their way and exchanging a couple of words between each other after the final battle. It would not really be in WC2 style, but it would definitely fit the writing you used for the project.

EXTRA: All the extra work with models, units, all the references to other games, puns, pop-culture, all these make it feel like the game was actually made by a Blizzard that still cared about their products. All the extra assets, animations and little details (like Zuluhed on the boat, the lore-accurate easter eggs) made me appreciate everything way more, as you could tell (if it wasn't obvious already) that an insane amount of love was put into this.

Overall, I'd give the whole campaign a solid 9.5/10, that half point missing comes mainly from the camera work and a bit of writing that would have improved the epilogue mostly, but the whole rest is just perfect as it is, I wouldn't change much and I am glad to have waited so many years for this because it was 100% worth it. Thank you for this, and I can't wait to play CotSW: Human Campaign when you'll release it. ♥

PS: I know it would be a lot of work, but are you planning on working on a Beyond the Dark Portal campaign too?

 

[CaseMcGase]

Just finished this campaign and made an account to leave a 5 star review. The passion you guys had for this project really shows. I don't know where to begin, but the care put into the models, cinematics, respecting the lore, level design, etc. are all really impressive.
I played 1.03, and the only major issue I encountered was attack waves getting stuck at their spawn points during the final phase of The Siege of Zul'aman. But it looks like that's been fixed in 1.04.
All around fantastic work! Looking forward to the human campaign once it's ready!

 

[TacoTruck89]

I just finished the campaign and it was awesome! I had a few bugs/crashes here and there but nothing serious except this one.

I got to the final chapter, fall of lordaeron, and I did not get the portion of the mission where you attack cross island. The game seems to have skipped it and I went right to the actual siege of the capital.

Edit: Just completed the campaign again starting from scratch, still did not get the cross island mission

PS Death Knight's need WC2 death coil

 

[Cristian23]

i wish i play this campagin with normal graphics..

 

[Dingodyno65]

Been trying to crack my head trying to get this thing to work, did what the instructions says but every time i try and play it, it always says: unable to locate any custom campaigns: is there something im not doing right? Asset flies are in the campaigns folder

 

[ZodiackTV]

Been trying to crack my head trying to get this thing to work, did what the instructions says but every time i try and play it, it always says: unable to locate any custom campaigns: is there something im not doing right? Asset flies are in the campaigns folder

Assets don't go in the campaign folder, they go in the folder where Warcraft.exe and all the other files are located, only the campaign goes in the campaign folder

 

[Dingodyno65]

Assets don't go in the campaign folder, they go in the folder where Warcraft.exe and all the other files are located, only the campaign goes in the campaign folder

And what folder is that? whats it called?

 

[ZodiackTV]

And what folder is that? whats it called?

It's the installation folder, the path you chose to install the game in. That's where all the core resource files are, so that's where you should use the asset installer

 

[Dingodyno65]

It's the installation folder, the path you chose to install the game in. That's where all the core resource files are, so that's where you should use the asset installer

I see, ill give it a try thanks

 

[Dingodyno65]

It's the installation folder, the path you chose to install the game in. That's where all the core resource files are, so that's where you should use the asset installer

Still not showing up, is it only 2 files? the CSW installer and asset pack or am i missing something? like the TOD campaign files?

 

[Chonky Dwarf]

If you've ever used the WC Editor you can suspect how much work and talent it would take to make this. This project, together with Re-Reforged, shows how loved this game still is and how much Blizzard dropped the ball with Reforged.

 

[JStryker47]

If you've ever used the WC Editor you can suspect how much work and talent it would take to make this. This project, together with Re-Reforged, shows how loved this game still is and how much Blizzard dropped the ball with Reforged.

Well, maybe not entirely. After all, projects like this wouldn't exist without it. Although it would be nice if they focused their efforts on solving their games' actual problems, like freezes and crashes, instead of trying to make sure that the weirdos who don't even buy their products aren't offended.

 

[TheProgramer]

It's really awesome. Quick question, is there a way to increase the game speed? Even on fast it feels very slow.

 

[Evilhog]

Are any major updates planned for CSW? Should I play the current version or wait for some kind of a "definitive edition"?

 

[Mephius]

I just created an account to praise this amazing campaign... Thank you very much and good work!

 

[Stormpigeon]

Hi,

I'm really interested in this but am a TOTAL noob when it comes to modding stuff.

I've got as far as run CSW installer in the warcraft 3 files and it comes up with new, load resource and delete. I'm assuming I need load resource but then it asks me to pick a file and I don't know how to proceed.

If there's a step-by-step guide assuming that you're talking to a 5-year old that'd be great. Although I do understand most computer terms

 

[Dimka]

Hello everyone

I've heard a lot about this masterpiece, I really wanted to evaluate it. But faced with this kind of problem, tell me the solutions. I understand that the problem is not with the map, because the video screenshots and videos.

The graphics settings look like this

 

[Gilorad]

Hello everyone

I've heard a lot about this masterpiece, I really wanted to evaluate it. But faced with this kind of problem, tell me the solutions. I understand that the problem is not with the map, because the video screenshots and videos.


View attachment 479018


The graphics settings look like this


View attachment 479020

Did you download the Asset pack?

 

[Spiderking07]

Phenomenal work. This is superb quality. Really looking forward to the next work.

 

[FluffyStuff]

So much work has clearly gone into this project. I want to preface this by saying that I very much enjoyed and recommend this campaign, it's one of the best 'Reforged' campaigns I've seen so far! However, I have some hopefully constructive criticism that maybe can help with the forthcoming Human Campaign.

Interludes
The interludes feel overly long and lackluster, with minimal movement or action. Most of the story is crammed into these slow-paced cutscenes, and the mission intro/outros are pretty sparse storywise. The dialogue could be significantly pruned to improve pacing, especially since so much story is delivered this way. While added movement and animation could help, tightening the scenes would likely reduce this need. If you look at the WC3 campaigns, interludes are a maximum of a few minutes, and more story beats and characterization bookend each mission. Gives the story a lot more space to breathe and grow methodically. The way it's presented here really hurts the overall pacing of the campaign for me.

Mapping
Maps feel cramped and cluttered, especially considering the lack of upkeep. Marching an army through tight spaces often leads to unintended creep camp pulls for example. WC3's pathfinding doesn't help matters, but it's not a major issue really. Even official Blizzard campaigns have similar problems in some areas.
Reforged graphics don't help the cluttered feeling either. I dislike Reforged's overall visual direction and don't consider it a very faithful representation of WC3. So you can take what I say with a grain of salt. However, the CSW models are impressive and fit seamlessly with what has been established. Reforged's art style, to my eyes, is a jarring mismatch between cartoony terrain and overly detailed characters, but I do understand the appeal for most people over the original. It's a mystery to me how Reforged ended up with such a different art style compared to WC 1,2,3 and WOW. Even Heroes of the Storm offers a better visual approach, in my opinion.

Voice Work
The core voice cast is generally very strong, but inconsistencies with one-off characters are jarring and detract from the overall experience. While I fully understand the focus on main characters, the stark differences in voice quality break immersion in a story-heavy campaign like this. It's not about professional vs. amateur voice acting, but rather consistency. The Echo-S fan dub for FF7 demonstrates how consistent amateur voice work can enhance a game. The issue lies in the abrupt shifts between high-quality and low-quality voice lines, which pull you out of the experience. Despite these criticisms, the voice cast's hard work is very commendable and I'm happy to have voice acting at all at the end of the day.

Gameplay
The gameplay and missions are exceptional. New and engaging side quests enhance each fully reimagined and expanded mission. I thoroughly enjoyed every mission and felt this was the first true WC3-style reimagining of WC2. Unlike other remakes that stayed too close to the original, this campaign surpasses the original by offering a fresh WC3-like experience and adding much-needed lore context to what you're doing. I would go as far as to say that I prefer playing this over the actual WC2 campaign, which is a first for me. My favorite parts of this campaign are when I'm knee-deep into a mission, that is when it all clicks for me.

Overall
Overall, this campaign is a flawed masterpiece. Despite issues that impacted my enjoyment, the evident passion and hard work shine through. The enhanced gameplay and unique, impactful missions kept me engaged. Ultimately, the campaign’s strengths outweigh its weaknesses, making it a truly exceptional experience. It's the best WC2 reimagining I've played and feels like a project Blizzard would've created in its prime. Similar to Mass Recall for SC2, this is the definitive Orc campaign for WC2.

 

[Wargzax]

Had to make account just to share this.

I spent hours trying to make this campaign to work properly on Linux (Steam Deck). Followed tutorial, but don't matter how many times I tried to extract, reinstall assets I never managed to get them to work.

What finally helped me was adding "Allow local files" flag to Warcraft III registry entry via Proton tricks. Exact steps are:

1. Open Protontricks or Winetricks;
2. Select your Warcraft III (it most likely will be Battle.net) prefix from the list;
3. Select option "Select default wineprefix";
4. Select option Run regedit;
5. Navigate to "HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Blizzard Entertainment/Warcraft III";
6. On the right side you should see multiple values. Right click on empty space and select "New" and "DWORD Value";
7. Enter Name As: "Allow Local Files";
8. Click on the space in Data column and add value as: 00000001.
9. Close both regedit and protontricks.

I thought this was not needed for Reforged, but looks like it lets game to use the assets. I hope this saves time for other Linux users.

 

[mundm]

I am always getting crash during Khaz Modan mission right after crossing bridge beyond first dwarft encampment. help pls

 

[agathcoles]

I am having the same problem as user Dimka (whose screenshots above reflect my current problem). I followed the installation instructions (I'm on Windows 11), and have re-installed the Asset Pack, to no avail. The top YouTube video with instructions for installation indicates a dedicated Textures file, which does not come with the Download files. All I get are the Installer and the Assets Pack. I'm sure I've got files in the right place: are there any suggestions for why the textures do not load? A discrepancy I notice between my setup and the YouTube tutorial is the Warcraft III folder is in their Program Files folder, whereas my Warcraft III folder resides in Program Files (x86). I didn't intentionally place the Warcraft folder here, it happened by default when I downloaded the game from Battlenet. *Update: I uninstalled Warcraft 3 Reforged from Battlenet so that I could start over using Program Files folder instead of Program Files (x86), removed all CSW content, then reinstalled the base game and went through the CSW installation process again. Same problem, and re-installing the Assets Pack in the CSW Installer does not work. I'm at a loss

 

[j2xlilbro]

I grew up playing warcraft and i replay them all the time, so i love the story and gameplay. I thought this campaign and these models were amazing. Thank you!

 

[Mint Blancmanche]

FUCK THE HORDE!
when do we get the human campaign? xD

 

[Dalekay]

What type of font did you use for the campaign title?

 

[TheQlex]

Hello guys just start playing its awesome but I have crashed when finish assault for Hilsbrad, after loading act 2 "Kaz Modan" its crush how to collect logs or, how to fix it?(I use MacOS)
*Updated *
also have crush at start of Lost Chapter 3 "The Siege of Zul'Aman"

 

[mundm]

Hello guys just start playing its awesome but I have crashed when finish assault for Hilsbrad, after loading act 2 "Kaz Modan" its crush how to collect logs or, how to fix it?(I use MacOS)

I have crash there as well passing the bridge after clearing first human encampment.
Win10
AMD Ryzen 5 7600
AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT
TUF Gamins B650M Plus
32GB RAM


Can somebody help?

 

[TheQlex]

Still playing, thanks to u, start reading the book by Iresenberg!
Now its great thanks for your great work!

Updated
Can't find answer for my questions, what about Beyond the Dark Portal and campaign for hum?

 

[Fenkton]

Hi everyone!



The Chronicles of the Second War is a really great story!

It's been expanded with a lot of new content and the new game mechanics are great!

The fact that lieutenants develop through optional missions is a great new feature on its own. And the cutscenes are sensational!

The Reforged engine is good for remake campaigns and other old mods.

Pc Spec: GT430OC, 8GB DDR3, Intel Corei3 2120

By the way, I don't know why, but somehow it reminded me an old serie "Adventures of the Gummi Bears", maybe because of the vibe. You're the Captain! XD

Thank you for your work!

 

[usfshihy2]

Chapter 9's is not very balanced. Firstly, only 1 gold mine is in sight, against the long naval battle in the chapter it usually runs out and there is no alternative. Secondly, once the water is frozen, if I had troops in transport ships they are all gone which is even worse. Thirdly, the hold the fort battle can sometimes be impossible if whenever I beat the mage and took the keep, I barely had any troops left.

 

[Galadendil]

There are no words for how awesome this is. Support the hell out of this, everyone!

 

[ImBlindNotDeaf]

Um, how do you install on dell

 

[Berr]

This is more detailed and had more love put into it then WC3 Reforged multiplied by 1000.
The density of detail is amazing, this is AAA level quality, I can not say enough good things about this, this is the best custom work to come from the community, this is the top tier of wc3 custom maps.

The bar doesnt get no higher than this, this is easily something id pay money for if it was being sold.

 

[WhiteWolf539]

Bruh, this is top notch content made by modders for literally free.

Modders have more passion for Warcraft than Blizzard themselves.

 

[Galadendil]

I've beaten it back to back, and what a journey it has been.


First of all, a sincere thank you to the team. You guys are inspiring, what an amazing amount of passion and love you've put into this, free for everyone to enjoy. Absolutely amazing.

I've played thousands of mods in my life, and this might be the best mod ever, quite literally. I must say this is the second custom campaign I've played for WC3, so my knowledge of the scene is not great, but damn if I don't wish every mod out there was this good.

Right now I'm unemployed, but I'll be sure to donate next month. First time ever I will donate to a mod project. It's that good.

The amount of work here is way, way more, than Blizzard themselves put into Reforged. They could have copied everything from WC2 and call it a day, but no, they've done a full fledged remake with an expanded and delightful story fully voiced and with many cinematics, all respecful to the lore.

There are really detailed and beautiful environments, new assets, new models, great voices, new secrets, new everything basically, and better. What a damn great job.

I never played the original WC2, but I watched it some years ago on youtube. Playing this has made me appreciate the lore much more. The campaign is full of characters that are important to WoW but didn't shine there. It's been an absolute pleasure to know more about the Blackhands, Doomhammer, Zul'Jin, etc. My love for the lore has doubled. Now I'm mad that some characters were done dirty in WoW! Just like Kael'thas and others!

Now, on with some criticism.

Personally, I found myself overwhelmed many times by the enemy. I'm not a great WC3 player at all, but I've beaten most of the original game on hard. Here, on normal, I found it a bit of a drag some times. Too many enemies or too powerful. I ended up using whosyourdaddy cheat and got it done to continue having fun.

Same happened with resources. Many times I found myself in need of more resources than I had for things to be fun. I cheated and that was it, fun continued. Otherwise I had to wait a lot. Maybe it's my fault, idk.

This is just my personal experience and I'm not a great player. But I'm not the worst neither. So I'd advice checking the economy, number of enemies and their attributes, specially on the biggest battles. Maybe starting with much more resources and making units spawn faster would help. I don't really know, I guess balancing is matter of trial and error.

Still, I thought the missions were a joy to experience for the most part. Even if I had to cheat, I thought it was awesome.

Overall, I think the story is fantastic, but I have some minor criticism. I felt sometimes the delivery of the dialogue was too slow and that mostly all scenes would benefit if they were a bit faster. Pretty sure a lot of the dialogue can be trimmed. I also thought at some points the dialogue was not advancing the plot, it was exposition, and therefore could be better. Finally I also thought that a couple of scenes were not visually interesting enough to keep my interest.

Again, this is minor criticism, 99% is praising. Fighting alonside Doomhammer and the rest of the crew has been absolutely incredible.

Acting has been for the most part fantastic, most scenes are a joy to watch, full of epicnees, action and raw power, some nice shots with very good narrative intentions behind, and the dialogue goes hard af, don't take my words harshly. It has been AWESOME. I got CHILLS several times!

Overall, I think the mods exceeds all expectations, it's on the level of WC3 and an unvaluable addition to the Warcraft universe. This should have been done by Blizzard. But the truth is that I don't think Blizzard is capable of doing such a wonderful job nowadays. I will definitely replay this mod in the future, hopefully as a full Warcraft run with WC1 remake, WC2 full remake and WC3.

This is an absolute MUST PLAY for everyone. I literally bought WC3 just to play this when I watched the trailer some weeks ago. I'll gladly pay for this, and I wish you guys were in charge of Blizzard.

I really hope fans continue doing justice to such an awesome IP in the future. I can't wait for the Human Campaign and WC1 remake, and all you do in the future. Once I have a stable job I'll even try to join you, as I have some skills that might be useful. THANK YOU SO MUCH!

 

[KindHiros]

I was very excited and confused when I first launched the compaign (it's about 3 minutes ago).
Cutscenes, VOICED. And I’m confused by the fact that one of orcs was covered in ketchup, and the second consisted of Soviet moonshine. Cool.
Also what does tinker's passive button do?

• [TRIGGER]
• [TRIGGER]

[/TRIGGER]
[/TRIGGER]

 

[yodeller]

Had to make account just to share this.

I spent hours trying to make this campaign to work properly on Linux (Steam Deck). Followed tutorial, but don't matter how many times I tried to extract, reinstall assets I never managed to get them to work.

What finally helped me was adding "Allow local files" flag to Warcraft III registry entry via Proton tricks. Exact steps are:

I thought this was not needed for Reforged, but looks like it lets game to use the assets. I hope this saves time for other Linux users.

Absolute madman! I saw the reply last night after two months due to Hive's emails being filtered in my spam, tried what you suggested and it works! I'm so goddamn happy to randomly check my spam folder every once in a while.

However, I had to manually create the "Warcraft III" key, as it wasn't even present in my battle.net prefix, inside lutris. Strangely enough, the key was present in winetricks outside of lutris (and the allow local files key not only was present but was set on 1) so I just copied the keys and values from there to lutris' winetricks and BOOM! It works!! Thank you so much man, I have no idea how you found it out, but I'm so glad people like you are in the Linux community. Thanks again!

 

[Vindicator777]

It's possible to play in classic graphics?

 

[Ravager16829]

It's possible to play in classic graphics?

Definitely no. And of course, if you want to play on HD mode, you must have a legitimate copy of the Reforged (the latest version) from the official Blizzard site.

 

[GreatRaz]

The problem isn't the fact that we can't play this custom campaign in WC3 Classic.
The problem is we have to pay, or have paid, Activision/Blizzard for having WC3 Reforged while I would like to give the money to you guys for making the remastered of this masterpiece.

Pls help! ths

 

[Harry1]

Congrats folks!Really love this campaign.

 

[Tipsilon]

View attachment 486378
Pls help! ths

For god's sake man, you are playing on classic graphics... How did you think it would turn out? You need reforged to play this.

 

[KindHiros]

uh.. guys how to unsubscribe email notifs about coments here?

Also is Alextraza secret mission a canon friendly? Especially lord of the rings dwarf castle

 

[zzang11295]

When I downloaded and played the latest version(patch 1.05), the in-game background music did not play. In the previous version, Warsong played well during the Alexstrasza boss fight, and Orastrasz too. so I wonder why this is happening in this patch. I am Korean and not familiar with English, so I can only convey my disappointment with Google Translate. It seems that the same thing will happen not only in this mission but also in other missions.

 

[DanielSS96]

I reached the Tol Barad chapter. After i destroy the southern enemy base nothing happened and i can't continue further. Tried restarting the game and mision but is not working.
What do i do?

 

[TiLi1323]

A masterpiece of excellence

 

[TiLi1323]

Now the Blizzard official can not do such a high-level campaign