Curse of the Blood Elves

[McQvaBlood]

Don't get your hopes up just yet, but I may take up Curse of the Blood Elves when Terror of the Tides is done. (Seeing how I have most of the summer doing nothing really.)

So here are a few ideas.
1) Hero Distribution

Chapter	Player One - First Hero	Player One - Second Hero	Player Two - First Hero	Player Two - Second Hero
(1) Misconceptions	Kael		Custom Paladin
(2) A Dark Covenant	Kael		Vashj
(3) The Dungeons of Dalaran	Kael		Vashj
(4) The Search for Illidan	Kael		Vashj
(5) Gates of the Abyss	Kael	Akama	Vashj	Illidan
(6) Lord of Outland	Kael	Akama	Vashj	Illidan

Explanation:

• The custom Paladin will only join you for one chapter, then when Garithos recalls all human forces, he will also leave. If I ever get to Chapter 6 of the Undead expansion campaign, the custom Paladin will assist Garithos in that level.
• Akama would only join you in Chapter Five if you defeat the orange chaos orcs first.
• Illidan will start with Vashj on Chapter Six instead of with Kael and Akama.

The first draft for the Paladin's skills is already done, so here it is:

Spell	Description	Mana Cost	Cooldown
Divine Lightning	Calls forth a cone of holy energies that affects up to 4 units. Friendly living units are healed for 120/240/360. Enemy Undead units take 60/120/180 damage.	100	6
Holy Shield	Creates a shield around a target friendly unit that negates up to 90/180/270 damage. Lasts 30 seconds.	75	10
Smite	Increases the Paladin's attack damage by 20/30/40 against enemy units and by 50/75/100 against enemy Undead units for 3 attacks.	50	10
Exorcism	Whenever the Paladin casts a spell, all nearby enemy units take 100 damage.	Passive

Explanation:

• The Paladin will start on level 2 and can only reach level 3, just like Kael. The synergy between his abilities will only really make a difference on the undead chapter later on.
• Numbers are only a rough estimate and will be balanced as needed.

2) Misconceptions
This map is really wierd, Kael controls human after he controlled elf in chapter six and seven of TotT.
Furthermore, on chapter two, Garithos recalls all human forces, leaving the elves to fend for themselves. Magically, Swordsmen and Archers appear to substitute for the lack of low-tier units.

So here's my alternative.
On the first map, Player One will control Kael and his elves, while Player Two will control the custom Paladin and human.
From a gameplay point of view, this will mean the following:
Kael can build Worker instead of Peasent, Swordsman instead of Footman and Archer instead of Rifleman. In addition, Kael can build all elven units, that is, Priests, Sorceresses and Spell Breakers. Paladin can build dwarven units, Mortar Team and Steam Engine, as well as Knights. This also means that Kael can't build a Workshop and Paladin can't build an Arcane Sanctum.
Some upgrades will, because of this, not affect both players. However, the attack and armor upgrades are the same for elves and humans, so that's still mutually shared.

If you're worried about balance, I would remind you that expect for one small undead base, this map is devoid of organized resistance and is more like a dungeon crawler where you fight a number of hostile creatures to get items and resources.

3) The Search for Illidan
So this map's rather dull. Aside from controlling heroes, there's nothing interesting going on.
So here's a slight addition that would make this map feel more co-op.
I would give both players gold for killing enemy units. I would also divert the base's income so that you receive gold like you were mining.
Then you could spend that gold on the following:

• Hiring more units. For this you would simply have to select your Castle and buy said unit. Then, a Worker would build the building that can train that unit, whichafter the building would automatically train that unit and send it against Maiev.
• Researching upgrades. This would include attack and armor upgrades, unit special abilties, caster upgrades.
• Hiring items from nearby Goblin Merchants. (This is already possible in the map.)

Insane: Saithis could help Maiev.

4) Gates of the Abyss
This map does not really work with the two player base distribution that well.
You get elven and naga forces and splitting that woud require me giving each player a Castle, a Temple of the Tides, a Barracks, an Arcane Sanctum, a Spawning Grounds, a Temple of Azshara, so on.
Here's my idea. I will keep both players as elf. Workers are able to build two of the naga buildings, that is, Shrine of Azshara and Spawning Grounds.
The naga attack and armor upgrades can be researched in the elven Blacksmith and Mur'gul Reavers can be built in the Spawning Grounds. The only real difference will then be that you can't build a Tidal Guardian, but it's pretty much the same as a Guard Tower.

• Guard Tower (GT) has 22-27 pierce attack with 0.9 attack cooldown, while Tidal Guardian has 33-45 pierce attack with 1.5 attack cooldown. GT has 27,2 DPS, TG has 26 DPS.
• GT also costs 10 additional lumber, but has Magic Sentry.
• GT also builds longer, but does not require a Worker for the full duration.

An alternative is that Player One controls Elf, Player Two control Naga. In my honest opinion, I think that would put the elf player at a disadvantage. Every Naga unit is just much more powerful than the elven units, elves also lack high-tier units, they don't have a siege weapon. The only thing Player One could really do is train a shitload of Priests to heal everything. That's rather boring.
Insane: I've always wondered why the Gates you close only activate when you're already in position to close it off. So for Insane mode, I might make the gates produce demon units and send attack waves at your base.
Alternatively, I could give control of each Demon Gate to one orc base. There are three orc bases and three Demon Gates. While the Gate is open, the orc attack waves would also include Demons.

Huh, long post. That's all for now.

 

[tulee]

Your idea to give illidan to the naga in the final level is an extremely good idea, as when you make your insane mode, you only need to update the naga side, because without illidan on the left to tank it will already be balanced for insane difficulty

 

[Deleted member 212788]

Great Ideas, I hope you decide to take it up.

 

[McQvaBlood]

Did not feel like opening yet another thread for this, so here are some rather bad news as far as my maps go:

• I will be on a brief summer vacation from 24 June till 29 June, so I won't be working on anything until then.
• I'm still totally in the dark about the custom naga hero's skillset, so hopefully I'll come up with something fun while on the beach.
• I won't be able to fix any bugs you find in Chapter 7 of TotT while I'm absent. Still, feel free to report any, I'll get to them as soon as I'm back.

 

[Deleted member 212788]

be sure to have a good time

 

[TheSpoon]

This is brilliant news McQva, I'm really happy you're thinking of taking up this campaign.
I've not played this campaign in a while but I'll try my best to give some thoughts.

A custom paladin seems like the most fitting substitution. It doesn't seem necessary to invent so many spells for him, but you seem to have thought it all out. It's a shame you can't keep him, but I like how these guys are re-appearing as minibosses!
Your other idea of splitting the techtree on that map seems cool, in the past I've just shared the technologies and left it to the players to decide what to specialise in.

Your idea for the search for illidan seems good. I always thought that mission would be more interesting against a real player. Maybe that chapter can be 1Pv1P? Although it is in a different sense to the other maps, I'm just putting the idea out there

For gates of the abyss you could give one player elves and the other naga, but increase the food/gold price of the naga units to make them balanced? The elven player would still be good to make lots of priests but it might help.

 

[McQvaBlood]

Well, the Paladin would not return as a boss, but as a playable hero.
That map in the TFT UD Campaign lets you play Sylvanas and Varimathras with an undead base and Lord Garithos with a human base as they attack the capitol city of Lordaeron where the final Dreadlord of the Nathrezim, Balnazzar, is hiding. So the custom Paladin would join Garithos on that level as a hero for the second player and both the undead and human bases would get split into two bases and share their techs.
As for the custom skills, I like to show off my ability to trigger complicated spells. (And I've already coded three of them, the one missing is the ultimate, which is not a priority anyway, you won't get to see it in this campaign.)

The funny thing about the Search for Illidan is that not only do you not have to manage your base, you only have two heroes, which the two player campaign would reduce to one hero for each player. There are no items or neutral creeps whatsoever.
So I could implent your idea and it would not even be disruptive to the campaign in any way, save for if Maiev succeeds, you lose the game.
Still, I'm not a big fan of deviating from the original maps too much. Although I did alter TotT's chapter 8's gameplay quite a bit. I'll have to think about it, although the safest would be to let the player pick a game mode at the start of the map or release a seperate map altogether as a bonus at the end of that campaign where all four heroes present, Kael, Vashj, Maiev and Saithis, would start from level 1 and have custom skills.

 

[Deleted member 212788]

Long live the 2P campaign

 

[Irenicus]

McQvaBlood, your ideas sound good! Looking forward to playing this campaign and the last chapter of the night elven campaign as well!

 

[Isis22]

Just got done playing both slots on the beta version of Misconception you posted to EpicWar and must say that it didn't disappoint. You've really ramped up the excitement for "Curse of the Blood Elves" because of this level's uniqueness.


Strangely, I liked that blue only controlled a handful of units at the start. It added to the feel of being an outnumbered group of survivors and I didn't really miss having a hero to start out with because you stay in a group with Kael anyways.

I'm also glad that you didn't stick with the throw-away hero idea and chose to refresh the level with the naga. It was a great idea to essentially reinvent the level by allowing us to play as Vashj, building a naga base along side the standard human one. I loved the unit swap when playing as blue (the first time we played, I wondered why I had the night elf theme), as it was a pleasant surprise. From a lore standpoint, it also makes sense that they'd make a base in the area.

I can't wait for the final version!

 

[McQvaBlood]

I didn't release a version on EpicWar, you must have played someone else's map. :S

 

[Isis22]

I didn't release a version on EpicWar, you must have played someone else's map. :S

Really? Not 2P Campaign: Alliance 01?

Since it does say it's a beta, were you play-testing it with someone that ended up uploading it? It's so polished it might as well be close to ready.

Or is this not the final version we'll see? If so, I know a few people that will definately be disappointed.

 

[McQvaBlood]

This is none of my work and not even close to what I'm aiming for.

I find it amusing though that you think this map is - as you put it - polished.
It lacks slow harvesting, shared techtree, shared tomes, you can't even set a difficulty.
Not to mention it makes a complete mess out of the story: Garithos tolerates Kael speaking with Vashj for two minutes or so, even then he is pissed about it. The next map, Kael accepts Vashj's aid, resulting in Garithos trying to execute all Blood Elves on the spot.

Sorry if I come off harsh here - I never thought someone would have the indecency to release such trash claiming it to be my work. Don't get me wrong, by the way, I have no problem with someone else also altering Blizzard maps, the problem is that they release it under my name. Also, the effort they put into it is miniscule - The second player receives no hero because the map maker was lazy enough to not even give them a ladder hero.

As a bonus, have my beta version of the map, I can guarantee it is ten times more satisfying and ... polished.

 

[Isis22]

Just played the version you linked and had to say it was amazing! I could completely understand you getting pissed at an imitator...yours so far has blown the EpicWar one out of the water.


My friend and I played it using both slots. It was slower going than the other for sure, obviously yours being balanced for two heroes and the fact that there isn't enough starting lumber (or lumber from items) to finish the first observatory. But after that, the pace quickens especially with access to aerial units (something the solo campaign didn't have).

For this being considered "beta", which I consider just the basic triggers and working map, this has great polish and seems nearly complete. Loved it and can't wait for the next chapter and of course the final Sentinel!

 

[McQvaBlood]

Right, I'm glad you liked it.
The lumber thing is actually a bug, in the original campaign you start with 600 lumber and can repair the Observatory to full health, but it would seem that 300/300 lumber to both players can't achieve the same effect for whatever reason.
I didn't mean to give flying units to the players, it would steal some spotlight from Chapter 2 where Dragonhawk Riders are properly introduced.

Well, aside from triggers and the working map, this version already has a custom AI - This is especially noticeable for Insane Mode, where the AI uses a hero to compensate for your having two.

 

[Deleted member 212788]

The map is great but I feel the insane mode is a bit too hard. The undead attacks are too frequent and the frost wyrms come in a bit too early. Me and my friend only had 2 archers are 4 towers which died right away.

 

[McQvaBlood]

Frost Wyrms? Are you sure you haven't aggroed the undead base somehow? For example by attacking it? The AI is not supposed to use Frost Wyrms to attack the player, only to defend its own base. The main idea is that you shouldn't really try to overcome the undead completely but concentrate on repairing the Observatories.

 

[Deleted member 212788]

The first time we played, we DID anger them , but the second time no. They attacked with the lich (2nd attack), and after around 5 minutes, they came with all the frosy wyrms, and the lich again. We could only stare as we died . Also, on a side note, is the lich supposedto level up?

EDIT: We played it again and this time it was way better. I guess it may have been caused by the possessed rifleman, which we killed while he was running to the green base. Sorry if I've caused any trouble.

 

[McQvaBlood]

Bug reports are never a trobule, I encourage you to report any bugs or review any chapter that you want to. No, the Lich's not supposed to level up. Then again, this was a beta that I never meant to post and did so out of anger. Probably should not have.

 

[Deleted member 212788]

Nah, we had a blast . Btw, we also found a bug with the paladin's shield. Whenever he uses it either he or the unit he casts it on freezes for a certain amount of time.

EDIT: Also, should we keep the code or we will have to beat it again when version 1.0 is released ? :3

 

[McQvaBlood]

Right, let me check.
Yes, the code contains all the information you'd likely want to carry to the next chapter, that is, Kael's abilities, tomes for both player and items for both players. Tharis gets replaced by Vashj, so his abilities are not saved.

 

[Deleted member 212788]

Ok, thanks for the info. Oh and before i forget, we almost got to level 5, which isn't supposed to happen on the first map right ? can't wait for the next chapter

 

[AbnerA]

No plan for the secret campaign "The Crossing"? it would be nice to have one more level which have items and give exp, and add Pandaren for the next chapter

 

[NelsonLaJe]

I guess it could be added to '' Glaive Thrower '' would be pretty cool

the paladin was pretty cool

EDIT-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Report the Bug

1-The Worker/Peasant does not release the resources on Builds friends
2-Keep has a bug request
3-The Flying Machine Upgrades also have Bug
4-the ability to Storm Hammer continues on Gryphon, but do not have the Upgrade in Aviary


But even so the map this location
the paladin abilities are super cool
congratulations for the work

 

[Forsaken]

hey, i plaeyed and like so much, i was write what he speak

1-The Worker/Peasant does not release the resources on Builds friends
2-Keep has a bug request
3-The Flying Machine Upgrades also have Bug
4-the ability to Storm Hammer continues on Gryphon, but do not have the Upgrade in Aviary

but this isn't nessesarie,but perhaps can you put some custom skill in the hero, not only in the custom hero,but in all hero
thanks

 

[Cosmo]

Hey, McQvaBlood, and what about the "Secret" Tower Defense Level? It is a really nice chapter and I think it would be pretty cool if you worked on it. Would be interesting to play it with a friend.

 

[McQvaBlood]

Okay, if so many of you would like to see that level, I'll do it. But I already moved the items from Crossing to Brothers Stromrage, so you won't be able to collect the items on that level. (And gain them on the fifth chapter instead.)

 

[Cosmo]

U mean the items u find around the map like when u destroy some magic cages? And why did u move it to the NE campaign? I mean, u could've moved them to the chapter 4 or 5 of the blood elves. Just a suggestion anyway.

 

[McQvaBlood]

Because Sentinel 8 features to heroes for Naga, Illidan and Naj'entus but their portion of the map has only 6 items total. That was increased to 10 using the items from the Crossing.

 

[Cosmo]

Fine, I see your point. Btw, when are u posting the last chapt of Sentinel?
And do you know when TheSpoon will finish the orc campaign?

 

[McQvaBlood]

I will post it as soon as it is ready.
I don't know anything about TheSpoon whatsoever. In fact, I haven't heard of him since the start of summer. (When he promised to release Orc8.)

 

[BrudasekPL]

So will you continue his work and finish Orc8 and Night Elves RoC Campaign?

 

[McQvaBlood]

No, of course not.
Don't get me wrong, but he gave me no permission to do so, neither do I wish to copy his mapmaking style to accomodate players.

 

[Forsaken]

How going this 2P cmapaign?

 

[McQvaBlood]

I will finish my last exam on 24 January and hopefully get back to creating maps for you.

 

[ProfessorBooty]

The most important thing that u should change is amount of gold that peons collect from the gold mine and wood to standart 10. Coz 5 gold and wood looks like mockery and make the game very slow and hard (when you ally noob). You can change the amount of gold mines to 50% for a balance. Really 5 gold per walk is bad solution )))

 

[Map Designer]

why a paladin? why not some lovely Blood elven captain or sorceress or priest or spell breaker... a unique one? that will be more fun than ordinary paladin. oh yes, its not ordinary paladin. Ummmm, still some spell breaker having so many abities of magic hunger will be fantastic to play with

 

[Deleted member 212788]

My guess it that since in the first mission you not only command elves but also the human forces left there by Garithos it would be a way to make the armies feel balanced. Also, McQva has said that the hero will later appear as part of Garithos' army in the undead campaign, which is going to be easier than creating even more heroes.

 

[Map Designer]

ok I get your point... but, ummm, why don't you add some Elven hero. Like the undead and human campaigns where you created the captain...and... ummm That's all I can think of now.

 

[McQvaBlood]

I only add custom heroes if the amount of work I put into them comes back in the playtime they occupy. Even if I added an elven hero, it would be for one map, which is quite the overkill. At least this Paladin can be present on two maps, which is why I decided it would be that way.

 

[Deleted member 212788]

Actually, he can be used in the insane mode for the Second Dreadlord mission too.

 

[McQvaBlood]

Ah, that's a great idea, too! I just wish I had the free time I used to have when I began working on this project to actually make progress that would not put the estimated release of the undead campaign to 2020.

 

[lolcocks]

Ah, that's a great idea, too! I just wish I had the free time I used to have when I began working on this project to actually make progress that would not put the estimated release of the undead campaign to 2020.

This project is freaking awesome!
I love you!

But do you make it co-op?
Open in map editor and add another player and a few buildings?

 

[McQvaBlood]

Normally the really time consuming stuff are these:
- Add save-load system, other smaller system we're used to. (Trading resources, tome sharing.)
- Add another player, redistribute base structures, add another hero if necessary.
- Redo all cinematic triggers so both players need to hit ESC to skip.
- Improve the existing AI of all enemy forces for balance.
- Playtesting.

 

[ProfessorBooty]

Ah, that's a great idea, too! I just wish I had the free time I used to have when I began working on this project to actually make progress that would not put the estimated release of the undead campaign to 2020.

Glad to see that ur working on it. Hope u will realise it before the warcraft 4

 

[Sukramo]

I made his account just for this.

I want to say that the 2 player campaign is extremely amazing and my friend I play it with agrees. I realize that you have a life and everything but its a little disheartening that you made the post for the first Blood elf mission avalible at 08-01-2012. As of this post the date is 07-18-2013.

This basically means that there hasent been an update to this project for 11 months.

Will we ever see an continuation for this awesome project?

 

[Irenicus]

McQvaBlood, any news about the last chapter of the Night Elf campaign or Blood Elf campaign chapters?

We are desperately waiting for new maps done by you.

 

[Daffa]

McQvaBlood current is not active for a few days already, and yet this is almost a year, I doubt if he's going to begin this campaign.

 

[McQvaBlood]

Hey, everyone!
I just released Sentinel 8! I will really try to get maps done quicker this time, but then again, I always have that mentality after a release and it just never works.

 

[sonofjay]

Thanks for working on it McQva. Good luck.