Destruction of Lordaeron

[tulee]

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

WentLin舞淋的个人空间-WentLin舞淋个人主页-哔哩哔哩视频

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 community can play those campaigns when the Chinese translators bring Hive campaigns to their community (so in this way, they can benefit also).

The conversion of this campaign away from a third party World Editor caused all of Arthas' spells to not work, except his first healing spell.

 

[wentlin]

Welcome to play my map, here is my first comment and here is the author.

 

[skarfyy]

Welcome to play my map, here is my first comment and here is the author.

i use pack 1.31

 

[wentlin]

i use pack 1.31

please try to use 1.32+ or 1.36

 

[Navy45]

I finished the first level and played half of the second. The campaign seems really nice. But a lot of abilities seem to be broken. Namely, all of Arthas' abilities apart from his holy light/death coil (his soul strike, his passive soul consumption and his ultimate) as well as the necronomicon. All of these do nothing when used. Something must have broken all trigered abilities.
I played on the latest version.

 

[deepstrasz]

I finished the first level and played half of the second. The campaign seems really nice. But a lot of abilities seem to be broken. Namely, all of Arthas' abilities apart from his holy light/death coil (his soul strike, his passive soul consumption and his ultimate) as well as the necronomicon. All of these do nothing when used. Something must have broken all trigered abilities.
I played on the latest version.

The conversion of this campaign away from a third party World Editor caused all of Arthas' spells to not work, except his first healing spell.

It's stated right there above. Sad, I know. Real downer, I'd say.

 

[cleavinghammer]

First level:

Arthas' voicelines is a nice touch, but some of them are just too long. Maybe split up "I will give anything" "Or pay any price" "If you will help me save my people" as his Pissed voicelines instead?

Mortar Team still has Flare unresearched.

Falric's flag doesn't seem to affect HP regen.

Archer tooltips don't mention they have Ensnare and Envenomed Weapons.

Troll area should be better lit, the torches should give off as much light as Falric's.

Trapped Ones -> Trapped

Leave none alive! -> None shall survive.

Taste my wrath -> Feel my wrath

Why does Arthas have a torch in the next-to-last cinematic?


Cinematic:
The dwarves pop out of existence while still on-screen.

 

[cleavinghammer]

Second level:

Archer and Catapult attack upgrades have no tooltip.

Items don't transfer from the previous level.

Can we not have attack waves hitting at the same time please.

When a ship is destroyed, its timer stays.

Icy Apparition tooltip says they get Frost Lightning instead of Ice Arrow.

Frost Lightning -> Breath of Frost

Do Marching Tents build units?

 

[cleavinghammer]

Second interlude:

Since the camera goes through Terenas' head, his face briefly flashes onscreen before being covered by his hair.

Its power will -> That will

Could do with less blackscreen, especially the end.


Third level:

Ah, items do transfer, good.

Icy apparition tooltip: caste -> cast

Can we NOT have attack waves hitting at the same time, PLEASE.

I don't know what the ability that keeps doing hundreds of damage to my units is, but it'd be nice to have it toned down.

Reinforcements would work better as a sidequest so you can turn them off once and for all (e.g. "fill in this mountain pass", "destroy the yellow base"), or put the player's base behind the ally's because they suck at responding in time to attacks.

Ending would look better without the black backdrop.

Score screen goes back to the menu instead of the epilogue.


Epilogue:

No music?

Arthas' introduction of Vivian is a bit awkward.

Score screen goes back to the campaign menu.


Author's notes: Maybe mention Hive as an authorized source.


Overall: Short, but the levels feel complete. Shame Arthas' skills don't work due to the editor-stripping, but at least his Death Coil still works. Very good for a first-time work.

 

[tulee]

Fixed all the missing translations/grammar issues/spelling mistakes pointed out by Cleavinghammer.

Thought I would add some notes I wrote down from when I first played WentLin's campaign:

Hidden

Interlude
I like how the cinematic was almost showing Falrics inner thoughts as he observed Arthas. Good opening.

Ch1
Love the darkness of the map. It really adds to the atmosphere, and the music is great. It is like we slowly descending into madness with Arthas.
"Arthas is acting strange, perhaps we should go with him into this dark cave and find out the truth" That quest description makes Falric seem like a fool for not realizing something bad is going to happen.
Using the mortar to kill the egg sacs with its splash attack was very satisfying.
What was the reason for Arthas going back to Frostmourne's pedestal? He was just there earlier when he got the sword.
And why does Falric suddenly know that Arthas had become a monster, as if he knew all along but still went into the dark cave with him.
I lost one of the two demi heroes along the way, but I think both of them were alive for final fight.
Thank goodness I had all the good items on Arthas before this fight.
Maybe have a warning before the Arthas boss fight.

What was point of the Undead here fighting Arthas and preventing him from reaching Frostmourne at this point?



Interlude
It was cool how the lights became dimmer when Thasarian revived.
I like how the trolls still have their grudge against Arthas.

Ch2
All items from last chapter missing? Even if this is for story reasons because Arthas is Undead now, he technically joined the Undead at the end of the last mission, but still had the items.
Tried to beat this on hard by focusing the Trolls first, but they should in fact not be rushed first because they are the weakest of the 3 attacking factions, and their units don't have defend so tower spam is good against them (unlike the Humans who have footmen with defend).
The closest I got to winning on hard was focusing the south left human base (Paladin) , and then luring one of the Human Captain's attack waves to the Troll base, where the humans actually destroyed the Troll base completely. But I still couldn't win because of the timer for the ships. I think it might have been possible to win if that passive skill Arthas has can work. The biggest problem though is that Human Captain unit who targets heroes specifically with his damage spell. He leveled up to lvl 9 from killing my heroes so many times. Also, the spare goldmine guarded by creeps basically requires you to kill the Human Captain base, which is unrealistic since that is the hardest base to kill.
Arthas telling Falric int he cinematic to fix the boats after right after destroying them.


Ch3
That Captain hero is for some reason far weaker now that he is on our team.
would be nice if there were optional objectives-- like you create a zombie army after killing X number of human civilians in the capital. Last mission was good for having multiple objectives, like with the human bases + ice trolls + ship timer. This mission is just killing 4 bases and surviving from the reinforcements.
I liked how some enemy bases had different units, like Uther had eagles.
About friendly AI: since AI targets the closest enemy unit to it, players fighting off advancing attack waves makes the friendly AI retreat once that unit it is targeting dies before it can arrive. That is a normal limitation for wc3 AI, but modifications can still be made to make it less useless.
One tip, friendly AI should not be close to the player owned base so it is attacking from a different direction, reducing the chance that the closest enemy unit it targets is destroyed by the player owned army before it arrives. I know that is less possible on this map since the Undead are attacking the captail from the entrance, so they need to be together. In this case, the AI should at least be on the outside of the player owned base, so it can act as a meat shield. Many times Uther and his friends attacked my base, and the AI sat there not helping --- I needed to lure the humans to the Undead base to make them help. So, it is better if they are on the outside.
Another tip, instead of setting time between attack waves, there should be 0 seconds between attack waves, and instead the number of buildings that produce units can be used to determine how often the AI will attack. So, more buildings = faster attack waves since they rebuild units faster. This way, if the AI retreats before attacking, it will automatically attack right away since it has full units, instead of waiting 2-3 minutes to try to attack again.

General points

Overall, I really enjoyed this campaign. It wasn't retelling a story we already know but instead showed us a side of a story we have not seen before in a custom campaign--- filling in the gaps between RoC Human and RoC UD. I'm happy WentLin shared this campaign with Hiveworkshop.

 

[wentlin]

Second level:

Archer and Catapult attack upgrades have no tooltip.

Items don't transfer from the previous level.

Can we not have attack waves hitting at the same time please.

When a ship is destroyed, its timer stays.

Icy Apparition tooltip says they get Frost Lightning instead of Ice Arrow.

Frost Lightning -> Breath of Frost

Do Marching Tents build units?

I'm sorry I didn't give a prompt because the hero has been replaced, changed from a human to a undead, and the item is here.

 

[cleavinghammer]

Ah, yes they were.

Maybe put a message there, or only have the items show up once the base is finished then.

 

[deepstrasz]

Spoiler: comments

1. Score screens should not be shown after cinematic maps/interludes.
2. You can't really see what the difficulty options enable since the text is behind the dialog panel, so you have to randomly click, read and restart once you read to choose whichever you actually want. The solution->another kind of difficulty selection or simply show the text first and after a while or on pressing ESC or whatever, make the difficulty dialog buttons appear.
3. I like it that Artha's unit name's been renamed from Paladin to Prince of Lordaeron but still having Holy Light alongside those dark magics is off-topic for sure.
4. Kind of meh to have a bit more stronger units with unique names instead of them being heroes. They get lost in the control group anyway so they don't really make the overall experience more immersive or embetter the gameplay. Luc is simply a stronger footman. They don't even have an inventory.
5. Nice caver lighting atmosphere albeit gets tiring after a while due to constant flickering. The torch should be undroppable or fixed since trying to get it from the ground is annoying.
6. Necromicon doesn't do anything on friendly non-mechanical units.
7. Necromancer uses a hero model with glow and no decay animation although it's a unit.
8. Unit (dead body) selected during the scene where Falric talks about those who followed Muradin.
9. The frost elementals or what they're called move around (finishing their orders) during the ending cinematic instead of being paused. Also, selected.
10. In the interlude, the dwarves simply disappear into thin air.
11. Muradin betrayed the dwarves by not returning because Arthas said he died and became not the same Arthas anymore!?
12. Thassarian was converted to undead even while alive?
13. Pretty meh, Falric pretty much has the same spells.
14. Marwyn and Luc have the same icon and abilities.
15. Not really sure if these new items need coloured text like that. Most of them are harder to read due to the dark blue than on usual white.
16. Which is the stipulated time before ships set sail? It's not shown or mentioned.
17. Kind of boring to have all heroes be Death Knight.
18. Could use another team colour for the player heroes since gray is taken by the enemy and is sometimes confusing during fights.
19. Smart strategy. Destroy ships so you can repair them instead of trying to capture them.
20. Would have been nice to see how Lordaeron turns to undeath bit by bit by getting blighted and showing signs of ruin since there's a lot of grass and the city remains pristine even after you eliminate the bases.
21. The playable undead tecthree is 99% standard undead.
22. Arthas looks more like an older version of himself rather than corrupted.
23. After Time of Perishment, the score screen gets you out to the campaign screen.
24. The epilogue was unfulfilling, short and expeditive. There was a nice start with how the other Death Knights could have fully lost their Paladin or human ways like the part with Vivian. The common grave king's burning was muted by the speed of the scene and no talk between the heroes, what they're plans for the future were and such.

A nice concept campaign that could use more custom stuff, less content skipping and more expansion and have a non-ability handicapped Arthas.

Approved.

---

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If you're not satisfied with the review and wish another opinion, contact the other reviewers or use the staff contact:
https://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/staff-contact.692/

 

[BaiyuGalan]

The map made by Wulin. Great.

 

[ZSushi]

arthas's 3rd skill doesn't seem to work so is his ultimate

 

[Rlciu]

Most of Artha's spells don't work, some active items don't work.. and the ai... omg also what's wrong with this hard vs? There is no way you can do anything on that mode without cheating... I remember this campaign and while I love the idea... more work needs to be done on this one

 

[mahiro]

Arthas：It seems that my dear father doesn't want my skills to work.

 

[SWDK]

@tulee i come to the hiveworkshop , great for translate work . your billbill no messgas for me too long...

 

[tulee]

WentLin updated map2, with changes including a hint about the items transferred from the previous chapter plus some terrain changes, etc. A hint in the first cinematic map about some of the spells not working was also added.

 

[cleavinghammer]

Went through it again with cheats, no major bugs that I can see. However, given that coding the custom abilities sounds like a pain, I would recommend @wentlin give Arthas reskinned but standard GUI abilities for the campaign, a lot of difficulty comes from the fact that you're essentially short one hero since three of his spells don't work.

Loading screens show Thrall and Cairne.

Dark Blade tooltip: have -> has, also says they have 500 and not 600 HP at level 3.

Falric's "Are you sure?" line gets cut off too early.

Interlude: the dwarves still disappear before they're fully offscreen.

Second level: The timer for the ships never appeared.

Third level: The quest requirements are in the description box.

 

[wentlin]

Went through it again with cheats, no major bugs that I can see. However, given that coding the custom abilities sounds like a pain, I would recommend @wentlin give Arthas reskinned but standard GUI abilities for the campaign, a lot of difficulty comes from the fact that you're essentially short one hero since three of his spells don't work.

Loading screens show Thrall and Cairne.

Dark Blade tooltip: have -> has, also says they have 500 and not 600 HP at level 3.

Falric's "Are you sure?" line gets cut off too early.

Interlude: the dwarves still disappear before they're fully offscreen.

Second level: The timer for the ships never appeared.

Third level: The quest requirements are in the description box.

Since the World Editor I use is made in China, and the map version conversion is done by tulee, it is too limited to complete new things in terms of version, and I never use version 1.30+ to complete my map, I hope you can understand me.

 

[tulee]

Went through it again with cheats, no major bugs that I can see. However, given that coding the custom abilities sounds like a pain, I would recommend @wentlin give Arthas reskinned but standard GUI abilities for the campaign, a lot of difficulty comes from the fact that you're essentially short one hero since three of his spells don't work.

Loading screens show Thrall and Cairne.

Dark Blade tooltip: have -> has, also says they have 500 and not 600 HP at level 3.

Falric's "Are you sure?" line gets cut off too early.

Interlude: the dwarves still disappear before they're fully offscreen.

Second level: The timer for the ships never appeared.

Third level: The quest requirements are in the description box.

Fixed more spelling/grammar stuff.
I don't think WentLin changed the timer for the ships in Ch2, I just checked in-game and the first timer still start at 10 minutes, working fine.
Loading screens seem fine when I just checked them now.

 

[cleavinghammer]

^^ Unfortunate, but OK.

^ Ah, right, the timer isn't supposed to start right away. Never mind then, I was rushing this one through.

 

[skarfyy]

please try to use 1.32+ or 1.36

Can u tell me pls or link to download the pack. thx