Dev News and Updates

[Macielos]

Fellow Warcraft 3 players and modders,

Welcome to a subforum of our campaign series: Warcraft 3: Exodus. Yes, you got it right, there will be more upcoming campaigns that will follow and expand the story and characters from Exodus: The Violet Gate. Although the sequel is still in a very early stage of development, we'd like to regularly bring you some news, present our progress, release some original lore content and of course listen to your feedback and ideas.

So, in this thread you can expect regular doses of new, fresh content about both The Violet Gate and its (slowly) upcoming sequel campaign. There will also be other topics focusing in detail about various aspects of our project.

If you haven't played our first, already released campaign yet, it's a great opportunity to start by grabbing it here - Exodus: The Violet Gate. If you played it on earlier versions (pre-2.03), feel free to give it another shot and enjoy new chapter, AI-generated voice lines and other new content.

Walk softly and carry a big axe,
Your Exodus Team

 

[JohnMark45]

Does Exodus: The Violet Gate have any sequels? Because I am pumped playing this campaign. It's absolutely great! I wonder if there is a sequel we will be focusing now in Jiluun?

 

[Macielos]

Does Exodus: The Violet Gate have any sequels? Because I am pumped playing this campaign. It's absolutely great! I wonder if there is a sequel we will be focusing now in Jiluun?

The sequel is coming, and yes, it will be focusing on the Enclave, colonization of Jiluun and dealing with new threats lurking there. But it's still in quite early shape.

 

[JohnMark45]

The sequel is coming, and yes, it will be focusing on the Enclave, colonization of Jiluun and dealing with new threats lurking there. But it's still in quite early shape.

Hot damn! I am excited for that!

 

[Stefan.K]

Time to show some WIPs.

This is a battle mage model. Requested by @Nyctaeus. Heavy armored guy that serves like a support for the other mage units.

Spoiler: Battlemage

 

[Macielos]

You've seen the Battlemage, now let's hear him. As an old veteran he will share lots of wisdom, paraphrasing classics such as Milton Friedman himself!

 

[Nyctaeus]

Patch 2.05 for The Violet Gate is now available with some cool stuff in :]. Full changelog as always in release page.

 

[Nyctaeus]

Following a meme from Humor Thread, I guess it's time to show another batch of upgrades we're preparing behind the scenes. This time, our beloved, master texture artist - @Moy doing his take on Exodus premier chad figure - Reynart :]. Moy says that this is like 80% ready, so consider it WiP shot, but it's unlikely to change much from this point. He's gonna be available in 2.06 with other, potential texture reworks.

Stay tuned, walk softly and carry a big axe :]

 

[Nyctaeus]

Some say that religion and reason are polar opposites, but what if one approach reason with almost religious devotion?

Indeeed. That's the very moment one needs the Altair of Reason :]. And Enclave's just got brand new model for it by irreplaceable @Stefan.K. A variant of it was included in 2.05 of TVG. This is it's sequel apparition.

Also...

Some people complained about very few custom items TVG has to offer... So Macielos decided to adress this issue :]. Those are all new, custom items created for the sequel. What exactly are they? Time will tell. Also introducing brand new chest models by @00110000. The sequel will introduce tiering system based on classic RPG games, with white being common stuff, lightblue being uncommon, blue being rare and consumables being yellow-green.

Also there are two kinds of unique items. Golden being Azeroth Relics, and violet being Jiluun Arfifacts. As you can see, the sequel will reward passionate explorers with many kinds of loot. And... Perhaps some unique items from TVG will make reappearance. Who wouldn't want to slice and dice all kinds of nasty creatures with an axe of Garithos himself :]?

 

[Macielos]

We also did lots of rebalancing of heroes, so heroes will level up to level 20, but bonuses given by each stat points will be slightly smaller. On the other hand, there will be quite a lot of new effects for both heroes and some units, like flanking bonuses/resistances, charges, jumps, knockbacks, igniting oiled enemies, chances for slow/stun/poison on attack stacked from multiple items/abilities. We'll test this approach in practice, and if it satisfies us, there will be plenty of options and room to develop your heroes throughout our quite long campaign, but without making them too OP in the late game.

 

[Nyctaeus]

Bloodthirsty monsters and miasmatic corruption are one of many theats to safety in The Enclave, but not all of them are so otherwordly. On the other side of the spectrum lie more mundane enemies, but being human or elf do not make them any less hamful to the growing colonial civilization. Here are some examples of units of one of factions with goals different then the ones of the Magistratorium of the Enclave.

Models by HerrDave, Bakr and Ujimasa Hojo, with textures by CloudWolf, Moy and 67chrome.

 

[Nyctaeus]

Rework of Rangers into a real techtree [or at least something closer to real then current] in 2.06 anybody?

Models by Ripper7, Footman16/General Frank and Direfury with textures by CloudWolf and Footman16

 

[Nyctaeus]

Couple WiPs of some of the new characters of Exodus 2 :]

General Alfric
Remember this guy? Reynart's second in command, meticulous martinet and voice of reason always whispering to Colonel's ear during the Great Exodus. I can tell you that the guy made hell of a career in the Enclave. Now commanding officer of the mighty 5th Legion, Alfric secures one of the richest and most beautiful lands of the Crater as the head of the most powerful units available to the Enclave. Once a nameless soldier with no past, he considers Esagilia his true home city and proudly wears crest of the city on his cape.

General Irshia Mistmight
Fein'dorei elf, commanding officer of Fein'dunn-based 3rd Legion and one of the most trustful servant of Grandmagistrix Embergaze. Irshia is an embodiment of harsh discipline, cold manners and unquestioned loyalty. Known as one of the most powerful Spellbreakers in the Enclave, continuing to practice this almost lost art. Irshia is consumed by memories of a home that's already gone, and bitterness after demise of Gatekeeper Vespira, whom she deemed the only friend and a mentor figure.

The Shady
A man of many names, many secrets, many enemies... And few friends. Rumoured to be associated with the Grey Syndicate - a smuggler group operating in the Enclave, Shady knows everybody, but few truly know him. Some say that he's a smuggler of a Gilnean origin, who made a fortune before the Second War by smuggling illegal goods between orc-occupied south and the northern kingdoms. Perhaps that's why he avoided worgen curse?

The Radiant One
One of the very few known Lightbinders, The Radiant One is a nickname attributed to mysterious figure associated with some of the remaining worshippers of Light of the Enclave. The Radiant One is suspected to he a high-ranking individual among organization of fanatical Light cultists prosecuded by the Watch for numerous crimes against the Enclave. The Violet Watch knows little about her, but she's suspected to be either a reject of Church of Light or just like Eldin Tharennas, a rouge priest who wanted to explore the Light on her own terms. The very few who met her describe her as benevolent and compassionate figure. A rarity after the Great Exodus.

Director Dante Tessandras
Highest authority of Research Development Department of the Enclave [known simply as The Institute], Dante is a high-ranking member of the Kirin Tor and one of the closest associates of Archmage Solymus Kangard. Responsible for majority of the advanced, arcane tech available to the Enclave, Dante is a bizarre figure of questionable morality and past. Known from brilliant intellect, arrogance, meticulousness, perfectionism, analytical thinking and obsession about his appearance. He often works with the most elite formations of the Enclave whom he uses as testbeds of new technologies fresh from drawing boards of The Institute.

 

[deepstrasz]

Ugh, hope you're not going the Legion space goats and demons way (science-fiction tech I mean).

 

[Nyctaeus]

Ugh, hope you're not going the Legion space goats and demons way (science-fiction tech I mean).

Negative. The Enclave is "arcane industrial age". We deliberately avoid sci-fi tropes and all the bullshit introduced in late WoW expansions. Still we want to push tech available in Warcraft 3 to the limits to give The Enclave a strong and unique vibe of "magical-industrial pocket civilization". I want to keep things fresh, but I know which domains are forbidden. You won't see anything crazier, then HoS2.

 

[Nyctaeus]

Couple WiPs from my workshop. The lady is Colonel Ignathea Vyers, a demolitionist, quartermaster and weapons expert of the Blackclads :]. The girl knows how to make a boom for sure.

The buildings are reworked WoW Dalaran, converted into a set of props to populate Enclave cities with. Enclave feature many styles of buildings, but if you folks wonder how Loinpolis looks like... Well guess no longer. Also, the Archmage usually spends his days in a large tower like the one on the right :]

 

[deepstrasz]

Um, scrolling upwards, there's definitely character/unit polygon number difference. This last one take all others out, maybe except Reynart.

 

[Nyctaeus]

Um, scrolling upwards, there's definitely character/unit polygon number difference. This last one take all others out, maybe except Reynart.

This is WiP, unoptimized model with unbaked textures. Every custom hero asset is like that, before I optimize things down.

Her polygon trimming happened last night, and I baked hew maps onto new UV. Now she uses a single texture and is 4300 tris, so pretty consistent with the rest of hero models. They range from 3000 to like 5500 tris. Reynart is slightly above 4000.

 

[Nyctaeus]

2.06 of TVG is also slowly progressing behind the scenes. Aside traditional bugfixes and improvements, I can reveal that the next patch will be Alterac-themed :]. So I reworked couple assets of @Stefan.K into alteraci warlords. I was waiting for an opportunity to use the only texture of Alterac armor that Blizzard ever produced [Alteraci Footman reskin of HotS Varian], and it fits surprisingly well to Stefan's Footman Hero.

 

[TheTalisman]

Are you guys planning to release the new campaign reforged and do you have a community server (example discord) for it?

 

[Macielos]

Are you guys planning to release the new campaign reforged and do you have a community server (example discord) for it?

Yes, the next campaign will be on Reforged SD as we're using lots of its features, new scripting functions, libraries written on Reforged, clamped minimap etc.

Nope, for now we only have dev Discord and the whole public communication goes via Hive. Probably we will start a public Discord in the future, closer to the sequel's release once we have more regular progress updates.

 

[TheTalisman]

Ah, okay. Will buy Reforged only for this then haha, do you guys plan to release it this year or like Q1/Q2 next year? Don't mind if you don't answer this one btw,

 

[Nyctaeus]

Ah, okay. Will buy Reforged only for this then haha, do you guys plan to release it this year or like Q1/Q2 next year? Don't mind if you don't answer this one btw,

It's hard to set deadlines. I think like a half of 2025 sounds like possible release date, but my experience regarding release dates suggests, that the only real release date is "When it's done". We will launch an upgrade with new content for TVG before we release the sequel.

 

[TheTalisman]

oh damn for real? an upgrade for TVG too, sounds epic. Wish I knew how to code in wc3 to help you guys out haha

 

[Nyctaeus]

Yeah, it already happened couple times. Most already released patches contain new content of some sort. There will be one new map + couple upgrades for other maps + couple minor upgrades + bugfixes. We usually go for new things to make patches worth replaying, but also to add a content corresponding with things we feature in the sequel. Tons of things got added to the lore and history since we released TVG, and because there is a huuuge theme shift between Exodus 1 and 2, we want to expand TVG as well with new things to bridge two chapters together.

I guess 2.06 will be the final content patch. Everything that will follow will be bugfixes and minor upgrades. We want to avoid the trap of adding new stuff to TVG forever, and focus on TWF instead. Bulk majority of our development powers is allocated for TWF anyway.

 

[TheTalisman]

Ah, alright. Started re-playing TVG, love the AI Voice Lines. I'd love to see them be used in the cinematics too but I imagine that'd be a pain to do so ( I've tinkered with ElevenLabs before for another project) Hell, I'd buy a sub on that website and give it to you guys so you could use it lol

 

[Nyctaeus]

Way too time-consuming, but we want to record at least non-cutscene dialogues. All the random one-liners that heroes toss outside cutscenes.The goal is to have everything non-cutscene voiced. Sequel is likely to include voicelines for spells as well.

 

[TheTalisman]

A Small suggestion if I may actually, would it be possible to have a script that transfers loot from your units that hold it to the next chapter? I've noticed that it works on some maps and not on others

 

[Macielos]

A Small suggestion if I may actually, would it be possible to have a script that transfers loot from your units that hold it to the next chapter? I've noticed that it works on some maps and not on others

All items are transferable on all maps, but only from heroes, not from units. I feel it would be a little too hacky if you could just train max army and give each unit the most expensive items possible only to sell them on the next map .

 

[TheTalisman]

fair point haha, but yeah I did notice that some of the maps transferred the items that I had on my units, don't remember which ones was it though

All items are transferable on all maps, but only from heroes, not from units. I feel it would be a little too hacky if you could just train max army and give each unit the most expensive items possible only to sell them on the next map .

 

[Macielos]

fair point haha, but yeah I did notice that some of the maps transferred the items that I had on my units, don't remember which ones was it though

Perhaps you mean items from heroes that we will no longer control in the campaign - in that case indeed their items lie on the ground in the next map.

 

[TheTalisman]

nope, had far too many items for them to have been from heroes

 

[Macielos]

nope, had far too many items for them to have been from heroes

Okay, in that case I have no idea what the hell happened .

 

[TheTalisman]

haha alright, had one issue during the campaign tho (already finished it) is that during the last mission I couldn't get past the two other liches ( Kel'Thuzad and the other one) Like, mobs just kept spawning and nothing happened, could it be due to how fast I killed the first lich?

 

[Macielos]

haha alright, had one issue during the campaign tho (already finished it) is that during the last mission I couldn't get past the two other liches ( Kel'Thuzad and the other one) Like, mobs just kept spawning and nothing happened, could it be due to how fast I killed the first lich?

If you mean the phase after killing Valena Isgair, you're just meant to stay alive for ~90 seconds or so and get through several dramatic dialogs before Solymus arrives to rescue you. I think there was a strict timer in this phase, so Solymus should eventually arrive and show his badassery by mass teleporting his army to a rabbit .

 

[TheTalisman]

yeah after killing Valena nothing much happened, the same group of mobs kept on spawning for a few minutes

 

[Nyctaeus]

Fresh WiP of a new biome. If you guys wonder where this one is located on the map, it's Dusty Plateau :]

 

[deepstrasz]

There Will be Blood?

 

[Nyctaeus]

There Will be Blood?

Yeeeys :]

But no oil...

 

[Nyctaeus]

@Moy is back in the game :]. This time reworking the Lightweaver into a real, proper asset.

Next in queue: The Archmage himself :]

 

[Macielos]

Meet the Engineer, the Enclave's next-gen worker by Stefan.K! He's a top specialist with a scientific mindset, wielding a bunch of fancy equipment and tools. And the best thing? He chops trees with a damn axe!

As usually, the wisdom you seek is his to share. He has the longest list of gags so far (19). I wonder if you guess where his original voicelines come from .

 

[Nyctaeus]

If you guys think about Engineers as boring nerds... Can boring nerds even have such kickass Johny Bravo-style haircut?

 

[Nyctaeus]

@Moy is on a roll again, this time reworking the Archmage himself :]. Just look, behold and tell me that he isn't the most badass grandpa in the world... Or two worlds.

 

[Nyctaeus]

Ready for some more alteraci-style ass kicking by old, chap Leitenove :]? Moy just completed refreshing everybody's favorite, ever calm and polite warlord.

Remember, Alterac will rise again!

 

[deepstrasz]

Is that the dude always coming back from the dead from Game of Thrones?

 

[Nyctaeus]

Is that the dude always coming back from the dead from Game of Thrones?

I believe he's much more like this dude, who wasn't the bravest man in the world. Just the drunkest.

But I definitely see where you're coming from.

 

[Macielos]

He drinks. And he knows things.

 

[Nyctaeus]

30 Shades of... Revenants :]

Remember that eldritch monstrosity that Reynart had to confront in Alterac? @Moy recently completed a makeover of it, and because those guys are going to play a major role in Exodus 2 [and because those guys are hella fun to recolor!] we decided to give them more unique appearance. Guess which one of them is gonna replace the generic Revenant in upcoming 2.06 of TVG :]

 

[Nyctaeus]

Alterac will rise agai... I, mean... Into industrialism! For the first time :].
Buildings by bakr, units by jiok.

 

[Macielos]

Having watched playthroughs of other campaigns on Executor Nral's channel I felt ambitious and today I started generating AI voiceovers for the Violet Gate dialogs and cutscenes. So far I want to get the first map done, verify the quota and time needed for that, and then decide whether to create voiceover for the entirety of TVG. So wish me loooots of patience to see this through.

For now, say hello to new General Villenfall - Sir Palmerin from the Witcher 3.

Hints will also be voiced by the most wise and experienced voice of the Alliance - the Battlemage.

We even tried to use the chad Charles Dance from the Witcher 3 Emhyr as Solymus Kangard, but unfortunately Elevenlabs didn't give good results with him, he sounded too sleepy, too generic and too Russian most of the time .

EDIT: Alright, 89 sounds for the first map. It's not that bad...