From Ashes

[shadowhog]

Chapter 2 opening scene, Sathrovarr says "With it, it si very easy" I assume thats supposed to be "it is"

 

[Navy45]

Played through the first two levels, the campaign is quite enjoyable so far. Ironically, my favorite feature is the undead resing system. Being able to summon different units based on what you kill is very interesting.
There are quite a few grammatical mistakes but it doesn't affect the comprehension and the dialogues, apart from that, are quite solid.

Just a few things I found odd :

• Why give the player access to both the scourge base and the standard undead structures ? Both have the same units and upgrades so, as it is, it would seem better to build the demon fortress directly.
• The messages presenting the scourge base and demon fortress should advertise that they can be upgraded from a ziggurat (I spent quite a long time thinking I couldn't create more)
• In the workers' building menu, the Death Warehouse is named sacrificial pit so I thought it was the standard version.
• Summoning a Frost wyrm out of the Death Warehouse after summoning ground units around the Warehouse moves the Warehouse to a different location.

• You can go directly to the Demon gate with a frost wyrm. There should probably be a no-fly-zone over the mountains.
• Cultists and Liches from the Death Warehouse have a hero glow despite not being heroes. Also cultists feel a bit too similar to necromancers. I think it would probably be better to have them have other spells (maybe slow) and maybe another model like the acolyte creeps for exemple. That way, players would have a reason to raise cultists ands build necromancers.

 

[Xelasznix]

Played through the first two levels, the campaign is quite enjoyable so far. Ironically, my favorite feature is the undead resing system. Being able to summon different units based on what you kill is very interesting.
There are quite a few grammatical mistakes but it doesn't affect the comprehension and the dialogues, apart from that, are quite solid.

Just a few things I found odd :

• Why give the player access to both the scourge base and the standard undead structures ? Both have the same units and upgrades so, as it is, it would seem better to build the demon fortress directly.
• The messages presenting the scourge base and demon fortress should advertise that they can be upgraded from a ziggurat (I spent quite a long time thinking I couldn't create more)
• In the workers' building menu, the Death Warehouse is named sacrificial pit so I thought it was the standard version.
• Summoning a Frost wyrm out of the Death Warehouse after summoning ground units around the Warehouse moves the Warehouse to a different location.

View attachment 418588View attachment 418589

• You can go directly to the Demon gate with a frost wyrm. There should probably be a no-fly-zone over the mountains.
• Cultists and Liches from the Death Warehouse have a hero glow despite not being heroes. Also cultists feel a bit too similar to necromancers. I think it would probably be better to have them have other spells (maybe slow) and maybe another model like the acolyte creeps for exemple. That way, players would have a reason to raise cultists ands build necromancers.

Thank you for detailed feedback.
You get Hell's Fortress as starting building in every level and in 3rd mission you acquire demon worker so this won't be problem for rest of the campaign.
I tried solving the moving Warehouse problem before release but I gave up. If anybody now how to fix it I will be glad. Other things mentioned are easy to solve so wait for an update soon.

 

[Nicks]

Hi. I played all the chapters. Regarding the story, I quite like the concept but if you're following original frozen throne lore then it would make more sense just summoning Kil'jaeden instead of Sargeras just like that out of nowhere. If you're not then that's fine. A little backstory on this Dreadlord and where he came from wouldn't hurt a little but I think that's something you might touch on later when you're done improving other things.

Now regarding gameplay:

I won't mention grammar as that's something you can take your time with.

The terrain doesn't bother me much as I'm not an expert at it but other people who decide to comment here will certainly say something about it.

The AI is not that good, for all of the maps. I think you can look around for AI scripts from other maps and try see if they match with the dynamic of the maps since most of the enemies in this campaign are all default units/races.

Some triggers need improvements, couple examples: On the mission that you have to find the demon gate, not only can ANY unit enter the teleport and trigger the "need to kill all enemies" message (or go into victory cutscene when you killed everyone) but it also spams that message when you enter and leave that teleport repeatedly. It would make more sense for that trigger to only apply to the Dreadlord and you could also just disable the portal until all the enemies are destroyed and then enable it.

Next mission, the orc clans. I think AI is OK here. The issues here are: the pitlord's ultimate. 4 infernals makes it too easy on top of the fact that you can stack good items on him and get cleaving attack level 3 which is a very good ability therefore he's kinda OP because of it. The other issue. dreadlord's ultimate: Charm. If you possess a wisp or peon, you can build any unit, any hero from that race. AND on top of that, you can literally make infinite heroes, there is no hero limit since that trigger was probably deleted. You should disable orc and night elf units/buildings for the player. (I didn't try using banshee possession on other missions but I'm assuming the results are the same)

The Nordrassil mission: there's no indication whatsoever as to when the mission ends or how long you have to survive. It's just peons chopping the big tree and that's it. I stayed there for 20 minutes and nothing happened, so I just quit and moved on the next one.

Overall, needs some cinematic/trigger adjustments and maybe map changes so they don't feel too empty. Also try adding some more custom models to both the player and the enemies (like the orc heroes gathering). You also should just go full demon race with custom model workers, warriors etc.

 

[shadowhog]

Overall I enjoyed the campaign the Death Warehouse was a unique addition and I enjoyed having some spammable units I feel the undead/legion uses in their army's

Hell Fortress/Infernal Assembly units have not hotkeys or they are not highlighted if there is one.
Voidspawn does not count for the idle builder selection
Hell Fortress has Ghoul Frenzy upgrade - if this is supposed to effect bloodthirsters the tooltip needs to be updated
Enemy Heroes all seemed to be lvl 1 or lvl 10 I noticed they still gain exp as well maybe try and set them at certain levels depending on the chapter because when they are lvl 1 in later chapters they get killed before they gain exp
You can train Human/Orc/Night Elf heroes once you charm a worker

Chapter 3
Slaughter house has the destroyer from upgrade
Crypt has gargoyle stone form upgrade

Chapter 4
Defeat screen says Porazka

chapter 5
red/gray fight over the expansion where yellow is. As in they both build a Great Hall and have peons mining it
red/gray send attack waves when they ping to non existent enemies such as the path to the bottom left hand base. I already took the mines from those bases

Chapter 6
No indicator of what victory condition is. If its a lumber amount that red needs to gain the player should be informed the amount or give the tree hp or give us a defense timer.
two of the bases can easily be soloed by the heroes especially the pitlord at the start of the mission. Dreadlord not as much but between raise dead and charm + the two starting units it was doable.
LB alliance base walled themselves in by spamming farms so no unit could leave
Red will not repair or build new units if any is lost - This may be intentional but the fact lose condition is the war mills being destroyed even though the AI goes for workers first so you potentially can get them killed before even a war mill is hurt.
Idk if this is an AI issue due to the fact I took out two bases but I sat for what felt like 5 mins or so without a single attack wave

 

[DjSSPECTRE]

Hi, just finished the campaign and I quite enjoyed it. Others have pretty much pointed out to most of the issues, grammar being one of them. I don't want to be rude or anything, but I can help you fix it if that's okay with you
Cheers!

 

[Xelasznix]

Hi, just finished the campaign and I quite enjoyed it. Others have pretty much pointed out to most of the issues, grammar being one of them. I don't want to be rude or anything, but I can help you fix it if that's okay with you
Cheers!

I am okay with it. Does Hive allow you to post the fixed version right here or it works differently?

 

[deepstrasz]

I am okay with it. Does Hive allow you to post the fixed version right here or it works differently?

You guys should either use https://www.hiveworkshop.com/pastebin/add or some uploading service and send the file between yourselves in a private conversation or on your profiles.
To update the campaign be sure to know these buttons: Updating resources

 

[DjSSPECTRE]

I am okay with it. Does Hive allow you to post the fixed version right here or it works differently?

Awesome, thanks I'll get to it right away

You guys should either use https://www.hiveworkshop.com/pastebin/add or some uploading service and send the file between yourselves in a private conversation or on your profiles.
To update the campaign be sure to know these buttons: Updating resources

Thanks for the heads up
I was thinking about writing in a separate document and sending it to him. Would that work too?

 

[deepstrasz]

I was thinking about writing in a separate document and sending it to him. Would that work too?

What do you mean by separate document?

 

[DjSSPECTRE]

What do you mean by separate document?

Like, put it all in a word document and then send it over discord or email or whatever

 

[deepstrasz]

Like, put it all in a word document and then send it over discord or email or whatever

Oh yeah, of course. How you wish. I thought you edited the campaign yourself and wanted to upload the file somewhere on the site.

 

[DjSSPECTRE]

Oh yeah, of course. How you wish. I thought you edited the campaign yourself and wanted to upload the file somewhere on the site.

I didn't think of that. Well, it's Xelasznix's campaign so i'll leave that to him. I'm just a random guy trying to help

 

[deepstrasz]

Please improve the description. It doesn't say much of anything about the campaign. Read the guides below.

Spoiler: comments

1. Why are all maps/chapters visible from the start?
2. I see the undead are still on the demon's part or at least these ones.
3. Units selected during the scene with the Demon Gate. Heroes ran away from the gate so Kil'jaeden talked to himself.
4. No idea why the Feedback ability's icon was changed to tentacle and now looks like an active ability.
5. Destroyer Form can be researched but you can't train the Obsidian Statue (chapter 3).
6. Should get another model for the Lich from Death's Warehouse as it looks exactly like the hero and it has glow and no decay animation.
7. It's weird that you get to play with heroes and units that are not undead without any particular reason. I get that they are supposed to be in disguise but the abilities and looks are too natural.
8. If you destroy the elf and human bases after killing 150 units, you get the two heroes and their elf and human units again along with the cinematic scene.
9. The Malevolent University trains a unit named Necromancer that is actually the Demonologist. Where did they get these elves? Also, it has a hero model which means glow and the body remains on the ground after dying.
10. Weapon and armour upgrades don't mention which demon troops they improve.
11. Burning Sky shouldn't have that big range like the Inferno from the Cursed Assembly. It should have 600 range like the Inferno spell.
12. Elves don't seem to use air units.
13. Infernals attack trees. Intended?
14. Not clear what you have to do in chapter 6. I assume you have to just defend but there is no timer.
15. Tracking Instincts research should look like an active ability, have an icon with borders. You could make it with: Button Manager v1.8.2
16. The Voidspawn's buildings should have proper icons not the same as the undead buildings.
17. I think there should be a limit of how many Cursed Assemblies you can build otherwise you spam Infernals.
18. In chapter 7 you definitely need an orb on your heroes to be able to attack dragons.
19. Heroes selected in the scene after defeating the guardian. Same in the ending scene.
20. Sargeras the mushy demon lord. I guess, that orc will be his doom in the next campaign? Weird that he sends the orcs where he seems to be afraid to go. But I guess, it's only a respite in Sargeras' eyes as he said he will eventually conquer that world as well.

An unpolished campaign about a lucky dreadlord and his pit lord lapdog totally based on standard material that would need better terrain, custom triggered spells and techtrees (especially for the enemies). Borderline substandard though.

Approved.

---

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[Nicks]

Infernals attack trees. Intended?

Great review. Infernals were always able to attack trees.

 

[Daffa]

Finished this campaign, though I might get my recording up around February since there's a waitlist of uploads in progress.

Anyway, most of the nitpick is already covered by others, so I don't think I want to comment on it. The story is interesting, and it's an interestingly creative take. For the most part, it's leaning on the easier side which I really appreciate (I am not a fan of hardcore missions), and since each chapter slowly add the demon arsenal for the player, it makes the progression of the tech tree present throughout the campaign.

I am not sure if this is intended, but are the enemy heroes having level 1 in later levels intended? Well, I just want to confirm since it feels weird seeing level 1 heroes in chapter 7.

Another thing I want to ask is regarding charm and workers, is it intentional to be able to build other faction buildings? If not, then I guess pretty much this needs to be covered somehow, since I just use enemy workers to gain other races' techs.

 

[Nicks]

Finished this campaign, though I might get my recording up around February since there's a waitlist of uploads in progress.

Anyway, most of the nitpick is already covered by others, so I don't think I want to comment on it. The story is interesting, and it's an interestingly creative take. For the most part, it's leaning on the easier side which I really appreciate (I am not a fan of hardcore missions), and since each chapter slowly add the demon arsenal for the player, it makes the progression of the tech tree present throughout the campaign.

I am not sure if this is intended, but are the enemy heroes having level 1 in later levels intended? Well, I just want to confirm since it feels weird seeing level 1 heroes in chapter 7.

Another thing I want to ask is regarding charm and workers, is it intentional to be able to build other faction buildings? If not, then I guess pretty much this needs to be covered somehow, since I just use enemy workers to gain other races' techs.

I don't think it's intentional since you can train infinite heroes lol

 

[xdxdxd]

i like this campaign its fun

 

[Blasterixx]

Sup just finished playing this and what can i say, I loved it!
I played on version 1.29 of War 3.

Spoiler: _Thoughts_

This is a perfect example of a fun campaign, it goes to show you don't need any fancy skins, triggers, music, etc to create a good and fun campaign.

It goes without saying the grammar is the worst aspect by far, that needs to be fixed.

The terrain is overall good, the base layout and pathings are decent, they just lack those extra bits to make it look more diverse and less basic.

The thing that impressed me the most and that made the campaign super fun to play were the unique buildings like the Death's Warehouse and The Cursed Assembly, being able to spawn undead units based on the type of enemies we killed, that my friend is quite the unique and amazing concept, and of course in later levels being able to spawn infernals anywhere on the map from those buildings is once again amazing to play with, at first i didn't even know you could do that, i assumed they had a maximum range but it turns out you can spawn infernals anywhere you want on the map, and that was hella fun to do

The heroes having Q W E R hotkeys for spells, very good!

The heroes themselves were kinda basic, but they were pretty fun to play with nonetheless, Pit Lord with cleave and infernals rain was once again i must say a good choice for spells, and the Spells of the Dreadlord were also nice with the mini raise dead and charm, they make for one hell of a wombo combo, 2 heroes that can obliterate entire armies with ease!


The story wasn't that bad either i must say, i quite enjoyed it despite the awful grammar i managed to understand it all, and i was actually intrigued to see what happened next.

My favorite Chapter i think it was Chapter 5, i just loved the concept of having to fight against the other orc clans while being allied with the last 2 ones that decided to join us, i also like how every enemy hero drops something when they die for the first time, it was the only chapter where i felt like i was actually fighting against the odds, it was the only challenging chapter in my opinion.

In terms of units i liked them, the warlocks that use the healing wards that also give endurance aura are pretty op and fun to play with, i liked those.


~Negatives:

- Cutscenes should be skippable.

- The hotkeys on most buildings and units don't work, for once, and second, they have weird hotkeys to begin with like o , p, t, etc. that is bad, since You managed to implement Q W E R hotkeys for the heroes, i don't see why not every building and unit has the same hotkeys implemented.

- The enemy heroes beside the lvl 10 orc ones in chapter 5 were pretty underwhelming, especially in the last 2 levels, the enemy heroes were just the basic ones, starting from lvl 1 no less, i think you need to implement some interesting enemy heroes to counter the player and be more of a challange to the DreadLord and PitLord.

- In Chapter 7 the Death's Warehouses are broken, when i click to spawn units they don't show up but the mana is used, the only unit that can be summoned is the skeleton warrior, that's it, the rest don't work. (keep in mind i did play with version 1.29, maybe on version 1.26 and bellow works)


~Suggestions:

- The upgrades from the graveyard don't say in the description that they work on the new units as well, i think they should, for example The Unholy strenght upgrade should have in description that it works on Bloodfiends as well and so on.

- The enemy heroes need to be buffed.


All in all, like i said i enjoyed playing this, i hope you will keep working on it or on any other projects, i think you have great potential in creating some fantastic custom campaigns, keep up the good work my friend!

My rating for this Custom Campaign is a B+ Tier with 78 out of 100 points!

 

[督战者周卓]

Hello,I love this campaign.And there are many Chinese players who enjoy it, but most of them are troubled by language. So I request your permission to translate it into Chinese.：）

 

[Dr.J]

nice compain，but a little short

 

[Exarch Lightcarol]

The orcs help the Legion destroy the world, and then say to Sargeras "Boss, I'm asking for retirement", and Sargeras says "Okay".
It seems to me like it would no longer be demons intent on destroying worlds, but some sort of generous conquerors capable of bargaining.

 

[Terrapista]

This is a fun and enjoyable campaign that starts on the low end, but it becomes better the more the player progresses. The campaign requires a lot of ironing, especially in the visual department, to be considered good.

--- Visual Design ---

Speaking of the devil, this campaign sports a very lackluster visual design, composed almost entirely out of with trees, cliffs, grass, waygates and cliff-waters. Even the stand out, plot important areas looks featureless

Spoiler

like the interior of the world tree: it doesn't even attempt to look like a root interior, despite Warcraft 3 having enough assets to pull off such a look.

The level geometry is way too constrained, so much so that I was forced to catapult down trees just os my fatass pitlord could fit through narrow spaces. The reliance on waygates also makes traversability a travesty, fortunately the connection points make sense unlike some other campaigns.
The custom models look good individually, but they suffer from being modeled after a single building, namely the necropolis, thanks to which way the player has difficulty differentiating between the demon structures. Some vertex recoloring could fix the issue.

--- Story ---

Now let's talk about a more positive aspect of this campaign: the story. The story is simple, focused and has a good climax, unfortunately with a very uniftting conclusion. The story beats are logically consistent and abide decently well to the lore of the Warcraft universe. The most positive aspect of the story is that it manages to uphold narrative tension via gradual story telling, as the legion is making small steps to achieve its goals, subverting their misfortune and coming out on top. The beginning of the mission, a desperate regrouping will soon turn into a last stand for the enemies as they hopelessly try to prevent the demons from achieving their goals. The Hero units the player controls are also well characterised, not memorable or anything, but consistent enough to keep the player entertained, and they do get into enough situations where their respective personalities are allowed to shine, like when the Dreadlord performs a certain assassination to make a former set of allies rejoin them for the... third time?
The texts do need some proofreading, and skippable cutscenes would be nice. The quest logs also shouldn't rely on the Quest Description box to tell the objective.
The ending?

Spoiler

Yeah, it sucks. None of the protagonists appear, instead it's a talk between Sargeras and some random orc about the future plans of the legion. The conclusion feels rushed and doesn't fit the ending of the map.

--- Gameplay ---

The campaign starts on a low end and it concludes in a relatively satisfying manner, with a few hiccups here and there.
The build and destroy missions are the dominant genre of the campaign, whose enjoyability relies entirely on how many demon units did the player unlock. The undead techtree is partially available, though these units are lackluster and will be quickly forgotten. The only unfortunate part is that the early game is entirely reliant these units, which just hampers the fun factor of the early stages. The demons are tedious to get to, as the player has to upgrade a ziggurat to some advanced ziggurat, then that A-ziggurat has to be upgraded to a demon fortress, and only after the training of the demon worker from said demon fortress can the player truly enjoy the game.
The demons are absolutely busted, and that's a good thing. Even the starting units pack a decent punch, like silencing Tormentors, Fel Stalkers with Mana Burn. Later on the player gains access to mana stealing Voidwalkers, demonologists that summon obelisks which on top of healing give extra attack damage too, and the standard Doomguards, the Infernals, the Diabolists etc. are all a ton of fun to use, as the defenders helplessly throw their 100 supply army in vain at your offensive.
While the standard undead is boring to use, they more than make up for it with the most fun mechanic in the game: the undead warehouse. With every enemy slain, the player gets to train the slain unit types equivalent. These units range between basic supply free skeletons to a mini hero with Frost Nova, Unholy Aura, and loads of magic damage. Spamming cheap skeleton and sending them into the grinder becomes a ton of fun, as the player will both have a defensive army to repel any attacks, or just swarm an enemy base with over 100 skeletons. The advanced units also have great stats and great abilities, so incorporating them into the demon army is a no brainer. In fact, the early game becomes a spamfest of these skeletons due to a lack of decent demonic units and the scarce starting gold the player has access to.
The heroes, on the other hand, are underwhelming, to say the least. Especially the Dreadlord, as the unit lacks any kind of good abilities, and being an intellect based melee hero makes him very vulnerable in combat. I mean, Soul Burn is the only useful ability, as Sleep falls off the moment you get it, Charm also becomes mostly obsolete, Animate dead that lasts 15 SECONDS! at level 1, and only summons 3 units, further levels only increase the time the units last. The Pit Lord is better equipped, at least his Thunder Clap and Howl of Terror are cheap as hell, Cleaving Strike will be handy in the later stages, and his Rain of Chaos ultimate can obliterate entire bases on their own. His main downside is his massive size, which makes it hard to pull him back from combat, and early on his size makes him even more vulnerable to enemy attacks. Fortunately, the player receives a lot of items to compensate for the suckiness of the heroes, most of them are taken from the Rexxar campaign. Drek'thar's spellbook becomes very useful in the mission that follows it, Killmaim needs no introduction etc. These items are not enough to compensate for the atrocious no-build segments, cause the player will feel all three of them.

Spoiler

The worst offender is the Keeper of the World Tree water, as the hero's attack stats are way overtuned, to the point where the player doesn't have enough time to prepare a counter spell to slow him down, despite having access to plenty. The spawned in units don't help in making the micro easier, so on top of the mediocre to trash abilities, the player is susceptible to die early.

The assassination of Thrall is also mostly poorly managed, as the only instance where Charm might be useful just doesn't come soon enough, forcing the player to wait after each fight, especially if he managed to lose all the supporting units.

Overall, a solid campaign with good ideas and so-so implementations, bland visuals and an engaging enough story.

 

[SalvatorThenorium]

• It's a good campaign with a great story, solid Triggers and a decent AI. I really enjoy the theme of this mission, as it makes it unique—since I don't often see campaigns focusing on the demonic side. Overall, it's a good campaign that deserves more attention.
  
  - OKAY - 3.5

 

[tulee]

Any chance you would be willing to add some screenshots / more info which gives people an idea of what to expect in your campaign without needing to download it first?