[Campaign] Warcraft Adventures (Joe's Quest, Deandra's Tale, Mordork's Quest, Ashbringer's Quest)

[Med. MapGuy]

Introducing Warcraft Adventures, a series of loosely interconnected custom single-player campaigns, including: Joe's Quest Remake, Mordork's Quest Remake and Deandra's Tale Remake.

Set during the events of the Third War, its first entry, Joe's Quest was released in 2003 (with the first Joe's Quest posted on HIVE in 2007) and followed the drunkard Joe, his troublemaking son Lil' Timmy and the unflappable Wally and their misadventures to escape Lordaeron from the Undead Scourge! It was followed by Mordork's Quest, starring Archmage Mordork Clavicle and his quest to stop the evil LeChunk and then, Deandra's Tale, an epic story of unrequited love between the forlorn elf Deandra and Illidan Stormrage!

These original campaigns and their remakes were made using Warcraft III version 1.27b, but the reintroduction of custom campaigns for Warcraft III: Reforged has introduced the possibility of updating to that version.

Features

• The first trilogy features completely remade levels and cinematic interludes!
• Hundreds of custom models, voice files and music!
• Brand new levels!

FAQ
1) Have all levels for Joe's Quest and its spinoffs been remade? Yes, all levels for the series have been heavily edited using Warcraft III v.1.27b.
2) Will you be porting the campaign to the latest version of Warcraft III: Reforged?If the campaign do eventually get updated to work on the latest version of Warcraft III, it will still use the classic graphics and not sport the new Reforged look.
3) Which campaigns feature brand new levels? Joe's Quest features a brand new level about Joe's search of the Silverspoon seaport, while Mordork's Quest has a brand new epilogue.
4) How much dialogue has been rewritten? I tried not to alter too much of the original dialogue as much as possible. My goal was to keep the spirit of the original.
5) Where is Joe's Quest 2? A sequel will be made based on the reception of these remakes. I've already written a draft of the flow of the story a while back, but ideas are still in flux as to its overall direction if it ever gets made.
6) Why was there such a long delay for a sequel? I got burnt out after Joe's Quest 1.5 and didn't really know where the story was going. Simple as that. All that lore of the Eye of Newt and Diablo and whatnot got a bit much. That and my ambitions for the sequel outweighed my skillset and what assets were available at the time. Hopefully this reboot cleans up the narrative, making a better base for a possible sequel.
7) Why are this series of campaigns now called Warcraft Adventures? Wasn't it originally Joe's Chronicles? I felt Joe's Chronicles was too narrow an umbrella for all these campaigns... Joe was usually just a bystander in these spinoff characters tales, so I decided to use a more generic title.

The latest entry in the Warcraft Adventures series is Ashbringer's Quest (working title). This still in-development campaign stars the one and only Alexandros Mograine and is set during the timeline of the original Joe's Quest campaign! Expect to meet familiar faces, both good and evil. Will Mograine and the mighty Ashbringer have the power to defeat the Undead Scourge? Will he have the strength to protect Princess Calia Menethil from the Lich King and his ne'er do wells? Only time will tell in this upcoming single-player custom campaign!

 

[Chaosy]

From memory, I always think of Joe's Quest Gold as being in my top 5 maps. The other maps were also good but a step down for me.
I remember my first impression being that the terrain had aged incredibly well, getting insane value out of mostly the standards assets.
Needless to say I would reinstall wc3 just to give this a go, happy its a thing.

 

[Yousef]

I love Mordork's Quest so much, I loved the LotR vibe there a lot, can't wait to play all of these again!

 

[Limitteditemeater]

Really excited for this, Joe's quest has always been one of my favourite campaigns in war 3, can't wait to see the result of this and have another excuse to replay Good luck with the project.

 

[UncleMetallich]

Wow models

Why

 

[Saelendious]

A remake of Joe's saga sounds awesome!

'Sounds' being the key word. Not 'looks'. Because it doesn't. Sorry.

 

[Armelior_is_back]

Wow so many memories thinking back about these 3,5 campaigns. I think Deandra is my favorite of the 3.
Mordork was the most impressive usage of custom resources in any campaign (except maybe Return of the dragon) when it came out, and it still holds up in that regard (this pirates of the carribean battle music a the end was such a great pick !). Unfortunately the gameplay was unbalanced, buggy and it didn't really have an end. I'm excited to see what a better/more polished gameplay (and maybe a story more different from LotR than just funny names) could do for this campaign.

About Joe, I think the default WOW model doesn't fit compared to the goofy old villager model/portrait - after all he is a level 1 "pathetic"

 

[Sumadin]

As someone who feverishly stalked the samods forums a decade back for Joe News, this is amazing to hear. I will however join the rest of the cast in noting that the models looks quite off in this preview.

Wally is fine, I will miss his hat but sometimes less is more.
Joe as default WOW human really doesn't fit well. Maybe if someone managed to port a Kul Tiran model, it would work. As it stands, he looks way too bulky.
Lil' Timmy.... I trust that the model is work in progress, because there is lots of progress left. At the very least he should not be T-posing in the final version.

About the story changes, I completely agree. The original Joe's Quest was all over the place, with references that are super dated by now. Was silly good at the time. Now it is just silly.

 

[Med. MapGuy]

First of all, thanks to everyone for their interest in the project. I understand remakes can be divisive, and some will reject them out of principle, or have a distaste with use of WoW models, etc. Your concerns are noted, and all I can really say is I hope for your understanding and that this is the look I enjoy working with. As for Joe and Lil' Timmy's model, I chose the generic peasant model since it was what was available. I did make some slight changes to Joe by making him a little paunchier, and cleaned up his beard a bit. I also developed an alternate Joe model, but decided to keep the bearded version for now. Maybe I'll use him for the sequel. Lil' Timmy is unfortunate since there's no decent kid model (with appropriate death or attack animations), so I had to make do.

Lil' Timmy is based on a Prince model I found, and yes, it's rough and lacks essential animation, but I felt it had a goofy charm to it.

The big change I've made is for Wally. I'm giving the ol' Walrus his hat back plus a little backpack. I'm not a modeller, but the simple edit should work!

 

[FeelsGoodMan]

Hey, I can see you have some dark areas on your WoW models. This is very easy to fix with Retera's model studio; Simply select all vertices and do "Edit-Recalculate Normals".

 

[Med. MapGuy]

Special thanks to FeelsGoodMan, he offered to port a human child model which is the perfect replacement for the Lil' Timmy model I was using. He even has a proper attack animation!

A quick update, I'm currently finishing the finale of Mordork's Quest Remastered. I was deciding whether I should add an extra level to pad out the campaign since it only had two playable levels, but decided to just devote my resources to Joe's Quest II.

 

[Vindicator777]

This looks so awesome. I remember little teaser about red orc named X, who planning to kill KaelThas.

 

[Med. MapGuy]

Some details on the revamped first map. Ol' Archmage Mordork Clavicle is in the town square telling people that the sky is falling (left). I walled off Joe's Village since I like the look and feel of little walled cities. I've also included a glimpse of Joe's farm (right), which is in the outskirts of the village. The farm hands still fear Lil' Timmy.

Hey Vindicator7777, I'm glad you remember that old teaser. X is still present in this remake, but that ol' teaser isn't. Let's just say I was really into Kill Bill back in the day. I thought I could make a short spinoff campaign starring X, but life got in the way...

Anyway, here's a screenie for the second level, the "Valley of the Giants". This was a fun one to develop. I should make more maps where you play a tiny guy.

 

[Heinvers]

So much to see here. 'lovely

 

[Med. MapGuy]

In the original Joe's Quest, the third level was an overlong interlude featuring a battle scene of humanity fighting the Undead Scourge. The scene was meant to introduce Arthas as a villain / threat that Joe and the trio of weirdness had to face in the succeeding level. I decided to scrap that entire sequence and create a brand new level, featuring an "overworld" where you control Joe as he enters little "subzones" like a forest or a tavern or what have you. That way, it helps flesh out Joe's world and his "journey" throughout Lordaeron. I liked this concept so much I used it in campaigns like Book of Rexxar (which came out late last year).

With this new level, I was able to better tie in the later pirate-y levels with all the "Eye of Newt" malarkey that becomes pivotal in later entries and spinoffs. I made sure not to overwhelm the player with unnecessary lore, of course - since the heart of Joe's Quest is its simplicity. Joe wants to get off Lordaeron, and along the way, he meets kooky characters.

Speaking of kooks, here's a preview of X, the mysterious blademaster Joe has the option of meeting in the fourth level - the blademaster with a real big chip on his shulder. He has quite the grudge against his jailer, Kael'thas Sunstrider. His purple skin is an unfortunate side effect from the constant magical experimentation he received while trapped at Dalaran. Poor guy.

 

[Med. MapGuy]

Joe's Quest Remastered is out now! Download it here!

I hope you enjoy it! Stay tuned for more updates on other upcoming remastered editions! Go Joe!

 

[Med. MapGuy]

After a fairly rough initial release, I feel Joe's Quest Remastered is in a much better state. I've updated the campaign to v2.02 and added back the interlude from the original GOLD edition since someone mentioned missing it. I initially left it out as I felt it was unnecessary to the overall story. Seeing it again made me realize it helped set the stage for the Scourge's invasion and introduced Arthas and Prince Kael, both of whom make an appearance later in the campaign.

The cinematic received minimal changes - I just modified the music and improved streamlined some of the triggers. I was considering redoing some of the narration, but decided to leave it for nostalgia's sake. I hope people dig it!

Stay tuned for more Joe's Chronicles news.

 

[Chaosium]

Had so much fun with this campaign back in the days, definitely looking forward to this

 

[Med. MapGuy]

Helloooo. Just checking in with some updates. First of all, have you checked out Joe's Quest Remake and Mordork's Quest Remake? Go on, try it!! In the meantime, I've been hard at work on the final entry of the original Joe's Chronicles, Deandra's Tale Remake. Did you know that this is the second time this campaign's been remastered? Anyway, I actually took a short break while working on that one level (Getting Medievel) where Deandra sneaks into an orc fortress was taking a really long time to update. Picking and choosing assets also took a long time.

There were a bunch of mechanics that I had to take out, since they weren't fun and just made the whole level tedious. I'm talking about the wolf alarm mechanic. I also gave the goblin dude that helps Deandra a bit more backstory. It was originally Gazlowe but I changed it some other dude since I didn't like to have too many identifiable characters in the story. I also gave the level a much clearer direction and quest structure for the player. Like my other remakes, I sprinkled this one with a bunch of collectibles like codex entries and journals.

The area where you have to spike the feeds of the orc's Kodos has also been slightly updated. The section is still scripted, but I trimmed down several scenes so it plays off quicker and (hopefully) more fun. The following section where you have to manipulate a guy manning a catapult was also updated. I'll just say that it's no longer a stealth section, and it plays sooo much better.

The previous level, set in an abandoned kaldorei city called "BigTreedrassil" has also been given an overhaul in the graphics department. I dunno, but I've always enjoyed the mood of Deandra's Tale the most. I'm hoping the additional tracks by Debussy and graphics will help convey this dreamy mood. The public release is still pending. I'm having the completed levels thoroughly tested so that will take some time. Look forward to an October or early November release date.

Here's a screenshot from Mordork's Quest Remake. No reason other than this level took a long time to update.

Looking into the future of the series for a bit, what can people expect? Will there be more sequels or spinoffs? Well, maybe. I was planning a spinoff featuring Joe's wife (Momma's Quest?) but that fell through. If I ever find the time to develop a sequel, it would probably be just Joe's Quest 2, with the other characters playing a supporting role. I probably won't be making a full-blown sequel to Mordork's Quest or Deandra's Tale, but they could have exclusive level or two. I actually typed up a rough outline of events / plot points on a design doc I keep on Google Sheets. At least now I have a clearer direction on where I want the story to go than waaay back then. Now to see if I can find the time to work on it since I have other stuff I plan to work on... 'Till next time!!

 

[Med. MapGuy]

November 7, 2022
Quick Update

• Playtesting for the final level for Deandra's Tale REMAKE is just about finished. Special thanks to Lazarator for his efforts efforts. There are some issues with the AI but the final version should still be a challenge.
• The interlude and ending cutscenes have also been completed. One small change is swapping Daelin Proudmoore with Jaina. It just made more sense for Jaina's expedition to challenge Deandra's forces. Figuring out all the timeline shenanigans can be frustrating at times, so I try not to get too hung up with it.
• Unlike Mordork's Quest, no new bonus levels has been planned for this release, as much as I wish I had the time to make one. It would be cool to have one that would better tie-in the previous entries, but for now, it's mostly set-up if I ever do work on the sequel.
• Surprisingly, Joe's Quest II is not the campaign I'm working on next, but one about the Scarlet Crusade. It's still very early in development, and I'm still in the process of figuring out the tone and story. This was originally going to be my first proper Reforged campaign, but I lost a bunch of progress after the last update, 1.33, crashed my editor and made the map more or less unrecoverable. Sad.

November 8, 2022 (EDIT)
Quick Update

• Special thanks to Lazarator, who will be taking a long hiatus from WCIII playtesting to focus on IRL stuff. I wish him well. It's thanks to his efforts and a few others that I've been more confident with my current releases.
• I've sent the campaign to others for final playtesting. Not sure how long it will take, but I'm hoping to upload ol' Deandra this month. Thank you everyone for your kind support of my works!!

 

[Med. MapGuy]

December 15, 2022
Quick Update

• Blizzard has finally added Custom Campaigns back to Warcraft III: Reforged. I'm shocked
• The other big shocker is it works... sorta. I booted up Joe's Quest and Deandra's Tale (made using v1.27b) and they seem to work fine. Custom loading screens don't seem to working, but everything else seems to be in order. I'm shocked, I tell yah!!
• Correction, there seems to be an issue with transparencies? I hope that gets fixed.
• It's really cool seeing these campaigns in proper widescreen and higher fidelity.
• There's also an issue when adding custom object data to the campaign file. That one issue issue alone made me think I'll stick with 1.27b until all the kinks to this patch get sorted out. But overall, a very good development!!

 

[Med. MapGuy]

January 20, 2023
Quick Update

Some major changes have been happening with Warcraft III... Reforged finally allows custom campaigns. I never thought I'd see the day. I've been testing out my old campaigns and for the most part, many seem to be working fine... but I noticed crashes happen when I quit certain cinematics. More testing will be required, so for now, the best way to play my stuff is through the old Warcraft III v.1.27b.

Regarding the recent update of Joe's Quest Remake, I worked on the interlude 'Last Stand' to help make it feel more in line with the other cinematics of the campaign. It now includes 'special narration cards' (I dunno what else to call it) throughout, and some shortened sequences. I also did a minor update to Mordork's Quest Remake like fixing some dialogue and having Rexy show up (albeit unplayable) if he joins Mordork and survives the saving the town quest.

Of course, the biggest update would have to be the new "updated" model of LeChunk. I did this for visual cohesion with the rest of the cast since the low-poly version, while charming, stood out a bit. That's the one thing I like about working with old WoW models, they're simple to work with and they're not taxing to my aging PC. LOL. I know it's not everyone's cup of tea but even if I do update to Reforged, I will still stick with "Classic" graphics mode.

Speaking of updating to Reforged... I've started the process. I'll be updating the 'Warcraft Adventures' campaigns first (Joe's Quest, Mordork's Quest, Deandra's Tale), and then Mathias Chronicles and its sequel, and perhaps Shards of the Resistance. These will not be major updates and I only plan to update their loading screens since the SD ones I made don't work on Reforged.

And finally, I'd like to introduce Ashbringer's Quest, the latest spinoff in the Warcraft Adventures series. This is a fun little side project I've been developing for a while now. What began as a serious take on the Ashbringer storyline, changed into a small side story set during the Joe's Quest timeline. I felt there were some amazing takes on the Scarlet Crusade / Ashbringer story already and I wanted to have my own spin on it, and not be beholden to the comics or WoW questline. Anyway, it's still very early in development, and it'll probably be sidelined as I try to update my previous campaigns into Reforged. More updates soon-ish. Have a great day!!

 

[Armelior_is_back]

Between that and HoS, someone's been very busy

 

[Med. MapGuy]

January 24, 2023
Quick Update

A few of you may have noticed that Joe's Quest, Deandra's Tale and Mordork's Quest (and two other campaigns in my archive, Book of Rexxar and War of Thorns) were updated to the latest version of Warcraft III: Reforged. Yes, it's finally happened. After using the same old Frozen Throne 1.27b client for years, I've finally moved on. Sorta. (more on that later) Part of it was that some of my campaigns crashed the game due to buggy models and textures, or that they didn't have proper loading screens with the correct aspect ratio, and so on.

That said, user Van Andro has made me realize it would be best to have the older version up as well as there is a community players that, for one reason or another, don't have Warcraft III: Reforged... which is perfectly understandable. Even with the latest updates, Reforged is still really clunky and sluggish, and its $40 price tag (the game hasn't gone on sale... ever) can still be a barrier for some.

I also watched WTii's take on that Blizzard survey on a possible soft reboot of Warcraft III, and a bunch of feedback from other forums and (barring all the multiplayer and lag stuff), it's interesting to see how much anger people have over Reforged's art style. You've heard it all before, it's too detailed, it's not faithful to the original charming style of the original. It also made me question the long-term viability of working on a campaign in Reforged's style. Like what if there is a reboot that dumps Reforged's HD graphics for a simpler, more faithful style ala the Starcraft 2 and Diablo 2 remasters? All this has made me hesitant to make a fully Reforged campaign... Thankfully, one good thing about Reforged's World Editor is that it allows you to forcibly set the player to use either SD or HD graphics... which I have done so with my campaigns.

I may one day use Reforged's graphics for something like Joe's Quest II, but the one thing that's always held me back is its piss poor performance. Like, every time I tried to do a wide establishing shot, the game drops to single digit frames per second. What the hell? I also noticed certain custom Reforged models can completely crash your map because of an outdated particle emitter or something. And finally... it takes foreeeeever for Reforged to load up. This has made it not ideal to work on custom campaigns, which is why I'll be working on them on 1.27b FIRST, before porting it all over to Reforged afterwards. (This has the added benefit of releasing two versions of my campaign) Anyway, that's it for now, keep supporting single-player custom campaigns!

 

[Armelior_is_back]

Yeah for the release of 2 versions ! That way both old contrarians like me or people who moved to Reforged because they actually like it or because they don't want to be left behind can enjoy your work.