Legends of Arkain True Story

[ilidandin]

I have a question, how can I keep the objects from my other missions? Every time I download the campaign, when you add a new map, all my progress and the objects that my heroes were carrying disappear.

 

[Shar Dundred]

Progress is saved in your profile, not the campaign file.

 

[ilidandin]

I don't understand it, I download it, put the new one in and remove the old one and would I have to save my progress?

 

[BaiyuGalan]

The most epic campaign with original stories.

 

[Lang]

I have a question, how can I keep the objects from my other missions? Every time I download the campaign, when you add a new map, all my progress and the objects that my heroes were carrying disappear.

It seems, you should replay the maps from newest to oldest one to know where the cache stops. I had same issues long ago, on my case it because there is a map that not complete yet from last update, which if you play the newest one before clearing the old one, the cache restart your progress. Is it yours really not saving any progress even on early map? try to replay the oldest map first to know your cache progress.

Just uploaded a hotfix, both Shadowbound and the mission ending should work properly now.

You make our ally AI not rebuild on purpose? blue ally could not survive enemy waves on their own.

 

[Mimxo]

Hello, Shar. I was wondering, as I've seen today your post on forums regarding the future of Arkain. You said that you will wrap up the campaign this act, but not the story itself, because you never wanted to go past the end of the second books. If you're willing to continue expanding the world of Arkain, why not expand it in a playable manner? It's one of the best, if not the best custom campaign I've played, and I've played many over the past years, so, frankly, I am a bit bummed out by your decision, though I fully respect it, hence the question.
Thank you for your hard work on this campaign and its beautiful lore.

 

[Evrial]

Like that this campaign bring new heroes, and combined story of all races

 

[deepstrasz]

One more bandwagon rating from me, albeit unnecessary.
While I'm not a fan of the gameplay still holding strong roots in Warcraft III, turning the head from that opens up the view to a wide, it seems, ever reaching horizon of immersive story and ceaseless valiant battle.

 

[Eichenfrosch]

fun for a while, i am currently on act 4 and it stays interesting.
First 3 Acts have been fun as you get new units every mission , but gets repetitive where every mission is basically the same with multiple enemies that sends a wave every minute, and to finish these missions on hard i had to reload anytime the enemy attacked and i was attacking him currently or cheat for permanent vision so i could time the attack right or i would to much of my base and would have to spend even more time collecting resources, lastly i hate fighting demons they are just the most boring enemies by being perfect allrounders and little way to actually use some strategy.
But the story is interesting and i like the concept of sidmissions influencing the main story , would be even better if one could tell what affected what.
I think i need to take a break for while because the missions bore me so much that i cheat through them to get the story going.

 

[Macielos]

Alright, Arkain, here I come again.

A6M1

• Macro map, enemies all around, but after rushing the blue base in the east it gets bearable
• Again, why the hell does Sir Edmund have just a knight model? He should have a custom one so he's distinguishable from other units in the midst of battle

A6M2
- Cool civil war among the Dark Elves and cool techtree of theirs, lots of summons to separate me from the enemy. My only complain is about tight corridors in which both armies got stuck all the time, but at least our aoe skills could shine

A6M3
- Massacring the swarms of militia. Good old times of the Second Human Book. Everything fine here. Actually, this map, although long, feels pretty easy and could use some enemy flyers attacking our base from time to time

A6M4
- Ah yeah, an economical map where we have to collect 25k of lumber... but there's very little lumber. Having destroyed southern orcish base and harvested the entire west and south of the map I ended up with 24700 lumber and was barely fending off constant huge attacks of orcs and elves. I thought I will have to destroy the second orc base to win, for which I barely have the troops... but I hacked the system by recalling most of my structures and won.

A6M5

• An entirely new map as far as I recall. It initially felt pretty easy because of infinitely spawned (counter)attack waves which dropped gold on death - that allowed me to quickly reach the 100 army limit and have all inventories filled with potions. But I don't complain, since it's a rare occasion to actually buy potions, and I quickly changed my mind about the difficulty when I saw the sheer amount of enemies waiting in the red base. Fortunately AI doesn't rebuild, so we can snipe building and withdraw to heal and replenish losses. Overally I liked the balance, it was long and challenging, but at least we were given resources to handle the challenges.
• The lord in the south-west can easily be killed by shooting him and his guards from the top of the wall. I suppose it's intended, however it looked silly when I shot him once and patiently waited until he alone went all the way to the wall to confront me singlehandedly... and of course he lost. He could use some triggers to control his behaviour, at least order some guards to automatically accompany him.
• I logically assumed that power generator will be connected to the towers, so I looked around the walls of the Order of Tides' fortress. Silly me, of course it had to be at the very opposite corner of the map, the only one I didn't check.
• We could really use some artillery units in mercenary camps
• The final battle with Whitefield was... interesting. The first time I defended myself in the former red camp, but failed because enemy catapults destroyed the stone walls and dismantled my little chokepoint. For the second time I defended on the bridge. This time it went... mostly smoothly. Just keep the enemy stacked on the bridge and keep bleeding them out with archers and Cora's AoE spells. If I can recommend something, such mechanics should involve some condition that you spawn another e.g. 10 units and add them to a group only if there are less than 30 alive in the group. That way you still have the player under constant pressure, but avoid... what you can see on the screenshot.

But complaints aside, the map was very enjoyable.

Now starting my beloved trebuchet map. And I have one question for the start... why can't we have Brian as a hero from the beginning?

I think I mentioned it, but Banisher's healing wave seems to have wrong hotkey.

 

[Nicolas Warchief]

Perfect, masterpiece, peak fiction, goat.

 

[nightknight919]

great campaign!
but in act 9 chapter 9 , after a few min , game crashes in both refuge and classic 1.36
i know its a demo just wanted u to know

 

[Macielos]

I beat the trebuchet map. Although very long, it is actually not that difficult once you realise that you're being pulled straight onto the mine. Namely, taking the trebuchets screws you up. Once you start using them to destroy surrounding structures, orange AI enters a constant fuck-you mode known from some previous maps - as long as it detects a danger to the base - and the base stretches across half of the city - it keeps constantly attacking you and momentarily replenishing losses, using its large number of production buildings. And it won't stop until it kills your units and buildings in proximity to its base - including the trebuchets. But if you don't take the trebuchets and focus on the teal undead base in the west, the orange remains calm and attacks you in standard long intervals. That's the general rule for Arkain macro maps - once you attack enemy buildings or units close to enemy base, push straight for the production or enemy fast-replenishing army will inevitably overwhelm you. If you don't have enough army to reach the production buildings, don't even try, withdraw to your nearest wall of towers.

Luckily, there's a golden unit rooster for this map despite the lack of hero: 6-10 Elites to smash everything on the ground + 6 Banishers with mass healing to make the Elites practically unkillable + some catapults to snipe buildings + some marksmen to deal with occasional air units. Plus the usual - walls of towers and production buildings near the front.

Once you beat up orange and teal, you have a calm segment without AI attacks to gather resources and fortify - which I surely appreciated.

And then, the final map segment which is a one big proof that techtree units shouldn't have AoE skills such as Blizzard, especially if these units are a backbone of the enemy army.

And one lore nitpick to conclude - Greendale is a lieutenant, so she outranks Thanok who is a sergeant, and yet she behaves as she's lower than him. It would suit better for Thanok to be a captain.

 

[Ravager16829]

great campaign!
but in act 9 chapter 9 , after a few min , game crashes in both refuge and classic 1.36
i know its a demo just wanted u to know

The author only supports 1.29.2 for this campaign and has nothing to do with the other versions, including Reforged.

 

[nightknight919]

The author only supports 1.29.2 for this campaign and has nothing to do with the other versions, including Reforged.

i know but this is the only chapter that crashes in both reforged and classic and i love the human chapters

 

[Macielos]

i know but this is the only chapter that crashes in both reforged and classic and i love the human chapters

You can try checking the logs (WC3 folder/Logs/War3Log.txt).

 

[RalatheHuntress]

Hey just wanting to say that after playing through the books and loving the characters in this story. Hearing that this campaign will not go past book 2, no matter how long until we get something past book 2. I can't wait to see it and I can't wait to see the end of True Story as well. Its been a journey watching this series from the shadows when it was just book 1 but thank you Shar for delivering us Warcraft fans so much content and general RTS fun throughout the years with this series.

 

[beautiful-cap]

this so good it shold be it own game

 

[aderius]

Great campaign!

I wanted to ask, is Jahanir working as intended hard? I get a lot more adds and he doesn't teleport up top for more than one teleportation cycle during the nasty wave like I've seen on some older playthroughs. So I'm basically facing the big golem + others while getting pummeled by Jahanir as well. I had to play on slowest speed and save scum like a maniac to beat it, even then it took me hours.

 

[hassanbob]

One of the best campaigns i have ever played

 

[Lang]

latest map, Pechan doesn't do any offensive act. other hero fight like crazy and he just idling around waiting to be attacked by enemy forces

 

[IceAgeAkella]

Masterpiece! I cannot wait to see what next! <3

 

[Helmet fire]

Waking up in the morning and a good break of this always just good

 

[xNate]

I LOVE THIS GAME, THANK YOU GUYS FOR MAKING THIS WONDERFUL CAMPAIGN FOR US TO PLAY!

 

[Shar Dundred]

8th January 2024
Ladies and gentlemen,

it is my honor to announce that today is the day of the full release of the True Story of Arkain!
From this day on, it is no longer called a "demo".

After three years of production and over nine years of Arkain on the Hive Workshop, the True Story has finally been finished.

The new update features the Epilogue as well as another cinematic that will be unlocked by watching the epilogue.

I want to thank all of you who have followed the True Story for all this time, I appreciate each and every one of you.

Both @Kasrkin and I are proud to announce this full release together and want to thank EVERYONE who has helped us
to get to this point - whether that was through a bug report, a resource, support, by giving your opinion or any other
means is not relevant, we appreciate all of you.

We are proud to have built such a strong community over the years - both the ones that have been with us since the
start as well as those who have joined us later.

The True Story has finally reached its conclusion - but the story of the Legends of Arkain is far from over!

Stay tuned but first... enjoy the cinematics.

You can find them here in the Map Section.

Sincerely,

Arkain Industries


Kasrkin & Shar Dundred

 

[RalatheHuntress]

8th January 2024
Ladies and gentlemen,

it is my honor to announce that today is the day of the full release of the True Story of Arkain!
From this day on, it is no longer called a "demo".

After three years of production and over nine years of Arkain on the Hive Workshop, the True Story has finally been finished.

The new update features the Epilogue as well as another cinematic that will be unlocked by watching the epilogue.

I want to thank all of you who have followed the True Story for all this time, I appreciate each and every one of you.

Both @Kasrkin and I are proud to announce this full release together and want to thank EVERYONE who has helped us
to get to this point - whether that was through a bug report, a resource, support, by giving your opinion or any other
means is not relevant, we appreciate all of you.

We are proud to have built such a strong community over the years - both the ones that have been with us since the
start as well as those who have joined us later.

The True Story has finally reached its conclusion - but the story of the Legends of Arkain is far from over!

Stay tuned but first... enjoy the cinematics.

You can find them here in the Map Section.

Sincerely,

Arkain Industries


Kasrkin & Shar Dundred

Thank you for your amazing works for the last several years, I hope Legends of Arkain stands the test of time and be remembered for one of the greatest custom content for a game. Still can't wait to see if there is anything else past this release but after all the time and effort put into True Story, I believe a break and a celebration is in order for finally getting to here. A toast to Arkain Industries for Legends of Arkain and providing us content that even triple A studios fail to-do for RTS fans, here's to the future and thank you for everything.

 

[ZiRBy231]

Damn Legend. Era is gone now, but this masterpiece will surely be remembered as the peak of creating your own story through Warcraft 3 setting. Enjoyed playing each map, never had so much joy and stress at the same time while playing my favorite game. Now i am itching for how this story will continue onwards. Being a fan of reading comics and lightnovels, i damn hope i will see name "Arkain" somewhere. Thank you, @Shar Dundred , and hope we see you soon enough!

 

[Banaconaconut]

dunno if I should be happy or sad, I don't talk much here but I've followed arkain for a long time, my old laptop even broke before the Book2 came. then rushed to buy a new pc after Book2 came.... imagine arkain being the reason to buy a new one
..... and now it's finally finished, didn't even realized how much time had passed.

anyways, Thank you, @Shar Dundred for making such a cool campaign and story. Hope you'll continue building the world of arkain in any shape and form you like!

 

[Restia]

I can't believe this is the end. After a long time i play this, i can finally let go some of my Arkain tension. I am satisfied but also not at the same time cuz of the story but i also thinking that there is still many of the characters that was introduced but have little role on this. This is a great experience that i can't forget for long time. I secretly hoping there is continuation of Arkain story. And i have my question: why in farewell chapter it says that this is the end in Warcraft III? Did i misunderstood something? By the way, this is me a person who is your fan of Arkain that still waiting for Rahandir upgrade and a new added one Saphira. XD

 

[Walichrage]

masterpiece

 

[krawg]

feels bad it's over but all things come to an end the best campaign i have ever played it is an honnor that i had the chance to play the legends of arkain i truly hope the future brings more we never know for the story of arkain is far from over

 

[axx234]

This is one of, if not the best custom campaign or mod for a game I have ever seen, so much work, almost 10 years from the first release of the first human book

 

[cathulion]

Don't know if you will be doing any patches but going through from the start I noticed that pillage has rangul limited to level 2 (which he earns in the initial village by the way)

Spoiler

But I remembered that after that the next we see him is in act two, chaper one rescue so I booted that mission and rath starts at 4 and rangul at 2,

Would it be possible to let him level past 2 on that one map, it is pretty big and not getting any exp on all these enemies feels bad. I imagine plenty of maps will have a similar problem but still?
Also congrats on completing it. I prefer the books format, especcially with the meaningful choices and the fact you can choose a faction and have it "win", but I understand it is a LOT of work with all the branching paths and everything, while I have zero hope for it happening I kinda wish warcraft 4 had that, branching paths, faction choice campaigns, side quests that are both challenges and choices changing future missions, sub faction units, this kind of stuff is a massive undertaking but if there ever was a AAA rts it would be good thing to have them. Yes I am saying your proyect is AAA quality.
Congratulations all the same. Will there be a kasrkin mode?
[EDIT] UH OH, in act 2 Saphira instead of attacking me sent an attack wave against the creep demons, I am not sure if that was the first wave from her or not but it was after I did the side quest.

 

[shadowhog]

I have enjoyed every moment from the single books to the development of this campaign. Thank you for making this amazing campaign it has been an amazing journey

 

[Xtobal]

Truly one of the most enjoyable, both in story and length, campaigns that Warcraft 3 can offer. The many plot lines, the intricate world created by Sir Shar Dundred and it's many factions, made the campaign and the game, utterly enjoyable for me. Due to how well elaborated the world is, sometimes I find myself replaying the campaign to remember very well the little details that the author leaves to us, and it always makes you come back for more.

If one seeks massive battles, an engaging story, and incredible world building, look no further than this. It is done with love and dedication and one can truly see it throughout the books and the True Story that has been finally completed.

Thank you for the amazing campaign, Shar!

 

[IceAgeAkella]

Is it already... over???

Now I feel like Krom - where is the story, where is the plot next, why, how, why did it all end this way? So what's now?? I've been following the events of Arcane so much that I want to see what happens NEXT!
The demons lost, but were not completely destroyed? Not finished? United Kingdoms at Gardon's hand? Purification has been destroyed, will the Emperor come? And what did the gnoll king find in the temple together with his friend Gorthog? Is it really (as I assume) an abandoned temple of those very lizard people who were protecting something important (custom campaign from the author SAM_PorL)? The clue? What will Aridon do? The undead have finished supporting “balance” and are going into “sleep”? If this is really the end, will there be a continuation? Will there be a continuation or an end? And in what sense is “possibly the last work” and “Arkain’s War is still far from over”?? So is it the end or the continuation!? This intrigue torments me!

Forgive me for my emotions, which are still raging inside me like a storm, but I have so many emotions, questions and great impressions! In my entire life, I have never seen, in all the Warcraft 3 games, that someone with ardent love, enthusiasm, a well-developed WORLD and a bunch of DIFFERENT characters created SUCH masterpieces based on which not only do you make choices, but also the author himself then at the end shows the REAL story, as it really happened. All custom campaigns are good, but this is the greatest diamond artifact, a legend for which you will want to play AGAIN and AGAIN! It's like Game of Thrones, but connected with the fate of the characters during constant and ongoing battles in the name of survival and existence of their own race. I have been watching Arkain’s books since their first appearances and I am still amazed how a wonderful person is able to create such a wonderful and amazing universe! How about inventing one? This is incredible! Just unbelieveble!
This is a tribute to the creator of this wonderful story and I want this fan base to continue to grow like a mad avalanche from the snowy mountains until the end! If there will be a continuation of Arkain with heroes or there will be a prequel - please tell me! I want to see more of this magnificent saga!

Separately, I would like to warmly thank JayBorino for completing the campaign! If not for your playthroughs, I may never have known what kind of “diamond” exists in the creative expanses of the legendary game Warcraft 3. And huge respect to Shar for such a wonderful job! This is a titanic work, for the sake of which millions and millions more people will play your creation! I'm looking forward to new projects and new stories from Arkain! With great love I hug you, praise and admire you!

P.S. I don't know, I can't find it, but is there any fan art? Character concept art? After playing through JayBorino, some of the art stuck in my soul

P.P.S. But here's the question... If this is really the end and this is the last work, then what's next? I will miss Arkain very much(((

 

[Shar Dundred]

And what did the gnoll king find in the temple together with his friend Gorthog?

A certain "dreadlord" reveals what was in there in the cinematic.

Thank you for your kind words - also thank you to all others!

 

[Kasrkin]

P.S. I don't know, I can't find it, but is there any fan art? Character concept art? After playing through JayBorino, some of the art stuck in my soul

Fanmade of Arkain

This is a thread for all the things fanmade for Legends of Arkain including Art, meme, ETC.

www.hiveworkshop.com

 

[Legion5]

Great campaign Shar,

It was an exciting and challenging game. The Arkain made me look the battles in a different strategic perspective: make the most in the early-games, set large infrastructures, train and move units constantly into frontlines.
the script dialogues were also interesting to read; how the characters interact in political and rational way, the constant conflicts and intrigues between the factions.

Lastly, gotta say its been the longest campaign so far.

 

[IceAgeAkella]

Fanmade of Arkain

This is a thread for all the things fanmade for Legends of Arkain including Art, meme, ETC.

www.hiveworkshop.com

Thank you very much!)

 

[Kurosu]

I am interested in giving this a try after reading so many favorable comments.

From what I understand this one uses classic graphics , can it still be launched/played through WC3 reforged? Apologies if silly question I have never modded wc 3 before.

 

[Bogdanov89]

I gotta say, the fact that hero skill points are pre-selected/chosen severely dumps on the fun factor.
More often than not the skills chosen to be already learned are not what i would have chosen, meaning i can either invest more skill points into skills i dont like or i can split my skill points which is god awful in War3.

Would be a PHENOMENAL improvement if we could have a "Tome of Retraining" available on every mission, either as an item or as a chat command.
Or just start the maps with unspent hero skill points so players can choose their own spells as they want (also improves replayability).

So far i only got to the mission with the dreadlord in the mind of the human general, but seeing the dreadlord having Soul Burn at level 2 while the other two actually cool and useful spells are at a miserable lvl1 instantly ruined my interest in playing the rest of the map & campaign.

Overall very fun campaign maps, though it would greatly improve gameplay if we could have a special button to order ALL our combat units to attack move towards a point.

It would be a phenomenal QoL improvement when going for Necromancers-Raise Dead or just a spam of low pop units.

I have seen this sort of function in other custom maps where the player commands a ton of units, to partially ease the war3 limitation of 12 unit selection.

 

[Mavcik]

Hi!!

First things first I love campaign, i played separate ones now im playing finally full playthrough of this one
One question,

Lorekeeper unit of undead, has Raise Dead spell.
And they also have upgrade to summon one Mage skeleton.
But even with upgrade,
They still summon 2 purple Warrior skeletons not 1 mage 1 warrior?

Intended? Or bug?

Just asking,
Thanks again for this huuuge effort!

 

[Bogdanov89]

Unfortunately a lot of missions devolve to a meat-grinder of basic units where i just pump from 20 barracks near the frontline and eventually overwhelm the AI.
This is made further annoying by the War3 limit of 12 units selection, meaning that controlling big armies is extremely annoying.

For some reason a lot of the casters given in Human and Orc missions are staggeringly useless (shamans no bloodlust, witch doctors no heal ward etc), or extremely tedious to use (no auto-cast for warlock Unholy Frenzy, Stasis Ward constant spam etc).

The lack of a race (or generic) shop also feels rather strange, limiting healing and mana options - not to mention Scroll of Town Portal, which further makes the missions tedious when you gotta run back to defend.

AI is hell bent on focus-killing spellcasters and especially any form of artillery, which further slows down the meatgrinder.
But for some reason it will completely ignore stasis wards, which results in spamming stasis wards to be absolutely broken and trivializes fights.

Heroe abilities are rather basic and bland, usually a combination of abilities that has no synergy with one another - and also no mana potions to actually use more than one spell, especially against mana burn spamming enemies.

The story at least seems interesting, there is a ton of characters so keeping track of them all is a bit much but the dialogues are funny and believable.
Overall i would say that this entire campaign is a lot more fun to watch via youtube than it is to actually play through, especially on the hard (tedious) difficulty.

 

[DSI]

10 out of 10 for My Orc Queen!

 

[RalatheHuntress]

So after replaying True Story for the 6th time and doing this playthrough with the finished product. I'm here to say that this campaign deserves all the praise and love it gets from the community.

Its a shining example of user created content, you can tell the creators put their heart and soul into every inch of this project from both the unit models (which even the minor factions has their own models) and environment design. So many custom troops and custom tech trees as well for fans to jump into, plus on medium you can still get away with whatever force you want for the most parts with how massive of the unit choice can be.

The story overall is solid too, interesting plots and narratives we get to see through the eyes of alot of residents of this setting. It doesn't matter how minor or major the character is, we get to know alot of the world's current state and how the people live in this world in the moment. Gives alot of life to this setting, this doesn't even highlight how there is alot of connected plotlines through this story and I love how we get to see povs from tons of different characters. There is clearly a main character for each race who we follow but we also follow so many other "minor" ones that don't feel minor at all in the grand scheme as they all fit into the story's overarching plot.

Now does the campaign has issues, some but they are more nitpicks than anything else. Like some maps can be grindfests on hard mode (never had this issue on medium but hard can turn some of the large scale battles into attrition battles) and there is a certain boss fight in act 2 that is... needing balance I would say

Spoiler: Dark Secrets Boss

So the boss here took me an hour on medium and a bit longer on hard, this has happened each time I have played this campaign and none of the other bosses take this long. Its mostly due to the insane spikes of dmg the boss can throw out and unlike other bosses, the fight overwhelms you with too much mobs to clear out while the boss wipes the floor with you. The other bosses like this either take 1 to 4 attempt with a save at the start while this one forces me to save state like crazy to win throughout the fight. i would adjust this fight for how early it is and insanely hard it is.

Otherwise I have no issues, most maps are fun to play and are well balanced. Allies do something instead of just standing around in most maps you have them (wish more campaigns have that) and the characters are a delight to watch. The only thing I wish for be that this campaign could be played in a archon co-op mode so I can introduce friends to it who aren't good with RTS games and sadly I can't due to version bugs most likely with 1.34+. Plus its protected so the splitter tool that Xetanth87 made can't be used as well to turn it into co-op (but I understand the protection). Besides that I recommend this campaign to everyone and it should be a shining example of why people should pay more attention to the user created content.

I wish everyone who aided in this project a wonderful rest and I hope to see more of Arkain in the future.

 

[pedeng]

hi guys i only could play spme demo but cant wait to do the true story as well.

 

[DSI]

have ever thought using ai for some custom voice lines?
that would be very cool

 

[Kordan]

Hey man \m/

With all my heart, thank you so much for making it playable with Reforged.

2 years ago I played through the Books and it was a blast.

I always felt like the W3 campaigns are too easy, given that I'm a very skilled player.

I have a list of achievements in my life and 2 entries there:

• Managed to beat that Gardon captured mission.
• Managed to beat the underground mission with the paladins and dwarfs \m/

Sadly I couldn't finish the last 2 books because I had to flee Russia (the war). But now I can really immerse are play through it.

As a music producer, I know how hard it can be to create and share, real happy to have you in my life, thank you so much.

You need no light to shine, - Alex.

 

[Banaconaconut]

will this still continue to update? I don't mean more chapters, I mean some minor changes or something.
or is this the final final product?