Mathias Part I - The Pursuit

[Moderator]

VGsatomi: Approved. Part of the lengthy mathias campaign

 

[thedeathunterxx]

it would help if there was a descritpion...

 

[PrinceOfThaWest]

does here some chapters exist?


EDIT: Sorry.... my bad...

 

[Arthas_the_Mad]

a great campaign. do you have a nother one in mind? lets say a undead campaign?

 

[PrinceOfThaWest]

It already has 5 parts.... Check out for other 4...

 

[mdaniel]

bloodmage on mission 2 makes it easy, flamestrike the trees LoLoLoL

 

[Savage Potato]

I have contacted the site and claimed the moral right under copyright law to be recognised as the original creator of this campaign. To substantiate my claim, I refer to this link
http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/map-development-202/mathias-chronicles-redux-30883/ . Whilst I am happy for the campaign to be distributed, I am not aware of any material difference between or modification to the campaign I created and that presently uploaded by Scott Fravell "Frostmourn". I have no connection whatsoever with Scott Fravell "Frostmourn" I have not authorised Scott Fravell "Frostmourn" to use my intellectual property. I reside in New Zealand and many of the place and character names used in the campaign are based on actual New Zealand locations.I retired from Warcraft III modding and campaign development some years ago and am not active in the community. However simply because I am not active doesn't mean it is ok for peple to rip off my work!

 

[Mechanical Man]

I thought that Scott Fravell was your real name.

And tuzec and herogod uploaded many classic campaigns from earlier times, including yours, it would be shame they getting lost.

 

[Savage Potato]

No, I'm not Scot (except in ancestry lol).

The older maps were not organised into campaigns (as this was an innovation introduced with the Frozen Throne map editor) so they were unsecured. It seems that Scott collected the individual maps and put them into a campaign at a later stage and passed himself off as the creator. If he'd given me the credit as the original creator I wouldn't have minded so much (or if he'd fixed the odd bug and mentioned himself as modifer or updater that would be fine too).

I'm happy Tuzec uploaded it and I'm pleased it is still in circulation.

When playing these campaigns you need to bear in mind that they were designed a long time ago (the first three campaigns were in patches 1.01 - 1.04 of reign of Chaos) so they are not designed to be run in Frozen Throne. Blizzard's later patches created a lot of bugs that were not in the originals - for example: I used a lot of minefields because in the earlier patches Divine Shield detonated mines, so sending Mathias through with it on would act as a minesweeper. Blizzard then patched it and the map didn't play as intended. Thus modern players might think they are buggy - a lot of changes creep in over four years of patches.

 

[Rokudo_X_Hibari]

i love this campaign and its very interesting you people should try it 5/5

 

[usfshihy]

full of mistakes,nice idea just downlolad it and try the chaptes you'll know what i mean

 

[jocacar]

Not really for 5/5 but since other ratings are too bad IMO here we go.

 

[deepstrasz]

It's one of those campaigns that reminds you of the Warcraft III campaigns.
I'm guessing it was made for RoC and wasn't given a TFT update.

prologue:
-some transmissions run out too quickly

chap1:
-Mathias has no different spells than Arthas
-units remain selected during cinematic mode
-camera doesn't properly reset after cinematic scenes
-the trolls at the Gold Mines sleep at night
-there's an orcish army fighting Green Dragons and then any animals on the map
-how are you supposed to win this without a base? Killing Neutral Hostile for gold and then building a Lumber Mill for lumber is not really fun
-the invulnerable barricade in the south broke after talking with the villagers...
-if the trolls in their camp sleep, the units fight during the cinematic scene...
-why would the Troll Warlord tell the hero about their Warchief leaving?
-the Child is invulnerable
-the enemy attacks during the cinematic scene where the boy is brought back to his parents...
-the blue AI acts exactly like a melee computer: their hero takes items, their workers build expansions...
-Souleater looks like any Claws of Attack
-where did Lord Duncan just spawn from?

chap2:
-levels don't follow each other but instead the campaign screen is shown
-two Paladins... really that original? The Devotion Aura does not stack, mind you
-the Blood Mage can be trained in the Altar of Kings
-again, invulnerable barricades...
-Crystal Ball found two times
-the orc base can be destroyed before going to the elves as their AI is mostly passive
-cinematic scenes can't be skipped
-not ready to take on the dragon yet... I don't think so
-the player can kill the Ogres and then get the Egg to the northern Goblins. Bringing the Egg to them will create a temporary Dragon for the player...
-the Steam Tank appeared from?
-"What do I do with it?" after hearing that's packed with explosives
-the tank explodes wherever near the gate (entering region) and not close its middle. The orc gets out and runs somewhere, then Mathias goes to look at the Circle of Power and gets out of the picture too

chap3:
-Lord Pickett does not have a hero glow and he is also a Paladin... with a mounted speed of Average
-what the hell is is with that huge flag in his hand?
-unit refuses to enter minefield. How do they even know?
-their bases can be destroyed before doing the Hillstop quest... even Thrall and Grom can be killed
-although the plains are surrounded by orc troops, there are a lot of live villagers
-suddenly at the end part of the level, bases appeared...
-allied Knights return to their base after destroying some enemy buildings
-you destroy the enemy base but they don't return. Instead orcs come...
-Nezatch doesn't have a glow
-victory comes after some waiting time when nothing happens

chap4:
-I thought Nezatch died in the previous chapter...
-right.. they didn't kill Larissa. They kept her in a cage for...
-you can just destroy their base with Elementals. There should be a timer that would keep the hero from escaping if it expires
-Larissa can escape on foot using the Water Elementals and then just destroy all passive enemy bases. Their heroes then appear on the Circle of Power where the Zeppelin is. Killing them will result in their revival after a while
-patrolling brown units do not help their allies unless their enemy attack them (the brown) or is in their range
-some Tents are neutral some are considered enemy in the orc base
-prince Mathias ordered a Revenant that was protected or surrounded by orc troops, not to let anyone pass?
-the player's base is almost defenseless and lifeless while Larissa has to escape
-you may complete the road quest without it even being discovered
-where is Mathias so he can speak to the ghost?

chap5:
-they don't have radio stations to talk through from aerial units like that...
-some Wind Riders just got way behind the others and remained there
-the Flying Machines just attacked the Zeppelins while the Riders destroyed them...
-the Gryphon hero has no glow and deals Piercing type damage
-there are two types of Dragonhawk: one in the Gryphon Aviary and one in the Barracks
-why is the undead helping? Why are the humans considering their help?
-the Elementals accept your tribute - when? what? where?
-destroying the gate in the far east just starts the end cinematic scene and ends the level...

chap6:
-cinematic scenes require skip....
-"you are better off without them, my lord" Where the heck is Mathias anyway? He just disappeared
-a unit may trigger the deer hunter's scene if going near her. That won't stop the following Kobolds from attacking it
-Kel'Zarach has wandered off! WHAT!? Are you kidding me? One hero was enough of a disadvantage. Now, none, is the worst. Right, then the enemy attacks... He keeps leveling up, though
-some heroes like: the woman Archmage drop all items upon death. She died on the bridge. When reinforcements arrived some of the items were moved a little o the northeast. Actually that happens because enemy heroes pick them up again and after they die they drop them
-enemy Peasants come near my base for some reason
-Archers don't get upgrades
-the enemy has a lot of buildings like the Griphon Aviary, for instance, but they don't even at least train Knights (gray AI)
-the undead have a Crypt Lord aside the Revenant and the humans have Blood Mages
-saving the bandits scene will not pause the units
-deserters may be even bandits and troops from the west front (player's base)
-somehow the undead heroes (purple) were revived even though their base was razed
-teal heroes revive at the northeastern bridge that leads to the sea...
-it seems Mathias became an imaginary prince. Even in the end cinematic apparently he was speaking or maybe the necromancer spoke to himself. I think the unit was hidden the whole level...

chap7:
-Cameron Greyforge is either a hidden unit or an imaginary being
-once the Barrage for the Steam Tanks is researched they disappear from the Workshop
-the AI acts like Neutral Hostile. The only thing it does is to train some of the killed units and revive heroes
-the names of the heroes in the Altar at revival are broken in that they have a | somewhere in between
-leaving a message on the Way Gate. Wiring fixing? What's this StarCraft? The gate was going to blow up in five minutes!?

chap8:
-it's final. Mathias just refuses to appear even though talks
-the undead heroes (a Revenant and two Dreadlords) suddenly come... and go to the southwestern water patch and stay there. Then Crypt Fiends and Ghouls do the same. After a while they attack the mage coven. After a more while, another Dreadlord and some troops comes too...
-Finger of Death does not require mana
-how did the orcs get past the undead?
-right. So, in the end scene Malakai runs and tells Mathias to follow him. He stupidly does even though it could've been a trap. Then the orcs says something about his triumph and a Wind Rider flies by and the scene ends...

finale:
-it's not clear what was real until that point and what wasn't. Well, at least Mathias appeared in this one

It's interesting somehow but has a lot of bugs.

 

[Savage Potato]

First of all, I, Savage Potato am the creator of this work, not that piece of $#%& plagiarist Fravell. I have asserted my copyright in the past and the Hive has recognised this. The kiwi place names and butchered Te Reo Maori are significant to me which is why they have been used for character and place names. Secondly, things have moved a long way since the early patches when I created this way back in the day. Blizzard updating patches has caused most of the bugs and as I gave up maintaining the campaign back around 2006 it probably runs pretty messily now.

I'm thrilled that people are still interested in playing and reviewing this, but please be aware that it is an artifact of its time. My personal favourite campaign was Kel'Zarach's Tale.

Another author Med.mapguy has (with my permission) updated some of my works. If you enjoyed this campaign you might want to try his updated maps.

In hindsight, I probably should have used "orcish" rather than "orcen". I am spending my mapmaking retirement playing WoW.

 

[Anaxie]

Hi savage
I'm Scott and I was 16 when I compiled all your loose single maps that didn't even form a campaign.

Stop getting so butt hurt over a decade later. I never claimed it. I was 16 and just made them into campaigns and uploaded them.

Thanks. Mystery solved. You're welcome your maps would be extinct had I never made them campaigns in 2005

 

[Mechanical Man]

I think that the misunderstanding came when tuzec found the campaign, he didn't check the original author, but he just wrote the name of who uploaded it, however I have no idea where exactly. Him, being Russian and probably not knowing much english, not knowing the campaign at all, couldn't find author quickly, just uploaded the campaign with name of the poster. It's confusing since here are three "authors", while you can display only 2. Savage Potato -> Scott Fravel "Frostmourn" -> tuzec, where the original author basically fell out.

 

[PrinceOfThaWest]

First of all, I, Savage Potato am the creator of this work, not that piece of $#%& plagiarist Fravell. I have asserted my copyright in the past and the Hive has recognised this. The kiwi place names and butchered Te Reo Maori are significant to me which is why they have been used for character and place names. Secondly, things have moved a long way since the early patches when I created this way back in the day. Blizzard updating patches has caused most of the bugs and as I gave up maintaining the campaign back around 2006 it probably runs pretty messily now.

I'm thrilled that people are still interested in playing and reviewing this, but please be aware that it is an artifact of its time. My personal favourite campaign was Kel'Zarach's Tale.

Another author Med.mapguy has (with my permission) updated some of my works. If you enjoyed this campaign you might want to try his updated maps.

In hindsight, I probably should have used "orcish" rather than "orcen". I am spending my mapmaking retirement playing WoW.

As one of the biggest fans of your masterpiece work here, I must say that I'd be more than just happy to see you update your old work properly and perhaps even come up with something new. I know it's far from reality and current interest from your side, but something like that would be really refreshing.

Your call though, I still love re-playing the campaigns from time to time. Of course as you stated before there are some bugs (which occurred with Warcraft III patching) however most of them are avoidable and easily passed through, and there isn't really much of a trouble to pass through rest of the campaigns and their missions. Cheers!

 

[Shar Dundred]

Map: Mathias Part I - The Pursuit
Version: 1.00
WarCraft III Version used to play: 1.30.1

Review
by Shar Dundred

Story

Before I begin by talking about the actual story of this campaign, I will say that I have played this campaign series already several times in the past and now have returned to it after some years to take a closer look at it. This is just the first part of a series, its story is rather simplisic and you can clearly tell that this campaign serves only to introduce the characters and story of the entire series. This campaign has been created during Reign of Chaos times and has an alternate plot to the original WC lore, keep that in mind when playing this. The campaign starts soon after Arthas has set sail for Northrend, the Scourge in Lordaeron is considered beaten. Mathias, bastard son of King Terenas of Lordaeron and therefore half-brother of Arthas, is hunting Orc refugees, aka the part of the Horde (They are called "Orcen" instead of "Orcish" here) that has not left the continent to travel to Kalimdor, led over by their warchief Malakai. While the Orcs are outnumbered, Malakai manages to outsmart the rash Mathias and other humans on several occasions, like when he lures a regiment of knights into a trap and defeats them despite the knights seemingly having the upper hand, and even attacking the base their allies set up behind. This is where things start getting interesting. When Mathias arrives, he meets with a necromancer of the Cult of the Damned named Kel'Zarach who offers his support against the Orcs. Mathias accepts any help he can get and together they defeat the Orcs - their leaders still manage to escape. Later, soon after Arthas killed Terenas and threw Lordaeron in disarray, Mathias sees himself facing other Humans led by a knight commander who used to fight in his service and now wants to leave the continent westwards after having made an arrangement with the Orcs led by Malakai. Mathias is so outraged over this that he declares the knight commander and all who follow him traitor, throwing insults around. This makes his paladin mentor Lord Duncan and his mage ally Larissa leave his side to side with the others instead. Mathias wins the battle against the traitors with the help of Kel'Zarach who now becomes his closest ally, even as the Scourge returns and the fronts are becoming blurred. Yet, Kel'Zarach stands with Mathias, given them both sharing the burning hatred of the Orcs. In the end, Mathias faces Malakai in a forest and then, when he thinks he has won the day, he has to realize he got trapped once again and put in a cage. One of the main problems I have with the story is that, despite the plot telling you in what bad shape the Orcs are, they manage to bring up huge numbers anyway. They are on the run, not jumping from one rescue to the next, and yet the keep being in a position where they can muster huge armies. Overall I would say the story is okay. It is not extremely good, but not really bad. It is just that much of the story that comes in the later campaigns is not here yet. The entire thematic of having a high-ranking member of the Cult of the Damned as your ally is what saves it from being considered a "poor" story in my opinion.

Terrain

The terrain is.... simple. I think you can clearly see that this has been created a very long time ago. Some maps seem to have more effort put into them than others. If you are the kind of person who cannot stand "low level" visuals, then the entire series will not be interesting for you, I can already tell you that. I personally liked the look of the city where you fight against humans and by the standards of back then it would count as being really good, but I understand that people used to today's standard might not find what they are looking for here visualwise.

Gameplay

Gameplay. This is where things are interesting. In most maps, you get to build a base, train units and attack your enemies. The AI used by the enemy players is melee AI that is limited by what it can build and what not. This makes the AI very similar to melee, however, it faces one serious problem: The Frozen Throne expansion. Both you and the AI are not limited when it comes to units from the expansion, you can even recruit a Blood Mage hero in every chapter in addition to your set heroes. That is the problem with the campaign having been created before the expansion came out and apparently the creator, even though still having been active when Frozen Throne came out as Mathias IV and V were created with its data, never bothered to fix the issues. I mean, as player, you can easily ignore the additional options (I would even say that in most missions it would be more harm than do you good if you train that Blood Mage unless you want to burn some money), but the AI will not unless you would edit the maps. As mentioned earlier, this campaign is ancient, one of the first of its kind, created when you could not even create campaign files and had to use several maps in the maps folder (hence the transitions do not work, they want to link to the maps in the maps folder), but even back then this could have been done. I think some more custom techtree and other work in the Object Editor, like changing the abilities of heroes, would have been pretty good and the heroes would feel less like copies of Blizzard's originals. They aren't storywise, but at least gameplaywise, they absolutely are. There are only three heroes who do NOT use standard abilities, one being a rogue, another a rogue wizard and the last being a gryphon rider. Your undead allies are added by giving you their respective building, like the Temple of the Damned, to recruit them instead of adding them to your own human buildings. You are also not able to get mastery training for the necromancers since you cannot get any undead buildings or workers and therefore have no way getting the required Black Citadel. Also, two missions with landmines were... lacking. Chapter Seven not so much, but Chapter Two... Well, let me just tell you: In the second mission, the Orcs use a massive amout of landmines and you have no way of seeing them unless you use a crystal ball which you MAY only get if you are lucky enough to have a fitting level 3 item drop. There are only random item drops and you need to get past the goblin mines to get to a second goldmine and further progress in the story. There is a selection of ten to eleven level 3 items and two drops of a random lvl 3 item on your side of the minefield. You have to ask yourself: Do I feel lucky? It's either that or sending several units to their death. This is something I did not even notice on some occasions, but in my recent playthrough I didn't get a single crystal ball and had to sacrifice an entire town of peasants to get past that minefield. You get a warning, yes, but you still have to get through. Other scenarios, like the knights charging at the Orcs and the player controlling a large number of them, were very enjoyable, it is one of those missions that you want to play again because it really was fun to play. Same goes for the fight against the Humans, it is not an "innovative" map per se, but I really enjoyed it a lot.

Overall

The campaign has its problems and god help you if you do not play them properly (as in, wait until you have all the heroes you are supposed to have) or cheat (causes faster victory and then often causes bugs in later chapters since the hero you should have had later cannot be imported properly), but it is, in my opinion, a nice beginning of a nice campaign series. It is not perfect, but calling it bad would be just unfair. I would say it has some sort of "cult status", but given all the bugs and other problems it faces, I cannot give a higher rating than 3, knowing that other things with 3 are either better or worse. I don't think it deserves a lower rating but also not a higher rating, even if keeping in mind that some of its problems hail from its age. 3/5

Suggestions/Bugs

Most bugs have already been mentioned by @deepstrasz in his post. Most bugs can be avoided if you simply take some time to finish the chapters, but they are still there and other bugs like the entire Frozen Throne units and even heroes being trainable... I mean, the author was still around for a few more years, he could have fixed the issues but apparently had no interest in doing so.

 

[Anaxie]

@Shar Dundred

About the landmines

Once upon a time paladins could divine shield wipe out mines.

We both know how old tbis campaign is so theres the real reason for that setup

And ya i compiled all these loose maps into a passable campaign format almost about 16 and years ago. And uploaded it to Darkys wc3campaigns.com site.

Mathias chronicles wouldnt exist with its loose maps from old websites back in the day if not. So in a way i preserved a relic of something in hindsight

Im surprised that the levels even have a working item cache atleast for each campaign. All i did was simply add the maps into a bundle and label them.

 

[Vincent Yankowsky]

I strongly suggest you put the entire campaign in Warcraft III reforged when it comes out. I liked this game a whole lot and would want to see it in a different perspective.

 

[Ricox19]

Great Campaign from the good ol' times, I'm playing it in the version 1.21 with a patch changer, didn't find any bugs for an old campaign

EDIT: It looks like this campaign was made before TFT, and I can see its quality for that time, but this campaign aged kind of bad but I liked the story

I didn't like the random loot tho, I only got Intelligence Items during the whole run lol, Mathias was buffed as heck with intel items.

 

[Shellshock]

Mission 1:
Nice Chaos damage. Why the elf archers compared to rifleman? characters move while in cinematic. I don't understand why there are some things that can be unlocked but actually in reality cannot. Start was bit difficult where the orcs attack you but might have been my fault as they noticed me. Loved the fact we can *train* heroes.

Mission 2:
its kind of weirdly put. Also fuck Land mines. The terrain isn't bad but its unnecessarily weird i guess would be the term. It was a fun mission but it was also kinda annoying in places. Like how did duncan leave when he had already reached this far

Mission 3:
Its ok. Only issue was that the pickket guy didn't have a cinematic where he was killed or whatever.

Mission 4:
FUCK LANDMINES. *must use all her stealth and cunning to escape*. Just whosyourdaddy to my base thank you very much. HOLY SHIT FUCK LANDMINES. Gotta say this one was boring. Like you wait. and nothing happens. And you can't do shit cuz you have no wood.

Mission 5: Liked the aerial part. Didn't really enjoy the rest.

Mission 6:
This one was good. It just a bit odd on what to do exactly. But you know whatever i got the hang of it. Great fun.

Mission 7:
They don't attack. No worries kind of level. FUCK LANDMINES. Also all my heroes suddenly died over some blight?

Mission 8:
Underwhelming considering its the last mission. Also none of the heroes level up to 10. Also what happened to the other landmies

Overall:
Amazingly this was actually a well written story. I really enjoyed this one's story. The gameplay was broken but fun. I don't know if summoning Discount kael's was a feature or a bug regardless i liked it. You go to the mission screen everytime the you complete a mission. Unskippable cutscenes. Other issues like having very little wood at certain places. Overall though this was surprisngly fun. I liked it. the dialogue only issue was that Makalai says over here and Mathais is like ok and of course fails lmao. 3/5

 

[Ilya Alaric]

I want ask, why when I start with part six, there was just Kelzarach and no Mathias, Duncan and that mage, in seven there were neither Malcolm, neither Cameron, and in 8 there was no one?

 

[xcube.pm]

A good campaigm with good gamplay and story. Its very nostalgic.