Mathias Part IV - The Awakening

[Moderator]

VGsatomi: Approved. Part of the lengthly mathias campaign.

 

[gagis20]

Love it =] is there any more campings? or this is the last one ;s

 

[jupi9999]

there is one the bitter end that he has made but had an error and didnt upload it =( on other site just write mathias V the bitter end

 

[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!

 

[deepstrasz]

I think this could qualify as neo-Warcraft. The dialogues are understandable and are English, literally, not the puff you see in most of the custom campaigns.
If you at least played Mathias Part I you should try this one too although this one has almost nothing to do with Mathias except for him being mentioned a couple of times.

chap28:
-the Far Seer can be summoned at the Altar of Storms
-the dwarves don't send search parties. The heroes can go whenever they like to the Fountains
-REALLY? A Zeppelin was just waiting there!?

chap29:
-seriously? Te Anau has Wind Walk too?
-there should be a specific number of transports that the player must eliminate
-most transports travel alone, the entourage either coming before or after
-transports stop to attack the eagle instead of making a run through
-saved prisoners are removed a bit too far from the Zeppelin
-it's odd that they would only transport one prisoner at a time at probably an infinite rate
-the user interface should be for the orc race not human as it is in this level

chap30:
-"those troll are being attacked". In truth they were just walking while the human Knights were standing with their backs to them. This happens even if their main building is destroyed
-the neutral Watch Towers (brown) cannot be rescued (to become the player's)
-Wilder Mage has hero glow
-spawning units instead of a custom AI....
-boats can be bought from the Human Shipyard that is considered enemy and can be destroyed
-blue AI does not send any troops to attack

chap31:
-Lord Garithos!?
-this level has a interesting concept but ships can't be built in a day

chap32:
-those two Goblins seem to be everywhere...
-this level would be nice if it the map wouldn't be so huge
-who caged the crew members?

interlude:
-some transmissions run too fast to be carefully read

chap33:
-where did those two orc heroes get so many troops?
-Te Omarama doesn't have full mana at the start like the other heroes
-enemy battalions can be dragged one at a time
-the northwestern Workshop in the green base looks like its floating
-you have this bad idea of making optional quests be in the way of main quests
-they're even attacking from behind somehow... constantly... They're patrolling from the far south to somewhere beyond the bridge in the middle of the map
-destroying both castles destroys the invincible Altar of Kings and spawns a Circle of Power!?
-Kel'Zarach said he doubted that G'Thall would send him to hell but he was actually killed...

chap34:
-1500 range and 100 chaos damage!?
-the purple orc base explodes after the first main quest is finished
-why is Malakai level 1 again!?
-the level can be completed only using the heroes
-only the green AI sends troops to attack
-Gorefiend can't reach the last level of all of his spells
-the human bases should be more than Barracks and an Altar of Kings

finale:
-kind of short. Feels like an interlude

-levels don't load one after the other. Instead either the campaign menu is shown or even the main menu

It's basically bug free and it has some few strange but interesting level concepts.

 

[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.

 

[Shellshock]

I put Usghar on the circle of power but it didn't work?

 

[xcube.pm]

I love this one too. Like the other camaigns of Mathias, it was very memorable.

 

[Shrok64]

The opening ~7 min prologue cinematic is an interesting display of turning the existing lore on its side. We’re led to believe that everything that happened in TFT is a tall tale, spread from village to village by drunken country dwellers. I imagine this map was released before a lot of the WoW lore had been mapped out, hence no more straws to grasp from. Also, a bit comical to see a giant demon lord interact with a human as though they’re well-acquainted buddies.

I really liked how the Cult of the Damned is utilized in this campaign. All the politicking in the past campaigns had led to them being repurposed as a private army to fight the Orcs. They’re not just a re-skin of the Forces of Azeroth & Lordaeron. The Cult makes full use of Necromancers within their rank–they might as well be Human Warlocks. Cultist Paladins utilize Unholy Aura and Animate Dead, as opposed to the Devotion Aura and Resurrection spells that we see from the standard Paladins. All in all, they’re a refreshing sub-faction that serve to complement the Alliance we see amongst the other Human forces.

Every map from this campaign focuses on the Orc’s perspective (I don’t recall seeing Mathias even once this time around). My only real complaint for the story this time around is that a portion of it brings back the formulaic Humans vs Orcs on a grand scale yet again. I just went through these beats not too long back, so the repetition of that conflict does set in a bit for me. The interlude after Chapter 32, along with the events of Chapter 35, however, do pay off and set up a bunch of exciting plot threads, so I look forward to seeing how those play out in the final part.

The variety of the maps and map objectives is the real highlight for this campaign—they are a lot more comprehensive. Chapter 28 is all about managing two sets of objectives at once—having the Orc heroes traverse the dwarven mine to escape imprisonment, while also having the player defend the base on the outside from Human assault. The challenge comes from the very long-distance mining, greatly delaying resource gathering and forcing the player to always be on their toes.

I went through Chapter 32 initially thinking that there was going to be no resource gathering of any kind, so I was a bit dumbfounded as to how to destroy the enemy bases without Hero cheesing. It didn’t hit me until attempting one of the mandatory quests that there are indeed a bunch of peons trapped on the middle island, within a giant crate. I feel that this could have been telegraphed a bit better as this would have completely changed my approach. But overall, I enjoyed the concept of the map.

Chapter 33 felt like a difficulty spike. I’d praise this one a lot more if not for the fact that the game throws relentless Cult attacks at the player. I’m not quite sure if the intention is for me to build up a base, but it just dampens the pacing a lot when I constantly have to stop my assault to defend. I had to finish this one off with my heroes doing pretty much all of the heavy lifting. Not as climactic as I expected, but the ending cutscene + the following two maps made up for it.

I liked Chapter 35 a lot. The hopeless holdout defense mission abruptly shifting into a power trip was brilliant. In chapter 27 (from Part 3), there was a brief line about Maraleth opening his own portals on Draenor. I had a feeling that this wasn’t just a throwaway line and it was cathartic to see that paid off.

Mechanically speaking, I think this is the best one as of yet. Not perfect, but still very polished.