Openions

[Alowan]

Instedt of making 1000 threads whit your opennions, why dont all post it here.. i will start whit mine..

MY OPENION MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS!!!!

Really cool game, thoug of some major bugs, and issues. and a not totally holding story, i really enjoyed the puzzels parts, and the special games, but not the parts were u just have to get 25,000 gold and some wood, or just to defend your base for 30 min, but the laburint, and the brige place, and most of the other puzzle places was really fun..

I am now finaly done playing it all, some maps even more than 1 time, becurse they were so fun that i had to play em again, or becurse it bugged and i had to try it all ower again, which was the biggest reason for it..

The history was good in the start but lacks a lil in the end, and some parts dont fit together or is lame.
I did not like the endind after u killed Nerzuel (dunno if i spelled it right) and some lich just makes a teleport and revives him and goes away...
it would have been better if he had fleed another way when he was on low life or somthing...

But all of all it was somthing i had a good time at..
(X = 1 star x = ½ star, max number of stars is 5)

Models: XXXXx - New and interesting models!
Skins: XXXXx - Extreame good skins
Music: XXX - Good music, but could be better..
Voice: XXX - The voice actors do a well job..
Story: XXx - Good at start but lacks at last..
Skills: XXXx - Some really cool skills, but bugged
Tarrain:XX - The tarrain could have seen better days

All: XXXX - When all comes to all, this is worth playing.

Thanks to the NATURES CALL team, for a nice game..

 

[The_Raven]

I got as far as right before the end of the maze. I stopped playing because the lag was so great that I got killed before I even had a chance to defend myself.

~The_Raven

 

[Janne]

Played it through

I finally managed to play the campaign through. I had tried to begin playing RotD several times but each time I was so discouraged by the terrible playability of the first map that I had given up (am I really supposed to kill all those creeps with one lvl 1 hero only?) and the feeling of a lack of plot which came from the prologue.

Even though I had read about the numerous bugs people had encountered here and tried very hard to avoid them, I did encounter two fatal, unavoidable bugs. First, I was asked to click on one of the dragon eggs to get more information (which you had to do), and when I did so, the game crashed. Luckily I knew this, so I had saved the game and after loading the game clicking worked fine. Second, in another map, I found an invulnerable Magnataur guarding an entrance to Northrend, but he didn't speak anything or the like, so I couldn't finish the map by normal means. Luckily, I could use the teleport feature that Darky had left on in the maps. Frankly, I can't believe that somebody leaves testing triggers on in a shipping campaign, but in the case of such a buggy campaign as this, I was happy that it was so!

There are some good aspects in this campaign, like the terrain in the underground, which looked very nice. Custom goblin models were also very good, and voice acting didn't bother me, although it is far from Blizzard quality. Except sometimes, for example, when the dusktree asked you to stop the goblin bombing the trees, it sounded that the tree did really have some serious problems. I guess they had tried to achieve a LotR ent sound and failed miserably.

But what did bother me was the terrible spelling mistakes with the texts. I suppose even in Darky's native language sentences begin with a capital letter and end in a period. And it is inexcusable to mispell proper names like Ner'zhul, and to write the name of the campaign as "Return of the Dragon" in the opening screen and then as "Return of the Dragons" in other places. Also, I can't understand that voice actors have made voice-overs with clear grammatic errors like "undeads." Very unprofessional and gives you a feeling that the map is made by a 10-year old or something.

While you could just close your eyes and listen to the voice acting (if you can), the thing is that the plot and the quests in most maps are terribly illogical or just plain stupid. For example, why is the bombarding goblin airship invulnerable before the quest and not after it? Why can't the mighty lizards free their breathren but send an unknown spider to do the job? And invulnerable gates and liches in one of the later maps? Why can't they be destroyed? And so on ad infinitum... All of this sounds that the map maker has tried to force the players to play the scenarios as they have planned, leaving zero creativity for the player.

Also, I found hero abilities not very well designed overall. Especially Metamorphus' dragon abilities (Mental domination? Why?) and many of the dragon whelp abilities seemed to come from a random ability generator. Most ability icons were ok though, except the ones featuring dragons, which most of which seemed very amateurish. I didn't dare to try alchemy or dimensional bag in the fear of losing my invetory or crashing the game.

Lastly, I was most disappointed with the story, or the total lack of it. What is it? Metamorhpus retreats from Northrend, at some point somebody mentions about dragon eggs, Metamorphus finds them and gets one extra hero, goes back to Northrend, gathers 25000 gold and 10000 lumber, and finally (nothing less than) beats the living crap out of the all-mighty Lich King and his undead cohorts. (And why does the Lich King look very different in the last map and in the prologue?) Medivh has something to do with everything in the beginning but does nor reappear and is not given any explanation.

So my overall grading for the campaign is as follows (1 = very poor, 5 = very good)

Terrain:
Underground terrain = 5
Barrens and snowy terrain = 3

Models and Icons
Goblin models = 5
Item models = 4
Dragon models = 3
Icons = 4

Sounds
Voice acting = 3
Music = 4

Story
Plot = 1
Quest design = 1
Character dialogue = 1

Gameplay
Overall = 2
- Often no possibility to revive heros.
- Tedious creeping in many places, with a very good example of the pandarens in the first map.
- Many maps of the type disable that forcewall, kill creeps on the way. It is a very bad scenario design to use random forcewalls from blocking the way somewhere. Something like a creature collapsing the roof in one of the maps is so much more believable.

Quality
Spelling = 1
Triggers = 2

OVERALL = 2

All of this makes me think that most effort with this campaign went into the creation of never-seen-before models and effects (abilities, mazes, etc.) in WarCraft III, as well as in terrain in some maps. Consequently, this led to a huge number of bugs, which are to be expected when you try to do something for which WarCraft III engine has not designed, and a total neglect of story, dialogue, and scenario playability. Surely, a 91 point rating given by a game magazine hugely overrates this campaign. For a map that could merit such a rating, I would recommend the recent Heart of Winter RPG that can be found at maps.worldofwar.net.

I know that Darky has not been payed for doing this campaign, but neither have I been paid for doing my own campign (see GG&K's dwarf campaign). I just think that if you do something of this magnitude, you can afford to invest enough time to make it free of fatal bugs and major spelling mistakes, especially given all the other people that have been with Darky in this project. Actually, I would be happy to pay $20 for a bug-free version of the campaign rather than waste my time in a free buggy version.

 

[cade]

Re: Played it through

am I really supposed to kill all those creeps with one lvl 1 hero only?

"OK" newbie. I guess your APM of 10 doesnt allow you to use Web which beats every single creep on the map. Its too bad you cant just attack-move through the level? Newb, you make me laugh, Metamorphos is so overpowered the first level is way too easy.

 

[Tommi]

Re: Played it through

am I really supposed to kill all those creeps with one lvl 1 hero only?

"OK" newbie. I guess your APM of 10 doesnt allow you to use Web which beats every single creep on the map. Its too bad you cant just attack-move through the level? Newb, you make me laugh, Metamorphos is so overpowered the first level is way too easy.

Your attitude needs to change. You could be more polite towards people you don't know. I found the gameplay was tedious, too.

 

[Janne]

Webbing

Yes, I know that you can beat some single creeps with the web ability. It doesn't work so well when there are 3 or more creeps arounds. And even if you combo with the burrowing ability it's boringly slow. The gameplay became somewhat better in later maps, but I still think that it was terrible in the first one with just Metamorphus around.

 

[Alowan]

Re: Played it through

Even though I had read about the numerous bugs people had encountered here and tried very hard to avoid them, I did encounter two fatal, unavoidable bugs.


yea the bugs did i fear too and thats sad...
since i would have liked to play the campaign smothly and whitout having to do somthing in other way, becurse the other bugs, or is in risk of bugging.

specialy the blue dragon, and metas lv 6 skill, and the teleport book was irretating, since it bugged.

The book could u have made in the normal way insted of using inventory (and if so it woudent have bugged)



But about the spelling mistakes it dident bother me, i make a lot of spelling mistakes myself, and for a non english or amarican, i dont find it that irretating..

but i hear that peaple finds it irretating all the time, from my own map.


- Alowan (TFO Productions, LoA, www.loa.themappersguild.net)