I decided to take the campaign for a spin.
A few things at the start. The opening camera pans can get quite jittery, not sure what's causing this and at one point the camera goes through the terrain. Also the dialogue just kinda stops? Though it feels it shouldn't? The captain goes to fight undead and then we just pan to a couple of groups with no dialogue and suddenly we're in the map with NO context as to who we are and what we're trying to achieve this mission.
During the cinematic I saw skeletons breaking as their cooldown ran out. Also some dialogues don't have portraits.
"We just have to hold on for another minutes" - Some of this grammar needs a comb over.
Archerman -> (just) Archer
Not sure if my hero getting levels from across the map by my allies fighting the undead is an oversight but he's level 6 like 3 minutes into the timer - Update my hero is max level without fighting himself.
Also the undead seem to walk out of their camp attack and then walk back again.
----
I think the human and villager forces might be way too buff. They seem to be able to handle the undead on their own and I don't really need to do much all mission long. - The lvl 10 heroes didn't stand a chance.
Some of these things you stop the game for and do a cinematic can be achieved by just - Dialogue and map alert. Se we don't get dragged into cinematics mid mission especially when fighting etc.
Abilities need switching cause your ulti is in the middle instead of on the corner as is usually for Wc3 heroes. - Just realized that's not an ulti, there prob should be one.
Some of these models also feel VERY big.
When you make a heroes name black you just straight up can't see it in the Wc3 UI, this is the case with Maximus Decimus (I also think that is kind of a strange name for Lordaeron, very Roman)
The placement of the trees sadly causes some issues for unit pathfinding that is a bit annoying, press P in the editor to see the pathing and obstruction to see which units can fit through etc.
Every time the Lich yells my camera zooms in and I had to manually scroll out. - Also he yells and summons undead even after I kill him.
Enemy units seem to amass in corners of the map just sitting there, might be cause I destroyed enemy camps tho.
No victory cinematic?
--------
I do like the terrain it reminds me of the Ec3 base campaign which is what I assume you were invoking though it can seem a bit too flat to me in places. The tree placement isn't great and everything feels enormous on the tiny map. Buildings take up A LOT of space.
Models are nice and fit in, you picked well. I feel Tenor could sue a custom icon tho.
Overall though I think this is lacking in both the storytelling department and the gameplay. The cinematic doesn’t actually tell us what's happening, which is a shame I wanted to know more because your initial pitch is kinda weird to me. Third War from the perspective of humans already exists - It's the human campaign of RoC. So I was expecting maybe like a more specific vision of Lordaeron fighting after Arthas returned or smth but sadly the cutscene did not reveal that to us nor who Tenor is and why he's the one leading the defense.
On the gameplay side there's only one recruitment building that has two units which is REALLY lackluster, I would recommend expanding that pool a bit to give the player a few more versatile tools. Also maybe nerf the few human factions around a bit cause they carried me hard and they levelled up my hero really quick without him doing anything.
I think maybe even a few creeps to compete over would be nice to get an item or two though the scale of the map might be too small for that.
And obviously it needs some sort of and ending, I'd replace some of the cutscenes with dialogues and maybe look at the AI cause it seemed to behave strangely form time to time? But maybe it was just me messing with them in unforeseen ways like attacking and destroying their bases.
Excite dot see the final version of this, I can see you have it in you to make smth really awesome!
