[Campaign] The Blackthorn Bandits

[ebontope]

The Blackthorn Bandits
"Gold and Glory."

Synopsis
The lands of Lordaeron are on the precipice of calamity.
The Orcs of the Blackrock Clan raid and slaughter villages for their twisted rituals. A mysterious prophet speaks of tidings of doom. And whispers of a wicked cult and the living dead spread throughout the land.
Yet in the midst of it all, the bandit gangs hidden in the woods do as they always have. Pillage, loot and plunder!


Overview
The Blackthorn Bandits is a custom campaign featuring the Scourging of Lordaeron, shown from the perspective of one of Lordaeron's bandit gangs.
The aim of this campaign is to capture the same style and vibe as the original Warcraft 3 campaigns. It follows the established canon of Warcraft 3 and World of Warcraft as closely as possible, with some creative liberties taken for story purposes.
Just like the original Warcraft 3 campaigns, The Blackthorn Bandits will consist of ten levels, featuring a duo of Heroes and presenting a new race that will gradually unlock its tech tree as the campaign progresses, with certain levels utilizing unique gimmicks to spice up the gameplay.
Currently there are no selectable difficulty modes or skippable cutscenes yet, but these are features that will be worked on for the full release!
Note: This campaign has been made in patch 1.28.5 of The Frozen Throne.


Characters
Blackthorn

A former noble of Lordaeron's court, Lord Blackthorn was disgraced and stripped of his title after committing crimes unspeakable. Following his banishment, he has since built up his own little empire of thieves and cutthroats, pillaging villages and ambushing caravans for the sake of amassing loot, wealth and plunder. Driven purely by greed, Blackthorn will fight and rise to any occasion... so long as the loot is worth the effort.

Spoiler

Doranis

A master of the dark arts, Doranis Flamewine was imprisoned by the Kirin Tor for researching and experimenting with forbidden magicks. Following the destruction of Dalaran, he and a sect of his followers have managed to escape the prisons within the Violet Hold, and now seek manpower to aid Doranis in his continued search for forbidden knowledge. Ever a resourceful man, Doranis will not shy away from seizing any opportunity that might come his way...

Planned Features

• 10 levels following the story of Blackthorn and his bandit gang during the Scourging of Lordaeron.
• 2 custom Heroes to guide the player's armies into battle.
• A custom race for the player to command, consisting of bandits and other mercenaries.
• Fully voiced cutscenes and in-game interactions.
• A vast roster of customized factions to fight, including the Blackrock Clan, the Cult of the Damned, the Kirin Tor, and others!
• An array of custom items to find and collect throughout the campaign.
• Powerful items to purchase from Goblin Merchants, if you can afford them. Or perhaps there is another way...

Progress

• Chapter One: Blackrock Bounty (Completed)
• Chapter Two: Cult of the Damned (Completed)
• Chapter Three: The Violet Hold (Completed)
• Chapter Four: The Whispering Woods (Completed)
• Chapter Five: The Worgen Menace (Completed)
• Chapter Six: Ravenshire (25% Complete - Mapping finished, Scripting & Dialogue in progress)
• Chapter Seven: TBA
• Chapter Eight: TBA
• Chapter Nine: TBA
• Chapter Ten: TBA

Credits

Spoiler: Credits

Models	Icons
AhhFreshWeeDs assasin_lord bakr Banefull BROAD_SIDE Callahan Chaosium communist_orc Dentothor Deolrin Diegoit DREADMAN Em! Gluma Guardian Gyrosphinx Hate Himperion ikillforeyou Ilya Alaric Jiok johnwar Killabong komarovba Kuhneghetz loktar Lord_T PurrsandMlems RvzerBro Tr!KzZ Tranquil Ujimasa Hojo UraganHex Ustanak Vinz Weep	(Hermit) -Berz- 84chrome 8512590215848 Aldeia BaiyuGalan bakr bu3ny Darkfang dell Dentothor Destructor [DoR] Gluma HuanJuan Huinipachutli Ilya Alaric ivanbakavan KadoviYi Kimbo loktar Mouseketeer Mr.Goblin Muoteck Panda PrinceOfFame PrinceYaser Public Resource Provider r.ace613 Shar Dundred Shimrra SilverEx Sin'dorei300 Stanakin TheHuntress Ujimasa Hojo Villagerino War_Golum Zephyrius2412

Known Issues

Spoiler

• The Blood Elves' supply wagon escorts in Chapter Four may rarely come to a complete stop. If this happens, just kill them all and it will fix itself!
• Combat may occur during cinematics due to bugs involved with pausing units.
• Cutscenes can not be skipped. This will be added in the full release!

 

[Tryndamere]

Looks promising, awesome

 

[Kasrkin]

I had a feeling I was supposed to lose but I don't like giving up so I fought them. Also they ended up getting stuck from my initial TP out of the fight.
But for more serious stuff the only thing I saw that needed a fixin' was the selection circle being visible in the outro.

Skrit ran up north again after becoming invincible not that big a deal but I was wondering where he was going.
I know I don't exactly need it but I was wanting more pop cap.
But to be serious again, there was no real issues on the map besides Doranis not staying on the circle of power to unlock the door. He would walk off it and attack if enemies got too close.

Also chapters not unlocking after being completed in the campaign screen.
I had fun, looking forward to the rest of the campaign.

 

[ebontope]

I had a feeling I was supposed to lose but I don't like giving up so I fought them. Also they ended up getting stuck from my initial TP out of the fight.
But for more serious stuff the only thing I saw that needed a fixin' was the selection circle being visible in the outro.

Skrit ran up north again after becoming invincible not that big a deal but I was wondering where he was going.
I know I don't exactly need it but I was wanting more pop cap.
But to be serious again, there was no real issues on the map besides Doranis not staying on the circle of power to unlock the door. He would walk off it and attack if enemies got too close.

Also chapters not unlocking after being completed in the campaign screen.
I had fun, looking forward to the rest of the campaign.

Thanks for playing! I actually didn't encounter some of these bugs in my own playtests, I'll look into it and get it fixed right away.

I'm glad to hear you enjoyed it! I might post a new version of the demo once level 4 and 5 are complete, but until then I hope to post an update about level 4 soon!

 

[The Nightmare Book]

Looking forward to playing and recording for my silly little channel. Looks promising

Edit:

Maybe you find it useful

 

[ebontope]

Looking forward to playing and recording for my silly little channel. Looks promising

Edit:

Maybe you find it useful

Thank you so much for featuring my campaign! I'll definitely be giving this a proper watch myself!

I've started work on mapping out Level 4, so I hope to inform everybody with a new update soon!

 

[radone]

I look forward to play whole campaign!

Although I've discovered some bugs:

chapter 2: when main necromancers descends to chase bandits away and revives undead around him, if you kill "NecroMaiden" again - then cutscene replays again also.

chapter 3: when you take over kobolds haven none of them can build main building or some kind of a tents to build an army, was that intentional?

 

[ebontope]

I look forward to play whole campaign!

Although I've discovered some bugs:

chapter 2: when main necromancers descends to chase bandits away and revives undead around him, if you kill "NecroMaiden" again - then cutscene replays again also.

chapter 3: when you take over kobolds haven none of them can build main building or some kind of a tents to build an army, was that intentional?

Ah! I'll have to look into that bug in Chapter 2, thanks for the tip.

Yes, being unable to build Hideouts, Tents or Bandit military buildings in Chapter 3 is intended! Relying on the new Kobold units instead of the Bandits for the level was the plan from the beginning, but allowing them to make Hideouts or Tents to reach pop cap made the level far too easy. So I designed the level around a limited pop cap instead.

 

[radone]

Ah! I'll have to look into that bug in Chapter 2, thanks for the tip.

Yes, being unable to build Hideouts, Tents or Bandit military buildings in Chapter 3 is intended! Relying on the new Kobold units instead of the Bandits for the level was the plan from the beginning, but allowing them to make Hideouts or Tents to reach pop cap made the level far too easy. So I designed the level around a limited pop cap instead.

but you're unable to build any kobold units whatsoever, except workers isn't that a bit redundant for progressing?

 

[ebontope]

but you're unable to build any kobold units whatsoever, except workers isn't that a bit redundant for progressing?

Kobold Miners are military units whose gimmick is that they can mine Gold and build a limited selection of structures. These are the units that you will be able to use throughout the campaign. Skritt and his Kobold Brutes are simple bonus units that are not intented to be a part of the Bandit techtree.

 

[ebontope]

Mapping for Chapter Four: The Whispering Woods has been completed!

I estimate the full development of the map should be complete in roughly two weeks. Due to the discovered bugs in the prior levels that I have since fixed, I have decided to release a Version 2.0 of the Demo once Chapter Four is completed.

Here are a few teaser images for Chapter Four. Please look forward to the final result!

 

[Chaosium]

I gave it a shot and it looks promising :> I tested it with current patch 1.31 so perhaps some of the feedback is due to version differences I'm not sure, but at least it runs without gamebreaking problems

• In mission 2 you can walk past the logs that are supposed to block the way to the escape point, you might want to add some pathing blockers in front of them
• In missions 1 and 2, some of the stat items cost 12500 gold, inflation is killer
• A general piece of feedback I have is to widen up some of the paths, one particular example is the way that leads to the dwarven forge in mission 1, that chokepoint is painful
• You have quite a bit of unused space in the maps, how about adding some random poorly defended human camps to encourage the Pillage gameplay? We're playing bandits after all!

 

[ebontope]

I gave it a shot and it looks promising :> I tested it with current patch 1.31 so perhaps some of the feedback is due to version differences I'm not sure, but at least it runs without gamebreaking problems

• In mission 2 you can walk past the logs that are supposed to block the way to the escape point, you might want to add some pathing blockers in front of them
• In missions 1 and 2, some of the stat items cost 12500 gold, inflation is killer
• A general piece of feedback I have is to widen up some of the paths, one particular example is the way that leads to the dwarven forge in mission 1, that chokepoint is painful
• You have quite a bit of unused space in the maps, how about adding some random poorly defended human camps to encourage the Pillage gameplay? We're playing bandits after all!

Thank you for testing! I will look into that issue in Chapter Two.

I'm working some of this feedback into Chapter Four, but the high prices on the stat items is intended! If you want them, you'll have to commit and mine the Gold for it!

That, or... try the alternative way.

 

[ebontope]

After a bit of an unexpected delay, Chapter Four has been finished!

Version 2.0 of the Demo campaign will be uploaded to the original post within the coming days, and development of Chapter Five will begin soon.

Please look forward to it!

Spoiler: Screenshot

 

[ebontope]

Version 2.0 of the Demo campaign is now live!

All of the previously reported issues have been fixed, and Chapter Four has been added to the Demo has an additional bonus!

Unfortunately this is the last version of the Demo that will be made available until the full public release of the finished campaign. In the meantime, I will be keeping everybody up-to-date on its progress. Development on Chapter Five will begin in earnest this week!

 

[Kasrkin]

It was an enjoyable hectic mission, once I figured out what was going on I kept my forces confined to the left portion of the map to keep the rest of the map from coming online. Knowing what I know now, I'd probably rush out to grab all the gold pieces I could to keep gold income from being an issue.

Combat continued through the whispering wood cutscene, it left me worried because I could hear fighting and dying as it was going on.
For a not so important one, perhaps it would be better for undead creeps to not sleep?
And a final note it seems a convoy plus attack wave got caught on top of eachother. The next spawn was fine, might've just been a rare timing thing.

As for more generally, it would be nice to have the option to skip cinematics.

 

[ebontope]

It was an enjoyable hectic mission, once I figured out what was going on I kept my forces confined to the left portion of the map to keep the rest of the map from coming online. Knowing what I know now, I'd probably rush out to grab all the gold pieces I could to keep gold income from being an issue.

Combat continued through the whispering wood cutscene, it left me worried because I could hear fighting and dying as it was going on.
For a not so important one, perhaps it would be better for undead creeps to not sleep?
And a final note it seems a convoy plus attack wave got caught on top of eachother. The next spawn was fine, might've just been a rare timing thing.

As for more generally, it would be nice to have the option to skip cinematics.

Thanks for playing! Unfortunately pausing units seemed to be causing issues, and I couldn't find a timely workaround to fix the issue of combat occurring during cinematics. But I'll see what I can do for later.

The ability to skip cinematics will be added in the full release!

 

[Chaosium]

Usually the "pause all units" action messes up with AI scripts, but using a "pick every unit -> pause picked unit" works fine for mysterious reasons

 

[The Nightmare Book]

Thanks for playing! Unfortunately pausing units seemed to be causing issues, and I couldn't find a timely workaround to fix the issue of combat occurring during cinematics. But I'll see what I can do for later.

The ability to skip cinematics will be added in the full release!

For some reason, the final cutscene in the latest Reforged instantly crashes out on the words "We are not sailing west". Although I've recorded it fully, it leaves quite a cliffhanger about what will come next

 

[ebontope]

For some reason, the final cutscene in the latest Reforged instantly crashes out on the words "We are not sailing west". Although I've recorded it fully, it leaves quite a cliffhanger about what will come next

Sadly that I can only attribute to Reforged being Reforged, there's nothing going on in that part of the cinematic that would cause a crash. One of the many reasons why I'm still in version 1.28.5.

 

[deepstrasz]

Sadly that I can only attribute to Reforged being Reforged, there's nothing going on in that part of the cinematic that would cause a crash. One of the many reasons why I'm still in version 1.28.5

Could just be incompatibility issues between the versions.

 

[ebontope]

Could just be incompatibility issues between the versions.

That's my thoughts as well, yeah. But I understand Blizzard recently a Legacy client for version 1.29, so hopefully the campaign will be more compatible with that version.

 

[SalvatorThenorium]

It seems like a good idea with solid execution. When I have time, I’ll take a look

 

[KingLichTR]

looks cool, will give it a go when it's complete : )

 

[ebontope]

Mapping for Chapter Five: The Worgen Menace has been completed!

Here are a few teaser images. Work on dialogue and triggering will begin later this week!

 

[ebontope]

Chapter Five: The Worgen Menace has been finished!

Development of this chapter has taken longer than intended due to personal business, but be assured that despite the slow updates the campaign remains under development! Many new things that will be important for the next few chapters have been created as well, so hopefully this will speed up the development of upcoming chapters.

There will be no Demo available to play this level, but I am considering allowing interested players to test out development versions of the campaign. More news regarding this may follow soon.

Here are some additional screenshots of Chapter Five. Stay tuned for updates about Chapter Six, development of which will begin next week!

 

[blackknight27]

Chapter Five: The Worgen Menace has been finished!

Development of this chapter has taken longer than intended due to personal business, but be assured that despite the slow updates the campaign remains under development! Many new things that will be important for the next few chapters have been created as well, so hopefully this will speed up the development of upcoming chapters.

There will be no Demo available to play this level, but I am considering allowing interested players to test out development versions of the campaign. More news regarding this may follow soon.

Here are some additional screenshots of Chapter Five. Stay tuned for updates about Chapter Six, development of which will begin next week!

Hi my Lord, i really enjoy and appreciate your work, i really enjoy that you expand the Warcraft lore, but i don´t understand why there are night elves in Gilneas in the loreWhat I do hope is that Darius Crowley, Glenn Greymane, or Arugal appear. I read all techtecnology about this bandits factions, and I saw Ogres i think u introduce and the player (Blackthorn) subjugate a leader ogre like Mugthol idk, and i think in the last part, we would fight with Sylvannas or Varimathras like the chapter 3 of the campaing of the Scourge on TFT, I really would like to test out all off your work my lord, thanks a lot.

 

[ebontope]

Remember when I said development of upcoming chapters would be sped up? That was funny, wasn't it?

Following many trials and tribulations, mapping for Chapter Six: Ravenshire has been completed! Work on scripting and dialogue will begin next week, followed by triggering and testing.

As per usual, here are a few teaser images for the new chapter! Stay tuned for further updates.

 

[Tryndamere]

Hello bro, I've only played a few chapters, so far I've got some pretty important feedback:

First: Why is the permanent item drop system in this campaign so low in each chapter? I think you need to increase the number of permanent items dropped by creeps and so on so our hero's items aren't completely empty. Also, regarding the price of items sold at the Goblin Merchant, they are too expensive. The items sold can be expensive, but each chapter has several creeps or enemy units that drop gold coins so we can collect a lot of money not only from the Goldmine but also from the creeps we defeat. Also, I think you should increase the number of new, exclusive items you create from this campaign, such as +1 to +6 stat boosts or 1000 HP boosts, 800 mana points, and so on, because I've seen your campaign is exciting.

Second: Enemy heroes are sometimes not at the same level as us. It would be good, for example, if our hero's max level is from chapter 1 to level 2, then just max the enemy hero to level 2 so that if we meet them, there won't be a big gap in skill. and stats. Additional but very influential, also give them permanent items to increase the stats for their enemy heroes so that their inventory is not empty, maybe in the early chapters give them permanent items with 4 slots or 3 slots, then as the chapters go up, each enemy hero's inventory can be filled up to 6 slots, depending on the creator, whether this enemy hero is the main villain that we will get and fight throughout this campaign, maybe we can give them special permanent items such as artifact items or new items that are exclusive only for them like that (The most important thing is don't give them single-use consumable items, they will definitely disappear permanently)

 

[ebontope]

Hello bro, I've only played a few chapters, so far I've got some pretty important feedback:

First: Why is the permanent item drop system in this campaign so low in each chapter? I think you need to increase the number of permanent items dropped by creeps and so on so our hero's items aren't completely empty. Also, regarding the price of items sold at the Goblin Merchant, they are too expensive. The items sold can be expensive, but each chapter has several creeps or enemy units that drop gold coins so we can collect a lot of money not only from the Goldmine but also from the creeps we defeat. Also, I think you should increase the number of new, exclusive items you create from this campaign, such as +1 to +6 stat boosts or 1000 HP boosts, 800 mana points, and so on, because I've seen your campaign is exciting.

Second: Enemy heroes are sometimes not at the same level as us. It would be good, for example, if our hero's max level is from chapter 1 to level 2, then just max the enemy hero to level 2 so that if we meet them, there won't be a big gap in skill. and stats. Additional but very influential, also give them permanent items to increase the stats for their enemy heroes so that their inventory is not empty, maybe in the early chapters give them permanent items with 4 slots or 3 slots, then as the chapters go up, each enemy hero's inventory can be filled up to 6 slots, depending on the creator, whether this enemy hero is the main villain that we will get and fight throughout this campaign, maybe we can give them special permanent items such as artifact items or new items that are exclusive only for them like that (The most important thing is don't give them single-use consumable items, they will definitely disappear permanently)

Hey there, thank you for your feedback.

Each chapter features at minimum one custom item, and the stat items from the Goblin Merchants are intentionally very expensive and are not easily obtainable specifically because they are permanent boosting items that you can carry with you for the entire campaign. Plus there is always a chance to obtain one of them by destroying the Goblin Merchant that sells it. The primary reason however why I don't overflow the Heroes with items is because the original Warcraft 3 campaigns don't do that either, and my design philosophy for this campaign is to try and emulate that same style as well as I am able. To make the Heroes excessively powerful would go against that.

However, rest assured that I will be taking this into account going into the upcoming chapters. In fact, I have some interesting ideas that have already been added into Chapter Five, and will be a part of Chapter Six and beyond. Perhaps some item-related things will be reworked in earlier chapters for the full release as well.